The Legend of Linkle

Let’s talk Linkle.

Nintendo recently had another Nintendo Direct. Okay, I guess that’s their shtick these days. But one of the big announcements was a female Link named “Linkle”. She was confirmed as a playable character in the WiiU game Hyrule Warriors, which I assume is a real-time hack-’n-slash video game (I haven’t played video games in years, so I’m behind on many current events.) It seems like no one’s happy with Linkle’s existence: on one hand, people are calling her “pandering to those evil feminists”, while on the other hand, she’s touted as a cheap attempt at the “Ms. Male Character”, complete with sexist design choices that cater to the male gaze. And where do I stand?

I dunno, I kinda like Linkle. I'll explain why:

I’m not the biggest Legend of Zelda fan. I’ve played a handful of entries, but I’ve only beaten two. And I’ve only fully enjoyed one of them, the same one that gets crapped on most by hardcore Zelda fans: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It had its share of problems, but it also wasn’t a nightmare to beat, something every other entry was to some extent (especially The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, but I’ve harped on that one enough.) Essentially, the franchise’s biggest hook, its prioritizing with in-game puzzles, is something I’m bad at, hence not really caring for it.

In other words, give me Okami any day of the week.

I mention this because my relationship with the franchise isn’t committal. I respect and admire it, I think its games are well-made and aesthetically-pleasing, but it’s not for me. Therefore, I’m speaking on a detached level when I say that Linkle’s existence not only doesn’t bother me, but is pretty cool. And given how the franchise has long been in need of an overhaul, this looks to be a step in that direction. A late one, but one nonetheless.

Let’s analyze Linkle’s design, as I think doing that will help put any complaints people have to rest.

Firstly, the elephant in the room: Linkle is a gender-swapped Link. I get it, she’s a “Ms. Male Character” at first glance. For those unaware, the term was coined by feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian to describe characters that are re-skinned versions of their male counterparts. Ms. Pac-Man, for example, is Pac-Man with lipstick and a hair-bow. Toadette is Toad with hair braids. And now Linkle is Link with two crossbows. In other words, it’s a character whose sole identity begins and ends with not being her male equivalency.

Let me ask you something: what kind of identity does Link have? I know fans instantly point to his warrior persona and that he’s selfless and brave, but still. Link isn’t much of a character, he’s not really a character at all. Shigeru Miyamoto, Link’s creator, has openly implied that Link is more a blank slate avatar for the player to project onto. In other words, like Mario, Link is whomever you want him to be.

That’s fine, but it’s important to remember that Link is also male. He has a masculine voice, although it’s high-pitched, he wears masculine clothing, he’s the average height of a male and he has the physique of a male. He’s the stand-in for the typical, male gamer. Which, again, is fine, but he really only represents one gender. And given how girls now outrank men in gaming sales, that’s somewhat shortsighted.

So how do you rectify that? That’s a difficult question to answer. One possibility is to create a similar franchise where the playable character is a woman. Okay, not a bad start. But then you have the challenges of funding, backing, even wide-appeal for your game, in order to ensure its success. In a world fuelled by capitalism, one where money speaks, that won’t be easy. To paraphrase Lord of the Rings, one does not simply create a new franchise these days.

Okay, that’s off the table. Now what? The next possibility is to add a female character to an already-established franchise. This is more accessible because you already have a guaranteed fan-base. It’s been done before, as seen with characters like Elika from Prince of Persia. By introducing a new character into a pre-existing franchise, you’re increasing the odds of success.

However, this also raises a problem: how do you make the character appealing? That…I have no easy answer for. It varies from franchise to franchise, so what might work in game A, might not work in game B. But hey, that’s why I’m not a game designer.

In the case of Linkle, I think Nintendo did the best they could. Remember, Link is a blank-slate. He’s whomever you want him to be. Therefore, a gender-swapped Link isn’t a big deal. Because if Link is a blank-slate, then so is Linkle.

Now we have to look at Linkle’s design. One of the traps you can fall into with a female character is “male gaze”. This is when a character is over-sexualized not because it fits her, but because it’s meant to appeal to horny men. Fortunately, Linkle avoids that trap. Because Nintendo caters to the family-friendly demographic, Linkle has to dress conservatively. She wears boots, cargo pants, an undershirt that covers her shoulders, and a tunic that covers her undershirt and gloves. The only remotely-sexualized parts of her body, and even then it’s debatable, are her arms and legs. Even then, I’ve seen Orthodox Jewish girls with more visible skin, and they dress pretty modestly.

Basically, Linkle passes the test, as she’s nowhere near “male gaze”.

Then there’s the issue of her weapon(s) of choice. Link’s signature item is a sword, while Linkle…carries crossbows. The complaint is that Linkle’s weapon of choice is a default, female warrior weapon and, therefore, really lazy and uninspired; after all, why do boys get the cool weapons and girls the crappy ones? This is Katniss Everdeen redux…except that Katniss is really awesome and, therefore, the point is kinda moot. An interesting character isn’t defined by weapon of choice. Some of the best characters in fiction can’t even fight. Interest is defined by personality or intrigue, not weapons. So Linkle carrying crossbows isn’t a big deal.

