I hear about coming of age stories, and I realize they are all lies. You don’t come of age just once, but over and over again. Because, you see, it’s a universal fact of life, that you never stop aging. That’s the key-hole. So where’s the key? What is the significance of a coming-of-age story if there’s a continuation? How do you get past that first experience of it? So, say you come of age with some event that is personally significant, you feel profound and important. You don’t realize it’s a coming-of-age moment until, hey, you’re past it. But the point is, you had it, it was there. You had the key the whole time and you finally unlocked that door and passed through, escaping all the traps and trials and tribulations.
Actually, this kinda reminds me of Zelda.
See, we’ve been playing "The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time" for N64. My ancient game is completed, with all hearts, all items, and 50 missing Gold Skulltulas but there is no point because all they give you is a giant rupee and I already have full rupees with the largest wallet (go figure). This isn’t the point, I’m just recounting the events.
Zelda is a coming of age story in every single dungeon, every single temple, every little cavern you have to traipse through to get the ice arrows or the hook-shot or the Spiritual Stone of Fire. What Link has to do (because, people, Zelda is not who you play as, Zelda is just the princess who gets in a lot of trouble, I guess) is run through these temples/dungeons/caverns and collect keys to open doors. You could go frolicking in a complete circle from the main room to some barred off other room in order to obtain a small key that is, in fact, needed to open a door in the main room which you left to obtain said key to begin with. Fact is, you went on this side trek to obtain the key to the door which only leads you deeper into the temple/dungeon/cavern. Sometimes, these door keys, they take you through a door that leads to a dead end and you have to, yet again, return to the main room before finishing the task at hand. This is never in vain, however. When you hit these dead ends, you leave with gauntlets, with mirror shields, with maps and compasses, with slingshots and longshots. Then you go back and do something you couldn’t do before because you didn’t have the gauntlets or mirror shield or slingshot or longshot. Or, my favorite, the bow and arrows. But it’s all about these small keys, and the small keys come in small chests without cut scenes. You just kick the chest and you get the key, and it’s a mini-feat. But it’s significant and substantial. You had to accomplish something just to get a key to go accomplish something else.
That’s why coming of age stories are lies. Because you do it, see it, smell it, taste it, feel it, and you get a key. That in itself is a coming of age experience. People have written substantial books about finding keys. People have made movies about finding keys. People have unlocked doors with keys, in the most literal sense of the word, and found something they were looking for, but then what? You come of age, you grow up and learn and you decide that bombs are the most efficient way to kill those laser-eye machine things (except for my personal favorite: just outrun them) and you learn that love isn’t easy and that strong people aren’t always as strong as they seem and that the Eye of Truth is really the only efficient way to win that chest game in Hyrule Village. But see, that’s it, you’re always coming of age and learning more.
But that’s why I’m always so disappointed when I turn on my game. I look at my double-lines of hearts, my full green magic counter, my full pack of arrows and my full weapons screen. I even took the time to get the fourth bottle, for crying out loud. And it’s because I literally have nothing else to do. My little Link animation is doomed to his existence of running around Hyrule in its still burdened state because do you want to know what happens when you win the game? You watch the credits pass. You laugh at the funny little cut scenes they’ve programmed in. Then you hit restart, plug back in, and your back right where you were before you went to kill Ganondorf. You haven’t saved Hyrule, you haven’t saved Zelda, you haven’t killed Ganondorf’s super "Ganon" beast form. You’re just there, still meek and sad and swinging your Biggoron sword you just had to get because (1)Lik-Lik’s die in one hit instead of three after eating you and stealing your shield, (2) It’s another feat you could complete to prove just how goddamn cool you are, (3) Link always looked a little emasculated in his Peter Pan meets A Midsummer Night’s Dream outfit and the sword compensates for that. But you never really get to win. You never get to see Link move on and finally just get with Zelda or the Zora Princess or Saria or that Gerudo woman who insists on wearing white lipstick. He never gets to live his life. He never gets to move on. It’s unfair, because he’s collected a lot of keys for this moment, and it comes and passes and warps you back to the decimated remains of a Hyrule terrorized by Ganondorf.
I want Link to come-of-age. I want him to become something and evolve. But he can’t and he won’t and he never will. And it’s tragic and unsettling and sad, but it’s also a video game, so it doesn’t really disturb my sleep at night.
And see, the only time Hyrule is happy and okay and content is when Link is a child. He can just replace the Master Sword and is warped back to the days when zombies do not scream at you in Hyrule Village, Ganondorf has no powers, and Zelda is just a crazy kid with a dream. You still have trials to overcome, but they are all voluntary. You don’t have to do them. If you really wanted to, you could just waltz around Kokiri Forest with Saria and not worry about the Great Deku Tree and his problems. But that makes it more real, because that’s the avoidance. You will never come of age, not once, if you remain in the past, if you put away the Master Sword, the tool with which you open new possibilities. You will just remain Link, the boy wonder, never amounting to anything other than the kid who is eternally annoyed by Navi the Fairy and her constant need for attention. (Ladies and Gentlemen, even game programmers understand that attention whores exist.) So even there, accepting that responsibility with age is learning that you have to overcome your trials, face them head on, and they never really stop because even if you were to warp back to a time of happiness and joy, Navi would just keep annoying you about saving the Princess (even if you’ve already done it ten to fifteen times just for fun).
It’s the process of getting there, you can’t just get a key and open a door and *bam* you win. You have to fight for it, earn it, and it’s the fun of it. What would life be if we just got dropped back to the beginning after coming of age? We would have learned some profound truth about ourselves and those around us, we would have understood some facet of being that was never fully understood before, and we would be content with that, but nothing would have changed. The beginning is the same as the ending, only you have more toys to get through it all. The doors are unlocked. You’re stronger and smarter. You’re older and more mature. But it’s still always there. So, I guess that’s just it. What would life be if we just got dropped back to the beginning after coming of age? The same as it is now, without the magic of actually being dropped back at the beginning.
I think that’s why Link can’t just run around happy-land Hyrule after you win, it’s the same reason you can’t just run around happy-land "Every Day Life" as though things will always be okay, because all those obstacles are still there...it’s just twenty times easier to do it in the end.
This is why we have to make shirts that say "I killed Phantom Ganon and all I got was this lousy medallion"
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