Thought this was worth posting here.
It's an article detailing potential problems Netflix with have with adapting Zelda.
The two biggest points I agree with are that Zelda has no plot and that Link has no character. Off track, story time: I first got into creative writing when I was in middle school. When I first started out I would dedicate tons of my free time to creating these massively detailed settings with every little location and character having a ton of detailed back story to them. However, once I was done with the initial world-building and I went to write a story in said world I suddenly found myself completely drawing a blank. It wasn't until about half way through high school that I realized that no matter how awesome your setting is, no matter how detailed its lore, that doesn't mean **** if you don't have a good story to tell in it.
This is a problem that adapting Zelda to a non-game format is. When you get down to it, every Zelda game is exactly that, a game. The focus is on interesting new mechanics and dungeon first, story (or lack thereof). This is why every LoZ story basically boils down to "Find X things to open Y dungeons then stop Ganondorf/Vaati/Skull Kid from taking over/destroying Hyrule." Yes, there is back story and lore everywhere, but it's not vital to the narrative. When you get down to it, it's all there just for atmosphere and to get you immersed in the game world. I haven't played Skyward Sword yet, but I hear that they tried to expand on the story in that game so they might be moving in a more story-driving direction. But we'll see.
On the next note, there's Link's character, or lack thereof. Sure, he's got something resembling personality in Wind Waker and a few other titles but for the most part he's a completely blank slate that you're supposed to project yourself onto. Really, ask yourself exactly how much you know about Link. What are his hobbies? Fishing maybe? What's his biggest fear? What does he want out of life? What does he value more? Friends or family? For a video game, this level of undefined characterization is fine. Hell, you can even get away with it in other forms of media depending on the story you want to tell. But if Netflix wants to make a friendly family version of Game of Thrones this is not where to look. As somebody who has read Song of Ice and Fire but has never watched Game of Thrones I can tell you that the books are filled with complex characters with clashing interests, values and desires. Its a series filled with ambiguity that makes the reader question a lot of motivations and whether the characters are wrong or not. This is not something Zelda can provide.
Now, one small thing that article suggests is making an animated series similar to Samurai Jack where Link just wanders around and encounters strange new characters and monsters every episode with a larger overarcing goal that he's working towards. This could actually work perfectly. In Samurai Jack, Jack himself had very little characterization beyond "bad ass Samurai who fights evil." Link could just be "bad ass weaponsmaster who fights evil" in this hypothetical series and as long as they kept the focus in the right place it could work perfectly. Instead of having the attention on complex interactions and relationships instead focus on unique and intriguing locations with memorable antagonists and side characters. Make the whole series animated too so that way it's not limited to what you can do in live action.
Unfortunately, even if they got Netflix to produce this hypothetical animated series I'd be worried about it. With the way the mainstream western animation is these days I'm sure it would get a cult following at best and would probably only see one season. Mostly because western animation would prefer to just make easy-to-produce garbage with LCD jokes, bad animation and zero effort put into the writing instead of promoting genuinely well written and engaging series' with strong characters and an engaging narrative. I think this just became a rant about Nickelodeon.
Anyway, tl;dr version: Zelda will struggle to be a good TV series because it has no plot and Link has no character. Also, Samurai Jack but with Link would be awesome.