And finally, there’s the fact that Linkle even exists, which bugs the crap out of paranoid, insecure men. To that I say…really? Linkle is in one Zelda game of how many? You’ve had Link for almost 30 years! Linkle being in one game isn’t the end of the world, especially since she’s optional. Grow up.

Actually, “grow up” is how I’d address that complaint anyway. Fantasy is so heavily dominated by men that a little changing up is welcome. Besides, remember how awesome Katniss Everdeen, Princess Nausicaä and San are? They’re three of the many wonderful characters in fiction, and-surprise-they’re women. If Linkle’s appearance is indication, she’ll be another awesome girl warrior. Not to mention, I’m more concerned that Linkle will be the newest victim of internet fan-porn than I am that she’ll be awesome (trust me, it’ll happen sooner or later.)

So yeah, I’m in the “I like Linkle” camp…even though her name is silly. But whether or not you’re ready for her is up to you.

Why Spectre Fails as a Movie

Let’s be clear: James Bond isn’t my area of interest. I find the first few outings perfectly-competent, but incredibly-forgettable, thrillers that epitomize the 1960’s. Everything that follows is a roller-coaster of inconsistent, ranging from one shade of mediocre to another shade of mediocre, with a few dabbles of awful. The roller coaster ends with GoldenEye, which was fine, before kicking back into hyperdrive with three confusing, annoying and downright awful Brosnan-Bond films: Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough and Die Another Day (the latter having seen twice, but can’t remember a single detail of.) It’s safe to say that Daniel Craig’s Bond outings, which longtime fans are split on, are the only entries that I care about, and even then only two: Casino Royale and Skyfall.

Nevertheless, I was excited when MGM Entertainment and Sony announced Spectre. After all, I adored Skyfall and was pumped to see where Bond was gonna go next. Would he fight a new threat in Mexico City, as the trailer suggested, or travel to Tokyo again for some R&R? If Sam Mendes was on the project…well, it was bound to be awesome, right?

*Sigh*

Let’s get this out of the way: Spectre is enjoyable. It’s not great, but of the mediocre Bond entires, it’s the first to not be confusing, boring, annoying, or all three. Given how Quantum of Solace was all three combined, that says something (note to Hollywood: don’t assume that a man known for period-piece dramas will make a good action director.) It’s well-directed, shot beautifully, the music is great, it’s all-around entertaining. But it’s not good. And I think the reason is because of what it’s trying to be. I can’t explain why without ruining everything, so I’m going for a spoiler alert:

I’m not one to shy from enjoying fan-service films; after all, Star Trek into Darkness was fan-wanking with its villain being Khan, and while it lost itself in a poor recreation of a better movie…I liked it. It wasn’t fantastic, and Damon Lindelof is all-over the parts that weren’t ruined by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, but the drama was compelling, the last 30 minutes were engaging before the deus ex machina, and I thought the idea of knowing who and who not to trust was interesting. It’s a mess, but it’s fun and smart too.

Spectre, however, is pure fan-wanking. It didn’t have to be, there are interesting ideas behind it, but it is. And the underlying problem is its villain.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: Cristoph Waltz. I don’t think he’s been in a lot of good movies outside of Tarantino, but he’s an incredibly-talented actor. He’s already won two Oscars by the age of 59, which is incredible given The Academy’s credentials for Oscar winners, and I’m sure he’ll continue to impress. However, he’s wasted in Spectre. The idea of having him play the villain isn’t bad, since he’s good at that, but every aspect about his character feels more like an an uninspired choice to play an old Bond villain that only fans of the franchise will actually give a damn about.

Wait, did I blow (see what I did there?) the twist too early? My bad.

Anyway, he starts out promising enough. We get an introduction in the SPECTRE organization, which is pretty much a conference room enveloped in shadow. That entire sequence is fantastic: everything from the shadows, to the suspense, right down to how the characters are introduced, is good stuff, and it leads to the assumption that something good might come of this. We see our first glimpse of Mr. Hinx (another wasted role in the film) as he kills a member of the organization, we hear Waltz’s character mention that Bond is in the room, and then we get one of the film’s best lines with SPECTRE’s security personnel telling Bond that he’s a dead man. (He doesn’t quite say it like that, however.) And then the film deviates for a while, only to return with Waltz’s official introduction halfway through the overly-padded story.

See, Waltz is the guy who orchestrated everything. And by “everything”, I mean “everything that’s happened in Craig’s Bond tenure”. He set-up the entire poker game in Casino Royale. He indirectly tortured Bond and Vesper for information, even getting Vesper to betray Bond so he could be shattered emotionally. He created Quantum as a puppet organization to lead Bond on a revenge spree. He even got the villain of Skyfall, Silva, to mess with Mi6, engage in confrontation at Bond’s childhood residence and kill M for giggles. And now, he’s infiltrated Mi6 through C, and he’s using wiretapping to make Bond a wreck in front of the newest Bond girl, Madeline Swann, before strapping him to a machine and lobotomizing him.

