I really don't like when affirmative action tries to sully people's works when their work isn't offensive to begin with. It's one thing when your work portrays a group of people in a negative way, but just because a group isn't represented as the start of a piece of work, they feel like they need to change it. Are you insinuating that it is wrong to be white and male? It's not like Link is a bad protagonist.
Changing stuff like this also just completely puts plot and lore to the side, which is pretty important to the Zelda series. The only thing that should trump plot/lore is gameplay.
Why does changing Link's race/gender "sully" anything? How does changing Link's race/gender affect plot at all? How does changing Link's race/gender affect lore at all? What is so unique to white males that the series has to be gutted in order to compensate for the lack of a white male protagonist?
The different iterations of Link are reincarnations. What's so outlandish about him being reincarnated into a body that isn't white and male? Like, we can suspend disbelief to the point of allowing for the hero to be reincarnated in the first place, he can be incarnated into a child or a teenager or a young adult, he can have darker or lighter hair, but make him not a man and/or not white and suddenly whoa, too much?
Not representing a group
is a negative portrayal of that group. Because not representing a group ever at all represents the group as
invisible. How do you argue that there are no negative consequences to not representing those groups, but when there's a slight indication that
maybe one character of how many out there is not a white male for once and you jump to "Are you saying there's something
wrong with being a white male?" What do you think it says when you say "Uhhh no why do we need to represent anybody but white males"?
Nothing has to change about Link's character for those things to change. The way the lore is built up makes perfect room for that to happen. Unless I'm mistaken, nowhere in any lore does it say that the hero has to be anything but a
hero. Would a black woman not be capable of adventuring and stopping Ganon too...? Like I am legitimately very confused as to what drastic changes you see occurring. Very,
very little has to change to accomplish that. Just look at Avatar: The Last Airbender into The Legend of Korra. The avatar is a hero who is reincarnated. In Avatar, this hero was a white male; in Korra, the avatar becomes a non-white woman. The
only thing that's changed based on race and gender is her place or origin.
I do not by any means believe Nintendo will change Link now, or any time in the near future, and perhaps
ever, but I am baffled as to why people are so offended at the thought of it.
My knowledge of Zelda lore is, granted, not perfect, so if there is a contradiction to these concepts feel free to cite it. But I still think the aggressive opposition to the idea is unnecessary.
