Scotty W
Gold Member
America is a right-handed nation: as a left-handed man, videogames once gave me solace, but since 2004, a sinister hand has cruelly snatched that comfort from me, leaving me with nothing. You will have guessed what I am talking about: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Allow me to explain.
When I was in grade 6, my parents divorced and I moved with my mother to the midwest. It was a baseball town-- baseball all the time, baseball, baseball, baseball. My first day of school was in late October. My feet glid silkily over the slightly frost enamelled grass as I stepped up to the plate in my very first gym class.
"You're standing on the wrong side of the plate." my mendacious teacher shouted at me from the outfield.
"But it feels wrong," I said, "it's not who I am as a person." I had to shout this three times across the field before she understood me-- all this in the hearing of my smirking classmates. Three times, one, two, three strikes against myself and the world about what hands I was. My cheeks smarting with crimson shame, I fled to the bench. The gossipy laughter of my classmates hung in the air around me, like a plague of wasps. In my deepest heart, I vowed never to be untruthful with who I was ever again. But barely one minute later, the right handed system made me betray myself again. There were only left-handed baseball gloves. My skin crawled as I hid my true self from the world, yet again. When I caught the ball and tried to throw it to first base, I got only laughter from my classmates- my useless right appendage could only throw like a girl.
At my next at-bat I swung left, and connected. But the game was still rigged against me. Every time I hit the ball, I had to turn right to get to first base- and by the time I was able to turn and run, the ball was already there- every. single. time. The jeers of my classmates were burned into my memory, like the music of The Cure onto a vinyl record: "He'll never get to first base."
Over the next several months, I became despondent; nothing could comfort me. I stayed home from school most days, watching Jerry Springer, eating Nutella and drinking Monsters.
My Mom became so concerned with my depression that she took radical measures. She brought home a Nintendo Gamecube and a copy of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which you will have recalled was bundled with the Zelda Collection disk. It was like falling into a mountain of heaven. Link, the hero of The Legend of Zelda was left-handed! For five and a half months, I sat, enraptured, in front of the TV screen, lapping up the left-handed glory as I played through each and every game.
Zelda taught me that it was ok to be left-handed; that I could hold a spoon with my left-hand and be a hero; that it didn't matter if I never got to first base, as long as I had a left-hand; that it was possible to be a human being with dignity and to use my left-hand to do so. Everything that I am, and all I've become, I owe to those five and a half months-- mid February to September- I learned that to protect who you are you can swing a sword as a lefty and be respected (though I never kept a sword or even a knife under my trenchcoat- only a baseball bat) and my sense of left-handed heroism led me to my occupation-- Internet activism. For a time, I was on top of the world.
In 2004, Nintendo released the Wii, which brought with it the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and took with it my soul. I queued outside for two weeks of a Minneasota winter, paid good money for it, unwrapped it, plugged it in, turned it on, only to be greeted by a right handed Link. Nintendo had betrayed me. Link had betrayed me. Even worse, if I wanted a right handed Link, I had to play the Gamecube version. These two Twilight Princesses were the sirens that cleft my soul in two-- they were saying, in effect, "Left-handedness is bad, shameful-- bad bad bad-- so we're going to leave you languishing on a dead system; you are worth less, as a person, as a human being.
Since that day, Nintendo has refused to heal my heart. They release a few piddling, 2D portable games with a left-handed Link, and then they do their important releases with a right handed Link. The inference is clear: Nintendo does not think that I am a legitimate human being. I am less. And who am I to disagree with what my entertainment tells me. I can't! Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonomura have even commented to the press that they "couldn't care less" about this issue. I am going to start thinking about buying a PS4. Nintendo has bereft me of all words but two.
Fuck Nintendo.
When I was in grade 6, my parents divorced and I moved with my mother to the midwest. It was a baseball town-- baseball all the time, baseball, baseball, baseball. My first day of school was in late October. My feet glid silkily over the slightly frost enamelled grass as I stepped up to the plate in my very first gym class.
"You're standing on the wrong side of the plate." my mendacious teacher shouted at me from the outfield.
"But it feels wrong," I said, "it's not who I am as a person." I had to shout this three times across the field before she understood me-- all this in the hearing of my smirking classmates. Three times, one, two, three strikes against myself and the world about what hands I was. My cheeks smarting with crimson shame, I fled to the bench. The gossipy laughter of my classmates hung in the air around me, like a plague of wasps. In my deepest heart, I vowed never to be untruthful with who I was ever again. But barely one minute later, the right handed system made me betray myself again. There were only left-handed baseball gloves. My skin crawled as I hid my true self from the world, yet again. When I caught the ball and tried to throw it to first base, I got only laughter from my classmates- my useless right appendage could only throw like a girl.
At my next at-bat I swung left, and connected. But the game was still rigged against me. Every time I hit the ball, I had to turn right to get to first base- and by the time I was able to turn and run, the ball was already there- every. single. time. The jeers of my classmates were burned into my memory, like the music of The Cure onto a vinyl record: "He'll never get to first base."
Over the next several months, I became despondent; nothing could comfort me. I stayed home from school most days, watching Jerry Springer, eating Nutella and drinking Monsters.
My Mom became so concerned with my depression that she took radical measures. She brought home a Nintendo Gamecube and a copy of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which you will have recalled was bundled with the Zelda Collection disk. It was like falling into a mountain of heaven. Link, the hero of The Legend of Zelda was left-handed! For five and a half months, I sat, enraptured, in front of the TV screen, lapping up the left-handed glory as I played through each and every game.
Zelda taught me that it was ok to be left-handed; that I could hold a spoon with my left-hand and be a hero; that it didn't matter if I never got to first base, as long as I had a left-hand; that it was possible to be a human being with dignity and to use my left-hand to do so. Everything that I am, and all I've become, I owe to those five and a half months-- mid February to September- I learned that to protect who you are you can swing a sword as a lefty and be respected (though I never kept a sword or even a knife under my trenchcoat- only a baseball bat) and my sense of left-handed heroism led me to my occupation-- Internet activism. For a time, I was on top of the world.
In 2004, Nintendo released the Wii, which brought with it the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and took with it my soul. I queued outside for two weeks of a Minneasota winter, paid good money for it, unwrapped it, plugged it in, turned it on, only to be greeted by a right handed Link. Nintendo had betrayed me. Link had betrayed me. Even worse, if I wanted a right handed Link, I had to play the Gamecube version. These two Twilight Princesses were the sirens that cleft my soul in two-- they were saying, in effect, "Left-handedness is bad, shameful-- bad bad bad-- so we're going to leave you languishing on a dead system; you are worth less, as a person, as a human being.
Since that day, Nintendo has refused to heal my heart. They release a few piddling, 2D portable games with a left-handed Link, and then they do their important releases with a right handed Link. The inference is clear: Nintendo does not think that I am a legitimate human being. I am less. And who am I to disagree with what my entertainment tells me. I can't! Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonomura have even commented to the press that they "couldn't care less" about this issue. I am going to start thinking about buying a PS4. Nintendo has bereft me of all words but two.
Fuck Nintendo.
