In Zelda

Does anybody know why Link, who was apparently a Christian in the first two games (shield with a cross) was changed to a pagan? It's the same with whole Hyrule. In the good old NES-times they believed in God (crosses also on gravestones) and now they worship these three bimbos.

P.S.: Did you notice that the Triforce represents attributes that fit for God and his son:
God --> POWer (God is almighty)
Jesus Christ --> Courage (He accepted to die on the cross)
The Holy Spirit --> Wisdom (The Holy Spirit unites God and Jesus, who are both wise)

I don't really think the crosses meant Christianity or anything. I'm pretty sure they were just used as decorative deVices. Furthermore, what does paganism have to do with Legend of Zelda?

He realized that god doesn't exist.

Don't say that too quickly. There were many games in those times that had Christianity included: In "Pac-Land" and in the opening screen of the Japan version of "Bomberman 2" you can see churches, the guru in "Faxanadu" is actually a Christian priest and his temple is a church: Just try the Japan version and you will not only see a cross at the temple/church, but inside there is even a crucifix with the image of Jesus.
So, it's realistic that the crosses in "The Legend of Zelda" are indeed Christian symbols. I mean, o.k., shields with crosses on it are commonly known, but why should they place them on the grave stones as well?
By the way, I once heard that the red magic book is called a bible in the Japan version, although I don't know if that's true. Can somebody confirm or disprove it?

Firstly, there is the faith in these three goddesses. And secondly: Every person who doesn't believe in the one God of Abraham is considered a pagan by the people who believe in this God. That means: Atheists, Buddhists, Hinduists, worshippers of the sun, Zeus-worshippers etc. are pagans while Jews, Christians, Moslems and for example Samaritans are not.

Oh great, and that's why he started to believe in three other goddesses.

By the way, I thought about another theory: The NES titles are the last ones in the chronology, playing long time after "A Link to the Past". Maybe Christianity wasn't known until that time and the Christians came to Hyrule between "ALotP" and "Zelda I" to spread the word.

The Japanese like to use religious symbols just because they look interesting. I wouldn't interpret too much into the symbolism of games, especially those from the 80s.

but I don't put any stock into it. All sorts of games (Final Fantasy games come to mind) have all kinds of religious imagery for no apparent reason.

Link...a pagan? ROFL!
I think all he's interested in is rescuing Zelda and Hyrule. Does that make him: A) Brave? Yes. B) Horny as a goat for Zelda's bones? Probably. C) A pagan? Most certainly not.

Link...a pagan? ROFL!
I think all he's interested in is rescuing Zelda and Hyrule. Does that make him: A) Brave? Yes. B) Horny as a goat for Zelda's bones? Probably. C) A pagan? Most certainly not.


Weren't Pagans real horny bastards?

I fail to see what's so "ROFL" worthy about Link being a pagan...

According to the Pagans just worship something other than "the" god.

Actually, Windwaker is the last in the timeline and idols of the three godesses appear in it. So unless the Christian movement drowned with Old Hyrule and everyone converted to the old religion again, I seriously doubt this theory.

O.k., if anybody still thinks that the crosses in "The Legend of Zelda" for the NES are just there because the developers liked them while they have no religious meaning, I have the definitive proof that NES-Hyrule is indeed a Christian world and that the whole thing was intended by the developers:

To me, no single doubt is left.

The NES ROM for the famicom Disk System can be downloaded here: .

The word 'bible' in English literally means 'book'. They come from the same root word. We can see this in other book-related words (bibliography, bibliomania, etc)

Also, a very common use for the word 'bible' is simply 'a holy book/an authoritative book', and not neccecarily Bible.

And I don't think you can "argue" that that game is "translated" very "well". But if you "did" you could simply look at the "rest" of the intro to find some examples of lazy "translations".

Really, the only conclusion one can come to is that Gannon is an alias. His real name is 'Prince Darkness' and he stole the triforce using his POWer. :(

Firstly: "Bible" (Greek: "biblia") means "books", not "book". "Book" would be "biblios".
Secondly: Even if in Ancient Greek the word "bible" simply means "books", that's not the case in modern languages anymore. Historically the words may be interchangeable, but in the English language "bible" and "book"/"books" are not synonyms. You can not say: "Today I bought a bible about animals." In modern languages, the Bible is the holy book of the Christians and Jews and not only a general word for "book". So, the bible in "Zelda" really has to be a bible and not only a generic book.


