Hey everyone!
Welcome back to Top 10 Gaming.
Today we’re counting down the top 10 Zelda Romances.
Or rather, the top 10 Link ships.
Ships you ask?
What’s that?
Well, if you’re not in the know, shipping is when fans root for certain romantic relationships
in a piece of fiction, regardless of the medium.
So in other words, these are all the romances between Link and other Zelda characters that
fans REALLY want to happen.
So without further hesitation, let’s dive into the hypothetical.
Starting off our list
10 Link and Marin The shipping of Link and Marin’s relationship,
similar to most ships on this list, is derived from a whole lot of subtext.
Marin, a young villager, first appears in Link’s Awakening, when she saves Link on
the Toronbo Shores after he was shipwrecked.
Afterwards, there’s several moments that fans felt implied some sort of chemistry between
Marin and our hero, or at least an affection on Marin’s part.
When they share a moment on a cliff overlooking the sea, Marin says that the cliff should
be their secret place.
Marin also confesses that she wants to know everything about him.
And to top it all off, after Link rescues her on the bridge at the Tal Tal Mountains,
she’s about to confess something to him when her father interrupts.
Missed opportunity, or unrequited love?
9 Link and Saria Here we’ve got a ship of what could have
been.
Saria is the one who gives Link the Fairy Ocarina in Ocarina of Time, and tells him
to play it so that he will think of her and decide to return to the forest.
Then, when he’s an adult, after completing the Forst Temple, Mido gives Link a message.
She says, I quote, “"I made a promise to Saria...
If Link came back, I would be sure to tell him that Saria had been waiting for him...
Because Saria...really... liked..." but doesn’t finish the sentence.
Ah, the one that got away.
8 Link and Ilia Ilia first appeared in Twilight Princess and
is the daughter of Mayor Bo.
If you thought the relationship between Marin and Link was jacked full of subtext, the ship
between him and Ilia is pretty much just based on warm smiles to one another.
He finds her taking care of Epona.
Smiles.
Wolf Link picks up on Ilia’s scent.
Smiles.
After Ilia recovers her memory, her and Link share a moment with Epona in the Ordon Spring.
AND WHAT HAPPENS?
WELL THEY SMILE.
Moving on.
7 Link and Malon While Link and Malon didn’t have much chemistry
in the games, that hasn’t stopped fans from shipping them due to the non-canon manga stories
they’re featured in.
The two share a moment over Lon Lon Milk.
Link saves Malon, to which she responds that she was waiting to be saved by a prince, and
not a fairy child.
But she seems quick to change her mind; she begins to ponder whether Link is her prince
after all, and comes to the conclusion that he, in fact, is.
6 Link and Ruto Princess Ruto is Zora royalty, and we first
meet her in Ocarina of Time.
She’s actually mentioned as a historical figure in Breath of the Wild.
Ruto gazes at Link intently at one point, causing him to fall from a tree trunk into
Zora’s Fountain.
She follows him into the water, and comments that he looked cool when he was fighting.
She then pulls a quick one on our hero by giving him the Spiritual Stone of Water, which
is the Zora’s form of an engagement ring.
Which she later reminds him about inside the Water Temple, saying she never forgot the
vows the two made seven years ago to one another.
Eek.
5 Link and Peatrice In Skyword Sword, if you speak to the Item
Check girl enough, she’ll develop a bit of a crush on you.
Turns out her name is Peatrice, and if you keep it up, she’ll invite you over to her
house at night.
Once you go, she’ll start asking Link if he’s in love with her.
That escalated quickly.
But fear not, even if you say yes she’ll think you’re not ready for a relationship
because of your mission.
4 Link and Mipha (Me-fa) Mipha is one of the newer ships from Breath
of the Wild, and is the Princess of the Zora during the game’s time.
She also happens to be the Zora champion.
We see in flashbacks that she was a childhood friend of Link’s, and was incredibly loyal
to him.
And during present day times, although she has passed away, her brother Sidon makes it
clear that she had feelings for Link, and he was always in her heart.
She makes Link a custom piece of armour, which is something Zora princesses do for the man
they choose to be their husband.
3 Link and Midna Midna is one of the more popular ships with
Link, and her first appearance was in Twilight Princess back in 2006.
Aside from making snarky remarks about Link and Ilia, Midna ‘s chemistry with Link stems
from the fact that she had to team up with him to battle a “greater evil” that she
couldn’t defeat alone.
They’re opposites in a way; she has a dark nature, she’s cynical and has a mischievous
sense of humour.
The two get a bit physical at times, too.
Midna puts her hand on his cheek when asking Link to help her find the Mirror of Twilight.
Link holds her in his arms after she awakens from breaking the Hyrule Castle’s barrier.
And the two have quite the painful goodbye.
2 Link and Prince Sidon Another recent ship to come out from Breath
of the Wild, and one that took the internet by storm, we have Mipha’s younger brother
Prince Sidon.
His ship with Link has become ridiculously popular.
If you don’t ship it, you’re probably at least enjoying the memes about it.
So Prince Sidon is Zora royalty, and he’s pretty much adored by all.
He has a literal fan club in the game, he’s a celebrated hero, and everyone praises him
for his talent, good looks, and positive attitude, all of which Link is very privy to.
This has spawned some hard core shipping of the two characters, with a lot of fan art
emphasizing their obvious size difference and the Prince’s abs.
1 Link and Zelda These two are as close as you can get to an
actual canon relationship in the Zelda games.
It’s been implied many times that the two share romantic feelings for one another, stemming
all the way back to the first Legend of Zelda.
At the end of the game, Zelda calls Link a true hero, and a curtain starts to fall.
We see them moving closer to one another.
Later, during the Oracle series, Zelda gives him a kiss on the cheek and a little heart
floats above his head.
Their relationship grows more complex with each addition to the franchise, and most recently,
in Breath of the Wild, we see that Zelda, upon meeting Link, didn’t like him at first.
She reminds him of her own failures, and feels they can’t connect due to him being so stoic.
He eventually saves her life, which opens up her eyes, and the two are seen throughout
flashbacks bonding.
There’s even a moment where she wants the Great Deku Tree to give him a message, but
the Tree stops her, saying it would be better to come from her.
While the team behind the Zelda games haven’t outright said that the two had romantic feelings
for one another, they haven’t denied it either, and have stated they are open to the
possibilities and don’t know what the future holds.
There we have it friends!
Which of these ships do you support?
Are there other characters outside of Link that you’d want to see hook up in the Zelda
universe?
Give us a shout in those comments below!
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