 Well, folks, we haven't really talked about Tears of the Kingdom in a very long time, and that's mostly because, hey, Nintendo's sort of done with the game, right? They're not bringing DLC, and really all the talk right now is the upcoming Zelda movie that's eventually going to go into production and whatever's going on there. But honestly, there are things that crop up here and then that really get me to want to talk about Tears of the Kingdom again, and unfortunately today's topic about Tears of the Kingdom is dealing with an outlet known as Polygon. Now, we have talked about Polygon in the past, and most of the time it hasn't really been in a positive light, but an article came across my feed, came across social media thanks to a fellow YouTuber in RGT85 who retweeted somebody who featured this article, and then we actually talked about this article last night on our live stream, but, hey, our live streams are only live for small periods and we don't keep them live after. So I thought it was more appropriate to do a full video on this because this article to me is an embarrassment. It is everything wrong with mainstream media in video games, and I mean everything. Like, we could talk about the, you know, rumor-wrongering and all this other stuff, but honestly, that stuff is whatever. I mean, I'm someone who covers those damn rumors. So that stuff doesn't bother me. This is a whole new level of just stupidity. I don't know how else to put it. I want to say before I show this article and who made it, please don't go attack this person. Let's just keep this within our community and talk to ourselves about how dumb this whole thing is. Let's head on over to Polygon because this article was written last summer. So it's a little older, but it didn't get attention at the time and is now getting attention today thanks to social media. So let's just go ahead and dive in and we're going to go through the entire article given how old it is at this point and really just key in on all the things that I find wrong about this article. So it says the legend is all the tears of the kingdom ending is its own kind of graduating, which is perpetuating the status quo, whatever that is. Of course, it's the status quo according to them. So it's going on. This is editors note spoilers. Obviously we're talking about the ending of tears of the kingdom. There's going to be spoilers. I think you guys understand that before we even get into the text. Tears of the kingdom ends with everything back where it began. Ganondorf is defeated Zelda returns and retakes her place on the throne. Link even regains his arm, the motley crew of helpers that he assembled on his journey, come together to pledge fealty to the crown. Zelda vows the dedicator south to maintaining peace and Hyrule. Now, if you actually know the history of this game and how it's a sequel to Breath of the Wild, you'll know that not only did all these different races have fealty to the crown in the first place. So re swearing that fealty isn't really that big of a deal. You also know that Hyrule was in chaos for thousands and thousands of years. So at the end of tears of the kingdom, Hyrule returns to a state it hasn't seen or known of in nearly 10,000 years. So I'm just pointing out that it's kind of weird. It doesn't really go back to there, but whatever, if we focus on this too much, this video is going to be an hour long. So let's get into the next paragraph. Of course, we know that she won't succeed the inevitability of a new legend of Zelda game, a new iteration of Ganon threatening the princess and world being stopped by like is so obvious. It's been canonized within the fiction itself. The three are locked in a cycle of reincarnation driven in universe by mysterious forces and out of universe by the franchise is ever growing pop. You'll already know. I just want to note here that they seem to be saying that Ganon slash Ganondorf is always the enemy. That's not the case. The actual Kersen in Scott resorted says an evil will always rise. Doesn't always have to be Ganon or Ganondorf. And there's many Zelda games that that's not the case. Hello, Majora in Majora's Mask, right? With the Skull Kid and everything hot. What about Vati? What about Maladis and Spirit Tracks? I'm just pointing out that there's several cases where Ganon slash Ganondorf is not actually the big baddie, but take that for what you will. That would require actually paying more attention to the Zelda series beyond just a few key games. Now, getting deeper into this, it says that cycle is the great tragedy. Remember the Zelda cycle that has existed since the very first game came out. You know, there's evil and there's good and good conquers evil. The cycle is a great tragedy beneath the entirety of the legend of Zelda's narrative. And yet tears of the kingdom's ending acts as if preserving things entirely how they were before is a grand victory, which isn't even what happens. But that's something here though there to win is to return to the status quo, which didn't exist in any form in Breath of the Wild or tears of the kingdom. In fact, the status quo, the King of Hyrule was alive. Zelda wasn't running Hyrule when this all began. The King was running Hyrule. Zelda was literally just a little girl trying to find her way in the world. The King was around. Info was a much bigger deal, not as big of a deal at the end of tears of the kingdom. And Link was a nobody. So how is this returning to the status quo? I don't