A couple of hours into Phantom Hourglass, the concept of who Linebeck was as a person no longer came as a shock. He was greedy, selfish, cowardly, conniving, and cowardly. “Cowardly” warrants the repetition. All of this in mind, when the time came for me to rescue him from the fury of a vengeful warrior, my interest in actually helping him was difficult to find.
Jolene was the warrior’s name. I, at first, thought she was a Gerudo. Maybe she was, but it didn’t matter. What did matter was that Jolene was furious with Linebeck. When she and her ship came into view for the first time, and the music changed and our ship was suddenly the prey of some apparent pirate, I knew Linebeck had done something wrong. Here was another mess of his for me to clean up.
(Before I continue, if you don’t know the title’s reference, here you go.)
I wasn’t expecting the shift to the bowels of the S.S. Linebeck after Jolene had caught up to me, and I was even less expecting to duel her. She didn’t have much of an opinion of Link, but she wouldn’t stand for his refusal to surrender the ship’s intrepid captain, who was hiding in a crate to the side of our impromptu arena. Linebeck’s hiding like a Hanna-Barbara cartoon character was funny, but this entire scenario was surprising and confusing, like watching as a friend spills soda all over someone’s couch and then needing to lie about it to protect them. And I am, sadly, a terrible liar.
She put up a good fight, I expected as much. She seemed like a no-nonsense, diligent person who was trained for combat — which made me wonder how she even came to know someone like Linebeck, who probably didn’t know what “diligent” meant. But I guess Link’s entire adventure was essentially based around Linebeck needing others to do everything for him, so he must have a knack for surrounding himself with the right people for the wrong reasons.
Jolene left after I taught her the important life lesson of how Link is Link, and Linebeck slithered out of his hiding spot. He wouldn’t give worthwhile details about who she was and why she wanted him, but I was confident that Jolene would not be willing to give up after only one attempt.
I was right. I was very, very right.
I encountered her a few more times, though each time was a repeat of the first duel. Her persistence was impressive, and her anger never passed into malevolence, so I give her credit for her control and determination. It was clear she wasn’t a villain. I couldn’t say the same about Linebeck though. Where was my “rat him out” option?
Jolene and I played our not-so-silly game throughout most of my adventure, but the time eventually came for our final encounter. I could sense it was coming. Yes, at a certain point — I think it was right after Jolene sent me a letter to challenge me to one last duel — I could definitely sense it was coming.
The tension I fabricated for myself carried me through most of this last duel, and that was a blessing. This battle was like meeting your long-lost sibling, but meeting them for the eighth time at the family Christmas party after the excitement had long since died. Jolene brought her full passion, her full intent to win. She was the sibling who brought a meticulously crafted, homemade Christmas gift. I was the one who brought a gift card for a restaurant she doesn’t live near.
Had Jolene made any changes to her strategy, this fight would have been more than me beating up a very frustrated and somewhat desperate person. But whether it was resolve or stubbornness, her strategy was my habit by this point. I dealt out my counterstrikes as she missed all her key charges and lunges, and once again I stood in disinterested victory over her.
Once she regained her composure, Jolene no longer displayed the same burning desire for revenge. She was keeping to her word that this was our final bout. She had enough honor to hold to that promise, which made me even further wonder why finding Linebeck was worth it for her. As she left the ship she made mention of my cowardly captain’s position in the crate before departing. I liked that. She could have had him at any time, and she made that known. Actually, she also made it known at the start of the fight. But she wanted to earn the right to confront him.
With Jolene gone for good, Linebeck finally told me the truth of his history with her. He had, unintentionally, at one point saved Jolene’s life, and the two traveled together for a while after. But Linebeck, never being one to deviate from his lack of standards, chose to destroy their partnership by stealing some treasure from her and running away.
Ever since that day, Jolene had pursued her treacherous cohort across the seas, but going from her parting words, it was clear that her desire to confront Linebeck stemmed from more than anger about stolen treasure. This at least was understood by Ciela, who had to inform Linebeck of how dense he was.
Jolene’s attachment to Linebeck was deeper and more uncomfortable in nature than I was willing to question, so I shifted my focus away from the weirdest relationship on the Great Sea and moved forward in my journey, and I did so with an even greater understanding of how amazing it was that almost all of the blame for every bad thing that had been happening to me could be laid at Linebeck’s feet.
