I couldn't leave this place for a while. Still working on the page for the real life villains wiki, but I will do this in the meantime.
Link in Super Smash Bros Ultimate. An appearence based off his incanaration in Breath of the Wild
What's the work[]
The Legend of Zelda is an adventure franchise created by Nintendo with its 1st installment being 1985. Due to the many installments in the franchise, the plot varies consistently. But it is always, at core, about a hero named link who travels a land,defeats monsters, and eventually saves the world from an evil dark lord. It has spawned many installments, ranging to the critically acclaimed ocarina of time to the infamous CDI games, with it being on every Nintendo device out there sans the Virtual Boy. Many games in the legend of zelda franchise like Ocarina of Time and Breath of the Wild are regarded as some of the best games of all time, often praised for its intuitive gameplay and open world as well as tight controls. It is regarded as one of nintendo's staple franchises alongside Mario itself and is one of Nintendo's, no, GAMING'S most beloved and cherished franchise of all time.
Who is he? What has he done?[]
Link, is, at his core, a brave man/boy who travels the world and fights an evil dark lord to save the world. He is called many names, the hero of time, the hero of twilight, the hero of the wild, etc. He is commonly seen wearing wearing green clothes with the powerful master sword and the great hylian shield. Due to this, Link is viewed with a god like status in his universe. With the arrival of link being the tales of legends and prophecies throughout the zelda universe. He is the main character of the Legend of Zelda series. Link has had a long history. the 1st link was in skyward sword. But Demise at the end of the game cursed Link for all of eternity to a never ending cycle for violence forever. The next major part of Link would be in ocarina of time where he fought Ganon to save hyrule. If he won and reverted time, that would lead to the child timeline up to four swords adventures. If Link won and didn't revert the time, that would be the adult timeline that would be windwaker and the DS Spinoffs. If link died, that would be most of the NES and SNES games including the 1st legend of zelda.
In my book, to be counted as PG. You need to be pure and kind hearted, and do admirable acts. Link passes the 1st requirement VERY easily. Link is brave,noble,selfess,caring,and kind. Link never picks useless fights and never acts arrogant. He is always a good person to everybody. Link has deep connections to his loved ones and never ignores them in times of need. But how about heroic deeds
Well, Link 1st of all CONSTANTLY saves the world. I get that fighting a villain is standard heroism, but he does it not only unconditionally and without somebody forcing him, but so many times again and again. But that is not only it, Link also helps people out in their daily lives as well. In the legend of zelda, Link does quests for the towns people by choice. These include simple good acts like giving them food, taking a picture for them,protecting them from enemies, but sometimes, these quests are very noble like building a village to rebuild a destroyed Hyrule or sending Prince Ralis to get saved out of a request of his dead mother.Link is also very brave, as he always does selfless acts without fear like going and collecting shock arrows even though a dangerous Lynel is there. Link was ready to charge into battle to save his little sister from a massive evil bird after she was kidnapped in the wind waker, even though Link was a young boy with a weak sword. Link saves everybody, it doesn't matter even if the person was mean and rude to link. And this is the tip of the surface, Link does plenty of other admirable deeds in his many adventures in the Zelda universe.
Corrupting Factors[]
Due to Link being a hero who fights evil. Some people may bring up that Link kills his enemies, which is a major disqualifying factor. However, Link only kills the enemies out of self defense because these enemies try to kill link on multiple occasions. However, (especially in breath of the wild), Link sometimes hunts down and kills harmless animals who didn't try to hurt link. BUT, Link only does this not out of sadism and because for fun (which is something some PE'S would do with Percival C. Mc Leach being one of the worst examples of this). Link does this because these animals heal link and allow him to get better after getting hurt fighting enemies. The biggest disqualifying factor one may say is that this covers ALL links from Zelda canon (Smash Bros and the Cdi games don't count). BUT, while this argument WORKS for zelda, this FAILS to disqualify Link. Here is for a few reasons 1. Zelda has shown corrupting factors in breath of the wild like being arrogant. Link has never shown this 2. Zelda hasn't always crossed the admirable standard. Link always has. 3. There are so many versions of link, that this throws the moral agency into question. Well, All links are reincarnations of the version from skyward sword. There are 2 ways to see this, To see if all links do have moral agency, we have to see if Skyward sword link has good moral agency. And he does, especially since Link chose to go into the dangerous hyrule alone to save zelda. Also Plus, all Links choose to do their heroic acts, and not based off force or anything like that. This means Link does have a moral agency.
Admirable Standard[]
Well, most of the zelda characters do nowhere NEAR the admirable acts of Link. They help Link out on his adventures, but it is always Link who does the saving. Everybody gets terrified of facing a bobkoblin while Link jumps into enemy territory and even other worlds like the twillight realm to save the world. Other characters show anger,jealousy,and greed, while Link never has shown those corrupting qualities. The admirability of Link makes everybody look up to Link as the hero of time,twillight,the wild,etc who will save them all from the evil forces of Darkness.
Final Verdict[]
I think he qualifies for this category. He is a lot like Superman in many ways as they are both brave and are basically representations of hope and goodness. Easy keep for me