understand, but it's fine. This person is building towards something that is just very shocking. So going on down says what the legend of Zelda status quo is running thinner every year. When tears of the kingdom was first announced, a peak at a short haired Zelda in the trailer had many people wondering if Nintendo would use the sequel to finally introduce a playable princess. That was more so because they were adventuring together, not because of her short hair, but that's not to hear another there. Instead, her story is the same as it ever was. Well, really, things of the story is the same in this game as it ever was. But sure, even the Master Sword is given more agency in the scene where it appears to her in the past. Zelda says that it traveled through time to find me and recover its strength, implying an intentional journey while she was simply sent back by forces unknown. Did you play tears of the kingdom? How she was sent back in time is explained very clearly in the story, having to do with the very damn stones that are at the center of this. How she nabbed one there in that scene with Ganondorf when he rolls back to power and that stone accentuates whatever's within you. And she is like the spirit of time, basically. That's what's within her. And that caused her to travel back in time unbeknownst. You know, she didn't really know how to harness that. And she was trying to figure out in the past how to maybe re harness that to bring it forward. But then she realized it doesn't matter. She figured out how to travel back to the future because the Master Sword needed more time and energy and power to restore. And her just zipping back to the future wasn't going to actually solve that and link me to the Master Sword. So in the end, it's all explained within the story. So it's not an unknown force. I did you play tears of the kingdom? I'm wondering if you just read like a story synopsis. Anyways, getting down in the air, when she returns, of course, she returns to the throne. It being stranded in Hyrule's early years and meeting Rauru, the founder of the kingdom is also the king at the time. She has learned that she has a ruler's bloodline stretching as far back as it can go, which is something we've always really known about Zelda. And possibly before that, if the rumors of the Zonai's divine blood are to be believed, the modern day sages repeat almost verbatim and the vow of loyalty that the previous ages gave to Rauru. This is the game that skipped advertising in my country, notably this writer from the UK, perhaps because of the death of the Queen, etc., etc., etc. All right. So there's no hint in the legend of Zelda that anyone questions her right to absolute rule other than Ganon. Zelda is presented as an entirely benevolent dictator. She wants peace without acknowledgment that this is a complicated word for those in power to be thrown around the cat. A complicated word. Who said this? Oh, wait, we're talking about Wikipedia. No justice, no peace. This is a legend of Zelda. It's the legend of Zelda. It's not the real world. This is not planet Earth. This is Hyrule. They have their own lives going on, their own things happening. Peace doesn't need to be complicated here. Just because it's complicated where we are, this is an imaginary world. In an imaginary world, maybe peace is just a very simple construct. I don't know. I'm just saying it seems pretty simple to me. And I think that's the whole purpose. It's supposed to be simplistic because our lives are so complicated. But whatever. All right, fine. Still, the only threat to that is as Minero puts it in expository dialogue, a great evil emerging from the desert. This laughably loaded phrase and racist tropes that have always underpinned Ganon's story like the gender. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on, hold on. A great evil emerging from the desert. That line of dialogue is a loaded phrase with racist tropes. You know what also emerged from the desert? Jesus Christ. I don't know if you heard about him, even among people who aren't religious. They generally consider him to be a very good person. And we have historical documentation that proves he was a real person alive at one time and did a lot of really good things while he was alive. That would be a great good emerging from the desert. So I don't understand how this promotes racist tropes, but maybe I'm out of the loop. Maybe someone can explain this to me down in the comments. I don't think being from the desert really has any. What kind of trope? I mean, maybe you're thirsty. I don't really understand. All right, moving on. So then it says the gendered aspects of Zelda's repetitive role in the narrative appear to skate by simply because she's been this has been going on so long that mentioned them feels blasé. I don't. What does gender have to do with any of this right now? What? Why did gender? Is it because they identify as male and female? Is that a is that a problem? I don't even really identify to be honest. They're like, I'm Zelda, I'm Link, I'm Manuru. All right. Here's the game does bring its own less well-trodden themes before discarding them in favor of a neat conclusion. The game should have had something interesting to say about bodies, for instance. Oh, gosh, what's wrong with bodies? Why does it need to have a message? Why do video games need to have some social, political message? They don't need to. They're not that complicated most of the time. All right, so let's get into the