The Legend of Zelda/Fridge

The Franchise as a whole

Fridge Brilliance

In order to defeat the latest Big Bad, Link has to find a balance between courage, wisdom and power, which he acquires throughout the many dungeons! (The Triforces don't give people the attributes to their wielder but are rather given to them because they have those attributes.)
- And learning to use tactics and ranged weapons instead of just running in and bashing at things with your sword (at least in the 3-D era games) is scaling back Courage just enough to not be Stupid Brave, and having the wisdom to use only as much courage as you have power (and skill, which is sort of a combination of power and wisdom... Well, learnedness) to back it up? ...Interesting. Incidentally, in Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker, when Zelda participated in the final battle, Zelda had gained courage and power from Impa's training/being Sheik and confronting Ganondorf/being Tetra, respectively. While Ganondorf hid out in his castle and kept making stupid mistakes, that it. This goes well with the interpretation that Ganon(dorf) keeps throwing the Triforce out of balance, because he's not balanced (being the person trying to acquire it).
- In Skyward Sword Link is able to obtain the full Triforce (first time this has ever been shown to happen in the 3D era if I'm not mistaken). And it's explained that it's because of the trials he was put though during the game (in the dungeons and temples) which helped him gain/acquire and balance all three Triforce virtues. So while Courage may be the virtue he hold the most in abundance at the start, it's though his adventures that he's able to gain the other two virtues and balance all three. It's just Ganondorf is usually the one who gets to the Triforce first, causing it to split because his heart doesn't have that balance. . . and doing so before Link goes though the trials (again all the dungeons and temples) that would allow for Link to receive the whole Triforce.
- The Triforce split apart because Ganondorf's heart was unbalanced (had somebody of a pure heart got it first, then they could have gotten it whole). I always thought each piece went to the person who valued that respective virtue the most. Ganondorf wanted absolute power, so he received the Triforce of Power. Zelda was a Princess and was likely learning how to properly rule a country, and therefore held Wisdom in the highest regard. Link, as evidenced by the carving on his tree-house in Ocarina of Time, was always willing to find the Courage to stand up against evil. Just because he received the Triforce of Courage doesn't mean Link wasn't strong nor smart, it just meant that he believed being brave was the most important thing. Throughout his trials, he realized that, while having the courage to stand against evil was all well and good, one also needed the strength to fight it and the wisdom to outsmart it. By the time he reached the Triforce, he believed that all three virtues were equally important and therefore was able to put the Triforce back together. The whole Dark World mess was simply the Triforce granting Ganondorf's wish to have a realm to rule, twisted by his selfish desires, and had no correlation to the virtues he believed in.
It has been confirmed that the Legend of Zelda universe's timeline is split up into three parts: A Link to the Past is a timeline where Ganondorf was victorious; Majora's Mask was the beginning of the timeline of the Child!Link, where the Sages capture Ganondorf and imprison him in the Twilight Realm; Wind Waker takes place centuries after the Adult!Link timeline. The brilliance comes when you realize what happened in Ocarina of Time, and the symbolism of it: the Triforce was split into three pieces. Just like the Triforce, the timeline split into three piece, each timeline corresponding with a specific character, and a specific Triforce piece: A Link to the Past is the "Triforce of Power/Ganondorf" Timeline; Wind Waker is the "Triforce of Wisdom/Zelda" timeline, and Majora's Mask is the "Triforce of Courage/Link" timeline.
I thought it was odd for Nintendo to pull the whole Demon revives Demon King using Zelda's body plot thread two games in a row (Spirit Tracks and Skyward Sword). Then I realized that they were both the first game in their respected land. New Hyrule had to imprison and later kill off a Demon King before prospering just like Old Hyrule did.
When in Ocarina Of Time you finally get to fight Ganondorf, chances are you won't defeat him at first try. So what happens when you get a game over? Simple, you've just created the alternate part where the Downfall Timeline takes place!
- Linking in to this, the first three games released, Link to the Past, Legend of Zelda and Adventure of Link, are all in the same line after the timeline split. This line is the "fail" line. Another term for "fail" is "not win", as such, the only reason these games took place is because you hadn't yet beaten Ganon in Ocarina of Time, because it hadn't been made yet.

Fridge Logic

After the NES Legend of Zelda games, we were introduced to denominations of rupees. Green is 1, blue is 5, red is 20, purple is 50, silver is 100, and gold is 200. I believe purple and below are the same size. So it begs the question, if Link has a wallet of fixed size, how come he doesn't toss the lesser value rupees away and stuff his wallet full of ones of higher denomination? Never mind the loose change problem, since most of Hyrule seems to sell their stuff in multiples of 10.
Obviously, the name Link holds the symbolism that different persons with different personalities from different ages and different cultures can still be extremely similar if they have at least one important thing in common; in each Link's case, they have a big sword and the courage to do heroic things with it. (And the urge to chop grass or throw chickens, needs confirmation). This gets more important when three timelines 'Link' to the Ocarina of Time, proving that one Link can inspire three different generations. And like any other link, it's possible for all three to, one day, connect to a single chain at the end...

