[ SECRET POST #3039 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3039 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Starsky and Hutch]


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(legend of Zelda)


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[Ernest Hemingway (and his cat)]













Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 018 secrets from Secret Submission Post #434.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

03. http://i.imgur.com/HAg1K7F.png
(legend of Zelda)

[(Anonymous)]

That annoys me as well.

He's called "human" in Twilight Princess as well (when you have the option to turn into a wolf and back).

His race is Hylian or Hyrulean. I'm not sure of the difference. I think Hylians are people with pointed ears while Hyruleans are anyone who lives in Hyrule.

[cloud_riven]

Old game manuals (alttp's English one iirc) reference the pointed ears as an evolutionary magic thing to better listen to the gods. And there are multiple sentient species, why wouldn't a Hyrulean human without pointed ears be among them? Tbf I can't think of a character that fits that atm.

But the Hylian bit, they have places named Lake Hylia, so that could further less about race and more a regional thing?

But yeah, "elf" makes no sense when no one says that in the games :u

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I guess at least they mean it in an 'elvish good looks' kind of way and not in the 'bakes cookies and works for Santa' kinda way.

Bothers me too, though.

[(Anonymous)]

He's an elf, Spock's an elf, get over it.

[world_eater]

This is what happens when you rampantly try to avoid simply writing "he" or "Link".

[(Anonymous)]

Epithets: the bane of good writing.

[(Anonymous)]

Off-topic but I really want to go and read Zelda fanfiction now. Recs?

Transcript

[(Anonymous)]

Image: sentences from fanfic, blurred out except for phrases that refer to an elf

Text: I get irrationally angry when fics refer to Link as an “elf”/

He’s a Hylian.

[diet_poison]

People do that???

That would make me so mad. And I don't think it's irrational. He's NOT an elf, this is canon.

(He's human. Hylian isn't a species. It's a race/nationality/something like that. sorry if I am being nitpicky.)

[(Anonymous)]

To someone who doesn't play Zelda, he does look like an elf, cross between Santa's helper and Elfquest, complete with the little hat- the classic D&D wood elf.

And he still looks like an elf, even if you know about this Hylian stuff.

[diet_poison]

Okay, that's completely fair...but if someone is writing fanfiction of Zelda, I'm going to assume they've played at least a little bit, and know enough to know Link is not an elf.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't actually think I've seen that before - usually people seem to assume Hylians are just a specific race of humans. (In fact, I'm pretty sure they are referred to as human in some games.)

It also shows up a lot in Jak & Daxter, but at least in that case I don't think the game ever calls them humans (or anything else). It still tends to throw me off, though.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm indifferent. Certainly there's been references to "human" before, but I reckon that sounds more distinct in English than the Japanese "ningen". I think LOTR and the lot have trained us to racially categorize fantasy people into a clean HUMAN or ELF category.

Link has pointy ears, ergo he is not a human like real life humans. By our standards he is essentially an elf. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, right? But since there are no non-pointy eared humanoids in Zelda (that I recall) it becomes kind of moot. If elves are a category "other" than human, then without humans the definition is pretty meaningless.

Anyway, it wouldn't jar me to have someone describe Link as an elf because he ticks the boxes. But Hylian is better. Or just person. Or lose the epithets completely.

[diet_poison]

In Twilight Princess there are a bunch of humans without pointy ears, mostly from Ordon. I sort of assumed it was a regional thing.

Anyway, maybe I'm being really nitpicky but "elf" isn't just a physical descriptor; in every canon I can think of that has them it is an actual species. Looking like something doesn't make you that something automatically, especially since literally the only box he ticks is pointy ears (and that's about the only thing that elves across different canons are guaranteed to have in common, anyway).