example. For instance, Link loses an arm and gains a prosthetic. It's not a prosthetic. It's not a fake replacement arm. The arm that Link gets is quite literally Ra-Ru's arm. Ra-Ru gives his arm that was being used to hold Ganon or Vape. He gives that arm to Link. It's not a prosthetic. It's a physical existence of a real arm being attached to Link. Oh, I just. OK, whatever. It's a prosthetic, apparently. I don't know what's wrong with it, but whatever. Zelda transforms herself entirely. Dragon, I suppose. Minoru is able to separate her spirit and use a robot construct. A robot she built, by the way. Well, she was alive, so there is that. And she allows Link to pilot it as a mech. Sure, I guess that's a gameplay mechanic going on. But rather than giving any attention to the lasting impacts of these changes or the thematic implications, the writer simply erased them. Minoru steps out of her constructs itself and disappears. It's a constructed self she built for herself for the purpose of helping Link. She completed her journey and so she moves on. I don't. It was that was pretty well stated from the beginning. But whatever, they didn't erase it. That was literally the purpose. I'm OK. Zelda's revival is given a hand wave explanation. The combined powers of her ancestors allowed her to do the impossible in return. I mean, we've seen the impossible none all throughout the game. So it's not really that out of the out of character. And presumably the same can be said for Link's arm, although it's never acknowledged beyond a brief moment of surprise from our hero. What tears of the kingdom ultimately says about bodies is that in a neat happy ending, they can only exist one way. Prosthetic scars or deliberate modifications are blemishes that must be erased in the same sweep as the demon king himself. No, no. Rauru gave Link his arm so Link could have powers in the current realm that Rauru could no longer provide from the other side. Wherever his spirit and stuff is residing, we don't obviously we can get into all the theories around what realm that is. But the point is he was giving that to Link so he could have the ability to defeat the evil in a way that Rauru couldn't because Rauru's powers on their own wasn't good enough. But the combination of the Master Sword with Link's courage and then obviously Zelda making her the master more powerful with Rauru's arm involved as well. The combination of all of that was the hope it would be enough to defeat Ganondorf in a way that Rauru couldn't with just his own physical manifestation. So all that happened was Link completed the purpose of what that arm was. And so Rauru wanted his powers back. He wanted his arm back and in returning gifted Link his arm almost as if that injury to Link's arm was he wasn't as much of an injury as it was Rauru just melding his powers and magic and arm into Link's. I'm all right. Whatever. Yeah. Why? What is this messaging? I this is this is a bad article. All right, like the rest of the narrative, like the rest of the franchise, it doesn't celebrate anything changing. Yeah, Hyrule hasn't known peace for 10,000 years, but nothing changed. All right, in their excellent piece on Tears of the Kingdom's Ending and I didn't read this one. So no, I don't know the backstory here. Critic Harper Jay asked if it's a story for our current times. They argue that a bolder, more honest ending might have left Zelda trapped in her draconic form. Sure, could have happened. That's what we thought, you know, I mean, we thought it was a possibility based on the story set up. Never quite remembering why she is crying. That's a bittersweet move. Sure, they could have went in that direction. They didn't have to though. It's not like the direction they went was bad and children play the game to maybe it would be too dramatic for children. I don't know. They could have left it that way if they wanted to. They didn't. I don't know that that's that big of a deal though. All right, sacrifice that can't be swept away by convenient magical abilities. Magical abilities that have existed all throughout the game, by the way. I agree that Tears of the Kingdom isn't a story for our current times. OK, but it is a story from our current times. One that says that clinging to the status quo is the equivalent of victory. I don't really think that's what it says. Sure, it's a story told to us by bosses who say their striking worker demands are unrealistic. That's not happening at Nintendo. It's a story told by ineffective political leaders. Well, that's definitely not Nintendo who refused to challenge harmful government policy. Again, none of these people are telling this story. It's a story that motivates regressive transphobic laws. Oh, now Zelda's transphobic and has to do with laws. Being passed. Damn you, A.G. Onuma, you're the devil, man. How dare you tell a story that has nothing to do with any of this? It's a story that allows for more oil drilling during the climate crisis at what I just. What? Oh, yeah. Now you're all right. What else are you responsible for? Are you responsible for the current ongoing war as well? Tears of the Kingdom, COVID-19. What else are we going to blame you for? What else can we find a contrived way to say you're the problem and you're why all this is happening? It's also the story that reflects the current corporate media landscape more broadly, remakes, sequels, AI regurgitation. By the way, people love remakes and sequels and we get tons of brand new stuff. Nintendo