All, right. You're probably looking at the title and going "What?" Let me explain.


For a long time, I avoided the Legend of Zelda series entirely, because I had always just assumed that it was bad and not for a Christian. I mean, there are always references to magic and "the gods". I was intrigued to find though, that in the original Legend of Zelda game, Link's shield has a cross on it. This is not too surprising, I guess, give the medieval thematic of the game. But it still struck me as interesting. Also unique to me was the design of the Triforce. As a whole, it's a big triangle made of three little triangles stacked together. The name itself is interesting and the whole thing reminds me of the TRINITY. I'm pretty sure that this was not nintendo's purpose, but I think it's still cool. It made me intrigued enough to try one. I tried to choose on of the simplest looking Zelda games, so I started off with Wind Waker.


   Instantly, I fell in love with the game, and I literally played nothing else till I finished it. And I was legitimately impressed with the game. Did it have references to "the gods" and "magic items". Yes, but I actually did find a lot of meaning through the story of link himself. He starts of as nobody too great, and the opening of the game is literally him waking up. It isn't long after that, he starts his journey to save his sister, (Wow, a rescue the girl situation, that isn't a damsel in distress troupe). We find that Link is merely a boy at the start of his adventure, but grows, matures, and becomes stronger as his journey goes on. Honesltly, I find this representative to the Christian life. We wake up to the fact that GOD is real, and JESUS died for our sins, and our journey in our relationship to GOD begins. In a similar manner to how you always get the items you need to continue your journey, GOD gives us the strength and the tools that we need to grow and mature in him.
Even as Link journeys to the end to defeat Ganondorf, so we journey to defeat those things about ourselves that hold us back. Those sins, addictions, whatever it may be. As for the mention of the "gods" I feel like it's just an easy way of saying "Hey, there's this really powerful dude." (or dudette).

Another thing that is in all the Zelda games that I absolutely love is the Master Sword. "The Sword of Evil's Bane" it's always referred to in some similar fashion. To me, this reminds me of the Sword of the Spirit, a essential weapon in the armor of GOD. Although it's only smybolic of using the WORD of GOD to fight against the temptations of the devil, it still strikes me as awesome.

My last but not least concern of this franchise is the references to "magic". In real life, magic can be as simple as an illusion performed by a magician, or it goes a lot deeper into using the devil's power, communicating with demons and whatnot. In games, though, it is often just a lazy excuse for why an item works, or power. In the Zelda world, this "power" (as I prefer to call it) can come from two sources good, or evil. So at this point, it really just becomes trying to find and use the power of good to banish evil. To me, symbolic of how we use the power of GOD to reject or banish the temptations that evil (aka, satan) is trying to throw at us.

I don't honestly know if I'm just trying to make excuses for liking a game that I had previously considered wrong, or if I actually am right to see or think this. Let me know what you all think.

Sorry about the post layout, it didn't work like I thought it would, turned it off.

I'm not really sure I understand avoiding a series of games because of references to things that may not be ethical if practiced. It's really just a story. From what I gather, just about every Final Fantasy game ever made borrows heavily from gnosticism. That's not to say that I believe that God's an evil tyrant and we should be proudly depriving him rule over us by denying him, that's just silly. It just makes for a really good story.

The triforce does actually stand for a trinity, just not that one. It's meant to represent the three goddesses of the Zelda universe, Din, Nayru and Farore.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not making fun of you for your beliefs, I'm just saying that I can't really relate to the reasoning.

I think a lot of video games have the idea of good vs. evil., Zelda is no exception.

I actually like your references for this franchise in relation to Christianity.

But, I think video games either present themselves as evil (because of their content), or they don't present themselves as evil (because it wasn't the developers purpose).

I like your perspective though; I never thought of the story of Zelda compared to the born-again Christian's life.

You play video games for entertainment right? Not everything has to relate to God in my opinion, you don't have to believe in the things a game says to have fun with it.

Those are some really interesting similarities you've drawn up here. That's pretty cool! ^^

As for me, I really don't have much of an issue with what is in a video game, I mean over the top edgelord junk I really despise, but that is for a whole load of reasons. But I never had a problem with separating stories and fiction from reality, you know?

