The relationship between Link and Zelda always tends to be the same in most games. Link is from a small village while Zelda grows up in royalty. The two meet by some twist of fate, and Zelda gives Link his grand quest. Within this, it’s often difficult to really see any sort of relationship between the two outside of needing each other for a common goal.
Of course, this isn’t the case at all in The Wind Waker or Skyward Sword. Both games take the preconceived ideas of their relationship and do something unique with it. Tetra being Zelda is one of my personal favorite plot twists in the series, as I hadn’t even considered that a possibility. Yet I found myself caring more for that incarnation of Zelda than I had in any of the other games until that point.
Then I played Skyward Sword and everything changed.
I’ll be honest — Skyward Sword isn’t anywhere close to being my favorite Zelda game. Despite that, I believe the game has one of the strongest openings in the series. We see from the get-go that Zelda and Link have an established friendship together, as well as Zelda having a very strong and upfront personality as seen by how she defends Link from the local bully Groose.
This made me so happy to see. I eagerly looked forward to seeing more interactions with Zelda because it finally felt like there was going to be more to her than just being a regular princess in distress. Not only that, the reasoning behind saving her becomes much more personal, as we get to see firsthand the friendship these two characters share.
The established friendship between Link and Zelda was not missed by the community, as there is clearly tons of artwork portraying the two together. Christina Gardner paints us a picture which might as well be right out of the game. She captures the bright and vibrant colors of the world so well. Both characters have their personalities shine in this picture, as Christina expertly uses facial expressions and hand gestures, which really shows off each character’s individuality; Zelda being bright, cheerful, and talkative, while Link listens to his dear friend, and yet seemingly in a sort of daze as if he’s about to start daydreaming.
Art is a very powerful tool. The conveyance of emotions that can be shown on just a simple canvas is immense and near infinite. Though a relatively simple idea, this work here shows a mastery of conveying that sense of emotion and friendship. I’m always charmed by the simple-yet-powerful artworks, as I find those to have a lot of depth to them in their directness. Christina here has shown that depth in this fan art, and I’m always amazed at the works that fans create for this series.