If this sounds ridiculous, you have good instincts. But what’s even worse is the underlying reason for why Waltz is doing this: he wants to mess with him. Remember the orphan thread from Skyfall, the one that sounded like it’d be a failure, but was actually the best part because of how it ended? Well, Spectre expands on that, with Bond being raised by a man who died in an avalanche when he was a teenager. The initial story was that the man’s son also died, but that turns out to be false when Waltz’s character’s revealed to be the one who orchestrated that too.

Why? Because he was jealous. He felt that, like the cuckoo bird, Bond supplanted his father’s love and left him to be eaten by predators. Being the paranoid little douchenozzle that he was, he made sure everything that’s happened in Bond’s life was payback. Believe me, it’s dumber and stupider than it sounds on paper, and even more ridiculous.

Oh, and he changed his named to Ernesto Blofeld. Because why not?

Now that I’ve gotten the big “WTF” twist out of the way, you’re probably wondering why this got approved. Was the franchise out of ideas? Was this a ploy to get long-time Bond fans, who were never that big on Craig’s tenure, to start caring again? Or was this an idea that sounded good in the writers’ minds, but not to everyone else? Either way, it’s dumb.

Bond blows up Blofeld’s facility with his watch, and he and Madeline make their way to back to London. After a brief goodbye, Bond returns to Mi6 headquarters and realizes that he’s been set up. He also discovers that Blofeld is still alive…which makes absolutely no sense. I don’t care if Bond movies stretch logic, we saw Blofeld die when Bond blew up his facility. Even if he survived the initial blast, we saw a wide-shot of everything go up into flames. Also, Blofeld, as well as all of his men, were taken out. Like Bond surviving his fall in Skyfall, the movie takes a leap in plausibility and leaves out crucial details to “keep the mystery alive”.

Two points of additional note must be made, both being pretty shameless. Firstly, when Bond shoots at Blofeld, his gun shots penetrate the visor separating them and make a SPECTRE logo from the cracks. How the image could be that precise is ridiculous, as Bond isn’t Vash the Stampede. And secondly, Blofeld’s scar on his face is eerily similar to that from the Connery era. Even if Blofeld survived that earlier explosion, how he could have a scar reminiscent of that earlier Blofeld doesn’t make sense without fan-pandering.

Anyway, Blofeld announces he’s holding Madeline captive in a nearby building that’s rigged to blow up. And then he runs off, obviously heading out to take down Mi6. Bond frees Madeline in time, goes on boat to shoot at Blofeld’s helicopter, and-through the magic of movie nonsense-succeeds at downing it atop London Bridge. I like that Bond doesn’t kill Blofeld, a nice change from formula, but at the same time this endeavour feels like it was over way too easily and quickly. Ironic, given how long this movie really is.

Spectre’s biggest problem is that it’s less a movie and more a nostalgia trip. Long-time fans will no doubt squeal at the return of SPECTRE and Blofeld, but everyone else? Meh. It’s not awful, and it’s certainly fun despite all its shortcomings, but when you have to resort to fan-pandering to tell a story…there’s a problem. John Logan, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, the three screenwriters, have written for James Bond since The World is Not Enough, and while they’ve done far more shameless, one review described Die Another Day as “Bond celebrating his 40th birthday by getting drunk and passing out in front of company”, that doesn’t mean they aren’t suffering from fatigue.

Bottom line: watch it once, but not again. 3/5.

Introduction-Who I Am

Hi. Welcome to my blog-

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Hi. My name is Zachary "Whitly" Perlmutter. I'm 25 years old at the moment, and I have way too much free-time on my-I'm bungling my intro, let's try once more.

Basically, I wanted to create a personal space for me and me only, kinda like a "rambling zone" of sorts. This is for personal and/or content specific stuff only, i.e. the material that won't fit on Infinite Rainy Day (you know, the site you probably know me best for.)

Anyway, some information about me:

Like I said, I'm 25 years old. I graduated from university in 2014 after 6 years of gruelling schedules and workloads. I majored in English and Jewish Studies, although the latter I almost changed to a minor at one point because it seemed tedious. (I opted against that.) Considering how hard it was to persevere, I'd say that was an accomplishment. Not surprisingly, given how articulate I am, I want to be a writer professionally at some point in my life.

I have Asperger's Syndrome and Tourette's Syndrome. I've known about the former since Grade 5 and the latter since high school. Both are tedious at times, but I've managed so far. I'm also Jewish, and heavily fascinated by Jewish themed anythings. Take that as you will.

Anyway, my hobbies include anything and everything nerdy, as well as the occasional politics. As you'll hopefully see in the near future, I ramble about everything that comes to mind.

I...guess that's it? Sorry for the lazy and short intro, I'm still figuring out what this blog's identity is supposed to be. Hopefully it won't take too long, however...