Ever since playing it for the first time nearly 20 years ago, I’ve been trying to come to
terms with the ending of Link’s Awakening.
There are a lot of things about this title that make it a unique entry to the Zelda series,
but, to me at least, the biggest is that it’s the only Zelda game where Link doesn’t really
feel like a hero.
By and large the inhabitants of Koholint island seem happy.
Sometimes the residents fall victim to raids from moblins or curses from the lost woods,
but there isn’t a clear impending danger that threatens their way of life.
They don’t really need saving.
A wizard doesn’t usurp the throne, the moon isn’t about to crash into the village, a
princess, friend, or sister has not been kidnapped.
The conflict is that Link needs to get off of the island and the only way to do so is
by waking the Wind Fish, so that is what he sets off to do.
In Awakening, Link is trying to save himself.
It is his way of life that is in jeopardy.
This is a pretty interesting departure from the typical Zelda formula.
Any help he does give those on the island is secondary and really just a means to an
end.
At first, at least.
Really, it is the inhabitants of the island who help Link more than the other way around.
Without them, he would never be able to leave.
This setup in and of itself is intriguing because the frame is so different than any
of the games that came before or after it.
But it manages to push things even further as it goes.
What begins as a simple enough story about getting off of an island in the middle of
nowhere becomes a lot more complicated once the truth of the Wind Fish’s nature is revealed..
Through warnings from the various bosses he defeats and the information shown on the mural
in the ancient ruins, Link learns that the island is just a dream of the Wind Fish, and
awakening it will end that dream.
For Link to return to his way of life, he needs to sacrifice the way of life for every
character he’s met—for all of those people who have helped in some way, big or small.
In Link’s Awakening, Link is the threat.
And this is where stuff gets a little muddy.
The game asks the question: are lives that come from dreams as valuable as ones that
don’t?
While in a real world context, the obvious answer would be no, they’re not, it is far
more complex in Link’s Awakening.
The Wind Fish’s dream is not a normal one.
Real dreams are fluid, shifting from one scene to the next with little rhyme or reason.
If this were a normal dream, Marin would turn into Link’s math professor halfway through
the game and tell him that he missed his final exam.
And, yes, I’ve been out of school for years now, and I still get this kind of nightmare.
It never ends.
In the Wind Fish’s dream though, everything stays consistent.
There are certainly oddities, but things mostly make sense and feel like life.
At least, like life in a video game.
The specifics of how the dream works are never solidified, but it is clearly more real than
the dreams of a typical person.
The mere fact that, Link, an outside force, is able to enter the dream and interact with
it, shows there is deeper magic to it all.
The Wind Fish almost seems to be a deity.
He has the power to create worlds and people that feel real.
Of the first four Zelda games, the cast of Awakening is more distinct and memorable than
those of any of the other titles, and even Link’s relationship with Marin is stronger
than the one he shares with Zelda.
A Link To The Past ushered in characters with more depth, but Awakening took things a step
further and focused even more on Link building relationships with them.
Marin is really the first character in the series to have this level of depth.
She is not only lovable and endearing, but she has dreams of her own—dreams of getting
off the island and singing for everyone in the world.
This is a trend that the series has built upon and expanded greatly because it makes
players feel far more connected to the people and the world they are trying to save.
In Awakening one of Link’s quests involves meeting the various inhabitants of the island
and trading items with them in order to progress, giving Link and the player the chance to meet
with the interesting cast of characters.
There is also a section where Link and Marin travel together, and if the player decides
to explore the island with her, they are rewarded with a handful of charming moments between
the two, solidifying their relationship.
By structuring the game in this way, it gets players to better understand what will be
lost if they continue.
These aren’t just characters in the background, they are ones that Link and the player have
gotten to know.
This chips away at the notion that the player is doing the right thing.
Link’s motivation to leave is not the only thing driving the story forward.
Although it isn’t clear until the end, the Wind Fish is actively trying to be awoken.
The Owl who constantly stops by to ask Link if he would kindly wake the Wind Fish, is
acting on the orders of the Wind Fish.
What’s even more interesting is that he does so by deceiving Link.
It is hard to know where the Owl begins and the Wind Fish ends, so it is impossible to
say whether or not the Owl knew everything about the nature of the dream.
However, given that he doesn’t mention the existence of nightmares within the dream until
after Link defeats them, along with saying he is the guardian of the dream world, it
isn’t a massive leap to assume that he probably knew what would happen.
So, when the Owl tells Link that, yes, it is a dream, but no one knows whether or not
the island will disappear this seems like a lie told to convince Link to keep going.
Link spends a lot of time becoming a part of the island, and if he knew for sure that
waking the Wind Fish would cause everything to disappear, to cause Marin to disappear,
he might not want to wake the Wind Fish.
He might rather stay.
Of course, the player can technically choose to do this by just turning off the game before
beating the final boss, but that isn’t really satisfying because it doesn’t lead to an
actual resolution they get to see.
For the game to truly end, Link needs to awaken the Wind Fish and let Koholint Island vanish.
Certainly there is a moral argument that the Wind Fish’s life is more valuable than the
lives of those within the dream, but regardless of that, the Wind Fish is not the one Link
spends time with throughout the adventure.
The Wind Fish is not the one whose wishes Link hears.
The Wind Fish is not the one players care about.
So whether or not it is the right thing to do, it’s upsetting.
For the longest time though, I felt that I must be missing something, that I must not
have understood the story entirely, and this disconnect stems from the final cutscene.
Link, stranded in the middle of the ocean, looks up to see the Wind Fish flying overhead
and he smiles, as a triumphant rendition of the Ballad of the Wind Fish plays.
Link’s reaction in those final moments differed so greatly from mine when I first saw, and
I always questioned why the developers chose to end the game on that note.
It could be as simple as him feeling relieved that the Wind Fish may be able to save him
from his current predicament of floating in the middle of the ocean; it could be him being
happy to know that the dream of Koholint Island wasn’t his own but rather one shared with
someone else, making everything from the dream live on through the Wind Fish; it could be
him accepting that all things end, and the only thing one can really do is remember the
past with love and move forward.
It could be a lot of things.
It could also be nothing.
Link’s Awakening is one of those games that I have played during various stages of my
life and gotten something new from it each time.
When I was 8, I thought it was sad that Link had to leave his friends—that no matter
what, he’d only ever be left with the memory of them.
Today though, I see Link as someone who needed to make a nearly impossible choice where no
matter what, other people, people who didn’t deserve it, would lose, and even though the
choice benefits him in some ways, it hurts him in a thousand others.
Every time I’ve finished Link’s Awakening, I’ve left feeling a little empty.
Like, despite trying my best I only ended up making things worse.
And personally, that is what I love about Awakening.
I adore games that have the ability to elicit this kind of an emotional response.
In general, Zelda games do a good job of creating stories that resonate with players, and it
has long been one that explores meaningful themes that extend far beyond the games themselves.
Majora’s Mask explores grief and legacy, Ocarina of Time looks at innocence and the
loss of it, Breath of the Wild tackles failure and acceptance.
Nearly every Zelda game has a core theme it examines, and the way that theme is typically
addressed involves Link conquering his obstacles and becoming a hero who saves the day.
Awakening does things a little differently though.
Link’s problems aren’t solved by simply turning into a hero.
It asks more from players than that.
It asks them to make a choice with greater complexity than right versus wrong; it asks
them to learn to leave things behind; it asks them to sometimes be the bad guy; in a weird
way that wasn’t clear to me until I became one myself, it asks them to be an adult.
And sometimes that means accepting that everything ends and still being able to look up, and
smile at the dreams of days past.
Ey.
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