How is Link representing me as a female player? Last I remember half the freaking cast of Ocarina of Time gives him "do me eyes" at some point (as I, at the same time, rolled my own mine).
I feel like saying that Link is supposed to "represent the player" a big misnomer then when it really, really matters to people that he stays a fella.
F*** it. Why not? It's easy enough to add large breasts on female design, I want bigger muscles!
...Unless they're really going for him looking like a 14 year old here.
Wii U Link is designed with a gender-neutral approach. This is the most andogynous design ever made for Link. Right now, there is
no clear indication of Link's genre in anything that has been seen or said about Zelda Wii U. Maybe, just maybe you could consider the possibility that the new design is meant to be a unisex Link that people can interpret based on their perception and project what they want on Link.
Why does a female design need visible breasts to be one? Can you seriously claim that? A male design doesn't need facial hair for sure. The new design can represent everyone by being unisex, but you're just hell bent on being 100% female, to the exclusion of male representation
and everything in between. You have a
binary perception of gender like 9/10 people on GAF, and yet you all claim "championing equality" and "fighting sexism".
but giving him such a specific character design is silly in 2014.
Wha-, what? Have you even looked at the design? Would you seriously call it specifically male? This entire discussion started because people could not tell, because it was NOT specific. The entire issue stems from the fact that the design is
vague.
When the reality of the Zelda series is that Link is always, always depicted as a white male despite the fact that the lore has made room for Link to be depicted as anything else, the creators do not need to explicitly state what their reasoning is for this. The result is the same, regardless.
Well tough titty, It's how a lot of people feel about Aonuma's reasoning here.
They'd be better off just saying that they have a specific vision for Link and that's just the end of it. Hell, them coming out and just saying that would end a lot of debates. But in 2014 with all the technology we have saying that you're sticking to a white male character because it represents the player just doesn't make a lot of sense, and infuriates some people because it inadvertently demonstrates how out-of-touch with your player-base you are.
...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!".
Can you really use "white male" and its connotations, for a character designed like this?
Do you see "white males" like this daily? Are "white males" andogynous? You just can't see beyond your narrow point of view, that Link is a white male. Link is not. You are out-of-touch with the issue, Aonuma certainly isn't.
This unisex design DOES represent the player, more than ANY clearly male or female design. In fact, changing this design of Link to a pure female excludes more people than it currently includes. They have a specific vision, and that includes everyone. They are not sticking with a "white male design" and then proceeding to claim it is reflective.
They create a unisex character and then state that this represents everyone.
Not to mention that Link was conceived in an
Asian country.
A female lead would have been such a bold, strong indicator of a conviction to move in a completely new direction for a series that has grown absolutely geriatric. And it would be an unprecedented decision not just in gaming, but across all forms of media. A decision like this would be sheer pop culture that Zelda has failed to attain since the days of Wind Waker.
No it wouldn't have been. There is a new direction with the new design and you all just can't see it because you are stuck between seeing the new Link as either exclusively male or exclusive female, which is flat-out wrong. The basis of this discussion is all the proof you ever needed about the ambiguity. It's not only shows on the design, but people all over are genuinely confused in practice.
I'll link my other post, again..
This is a new direction, and one they have taken
already. Link this time around is more andogynous than ever, and this is the most creative and true way of representing every player's gender.
By making the design vague, by being vague in all statements so far, the character's gender is left up to the player's interpretation, and that's what's amazing.
Even If my theory is wrong, which I won't accept as being such without
clear verbal references to a male sex from Aonuma and in-game, the point that Link's design represents a lot more players than a typical male still stands. By being this andogynous Link can still represent a large spectrum of people who are close to the gender threshold but remain male,
in essence a very, very large spectrum of males.
So when you are complaining about the Wii U design,
you are complaining about them too, not just so called "white males".