I think a few things.

The first is that you shouldn't outright reject anything you think might not be "Christian." If you look deep enough, you'll find parallels. The Hero Quest is a common theme in stories ranging in all religions and societies without a monotheistic basis. There's a difference between understanding what you're watching or doing may not agree with major religious principles and making a decision to continue or not compared to deciding to never try or experience anything that might even have a mild amount of conflict with Christianity.

Rejecting anything outright as "Non-Christian" has a bad result of making people close-minded and angry of intellectual diversity. If you're not even going to talk to someone because they're Muslim, for example, that doesn't make you a good person. Nor is it what God wants in the world. God wants us to celebrate diversity and differences, last time I checked. Maybe I'm wrong.

Also, it's a game. It doesn't mean that you're a bad Christian. You're entertained but you're not doing the devil's work. It's fine.

If you look at it the other way, there are some thinkers who say "Attempting to find an intentional and allegorical connection between Zelda and the Holy Bible and Christian theology would be completely erroneous and a dead end." I think that was Bob Thompson that said that. I'll need a citation, sorry. So if you look and see "Oh, yeah, that's definitely a reference to the Holy Trinity," and it specifically isn't, that's where you can get into a lot of trouble.

I think Zelda is specifically not Christian and goes against Christian theology and dogma. Each game has elements that are sins against God and Zelda is committing these sins as he goes. Be careful with how you draw parallels between the game and your religion.

There's the saying that nothing is inherently evil, things are what we make of them. I...kind of agree. I think there are things that are designed with such evil intent, that they're much better off avoided. Then there's "The Legend of Zelda". If any poor intent reaches that series, I feel greed would be the most affecting of them. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are pretty much porn to me now that I've grown older, so I can't really play them anymore (one character is almost essentially naked, and one is in OoT). But Skyward Sword, I feel, is one of the most inspiring games I have ever played, in just about every way (although I have yet to fully weigh in on Wind Waker). As terrible as it may sound to hardcore fans, I think Skyward Sword should be the foundation upon which the entire series is built. Not only is it the first game chronologically, but it's the most inspirational, I feel, even above Link's Awakening DX (although who can hate Marin?). There's a lot of potential in that series that is untapped. Yes, I do feel the Zelda series would do well to redo or distance itself from certain entries (I know there have been remakes of OoT and MM, but I still avoid them because they don't fit my standards). I hope Breath of the Wild will do good for the Zelda series and Nintendo as a whole.

supernerd117 : I totally agree with you Skyward sword is my absolute favorite that I have played so far. It was by far the most inspiring in the series. That ending boss battle...WOW! Wind waker is the second best in my opinion. Also, is it the great fairy you're talking about? It was the same way in twilight princess. Don't have it anymore, but it was a pretty cool game to play through! Also, thanks for letting me know, btw also excited for the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the wild game. 

Ghostbear1111 : Dude, I'm having a difficult time keeping up with you!

It's not that I don't want anything that's non-Christian, I am just super careful when it comes to anything that deals with magic and whatnot.
Also, you need to remeber...Zelda is not the green dude! That's link! Zelda is the princess of Hyrule that you usually end up rescuing. Also, exactly what are you talking about. Breaking into people's houses and destroying all their pots and stealing all their money? Oh i totally never did that.... LOL! Also, i've only played 3 in the franchise Wind Waker, Twilight princess, and skyward sword. So I've missed a lot of them.
As far as drawing parallels, it's something i kind of enjoy, and when i can find it, it's always interesting to me. I do get where you're coming from, but hey it's still cool, right?

FaithFighter : I was all over the place with my response. Honestly, it's up to you and how you feel when it comes to anything like this. You're going to make decisions and we can't tell you what to do or what not to do. It's on you.

I was writing like that to be frenetic, frenzied, and all over the place. It's just because there are so many points of view that people will take and you'll hear everything. You just have to wade through the information and make an informed decision and then stand by that decision.

I'm sure you'll do fine.