Please prove that. Unless some moron says something like ""Lord of the Rings" is my bible", there is no correct use of the word "bible" if you just mean any holy book. The Bible is always the Jewish/Christian holy book. The Koran for example can not be called a bible. If anyone does that, it's plain wrong. So, there is actually no word definition like:

(noun, f); -s, -s
1. The holy book of the Jewish and Christian religion
2. General term for a holy book

because definition 2 is not correct.


Of course the game is not translated very well. But unlike the storyline, the passage we talked about just contains a single word, not whole sentences. So, it's just looking into a dictionary to translate a single word. I don't think that there is much to do wrong.

By the way, look what I found in "Zelda II: The Adventure of Link":


So, let's summarize everything:
In "The Legend of Zelda" and "Zelda II: The Adventure of Link - Zelda II: The Adventure of Link"
- Link has a cross on his shield, like soldiers in Christian armies,
- the grave stones have crosses, like the Christian grave stones,
- the magic book is a bible (by the way, in the manual artwork it has a cross on it as well)
- there are buildings with crosses on it, like churches,
- there is absolutely no mention of three female goddesses or any other pagan things with religious meaning.

And just because they decided to put up their own religion in the later games, like any adventure today has to have its own stupid religion, you honestly want to tell me that the cross symbols in the NES Games have absolutely no meaning (although they are not used randomly, but are placed exactly in places where they also occur in real life: Shield, grave stone, bible, church) and that the word "bible" is a mistranslation and simply means "book" or "holy book"? Sorry, but I think it's not me who makes things up and who sees the facts as he wants to see it. You all are so much influenced by the later "Zelda" games and by the whole franchise which plays in a pagan world, so you don't want to realize that the original idea of Link was that of a Christian hero and not the no-pants-wearing reincarnation of a hero chosen by three goddesses.

i really wouldnt want to argue with this guy.. he certainly uses what he knows effectively.

Haha.


I really don't see why it matters one way or another. It's a .

Firstly: "Bible" (Greek: "biblia") means "books", not "book". "Book" would be "biblios".
Secondly: Even if in Ancient Greek the word "bible" simply means "books", that's not the case in modern languages anymore. Historically the words may be interchangeable, but in the English language "bible" and "book"/"books" are not synonyms. You can not say: "Today I bought a bible about animals." In modern languages, the Bible is the holy book of the Christians and Jews and not only a general word for "book". So, the bible in "Zelda" really has to be a bible and not only a generic book.


Please prove that. Unless some moron says something like ""Lord of the Rings" is my bible", there is no correct use of the word "bible" if you just mean any holy book. The Bible is always the Jewish/Christian holy book. The Koran for example can not be called a bible. If anyone does that, it's plain wrong. So, there is actually no word definition like:

(noun, f); -s, -s
1. The holy book of the Jewish and Christian religion
2. General term for a holy book

because definition 2 is not correct.


Of course the game is not translated very well. But unlike the storyline, the passage we talked about just contains a single word, not whole sentences. So, it's just looking into a dictionary to translate a single word. I don't think that there is much to do wrong.

By the way, look what I found in "Zelda II: The Adventure of Link":


So, let's summarize everything:
In "The Legend of Zelda" and "Zelda II: The Adventure of Link - Zelda II: The Adventure of Link"
- Link has a cross on his shield, like soldiers in Christian armies,
- the grave stones have crosses, like the Christian grave stones,
- the magic book is a bible (by the way, in the manual artwork it has a cross on it as well)
- there are buildings with crosses on it, like churches (I found it by chance while playing with a downloaded save state. Does anybody know how to enter the church (the upper door)?)
- there is absolutely no mention of three female goddesses or any other pagan things with religious meaning.

And just because they decided to put up their own religion in the later games, like any adventure today has to have its own stupid religion, you honestly want to tell me that the cross symbols in the NES Games have absolutely no meaning (although they are not used randomly, but are placed exactly in places where they also occur in real life: Shield, grave stone, bible, church) and that the word "bible" is a mistranslation and simply means "book" or "holy book"? Sorry, but I think it's not me who makes things up and who sees the facts as he wants to see it. You all are so much influenced by the later "Zelda" games and by the whole franchise which plays in a pagan world, so you don't want to realize that the original idea of Link was that of a Christian hero and not the no-pants-wearing reincarnation of a hero chosen by three goddesses.


tl;dr

???

exactly what i was thinking ever since this topic started.

exactly what i was thinking ever since this topic started.
Triple that. I only put in my two cents for humor value, which evidently didn't work.

