Growing up can lead to all sorts of strange realizations. That the people you observed at a young age, either in real life or in various forms of entertainment, were discussing things you didn’t completely understand at the time. Or that certain tasks that seemed insurmountable when you were a child are actually quite simple. Or that being an adult is not as fun as being a kid, and you should have worked harder on that machine meant to stop the aging process, no matter how many times people told you it was “just a cardboard box” and “wouldn’t work.”
But today, I want to talk about one of the more amusing aspects of aging: the different perspective that comes with physical growth. When you become an adult, you learn that certain places or things that seemed enormous when you were five years old are, in reality, average or even rather small. With that in mind, I’d like to share a story about a mind-blowing size-related realization I had while playing Ocarina of Time.
I, along with just about all video game enthusiasts at the time, played Ocarina of Time when it first came out. I was young, so every boss was difficult, every dungeon a massive crawl, and each new area a revelation of unexplored wilderness. But something important changed when Link aged seven years: the world of Hyrule suddenly got a whole lot smaller. Now we could climb ledges that had stymied the younger version of our hero. It felt as if I was getting a sneak peek at what adulthood would be like.
Little did I know that years later, I would recognize that some elements of this game — namely, two bosses and one key item — are, indeed, far less imposing than they appeared to my childhood self.
First and foremost, we have the game’s very first boss, the Parasitic Armored Arachnid better known as Queen Gohma.
I’m not sure if it was the N64 graphics or just the general fear of confronting a human-sized spider, but little kid Mike was convinced that Gohma towered over Link, a literal Goliath brought down by our tiny but mighty Slingshot. But then, when I played the 3DS version as an adult, something dawned on me: Link was basically the same size as Gohma anytime she wasn’t doing the spider equivalent of standing on her tiptoes! I have to admit, that rattled me a bit; the realization made me burst out laughing, and Link got smacked by Gohma as a result.
One of the later bosses, however, was a far larger threat. And in this case, I can’t place the blame on outdated graphics; I was just worried in general. I mean, come on, who isn’t going to be intimidated by a legendary dragon?
It is easy to get caught up in the thrill of the battle and see Volvagia as a massive beast capable of swallowing Gorons in a single bite, but once you zoom in, it becomes obvious that the dragon is actually pretty small. Sure, it may be long, but it’s also very skinny with tiny little arms and a head that only looks huge because of the flames shooting out of it. If it wasn’t for the fire in the arena and the frightening tales the player has been told about the dragon, I’m pretty sure Volvagia wouldn’t even stand out in Hyrule Field. In fact, it’s quite possible that King Dodongo is larger, so this mighty dragon would only be the third largest being on Death Mountain. This realization actually forced me to pause during the fight, as I was struggling to maintain my composure. I had to come to grips with the fact that I was basically playing Whack-a-Mole against a flying fire snake no larger than the hammer I was whacking it with!
The third and final size-related epiphany I had involved Biggoron, the colossal behemoth of Death Mountain. And no, I’m not trying to say that Biggoron himself does not live up to his name; he is, indeed, large and in-charge. Instead, it was my impression of the massive, game-changing Biggoron’s Sword that changed. When you stop to think about it, you realize that, in his hands, the sword to end all swords is more akin to a toothpick than an actual weapon. How weird is that?
But even as I begin to recognize that the illusion of size warped my perception of Ocarina of Time as a kid, my love for the game and the land of Hyrule depicted in it has not diminished in the slightest. The only real things that have changed are that I no longer fear Gohma or Volvagia, and now, whenever I embark on the epic quest for the Biggoron’s Sword, I remember that something that looks gigantic to me might look tiny to someone else.
It also makes me question how much that tiny vial of eyedrops could really help a guy as tall as a mountain, but hey, sometimes you just have to chock it up to magic.
