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I've noticed that Link never has parents and Zelda never has a mother.

Uzumaki Goku

Uzumaki Goku

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,252
Link has had a number of relatives: Uncle, Grandmother, Sister, Grandfather and Zelda if she has any relatives... it'll always be a father but she'll never have a mother.

Is this like an unspoken rule, Link can never have parents.... I think Link and Zelda's mothers have been mentioned in backstory (Ocarina of Time for Link, Breath of the Wild for Zelda) but are always dead. Zelda can have a dad to explain why she's still a Princess because there is a King around but she can never have a mother, I guess because they don't want female royal family member not named Zelda.

Just an interesting observation.
 
ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

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Oct 25, 2017
61,987
until Breath of the Wild anyway

they're not particularly important, so they're not there. something I find strange in some media (usually japanese-sourced ones)
 
skeezx

skeezx

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Oct 27, 2017
20,122
he's the offspring of goku and thanos after they mated with all the horcruxes stapled to their abs
 
big_z

big_z

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Nov 2, 2017
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Would you want to raise a kid who won't talk to you, smashes your pots, cuts up your garden and abuses animals?
 
Cipherr

Cipherr

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Oct 26, 2017
13,421
You think thats crazy. Try getting into anime... if you dare. I noticed this right away. No parents, parents dead, or parents living a LOOOONG way away. Really weird, like the writers all have complexes about parents or some shit. Maybe thats why Goku was a dogshit father.
 
Eeyore

Eeyore

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Dec 13, 2019
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big_z said:
Would you want to raise a kid who won't talk to you, smashes your pots, cuts up your garden and abuses animals?
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If my kid was actually dumb, the definition of the word where he or she wouldn't be able to speak, of course I would raise them. As far as the rest, those are player choices :).
 

SkyOdin

Member
Apr 21, 2018
2,680
Cess007 said:
I think Link's parents are shown in a manga, or something, but I don't think that's canon?
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I think they did appear briefly in the Akira Himekawa A Link to the Past manga, albeit only posthumously. Not canon, though. However, the Akira Himekawa manga tend to be a lot closer to the games than some of the alternatives.

Link did have parents in some of the early manga and western comics based on the first two games, but some of those apparently got weird.
 
Rockets

Rockets

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Sep 12, 2018
3,010
Link had a dad and sister in Botw but it's only shown in concept art. I hope they expand on that in the sequel
 
Lua

Lua

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Aug 9, 2018
1,948
Link's mother saved him when he was a kid in ocarina of time. She delievered him to the deku tree and he raised him as a kokiri.
 
Biske

Biske

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Nov 11, 2017
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Doesn't Ocarina of time talk about how links mother left him with the Kokiri?
 
WestEgg

WestEgg

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They're alluded to sometimes. Link's mother is mentioned as having fled the war and bringing Link to the Kokiri Forest before dying in Ocarina of Time, and his Father was part of the Royal Guard in Breath of the Wild. Tetra's Mother is mentioned as having been a pirate as well, and having passed away when she was 6 in BotW.
 

EllipsisBreak

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Aug 6, 2019
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In Japanese media, when the main character is young, it's not unusual for one or both parents to be vaguely absent and unmentioned. This can be seen in a lot of games. I'm not informed enough about the subject to definitively explain why, but my best guess is that it's just more convenient to leave parents out of a story if they're not going to play a part in it. It might be that simple.
 
Nanashrew

Nanashrew

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Oct 25, 2017
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Since everyone is bringing up OoT, here's the exact quote so people understand.

"Some time ago, before the King of Hyrule unified this country, there was a fierce war in our world. One day, to escape from the fires of the war, a Hylian mother and her baby boy entered this forbidden forest. The mother was gravely injured... Her only choice was to entrust the child to the Deku Tree, the guardian spirit of the forest. The Deku Tree could sense that this was a child of destiny, whose fate would affect the entire world, so he took him into the forest. After the mother passed away, the baby was raised as a Kokiri. And now, finally, the day of destiny has come!" — Deku Tree Sprout
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PAFenix

PAFenix

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For the longest time, I believed that Link and Zelda in OoT were long-lost siblings.

Zelda only mentions her father IIRC. And Link's mother was mentioned as having escaped on her own without any other relatives from some sort of war. So my headcanon when I was younger was thinking the King (and the princess for some reason, I guess guarded by Impa) stayed to fight in some war while the Queen and their son was caught in some sort of skirmish, one which she escapes, only to wind up in Kokori Forest, where she passes on from injuries, leaving the young Link to be adopted.

