Personally, I don’t know how anyone could dislike Tetra. She’s a sassy, swashbuckling smart mouth, a leader of a crew of fearsome pirates, and holder of the Triforce of Wisdom with a history of royal lineage. What’s not to love?
Tetra returned in Phantom Hourglass but was only featured in a stained glass window in the following sequel, Spirit Tracks. Believe it or not, Spirit Tracks‘ director did not share this affection for the character, and her absence from the game is no coincidence.
In an Iwata Asks interview from 2009, the late Nintendo President Satoru Iwata discussed the making of Spirit Tracks with Producer Eiji Aonuma and Director Daiki Iwamoto. When Iwata brought up Tetra’s role in Phantom Hourglass, the trio inevitably talked about her absence from Spirit Tracks.
Aonuma recalls being surprised at Iwamoto’s decision during the game’s development. “Back when I heard the story’s rough outline, I asked, ‘What? Why isn’t Tetra making an appearance?’ And he said, ‘Well… I don’t like Tetra all that much.’”
Are you as shocked as I am at this man’s distaste? We’re not the only ones. Aonuma continues, explaining his response to this act of blasphemy. “‘What do you mean, you don’t like her!?’ ‘Don’t cause me trouble, now. You mustn’t say things like that…’ That’s about how the exchange went. (laughs)”
Before we brand Iwamoto as some kind of monster, however, he does lay out his reasoning. “But it wasn’t that I didn’t like her so much as that I was enthusiastic about characters in my own way,” Iwamoto explains. “I was searching for something that hadn’t been portrayed much, and there was Princess Zelda. At first, we hadn’t settled on the sub-character, and I discussed several things with the staff. Then we thought that, since they’re adventuring together, it would be better to have it be a girl.
“But, you know, we couldn’t have it be Tetra every time, so we started to consider introducing a new character,” Iwamoto continues. “The thing is, though, it’s ‘The Legend of Zelda.’ I thought it wouldn’t be much fun if Princess Zelda didn’t show up and if we brought in some unrelated princess instead, so, in the end, I asked for permission to use Princess Zelda.”
This makes me wonder if the choice to remove Tetra also influenced the decision to set the game 100 years after its predecessor, Phantom Hourglass. After all, the easiest way to remove a major character in a direct sequel — other than simply killing them off — would be to age them.
Tetra may have dodged the chopping block in Phantom Hourglass, but one of her lines of dialogue didn’t make the cut. The pirate-turned-princess was also used as a model placeholder for Midna in the development of Twilight Princess.
While Tetra was not invited to join Spirit Tracks’ main cast, the character came back years later and stronger than ever in Hyrule Warriors, armed with a cutlass and a magic-infused pistol. It’s just like our stubborn sea rover to refuse to let the other adventurers have all the fun, and I wouldn’t be surprised nor unhappy if Tetra were to weigh anchor again in the future of the Zelda series.
