![]() It’s the Koroks who are getting crucified. No, in 2023, you’re not going to see official promo art of Link on the cross. It also depicts the Temple of Time as a church echoing with a solemn Gregorian chant, establishing a ritualistic vibe that has remained with the series ever since. In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Zelda ditched explicitly Christian symbolism in favor of a bespoke mythos involving “three golden goddesses” who, according to the game’s creation myth, “descended upon the chaos that was Hyrule.” And yet, infamously, it featured an Islamic prayer chant in the Fire Temple that was removed from the game after its first printing. If anything, it’s done exactly the opposite, reaching for religion in deeper and stranger ways. But it still feels a little unsatisfying - not because the Zelda series truly is Christian, or has remained Christian, but because the series hasn’t exactly shied away from religion since those aesthetically chaotic early years. Nichols’ suspicion is totally plausible and probably right. Instead, he said, it’s more likely that Nintendo reached for Christian references “in a careless, off-the-cuff way” because “they were drawing inspiration generally from pastoral Europe/medieval/fairy-tale imagery, legends, etc., and that source material would have included some of this Christian imagery.” Max Nichols, a Bungie developer and Zelda superfan who maintains the Hyrule Interviews archive, said he wasn’t aware of any explicit statements from the developers about religious themes or symbolism in the early years. originally intended for Link to be a Christian warrior, or that The Legend of Zelda is “about” Christianity in some fundamental sense? Not exactly. Image: Nintendo via Melora this mean that Shigeru Miyamoto and co. In A Link to the Past, our hero enters a sanctuary with stained-glass windows and pews. In Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, the cross is an item that allows Link to see invisible enemies. In the original Legend of Zelda, Link’s shield has a cross on it, and the “Book of Magic” was called “Bible” in the Japanese version. This illustration has made the rounds over the years, usually alongside other bits and pieces from the early history of the Zelda series that hint at Christian origins. But it is Link, tunic and all, and he isn’t worshiping Din, Nayru, the goddess Hylia, or any other figure in the evolving Zelda pantheon. He’s not wearing his usual pointy hat instead, you see the long Hylian ears poking through a thick Joe Dirt mullet. In a black-and-white church, bathed in the holy light of an arched window, our hero kneels in worship. Chapter 6 of the 1992 Japanese guidebook to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past contains what might be the strangest officially licensed image of Link ever created.
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