{"id":84024,"date":"2015-03-25T18:22:45","date_gmt":"2015-03-25T22:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=84024"},"modified":"2015-03-26T12:22:30","modified_gmt":"2015-03-26T16:22:30","slug":"its-a-me-ishmael","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/25\/its-a-me-ishmael\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s-A-Me, Ishmael"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can Nintendo tell a proper story<\/em>?<\/p>\n

\"The-Legend-of-Zelda-Wind-Waker\"<\/a>

From The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker<\/i>.<\/p><\/div>\n

Nintendo and Netflix may be developing a Legend of Zelda<\/em> TV series, the Wall Street Journal<\/em> recently reported<\/a>; or, as Time <\/em>reported even more recently<\/a>, they may not. Behind the will-they-or-won\u2019t-they speculation lies a more complicated question: Can <\/em>they? Do games like these bear expansion into full-fledged stories?<\/p>\n

At first glance, a Zelda <\/em>series seems like a savvy move: HBO\u2019s Game of Thrones<\/em> has proven that there\u2019s high demand for vaguely medieval fantasies, of which Zelda\u2014<\/em>a franchise that made its debut in 1986, and that\u2019s grown to include roughly seventeen games\u2014is a prime specimen. And since Nintendo has gradually been losing its share of the video-game market for the past fifteen years, it has every reason to find other ways to wring more value from its globally recognizable intellectual property.<\/p>\n

But games don\u2019t translate as easily to TV or film as you might think. In his 2010 apologia Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter<\/em>, perhaps the most thorough defense to date of video games as art, the journalist and essayist Tom Bissell explains why: \u201cThe video-game form,\u201d he writes, \u201cis incompatible with traditional concepts of narrative progression.\u201d Unlike books and films, games require challenge<\/em>, \u201cwhich frustrates the passing of time and impedes narrative progression.\u201d <\/p>\n

Not every video game tries to tell a story, either. Games based on sports, music, strategy, and puzzles often have no more plot than a round of chess\u2014although that hasn\u2019t stopped Hollywood from squeezing a feature-length film out of Tetris<\/em>, the classic puzzle game without even the semblance of a story.<\/p>\n

More often, though, games tell stories halfheartedly. I can\u2019t tell you why the Angry Birds on my phone are so angry, but I suspect it\u2019s easier to market the story of an interspecies feud than it would be to sell a functionally identical game featuring faceless polygons. Ideally, \u201cnarrative\u201d video games feature novel game-play mechanics and immersive worlds, but as the game designer Jesse Schell writes in The Art of Game Design<\/em>, these core features\u2014\u201cthe game\u201d\u2014are \u201cnot the experience.\u201d Rather, the full experience of a narrative game comes from the interaction among its mechanics, setting, and, yes, its story. In a dangerous world, even an artificial one, a rational actor might be better off just staying home. The story gives the player a reason to push ahead. As Bissell put it: \u201cTraps, after all, need bait.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Legend of Zelda<\/em> abounds in traps and bait\u2014and yet telling a coherent story has always been Nintendo\u2019s lowest priority. An added challenge in translating Zelda<\/em> in particular is that each game\u2019s story is as likely to contradict as build on the ones that came before it. So in telling The Legend of Zelda<\/em>, Netflix\u2019s prospective screenwriters must ask themselves: Which legend, and which Zelda?<\/p>\n