published like six or seven brand new IPs during the Nintendo Switch era. Whatever. Forty five advertisements based on the metal IP. OK, yeah, they bought a bunch of ads and OK, what's wrong with Hot Wheels Zero? Do we have a crap ton of Hot Wheels movies now? All out of nowhere. Is this like one of the few? Everything you've seen before again, just bigger. Once Nintendo uses the success. Once Nintendo used the success of Ocarina Time to make Majora's Mask, something surprisingly and totally unique, this time it did not. OK, what would break these cycle tiers that the Kingdom isn't interested in asking? Takes us back to the beginning so we're ready to do it all over again, which isn't exactly what happens. Leaving no room for the fact that it's a parent victory is really its own kind of tragedy. Guys, you know what? I read this one line in here that we just went over where it says it's also a story that reflects the current corporate media landscape more broadly. No, this editorial represents the current problem with video game journalism when it comes to most of these big websites. And I don't want to lump everyone in here. Obviously the katakus and the polygons of the world are significantly worse than injecting all this political garbage and gargly-gook into things that are completely unrelated. Notably everything that she's comparing or he's comparing or whoever this is comparing all this stuff to is stuff affecting the UK. And this game is made in Japan with all the writers being Japanese. I'm not so sure that they're tonally writing their stories specifically for the issues in the UK. I think what happened is you took a very popular game and decided I have a political, socially fueled agenda and I'm gonna trash this game's story for clicks, which by the way didn't really work. I will still link to you down below of course, because hey, you are the source for this video. I just think that this entire thing is tonally deaf. And this is the big disconnect between the major media and video gamers. And here's the thing we want to say about video games. I said this last night, I want to repeat it. I want you guys to fundamentally get this. And I think we can all agree. Video games are a entertainment medium that crosses all spectrums. It doesn't matter what gender you identify as, it doesn't matter what sex you are, it doesn't matter what kind of relationship statuses you're into and what you're into dating. And none of that matters what political side you're on. No matter what country you're in, it doesn't matter if you're poor, it doesn't matter if you're rich. We all like to play video games, right? It crosses a wide spectrum of people, people with depression, people who are super happy with their lives, people who are really angry. There's something for everyone in the video games here, right? So what I find fascinating about this is the reason video games are so appealing to such a broad audience is because they're an escape. One way or another, whether you're playing that Call of Duty match or the Splatoon match or you're deep diving the tears of the kingdom or Elden Ring or going into the Resident Evil, shooting up some zombies or whatever you happen to be into. Maybe you're into Life is Strange, you get into this really deep story into some depression and the journey through that stuff and loss. That's fine. Whatever it is, a lot of it is either helping us accept certain things that are happening in our life, helping us get through those things or helping us escape from the things that are happening in our life. All of us have our political ideas, our moral beliefs, our ethics and all of that. But we have spaces where we go to deal with that. Some of us will consume content around all of that. You will go to your different political YouTube channels and websites and all of that stuff and have these different people you wanna follow and who you're into and who you listen to. And that's fine. I'm not here to judge you for any of that stuff. But what I wanted to point out here is that all of us could sort of agree that we don't want this put into video games. If there's a video game about politics, about religion, about fine, that specific games about that thing. But most of us, even those of us that are really radicalized in various different religious and political beliefs, in the end, when we're playing video games, we're trying to get away from all of that. We're trying to drown out that noise. So I find stuff like this to be incredibly infuriating. This is essentially a political puff piece with an agenda trying to attach a very popular game whose story you completely misinterpreted and didn't apparently even get all the details of because you got very specific details incorrect all throughout the article. And then on top of that, you're twisting the story to fail. And then you're twisting the story to fit this narrative of your agenda that doesn't really fit because it doesn't fit into as neat of a box as you make it out to you because you're showing that you don't even understand what precursor led to all this and how this isn't a return to the status quo. Status quo, Zelda's father was alive. Remember, we don't deal with loss. Her dad is dead. The champions in Breath of the Wild are dead. This ain't no status quo. Anyways, guys, thank you so much for being here. I am Nathaniel Robodance from The Thinner Prime. Let me know what you think about this down in the comments below and I'll catch you in the next video.