Edit: Oh right pretty much what the poster above just said lol. I look back and never really could figure out how/why I came to the conclusion that the "Hylian mother" would also be the Queen.
 
Cronogear

Cronogear

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Oct 27, 2017
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Link's mother brought him to the Kokiri in OoT, and his father is mentioned to be a knight in BotW.
 
Fat4all

Fat4all

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Oct 25, 2017
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here
SkyOdin said:
So it is more apt to say that Link is Zelda's half-brother.
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whatsthe-matter-brother-scared-of-your-little-sisters-tight-ass-45284477.png
 
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Uzumaki Goku

Uzumaki Goku

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Oct 27, 2017
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SkyOdin said:
No, non-canon manga based on the first two games. Though from what I can gather, in that manga, Link is the illegitimate son of Zelda the 16th, while there is also a Zelda the 17th. So it is more apt to say that Link is Zelda's half-brother.
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Bare in mind, there was barely any story in the first two games.
 
Common Knowledge

Common Knowledge

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By the way, aren't there technically two Zeldas alive at once in AoL? I remember reading that somewhere, with how the timeline works out.
 

SkyOdin

Member
Apr 21, 2018
2,680
Uzumaki Goku said:
Bare in mind, there was barely any story in the first two games.
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Yeah. Most of the lore about the Hylians, Ganondorf, the Master Sword, and everything else all started in A Link to the Past. No one had any clear idea for the setting and story prior to that, so the copious number of tie-in comics were mostly just making stuff up to fill the void. It was a Wild West of fantasy cliches.

It is kinda funny how many fairy companions Link had in the comics prior to Navi, actually.
 
Enduin

Enduin

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Oct 25, 2017
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Parents just don't understand being a 12 year old and going off to save the world. So it's easier when they're dead and no one can stop you.
 
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Uzumaki Goku

Uzumaki Goku

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Oct 27, 2017
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SkyOdin said:
Yeah. Most of the lore about the Hylians, Ganondorf, the Master Sword, and everything else all started in A Link to the Past. No one had any clear idea for the setting and story prior to that, so the copious number of tie-in comics were mostly just making stuff up to fill the void. It was a Wild West of fantasy cliches.

It is kinda funny how many fairy companions Link had in the comics prior to Navi, actually.
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I remember in the Zelda cartoon, he had a brown horse like Epona, but her name was Catherine.
 
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Uzumaki Goku

Uzumaki Goku

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Oct 27, 2017
19,252
SkyOdin said:
Yeah. Most of the lore about the Hylians, Ganondorf, the Master Sword, and everything else all started in A Link to the Past. No one had any clear idea for the setting and story prior to that, so the copious number of tie-in comics were mostly just making stuff up to fill the void. It was a Wild West of fantasy cliches.

It is kinda funny how many fairy companions Link had in the comics prior to Navi, actually.
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Like I think Link was actually implied to be Christian in the first game.... the lore about the Goddesses didn't exist yet.
 
CaviarMeths

CaviarMeths

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Oct 25, 2017
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It's weird to me that a lot of people ITT are calling it a Japanese trope when this is in no way exclusive or even notably more common in Japanese media than Western. Like 90% of American superheros are orphans. It's not a Japanese trope. It's more of a YA trope.
 
BossAttack

BossAttack

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Oct 27, 2017
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Hyrule remains in such a state of constant disarray because of all the absent fathers. We must address this problem first instead of chasing the myth of trickle down Tri-Force economics.

CaviarMeths said:
It's weird to me that a lot of people ITT are calling it a Japanese trope when this is in no way exclusive or even notably more common in Japanese media than Western. Like 90% of American superheros are orphans.
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An orphan actually explains the issue. Japanese media is funny because the parents literally don't exist. They aren't mentioned. It's not as if the protagonists are orphans, their parental figures just don't exist in their world. Plus, even the orphaned American heroes have parental figures.
 
DiipuSurotu

DiipuSurotu

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Oct 25, 2017
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If they had parents that would mean there is a timeline, but ERA told me there is no Zelda timeline
 
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Uzumaki Goku

Uzumaki Goku

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Oct 27, 2017
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Lua said:
A brother, the prince of zelda's 2 backstory. He wanted the triforce to be a king, but the old king shared it between the two of them. So he hires an evil wizard to take the truth from her.
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Then said wizard puts Zelda into sleeping spell and overcome by remorse, the brother degrees that all future daughters in the royal family shall be named Zelda.
 
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