Fridge Horror

There's always been an emphasis on how dangerous it is to use power without wisdom and courage, but the Triforce is also stated repeated to be a True Neutral object, so it always bugged me that there was this background message that power=bad while wisdom and courage=good. But then I looked back at Ocarina of Time and realized that wisdom and courage played just as much of a role as power in sparking the main conflict of the series. Look at the events that led to the Triforce being split. Zelda was wise to see what Ganondorf wanted and to try to preempt him, but she lacked the power to act against him and she lacked the courage both to act for herself and to look at herself and examine what how she might be wrong. Link had courage to spare as he went about collecting the spiritual stones, but he lacked the power to really change anything in what was going to happen, instead playing right into Ganondorf's hands and he lacked the wisdom to figure that he might not actually be doing the right thing. Wisdom without power or courage and courage without wisdom or power are what led to Ganondorf getting the Triforce. This changed in the Time Skip because they did grow through their experiences. Zelda gained the courage to face herself and her failings and to take action for herself instead of sending someone else to do her dirty work, while Link gained the wisdom to see where he went wrong and to know when to back of instead of charging forward while both gained the power to put all of this into real action and change. But Ganondorf didn't change. He has gained no wisdom or courage from his experience. So the series really does a better job than it looks in showing that it really is all about human weakness causing these things instead of some divine force.
With the newly released official timeline with the Hyrule Historia, we find out that Four Swords Adventures takes place after the timeline split, and takes place in the Child Timeline, whereas Minish Cap and Four Swords took place before the timeline split. Vaati was defeated for good in Four Swords Adventures. But that's only in the Child Timeline. Vaati is still sealed in the Adult Win Timeline and the Adult Lose Timeline. The Adult Win Timeline has pretty much left Vaati behind under the ocean in Old Hyrule. However, the Adult Lose Timeline still takes place in Hyrule, and with Ganon dead for good in that timeline(unless his minions get Link's blood when he finally dies of old age, if they're still around), that leaves a main antagonist spot wide open for Mr. Wind Mage.
In relation to the timeline Fridge Brilliance above, the "defeated hero" timeline could have come about because when Link goes back in time, he seals the Door to the Master Sword. This could mean one of two things: he never went into the future (which isn't quite so bad), or, possibly, his future self that was locked in there never got out. Sealing the Door of Time doomed one version of Link to float in a timeless void forever.

The manga series

Four Swords Adventures At first, the story seems to be a retelling of the game's plot, with some changes for the sake of the narrative: (1) Link is a hero who thinks he is too cool to work with others. (2) Some Cloning Blues are thrown in for drama Link when is separated into four, each with a different personality, and none of them happy about working as a team. (3) The Links are separated in order to show more of the game's dungeons fewer pages. (4) Vio's betrayal allows the authors to showcase one of the battle fields from Vs. mode. (5) All four Links finally work together to defeat the Big Bad. (6) They become one again, but now with a better understanding of how to work on a team. On the surface, a good but not exact retelling of the game. Here's where the Fridge Brilliance comes in: I noticed the picture above the author's notes at the end of the manga showed both authors playing the game; one was drawn with a happy look on her face, reminiscent of Red Link, saying "I'll leave this part to you..." to the other author, who wore an aggravated expression not unlike Blue Link when stuck babysitting Red Link. "Some of the situations in the manga might be on what happened between the authors while they were playing," I thought. With this in mind, I found another way to read the story: it follows four friends as they play through Four Swords Adventures. (1) Each player has played Zelda games before, and are used to playing as Link completely on their own. (2) Not being used to working with others in a Zelda game, the players get in each other's way and grumble about how it was easier to play single-player Zelda games. (3) The players each take a turn playing the game on their own, at first glad to be rid of the other players, but come to realize that it is hard to play Adventure Mode solo. (4) Three of the players want to go back to multiplayer Adventure Mode, but the other (Vio) wants to play Vs. Mode instead. (5) All four players work together to beat Adventure Mode. (6) Each player goes on to play single-player Zelda games again, but now they function as a team in multiplayer games.

The original NES game

The infamous "Grumble, Grumble..." screen suddenly makes sense when you realize that's not what the monster's saying, it's the sound his stomach is making. He's hungry, so naturally the solution is to give him food.

The cartoon show

Fridge Logic

Why aren't there any servants in the entire castle? One episode surrounds the idea of Link being forced to clean the castle (and him playing sick to get out of it), if there were servants who did the cleaning the crisis for the episode could have all been avoided.
- True. However, you're applying logic to a show that is clearly devoid of it.

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