Thats TOTALLY different than someone asking: "Hey, why didnt you change Link to a female" And him answering "Because Link needs to be a little white boy to represent the people playing this game"
...how, exactly? How is the end result of these two statements any different? Do you think people were expecting Aonuma to come out and say "We want to keep Link a white male and that's why we aren't changing him!"? Nobody was expecting him to actually
say that, because the end result is largely the same. You have a mythos where your main character could literally be
anyone without largely disturbing the lore, but you choose to keep him physically the same...even though you decided to make it that he's technically a completely different person each time. Well sure, go ahead, but saying that this is done
because Link represents the player and so his appearance "shouldn't matter" doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
The issue with unequal representation in media isn't always one of a majority group
intentionally keeping a minority demographic from being fairly represented. Sometimes it's just a matter of people not wanting to alter the status quo...for
any reason.
This argument is putting way too much stock in the extremely thin storytelling of the Zelda franchise, which is ironic because the whole reincarnation thing is nothing but a byproduct of Nintendo's aversion to story. They don't want to bother connecting the stories from game to game, so they hit upon the 100 years in the future/past thing to get around it. The multiple Links are completely practical. There's no larger purpose to them than that. The Hero thing is part of that invention. From a real world standpoint, the 'Hero' exists only to get the character universally recognized as Link into another Legend of Zelda game.
Nintendo never even toys around with the idea that anyone could be the hero. It simply doesn't factor into their storytelling. Four of five 3D Zeldas have taken place in separate universes. There were never any red herrings about who the hero was. It was Link because Link is the character we've been playing as for 25 years.
I think there's something to the avatar thing, but people have taken it way past what Nintendo probably intended, and to the point where they actually deny Link is a character. If Link weren't a character, he wouldn't be starring in his own spin-off game right now, which was made solely because he and the Zelda brand are recognizable. If Link weren't a character, he wouldn't be featured prominently on the covers of both Smash Bros. It's mind boggling to me that people are arguing this. No Nintendo character would qualify as one if they had to show us who they really were on the inside, but apparently that's the standard the Link character is being held to.
There's no solid basis to be found in the Zelda storyline for changing Link's gender. It's nothing but a flimsy loophole people are trying to exploit to shoehorn their own preferred vision into a series that's been around forever. They want to shove aside an iconic character as if the character has no value to anyone at all, whether it be Nintendo and the money they plan to make off of this simple 'avatar', or the fans who've grown attached to him. I don't get it.
Funny thing is, I agree with you.
Personally, I don't think Nintendo actually gave a shit about the timeline or the mythos of the series until around WW when the fans started pestering them hardcore about it. But the thing is, we can't have our cake and eat it, too. Regardless of what I (and you) believe, Nintendo insists there's a mythos and intent behind the Zelda franchise. So we either take them at their word (in which case, there is room in the mythos for a female Link), or we throw it out for the sake of argument...in which case there's room for a female Link.