It’s funny when you think about all of the strange characters in Zelda games that turn out to be essential to Link’s progress across his adventures.
Without passing Niko’s silly rope-swinging challenge, Link can not obtain bombs in The Wind Waker in order to visit the great Water Spirit Jabun and obtain Nayru’s Pearl. Without playing hide-and-seek with the rascals of Clock Town, the Bombers, Link can not enter the Astral Observatory in Majora’s Mask, which in turn allows him to obtain the Moon’s Tear and gain access to the Clock Tower in order to confront the Skull Kid.
In Link’s Awakening, one of these unsung heroes is Sale, a blue, hat-wearing alligator who has an unhealthy obsession with canned food.
With his big sun hat, wagging tail, and welcoming grin, Sale is a very laidback character, heartily welcoming Link to his abode and casually referring to him as “friend.” He is the owner of Sale’s House O’ Bananas, an establishment on Toronbo Shores that seems to double as both his house and a banana store.
Sale appears to be a fun-loving dude, encouraging Link to ride the rapids. “Have you ever ridden the rapids on a raft? You can, near Tal Tal Heights! You ought to try it!” Sale also has a brother, Schule Donavitch, who is an artist residing in Animal Village. The fact that Sale chooses to live alone near the beach suggests he prefers a relaxed lifestyle and perhaps his own company, rather than living in a village near his sibling.
In fact, Sale seems to love the seaside setting so much that he even brought the beach inside his home, with a large portion of his house containing sand, palm trees, a large hammock, and what looks like a tasty, exotic fruit drink set on a table. At least, this is the case in the 2019 Nintendo Switch remake of Link’s Awakening, in which Sale’s crib received a notable upgrade. In the original game, he instead had a traditional bed placed in a pool of water. Well, he is an alligator, after all.
In any case, these so-called “Zelda theorists” on the internet waste their time deciding where Breath of the Wild fits in the series’ timeline. Meanwhile, a huge mystery remains unresolved: Which of Sale’s sleeping arrangements is canon, the bed or the hammock?
Of course, Sale’s choice of venue could also speak to his business tactics, as his home is placed right next to an abundant strain of banana trees. Funnily enough, despite his apparent reputation as a merchant and the fact that his name is literally “Sale,” he never offers to actually sell any bananas to Link — at least, not for rupees.
Upon first meeting Sale, Link learns that he also has a personal hobby, as well as a business. “Actually, my hobby is collecting rare and unusual canned food. My brother is an artist, so I guess strange hobbies run in the family!” The fact that Sale considers painting just as “strange” as canned food collecting is still funny to me after all these years. What’s even more amusing is the moment when Sale, despite all of the evidence so far that suggests he is a chilled character, loses his cool.
After obtaining dog food from YipYip, Link can present the can to Sale, who will immediately enter into an excited frenzy. “What’s that you have?! It’s canned food! For heaven’s sake, man, give that to ME!! PLEASE!” The game’s narration will then tell you, “He’s hysterical!” If you’re heartless enough to refuse the friendly alligator’s plea, he will even suggest that he may resort to begging for the can. When Link does hand over the dog food, Sale thanks him and promptly hurls the can into the air and lets it land in his giant open jaws. That’s right: he swallows the thing whole. So much for his legitimacy as a “collector.”
In exchange for his snack, Sale will give Link some of his bananas. This is where Sale’s role in the game becomes key to Link’s (and by extension, the player’s) progress, as alluded to earlier in the article. Link must give the bananas to Kiki the monkey, who will summon his friends to build a bridge to Kanalet Castle. Without access to the castle, Link can not recover Prince Richard’s Golden Leaves, thus finding the Slime Key that allows him to access the Key Cavern.
Dan Owsen, translator of the original Link’s Awakening, has even said that Sale is his favorite character. “I don’t know why he stuck in my mind,” Owsen said in a Nintendo Treehouse Live stream, “but I just thought it was very funny that there was an alligator named Sale who would sell you things!” Another fun fact about Sale? For whatever reason, his name is “Erwin” in the German version of the game.
Sale is a prime example of why Koholint Island is such a memorable, fun, and unique place to explore in the Zelda series. Despite having such a small amount of overall dialogue, and playing such a seemingly small role in the game, he manages to stand out as such a strange yet lovable character. Most importantly, his affinity for dog food is weirdly crucial in Link’s quest to awaken the Wind Fish, even though neither Sale nor Link knows it at the time. He’s a reminder that everything and everyone plays a role in fulfilling Link’s destiny time and time again across the series — no matter how bizarre their contributions may be — and it shows just how deep and diverse these fictional worlds really are.
