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Zelda is Art

Today I learned that the fictional Princess Zelda is named after Zelda Fitzgerald and that Robin Williams named his daughter after the princess because he was playing the game. I did the deep dive after reading a comment1 in The Paris Review about The Legend of Zelda2 likely because it came through my feed reader and we've been playing the game. The comment centered around "Can video games be considered art?" to which I would reply that the creator, Shigeru Miyamoto3 graduated from Kanazawa College of Art4.

zelda

Miyamoto has cited Paul Cézanne as major influence, describing the graphics in his work as "moving paintings". The commenter writes "Tears of the Kingdom isn’t an escape from reality but an advertisement for reality—including the aesthetic practices that already make our own." He makes a very compelling argument and should read the full statement linked in the citation below.

We've decided to avoid using any cheats this go around so finishing Tears of the Kingdom5 may take us a year at our pace. We enjoy exploring the game, the narrative, battling creatures, and solving puzzle shrines together. The better half has gone as far as dressing as Zelda for halloween parties. I'll just leave some notes here in this post as preparation for a longer form essay on this later.

  • First played Zelda in 1987
  • Miyamoto inspired by childhood exploration of countryside and discovery of cave
  • Tezuka inspired by Tolkien's Lord of the Rings
  • the hero is defeated
  • Religious iconography
  • impressionist style
  • Zelda Fitzgerald names
  • Music Ravel's Boléro
  • forerunner of the role-playing video game
  • Hyrule compendium photographs
  • Spiral nod to Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson
  • Tolkien, King Author, Celtic mythology, Peter pan, etc
  • franchise has sold over 140 million copies.
  • Hyrule Historia book topped the NYT best seller list
  1. The Paris Review - Fireworks: On Kenneth Anger and The Legend of Zelda - https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2023/07/07/fireworks-on-kenneth-anger-and-the-legend-of-zelda/
  2. The Legend of Zelda - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda
  3. Shigeru Miyamoto - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shigeru_Miyamoto
  4. Kanazawa College of Art - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanazawa_College_of_Art
  5. Tears of the Kingdom - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Tears_of_the_Kingdom

(a.) image: screenshot from The Legend of Zelda: Links's Awakening from when we were playing it several years back.