The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's Characters

I'm actually running kinda low on RPGs whose entire casts were largely dull and stupid for me to ridicule here. Sure, there are a few boring and lackluster casts out there, but really, what can I even TRY to say about the characters of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest or Lufia 1? And some games have had casts so forgettable that...well, I've pretty much just forgotten them altogether, and I certainly don't want to have to go and subject myself to the pain of Seiken Densetsu 3 or Dragon Quest 5 again just to remember them. I'm not THAT dedicated. After today, I'm really only going to have Chrono Cross left, which is both a daunting task in that there are so many characters to cover, and yet also the easiest since I can sum 90% of them up with one word: Empty.

So anyway, yeah, let's take a look at this game's cast. I'll be counting the Sages as party members, since, well, if I don't then it's just 4 characters, only 2 of which are even human, I'm looking at.



Link: Well, right off the bat we've got Link, the least manly-looking RPG protagonist of all time. Seriously, people who complain that FF10's Tidus looks like Meg Ryan and so on should be thankful that he at least wears clothing that SORT OF identifies him as a man. Link, on the other hand, true to form after about 10 years since he originally hit the screen, still stubbornly insists on wearing his little forest-elf outfit, which consists of pantyhose, little booties, and a skirt. Not that it's the clothes alone that negate his masculinity, of course--he himself has the face and hair of a woman, and his flat-chested woman's body doesn't help. Honestly, he looks more like a man in his 10-year-old form in this game than he does as an adult.

You may notice I'm not commenting on his character here. Well, this is largely because Link HAS no character. You may recall my last rant mentioned him as being one of the poster children for silent protagonists. Well, what this means is that we pretty much know absolutely nothing about him, as usual. From the knowledge gathered in the game, we can safely assume that pain hurts him, surprising things surprise him, he enjoys taking money from dead monsters, and he has monumental patience when dealing with fucking annoying fairies.


Zelda/Sheik: Apparently jealous after all these games that Link continues to be a prettier woman than she is, Zelda decided to get into the whole gender-confusion thing in this one by using her magic to change herself into a man for 7 years. A man whose idea of helping Link to accomplish his hero work is to talk about touchy-feel-good emotions and teach him how to play 7 consecutive notes that are somehow classified as a song.

Despite all this, she's still clearly the best Zelda incarnation as of this game, given that she's at least out doing SOMETHING instead of just standing around, kidnapped or waiting to be.


Saria: Saria is a little forest elf girl who, like Link, cosplays Peter Pan. Her cosplay is more dedicated than Link's, though, as she really does take Pete's policy of "I don't wanna grow up, I'm a Toys-R-Us kid" seriously.


Darunia: Darunia is a big Goron, which as close as I can figure is sorta like a race of rock trolls with the combined mental abilities of a tapeworm. When Link goes and kills a big dinosaur thing that causes the Gorons trouble, Darunia is so overwhelmed by the idea of a person who doesn't sit on his ass in a hole eating rocks all day and actually gets shit DONE that he decides to name his son after him.


Impa: Impa is basically the Anti-Link. While she does very prominently have breasts, every other aspect of her screams "Man!" There's not much to her, really, she just stands around, waiting for Zelda to give her orders.


Ruto: "Wow, you went crawling around in the intestines of a huge fish just so you could hork my royal family heirloom! You are turning my freakish fish-body on SO much. Let's get married!"

You know, aside from the fish-body thing, I could actually see Rinoa saying that to Squall at some point under like circumstances.


Rauru: "Hi, I'm Rauru, Sage of Light. So, you've aged 7 years, Hyrule's a desolate wasteland ruled by evil now, most everyone you ever knew is probably dead, and you have a whole new quest. What's that? You need some time to come to grips with your entire world having collapsed? Well, do it some place else. Get the hell out!"


Nabooru: Nabooru's intense warrior's training and powerful Earth Sage's magic give her the amazing ability to be immediately captured in a quicksand trap by the Twinrova sorceress sisters, the Bebop and Rocksteady of witchcraft.


Epona: Epona the horse is actually the most powerful being in the world, in that she is invulnerable to any and all attack. She's not particularly brilliant, as her judgment on who she deems safe or a threat relies entirely on whether they can hum 6 notes the right way.


Ganondorf/Ganon: Despite having more screen time and dialogue in this game than ever before, Ganon continues to be a dull, unimaginative villain with no motivation for being an asshole beyond just plain being an asshole.


Navi: If you have played and beaten this game, you are REQUIRED to hate this annoying attention-whore bug thing, and all the annoying fairies who will follow in her footsteps. Every goddamn minute, you will hear her shriek, "HEY! LISTEN!" in her squeaky little fairy voice. The designers try to pass this off as her trying to help you by pointing out things of interest, but no, oh ho ho no, I know better. She is pointing out things of interest to HER, not ME. I myself am not going to get excited over her interest in the same rock I passed 2 minutes ago that she already screamed about. She has a memory like Leonard from Momento, only Leonard has the goddamn sense to leave himself notes. That's what I wish I could do in this game, is obtain an item, Stack of Post-It Notes, and just put one on every single damn pebble and blade of grass that Navi starts wailing like a police siren about. Notes that say, "ALREADY EXAMINED THIS, TINKERBITCH" and "I FUCKING KNOW, YOU ADHD-ADDLED TWIT" that she could read every time she sees this amazing patch of dirt for the 7th time and wants to share its existence with me by making a scene.

What I wouldn't give in that game for a can of fucking Raid.