Denny might enjoy this.

the guy talks about connections between the first Legend of Zelda and the Catholic religion (rather than Christian) he makes some pretty good connections. but i still say who cares and just play the damn game

Ok, so I believe that in the first one, Link has a Coat of Arms on his shield which uses a cross-like divider. But also in the second one, he has a more distinguised cross. So why does everything written here fail to mention This is the key difference:

In games 1/2 the storylines are supposed to directly follow each other, with little background on Link or any other character in either. When we reach A Link to the past, we notice his new little blue shield that was his uncle's. (To exclude the shield upgrades..) But! We are given some things on this stop on the timeline here...

-Link is a direct descendant of an order of holy nights.
-Link's current situation with some family and a much more civilized hyrule implies that the storylines between TAoL and LttP are not connected.
-Given that after this point, Link's holy night connections are constantly mentioned in the games, we can assume that Link is always intended to be such a paladin.

Therefore, he has a very good reason to have a cross-bearing shield in 1/2. "But why if we finally find out that he is in a holy order of nights," you may ask, "Does he not have a proper shield after this point." Well, it's simple. Link's uncle's shield was made plain because his uncle didn't know he was in such a bloodline, as we find out later when it is revealed to Link by Sharalashra and the maidens. The other shields, fireball and mirror, were also not made especially for Link, so they do not get any special depictions either.

You see? The whole problem is not that complicated. It's just a matter of storyline, not word meanings or religious background. And we go on...

In some more sequals... let's call the next one Link's Awakening... we are given no information on the heritage of Link. We only know that he was lost at sea, and was knocked into a coma. Not that special. In The Ocarina of Time, he is just a Hylian raised by the Kokori. No mention of knights. He is just a very special guy. And boom! This is where all of Link's destiny becomes tied to the Triforce and the Godesses.

So to put in some new twists, the design team "Shyamalan"s the storyline, and makes a whole new religion for Hyrule. It does not imply a turn away from Christianity, it simply implies that in the world it takes place in, Christianity never existed, and the oly known religion is the one of The Godesses and the Triforce.


And that should about sum it up.

Actually this guy interprets too much out of his own mind while I just pointed out the obvious things: Crosses on shields and grave stones like in real life, crosses on churches(!) and a bible(!),

-Given that after this point, Link's holy night connections are constantly mentioned in the games, we can assume that Link is always intended to be such a paladin.

Therefore, he has a very good reason to have a cross-bearing shield in 1/2.
Sorry, I don't really see the connection here. Because the SNES Link has connections with holy knights, the NES Link has a good reason to carry a shield with a cross?

Am I right when I assume that you think that it's always the same Link in every game? Because that's not the case. There was one Link in "Zelda I" and "II", there was second Link in "ALttP" and "LA". Then we have the Link from "OoT" and "MM". And the one from "OOA" and "OOS". The "WW" Link is separate one as well. So, explaining the Shield of NES Link with a connection between SNES Link and knights doesn't work here.

And by the way, if the cross is just a coat of arms then there is the question: Why do they use it on their grave stones, for their churches and why do they have a bible? But what is also intersting: Why do all these Christian symbols suddenly disappear in the pagan-oriented games? Isn't it strange? In the NES Games there are no pagan gods mentioned, but Christian symbols are shown. And just when they invented the three bitches, they suddenly dropped all the Christian stuff. If they aren't supposed to be Christian at all, but just generic symbols that were taken because it looks good, why are there no crosses on grave stones in "ALttP" anymore?

Out of interest, I looked into the original word in the game, ????, which worked out to be pronounced 'baiburu' presumibly simple characters for little kiddies. 'bible' wound up being translated as ??.

edit: this forum frowns upon my use of wacky alien characters. So I made this:


But I don't know kanji or anything, so I'm just going on detective work. This doesn't really prove anything either way in my opinion. The two character 'bible' does seem to refer to and not just the word 'bible'. So it's not a stretch to imagine that "baiburu" could refer to the Bible using the simpler characters. But it could still just be the word 'bible', which (sorry) does not nececarily mean the Bible. And I must admit, I have no idea what connotations the Japanese would attatch to this word. Either way, I'm glad I looked into it--I was just curious and am now posting my findings.

Also, you get a cross in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link as an item, to make flying eyes visible. Priests use crosses for a similar purpose except for the floating eye bit.

Also also, you get an item that lets you walk on water. I bet that's all about Jesus too.

Oh, oh, and you can get a spell that shoots fire out of your sword. Christians are all about magic, so I hear.