The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening/Characters

Link and his Allies

Link

The same Link from A Link to The Past and the Oracle games.

• Kleptomaniac Hero: In addition to Link's usual kleptomania, he can now outright steal things from the shop.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: Link goes unconscious after the lightning bolt hits his ship at the beginning. He wakes up in Marin and Tarin's house on Koholint Island.

Marin

The female lead in Link's Awakening, of whom Malon is an Expy. A singer who rescued Link when he washed ashore, and later teaches him the "Ballad of the Wind Fish" which is critical to waking the Wind Fish.

• All There in the Manual: In the manual, other official art, and her Super Smash Bros Melee trophy, Marin plays the harp, but never does in the game.
• And You Were There: She's supposed to be based somewhat on Zelda, enough that Link confused her for Zelda at first.
• But You Were There and You and You: Inverted, Malon who appears in later games is based on her.
• Cannot Spit It Out: She clearly has romantic feelings for Link but just isn't able to voice them.
• Expy: Of Princess Zelda
• Florence Nightingale Effect: This is how the game begins.
• Flower in Her Hair: A hibiscus
• Friend to All Living Things: She sings for the animals in the Animal Village.
  • However, she is SCARILY encouraging of Link abusing Cuccos if you do it for long enough. Probably because, once she starts encouraging you, if you keep doing it, the Cuccos will start attacking you like they usually do.
• Heroes Want Redheads: According to Link/Marin shippers, anyway.
• Japanese Honorifics: The animals of the Animal Village refer to Marin as Marin-chan. This is localized in English as the nickname Little Marin.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Apart from the fact that she literally is a "dream girl", she qualifies. Life virtually revolving around the protagonist? Check. Quirky personality? Check. ("Dig it! Dig to the center of the earth!") Of course, Link doesn't need convincing to be adventurous.
• Missing Mom: In this game and all her future incarnations. In most games, she still has a Mario look-alike dad, but in Majora's Mask, Cremia and Romani don't even have a dad.
• Temporary Substitute: Fills in for Princess Zelda in the only Legend of Zelda game where Zelda doesn't appear.
• Ugly Guys Hot Daughter: A trait that carries on in later games with Malon.
• Winged Humanoid (in the black-and-white version), Animorphism (in the DX version): Marin's reward if you get a No Miss Clear is to have her wish granted and either be able to fly like a seagull or become a seagull.

Tarin

The father of Marin who collects mushrooms.

• Baleful Polymorph: At one point he's turned into a Raccoon (or Tanuki in the original Japanese version).
• Bumbling Dad
• But You Were There and You and You: Inverted, Talon who appears in later games is based on him.
  • He's also reminiscent of Link's uncle from A Link to the Past. Link even obtains the first shield from him just like he did from his uncle in the previous game.
• Expy: Of Mario. He has the mustache, he loves eating mushrooms and he's turned into a raccoon/tanuki. The resemblance to Mario carries over into Talon.
• Moment Killer: He does this a couple of times during the game.
• Sleepyhead: Will be found at home napping in-between his appearances around the island.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Mushrooms

The Owl

An owl that tells Link where to go next.

• But You Were There and You and You: Inverted, Kaepora Gaebora who appears in later games is based on him.
• Exposition Fairy
• Mr. Exposition
• No Name Given: People often mistakenly refer to him as Kaepora Gaebora since Kaepora Gaebora is an extremely obvious Expy of him, but this owl was never actually named.
• The Owl-Knowing One

The Wind Fish

The guardian deity that sleeps inside the giant egg at the center of Koholint Island

• Expy: The Ocean King from Phantom Hourglass and Levias from Skyward Sword are both expies of the Wind Fish.
• Fisher King: Both the inhabitants of the island and the nightmares are born from his dreams.
• Non-Indicative Name: As described by an owl statue, "THE WIND FISH IN NAME ONLY, FOR IT IS NEITHER".
• Physical God
• Sealed Good in a Can
• Sky Whale
• Ye Olde Butchered English

Villains

The Nightmare

A shape-shifting Sequential Boss that has affected the dreams of the Wind Fish. In its battle with Link, it takes the forms of enemies Link has fought before.

• Anticlimax Boss: If you managed to get the Boomerang, its final form DethI goes down in one hit.
  • Its penultimate form is a rematch with the boss who guarded the key to the fourth dungeon, Lanmola. Using the Hookshot, found in the fifth dungeon (which requires the fourth dungeon's item to reach and therefore cannot be obtained before facing Lanmola the first time), this form goes down in one hit as well.
• Big Bad: Throughout the whole game it's unclear who exactly the Big Bad is, but once Nightmare is introduced it's pretty clear.
• Boss Rush: It's a sequential boss whose forms are several bosses from Link to The Past.
• But You Were There and You and You: As something of a Shout-Out, Vaati's One-Winged Angel form in The Minish Cap looks exactly like Dethl.
• Empathic Shapeshifter
• Faceless Eye
• Hijacked by Ganon: Inverted, Ganon appears during the final boss fight, but it's only a form taken by the Nightmare based on Link's memories.
• Never Say "Die": DethI was originally called "Death Eye."
• One-Winged Angel: DethI
• Playing Tennis With the Boss: One of the forms it takes is Agahnim. You fight it the usual way.
• Saving the World: In an unusual inversion, the bad guy is trying to save the world and the hero is trying to destroy it, but the Nightmares aren't saving the world for benevolent reasons.
• Sequential Boss