Unlike Game of Thrones<\/em> or The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, The Legend of Zelda<\/em> is not one expanding legend but perhaps a dozen contradictory story lines, whose recurring characters often bear the same names (Zelda, Link, Ganon) but with such divergent biographies that they could not possibly be the same people as their counterparts in other games. This confusion has existed since 1988\u2019s The Adventure of Link<\/em>, the second of the canonical Zelda<\/em> games, in which the protagonist is informed that while the Princess Zelda of the original game remains safe, her great-great-great-[\u2026]-grandmother\u2014also a princess, also called Zelda\u2014is still alive but cursed to eternal slumber, and gathering dust in a castle up the road. In some games the main characters are cartoonishly drawn children; in others they are handsome adults with the world\u2019s weight on their shoulders. At times Zelda is a helpless damsel, at others she is a warrior in her own right. Hearing the cries of fans seeking some semblance of order, in 2013 Nintendo published Hyrule Historia<\/em>, a best-selling book most noteworthy for a single page in which the games\u2019 makers laid out an official chronology unifying every title to date. It was a noble effort, but also an unholy mess: Nintendo\u2019s makeshift continuity diverges into three parallel realities according to whether and how a player dies in 1998\u2019s Ocarina of Time<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Contradictory plotlines haven\u2019t stopped comic books from becoming Hollywood juggernauts, but Nintendo also has a much deeper problem: its greatest stars are in many ways its least-developed characters. As the wider world of \u201cmature\u201d video games has become more and more film-like, with cinematic expositional \u201ccutscenes\u201d and A-list voice actors such as Kevin Spacey, Nintendo has controversially clung to the same text-based storytelling and silent protagonists found in its earliest games. Mario, for example, has yet to utter anything more substantial than his trademark \u201cIt\u2019s-a-me, Mario!\u201d and Zelda<\/em>\u2019s Link\u2014the player\u2019s avatar and the only character to appear in every Zelda<\/em> title, as Zelda herself is sometimes absent\u2014opens his mouth only to grunt and scream as he swings his sword. He is effectively a one-man hero with a thousand faces.<\/p>\n

Fans are dying to hear Link speak for himself, but there is a risk that they won\u2019t like what they hear. Just as Elijah Wood\u2019s turn as Frodo Baggins has gradually but permanently robbed me of the face I imagined when I first read The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, Mario and Link are such ciphers that any attempt to specify their personalities will almost certainly disappoint. In 1989, Nintendo licensed a thirteen-episode Legend of Zelda<\/em> cartoon series, but if it\u2019s remembered today at all, it\u2019s for Link\u2019s insufferable sarcasm and his condescending attitude toward the princess he\u2019s charged with protecting. Within literally the series\u2019 first minute<\/em>, Link catcalls Zelda with a crack about how nice her breasts look from the balcony above. Such antics don\u2019t exactly connote strapping heroism.<\/p>\n

Incredibly, the 1989 cartoon series is not even the worst attempt at characterizing Link and Zelda. In the early 1990s, Nintendo licensed the Zelda<\/em> brand to Philips for three games on its ill-fated CD-i console. Philips crammed its Zelda<\/em> games with animated and live-action cutscenes\u2014the most ambitious narrative effort in a Zelda<\/em> game at the time\u2014but the result was tragically amateurish. The live-action scenes could have been produced by an affluent high school\u2019s drama club, and the animation is about what you\u2019d expect from the Russian studios to which the job was outsourced just a year after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Throughout these games, Link wanders around muttering Zeldafied clich\u00e9s like \u201cI\u2019m so hungry, I could eat an Octorok!\u201d (Don\u2019t ask.) Zelda<\/em> fans mostly pretend these games were never made.<\/p>\n

\"linkfacesofevil610\"<\/a>

From Zelda<\/i>\u2019s awful outing on the CD-i.<\/p><\/div>\n

Nintendo\u2019s most notorious narrative failure by far, however, is the 1993 film adaptation Super Mario Bros.<\/em>, the noir<\/em>-ish tone of which was completely at odds with the lighthearted atmosphere of the games. As Blake J. Harris recounted last year in his industry history\u00a0Console Wars<\/em> (which itself is on its way to a film adaptation), pretty much everyone involved knew they were making a horrible movie. Budget overruns, for instance, forced the producers to drop a climactic scene in which Mario climbs the Brooklyn Bridge to defeat his antagonist by dropping a cartoon-like bomb on his head, a maneuver consistent with the mechanics of Mario<\/em> and similar games; instead, Harris writes, \u201cthey opted for the much cheaper alternative of Mario simply shooting King Koopa with a gun.\u201d Morale got so low that the film\u2019s costars, Bob Hoskins, and John Leguizamo, took to drinking on the set, which, according to Harris, \u201cmay or may not have been the reason behind Leguizamo crashing a car \u2026 which resulted in Hoskins having to wear a cast that could be seen in various scenes throughout the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s that word, legend<\/em>, implying that Zelda<\/em>\u2019s would-be screenwriters have a deep well of myth and lore from which to draw. Not so. In its earliest games, the franchise just piggybacked on the legacy of the Crusades. The original Zelda<\/em>\u2019s box art prominently includes a crest and, with no real explanation, a distinctly medieval \u201clion rampant\u201d more or less identical to those found on the Royal Banner of Scotland and coats of arms from Finland to the Philippines. Further buttressing Zelda<\/em>\u2019s vaguely medieval European setting, Link\u2019s shield is emblazoned with a cross, apparently Christian, plain as day even at a mere three pixels by four. Crosses also appear on unfortunately named enemies like Darknuts and Wizzrobe, and more crosses still pop up in rows to mark graveyard areas in both the first Zelda<\/em> and its 1988 sequel. And the \u201cTriforce\u201d\u2014the iconic triangle comprising three smaller triangles that serves as the series\u2019 principal MacGuffin\u2014is practically begging to be compared to the Christian Trinity.<\/p>\n

