I’ve spent the last few months leisurely playing my way through The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I made it all the way to the final boss fight with Ganondorf, but, too weakened by Gloom, I died pretty much immediately. So, I loaded an earlier save point, stocked up on better supplies, and went, once more, into the breach.
Right as I came to the point-of-no-return, though, I stopped and saved my game. The intention had been to return the next day, or the next weekend at the latest, but that was almost a month ago now. I just … don’t feel like finishing the game. I’m not 100% sure why. Part of it, I think, is because I’m reasonably certain I’m still underprepared, and searching and grinding for more sundelions and gourmet meat feels like a drag. Another part is because Starfield comes out next week and I’ve never been great at splitting my video-game obsessions.
But I think the largest factor is one of story. To put it bluntly, there’s nothing left in Tears of the Kingdom. An epilogue, probably, and Zelda un-becoming an eternal light dragon, but that’s it. And with Legend of Zelda, especially, the story is kind of secondary to puzzles and nostalgia and, I don’t know, vibes.
Don’t get me wrong; I really enjoyed the game, more so even than its predecessor, Breath of the Wild. There were some moments — like that first leap off Sky Island — that genuinely took my breath way. If nothing else, it was a very, very pretty game. And I really enjoyed it, for what it was, and for as long as I could.
But whatever happens at the end of Tears of the Kingdom won’t really matter. Ganondorf — or Ganon, or some other version of him — will always be back to terrorize the Kingdom of Hyrule. Link will always take up his sword, probably following some sort of memory loss, and Zelda will always be taken out of the equation for one reason or another. Maybe it’ll be a year after the events of this game, or ten, or a millennia before. (Seriously, the continuity for the Legend of Zelda series is a mess.) But it will always be the same, and I don’t need to spend an afternoon fighting an overpowered demon-king to know how this story ends.
If there’s anything approximating a metaphor in the above, it’s probably that the journey is more important than the destination. Especially when that destination was predetermined by Japanese game designers forty years ago. That last bit’s probably not as universal a sentiment, but who knows, right? If it turns out we are living in some kind of Matrix-like simulation, who’s to say Shigeru Miyamoto isn’t the architect behind everything?
The precarious nature of reality aside, I’m trying to be more aware of that whole journey/destination axiom as it applies to my life. Despite outwardly appearing to be some kind of adolescently-stunted hippie drifter, I do tend to be very goal-oriented. And when a particular goal doesn’t get achieved — and it often doesn’t, because, like Zelda asking Link to fight an immortal demon-king with half a rusted sword, I’m not good at setting actually attainable objectives — I find myself adrift. Lost. Plummeting through a sky of my own making without so much as a handhold.
But, much like falling off the back of a dragon, there’s no reason to panic. Like Link, all I need to need to do is deploy my glider and take in the view. And even if I hit the ground a little too hard, I can always try again. Or not. I mean, if I can create my own ridiculous goals, I can sure as hell let them go, too.
Before we go, some updates!
Pre-orders for both of Atomic Carnival Books’ inaugural anthologies are now live! Grab yourself a copy of Open All Night and Greater Than His Nature while the grabbing’s good! I don’t know how many copies I’m going to keep on hand after publication, so now’s definitely the time to get your orders in if you want to cut out the corporate middlemen and support a small publisher.
Speaking of small publishers, I’ve got a story forthcoming in Soul Jar from Forest Avenue Press. You can pre-order your copy of that anthology by clicking right here. There’s a lot of good and weird stuff in there, including my story of trauma, friendship, and the hazards of summoning otherdimensional cereal-box hyena-gods.
If pre-orders and paying for things aren’t your style, then good news! My story “No More Wars Left to Fight” in the second issue of Impossible Worlds is now available to read for free. Give it, and the rest of the issue, a read. You won’t be disappointed.