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brightknightie) wrote2026-03-01 08:12 am
brightknightie) wrote2026-03-01 08:12 am
Entry tags:
musing on: SkSw Link is a woodworker
One of many fun aspects of The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom featuring Zelda, not Link, as the playable character, and Link, not Zelda, as the one in need of rescue, is that we get to hear NPCs tell Zelda about this Link's life and personality. The EOW NPCs relate his boyhood tragedy and heroism, his self-given mission to save everyone else from similar fates, his unusual abilities, and how helpful he is in every way, right down to cutting the grass (pause for laughter from TLOZ fans). Everyone in his village misses him. We even hear the villain say that Link has long been a thorn in his side.
In other games, played from Link's point of view, what we learn about his personal life and behavior is what we can see inside his home. Occasionally, we get to meet a relative or two in those homes, and sometimes friends talk to him from their knowledge of him, but gleaning clues from his few possessions -- subdued environmental storytelling -- is usually the order of the day.
In Skyward Sword, we get an especially rich clue to Link as a private person. This Link's room at the academy shows that he is a woodworker: a carver of wooden statuettes of animals. In addition to his study desk with an open book on it, he has a table with tools, blocks of wood, and in-progress carvings. His bookshelf has two similar finished and painted wooden statuettes on it, one a bird and one the cat-like species native to Skyloft. We know that this is a personal hobby, not classwork for a carpentry course, because all the other student rooms similarly reveal hobbies (bug collecting, knitting, weightlifting, etc.).
In both Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild, it's an off-screen plot point that Zelda is a skilled seamstress, hand-making key items (sailcloth, Champions' garments), and of course Zelda-the-scholar is now an indelible trope. And Link has often learned a musical instrument over the course of a game. But woodworking is one of vanishingly few private, pre-game interests Link has ever been given in canon.
In other games, played from Link's point of view, what we learn about his personal life and behavior is what we can see inside his home. Occasionally, we get to meet a relative or two in those homes, and sometimes friends talk to him from their knowledge of him, but gleaning clues from his few possessions -- subdued environmental storytelling -- is usually the order of the day.
In Skyward Sword, we get an especially rich clue to Link as a private person. This Link's room at the academy shows that he is a woodworker: a carver of wooden statuettes of animals. In addition to his study desk with an open book on it, he has a table with tools, blocks of wood, and in-progress carvings. His bookshelf has two similar finished and painted wooden statuettes on it, one a bird and one the cat-like species native to Skyloft. We know that this is a personal hobby, not classwork for a carpentry course, because all the other student rooms similarly reveal hobbies (bug collecting, knitting, weightlifting, etc.).
In both Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild, it's an off-screen plot point that Zelda is a skilled seamstress, hand-making key items (sailcloth, Champions' garments), and of course Zelda-the-scholar is now an indelible trope. And Link has often learned a musical instrument over the course of a game. But woodworking is one of vanishingly few private, pre-game interests Link has ever been given in canon.