Zelda <\/em>reached peak Christianity in the early nineties, when Japanese promotional materials for A Link to the Past<\/em> showed Link kneeling solemnly before a crucifix in a dimly lit church. Ironically, that game ended up dropping the explicit Christian imagery and introducing its own polytheistic theology\u2014the game\u2019s original, Japanese title was The Triforce of the Gods<\/em>, plural. It still featured a church and priests, but in the North American release these features were rebranded as a \u201csanctuary\u201d and \u201cwizards.\u201d The story of Hyrule\u2019s gods was fleshed out a bit more in 1998\u2019s Ocarina of Time<\/em>, and since then the series has kept about the same distance from real-world references as any pulp fantasy novel.<\/p>\n

Even more difficult than pinning down a TV-friendly Zelda<\/em> story, however, will be capturing the game\u2019s fundamental appeal: its sense of exploration and discovery. To experience The Legend of Zelda<\/em> is, more than anything, to spend a lot<\/em> of time chopping down bushes and blowing up rocks in the hope that such actions uncover some hidden cavern. In a 2010 profile, Zelda<\/em> creator Shigeru Miyamoto told The New Yorker<\/em> that this aspect of the games was based on his boyhood wanderings through the Japanese countryside; as both a longtime Zelda<\/em> fan and a former Boy Scout, I can confirm that the games do somehow replicate some of the magic of chancing upon a cave in the woods. This sense of discovery even transcends the player\u2019s television set: several early games\u2019 cartridges were painted gold, as if they came not from a toy store shelf but from underneath a mossy stone.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata said that The<\/em>\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u2019s original report of a Zelda<\/em> TV series was \u201cnot based on correct information.\u201d His comment falls short of a complete denial, and the company, at any rate, has a long history of denying product rumors that turn out to be true. At the very least, though, Nintendo appears to appreciate the challenge of translating its masterpiece to an unfamiliar medium, whether with Netflix or some other studio. If the company is going to take that risk, I just hope it chooses its partners wisely. As we know from the series\u2019 very first line of dialogue, it can be dangerous to go alone.<\/p>\n

Ted Trautman has written for <\/em>The New Yorker, <\/em>The Atlantic, <\/em>Slate, <\/em>Wired, and others. He lives in San Jose.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can Nintendo tell a proper story? Nintendo and Netflix may be developing a Legend of Zelda TV series, the Wall Street Journal recently reported; or, as Time reported even more recently, they may not. Behind the will-they-or-won\u2019t-they speculation lies a more complicated question: Can they? Do games like these bear expansion into full-fledged stories? At […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":697,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15070],"tags":[5563,17559,17560,14753,7867,17561,17555,81,14140,17557,17558,8811,10438,17562,17556,2608,494,17554],"class_list":["post-84024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-games","tag-adaptations","tag-angry-birds","tag-cd-i","tag-characterization","tag-game-of-thrones","tag-jesse-schell","tag-link","tag-movies","tag-narrative","tag-nintendo","tag-shigeru-miyamoto","tag-stories","tag-storytelling","tag-super-mario-brothers","tag-the-legend-of-zelda","tag-tom-bissell","tag-video-games","tag-zelda"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs the Legend of Zelda Even a Legend? 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