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Comments
Just because a being's power-level is low doesn't mean he can't beat other more powerful individuals.
But the reason he can do it is just because he has godly favor and shit. That certainly counts for something.
It does matter if Link is destined to beat Ganon.
That doesn't mean that Link has to have more personal power than Ganon, though. I mean sometimes he gets spells but mostly he has to rely on his swordsmanship and arrows.
Yeah, Link also happens to be wielding Not!Excalibur as well. Even going by the idea of a consistent timeline(s) and Skyward Sword, we're not actually sure about how the Master Sword was actually created -- we merely played the part of empowering it. For all we know, it could have appeared by divine miracle. And divinity is sure as shit more mind-blasting than sorcery.
Isn't the Master Sword's shtick just the whole "banish evil" thing?
And while Link does possess a Triforce piece too, the Triforce of Courage has never been seen to offer anything other than a great amount of resistance to evil magic. While that is impressive, I don't see how that places Link above Ganon (who has been shown to be able to revive the dead and summon monsters even before gaining the Triforce) in terms of personal power. Link has pretty much used his superior skill to beat Ganon, and skill doesn't always mean power.
Link has shot lasers from his sword before.
Although I guess that's not really a property of the Master Sword since he did it with other swords too.
Can't he do that with other, not-as-legendary swords too?
It's not like Link is the only one with divine help in SSBB anyway.
"Just" is an interesting word to use here, because most swords in LoZ are mundane. I mean, the games are very obviously high fantasy/fairy tales, but most allies and adversaries use mundane weapons and gear, and Link generally starts each game with the same "tier" of items as they do. And the fact that the Master Sword can banish evil isn't just exceptional in terms of fighty-swordiness -- the fact that it can actually identify evil to begin with means it also contains its own powers of divine perception. Furthermore, it can only be wielded by the chosen/those who are pure of heart/people who can jive like a boss. So it's a symbol, a functional tool and a mark of moral authority rolled into one.
So, basically, Excalibur. But with a different name.
The point I'm trying to make is that in terms of personal power, Link is far beneath Ganondorf. He only manages to beat Ganon through (a.) his superior skill (which does not translate into power) and (b.) his whole "destiny" thing.
Link may wield a powerful sword and a divine MacGuffin, but Ganondorf has exceedingly powerful sorcery at his command and another divine MacGuffin equal in power to Link's own.
Link has two divine MacGuffins, though (both the Triforce of Courage and the Master Sword), and it's generally the case that Link is given these while Gannondorf took his by force.
Then there's the interpretation that the Triforce markers don't actually hold power themselves, but are just that -- markers, designating individuals of exceptional aptitude and psychological strength. Which kind of makes the whole thing that more divine, given that divinity is about nature producing some kind of outcome via inexplicable miracle. So Link, Zelda and Gannondorf can be thought to have been "naturally selected" to have a throwdown. Or something.
And that's why divinity > sorcery, in general. Divine happenstance aren't necessarily the conscious intervention of a deity, because they can be the natural world doing something considered impossible due to some kind of transgression against itself. One example might be materialising a divine sword. Sorcery and magic are generally considered to be the inversion of divinity because they force the elements of the world into a shape chosen by the spellcaster. And that's the implication of Gannondorf's sorcery, and it's a good one because it tells us about his character -- he would rather brutalise natural forces and use them to his own ends than develop mundane skills.
But characters like Link or Zelda couldn't care less about that kind of thing. They just want to drink milk and display alarming amounts of maturity and wisdom for someone so young. So when they come into possession of supernatural powers, it's got less to do with the will to dominate natural forces and more to do with accepting both a gift and a responsibility, be it from deities, gods or the inexplicable mind/non-mind of the world itself.
What I'm saying here is that deities, gods and nature itself all have Link's back. Gannondorf has his considerable sorceries, and they break some of the rules -- but Link's implicit allies make the rules. Alright, so Gannondorf can raise armies of undead, lizardmen and whatnot. But Link is chosen by the various consciousnesses that decided to make reality a thing in the first place. The kind of beings beyond the scope of mortal understanding. And for whatever reason, they're not interfering -- but that's just the way of divine beings in general.
I suppose the bottom line is that Gannondorf's power is measurable. Link is lent the power of being we can't really understand, and it's a kind of power that defies quantification. Magic blasts are all well and good, but they're a hat trick compared to the ways in which Link's adventures are set in motion.
You know how the original Wii pretty much sold out everywhere? It's already happening with its successor. Huh.
What's most surprising is that the more expensive, but memory-rich version tended to sell out first, which tells me that people will want the extra features even if it's more expensive.
Maybe those people whose incomes are still large enough to support gaming hobbies even after the recession really do feel that there's more value in the cooler models, and they're the primary consumers.
(EDIT: wait nevermind I'm dumb, there are other extra things than just the hard drive)
It is shown that Ganondorf draws power directly from the Triforce of Power to become Ganon. So Ganon at least can actually control the powers of the Triforce.
I think in Twilight Princess, Zelda also uses the Triforce of Wisdom to protect Midna (I dunno, can anyone confirm this?)
Yep. Link has friends that are vastly more powerful than Ganondorf (or anything else in the setting)
But just because gods and destiny itself have his back doesn't mean that he himself possesses power equal to them. I'll admit that the Master Sword gives him an edge, but that's because the Master Sword's entire thing is killing incredibly evil and powerful things like Ganondorf.
The way I see it, Link beats Ganondorf because:
not because:
It's kind of like Lex Luthor w/ Kryptonite vs Superman. Just because the former can (and would, if there wasn't the status quo thing) kill Superman doesn't mean he's superior in power to Superman.
In Prime 2 she can shoot black holes and suns
Yeah, Samus probably wins in terms of pure destructive potential.
Wait, doesn't Ganon have this thing with "only the Master Sword/magic arrows can hurt me"?
He was also beaten with the Four Sword, remember.
Remember, you can stop playing any time you want. This isn't a bit of discouragement, but rather a joke people who have played the game will get.
Whenever I use the Shield Boomerang in Megaman Zero, I like to pretend I'm Captain America
just got to the
...yeah
Finished it.
That was... an experience.
Uh
I kind of forget what most of the choice points were?
That was rough though.
You forgot the most important moral decision:
Anyway, things I did:
continuing to play does not count as a moral choice in a video game and the sooner writers realize this, the better.
It does in SOTL. Fairly explicitly, even.
Given your edit, I feel the need to explain it in more detail.
Yes, it is true that the player will continue to play the game without regard for whether the PC is behaving morally, and that's the point.