It’s International Women’s Day and it didn’t even cross my mind that maybe, just maybe, I should write something. I am a woman, after all. But then Megan from A Geeky Gal wrote a great post about Underrated Women in games and I remembered a post I wrote nearly 2 years ago about my favorite underrated woman in a video game. The one and only Zelda. So here’s a reblog of how I feel about Zelda and the potential for her story.
I wish more video games had strong female leads. Having said that, I’m definitely not one of those people who needs a strong female to take over every male role. In the immortal words of George R R Martin “To me being a feminist is about treating men and women the same” (Salter, The Telegraph, 2013). There should be, and needs to be, a balance. There are games that should be about male characters, and that’s okay! And there are games that should be about female characters, and that’s also okay!
What I don’t like is the trend of taking a male character, turning them into a female character, and calling it “good enough”. We don’t need yet another female who reminds us more of our brother than ourselves. What we need is a character who is a woman who was meant to be a woman. With that in mind, I don’t need Link to be a girl. I need Link to continue to be a boy (because he so obviously is) and I need a game from Zelda’s point of view.
Zelda is already the strong, intelligent, awesome female character we need in the Legend of Zelda series. She is brave, always fighting alongside Link, like she does as Sheik or Tetra. She is fleshed out, created as a person with thoughts, opinions, and struggles, as is so poignantly brought home in the memories of Link in Breath of the Wild. And, more importantly, she’s been there from the beginning. This is not some character Nintendo would create out of nothing to prove to the public that they, too, care about women. This would be a way for them to show that, from the beginning, they have cared about women. It would be a way to prove that, just because their main hero in this series is male, it doesn’t mean they had a completely chauvinistic point of view. I mean, these are the people who created Zelda’s Adventure, one of the few older games I have played from a female’s perspective!
And not only is Zelda already created, expanded, and real to the story, but she already has an amazing super power – the triforce of wisdom. How easy would it be to make more difficult, challenging puzzles focusing on the idea that Zelda has to use her triforce of wisdom to defeat them? Instead of the regularly-encountered boss, why not bosses with a big twist, requiring some serious forethought and skills to defeat them?
Don’t you guys agree that the absolute best remastered version of Ocarina of Time would be to include the original mode from Link’s point of view and a newly released mode from Zelda aka Sheik’s point of view? It’s not like she sat around doing nothing for 7 years while Link was sealed away! So what awesome shenanigans did she save Hyrule from? Or to have a new Skyward Sword utilizing her very particular role at the temples, with new maps, puzzles, and her own set of bosses?
So, in my opinion, we don’t need a new female, playable character in the Zelda series. We don’t even (in fact, please don’t!) need to make Link into a girl. Nintendo just needs to jump on the idea they’ve already started and use the amazing character they already have. Let’s make a new Legend of Zelda about Zelda.
So what do you guys think? Don’t be afraid to weigh in! I’d love to hear your opinions.
The next step is almost as important as the brine. It’s also, for those of you who are a little squeamish, the grossest part of the entire affair. Rub the room temperature butter all over your hands. Then rub the entire turkey with those hands, pausing to get more butter if needed. Make sure the entire bird in covered in the butter to make sure there’s an even crisp to the skin. A safety note, just because I’m a microbiologist, please don’t reuse any butter you may have touched with raw poultry again. Just throw it out and save yourself a horrible bought of food poisoning.
To check if the turkey is done you’ll need an instant read meat thermometer. You can buy them in any grocery store this time of year for about $5.00. It’s worth it. You’ll use it again (maybe…). When the time is up stick the thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh, making sure you aren’t touching any bones. Allow the thermometer to read. Your turkey temperature should be 165°F. If it isn’t, your turkey needs more time to cook. Mine took an extra 20 minutes to get up to temperature. If you need to check again make sure you check in a different spot than the first time! If you want to be extra careful, check in the breast under the wing, as well. The temperature is much more important than the color. Any turkey could have a pink coloring naturally, but if it got up to 165°F or higher, you’ll be just fine!
Add oil to the pan/wok and half the green onions. Turn the heat on high, as high as it’ll go (for a wok) or medium high (for a pan) and wait until the onions start popping. Add the chicken, sprinkle on the salt, and cook, stirring constantly, for 3 minutes, or until they’re no longer pink on the outside. Add the remainder of the green onions and all of the teriyaki sauce (which, if you kept stirring it, should have all the sugar dissolved). Stir until everything is coated and allow to boil and cook for 3 more minutes, or until the sauce starts to thicken. Be warned, if you cook this in a pan, you’ll want to do it in a tall pan (maybe even a pot). The sauce foams like crazy when it boils and it’ll grow to about double it’s height. Don’t believe me? Check out the photo.
Sheikah Plate 