George Underwood

I can easily see there being a Zelda game where you at least have the option to play as a woman in the near future. Nintendo has certainly been going in a more gender-equal direction, from the gender choice in Pokemon and Fire Emblem to the fact that Splatoon has female main characters and the massive jump in female fighters in Smash Bros 4. If anything, reading your article showed me that there are *more* strong female characters in Zelda than I thought, which I know probably wasn’t your intention, but it makes me optimistic for the future.

Surely no one can complain if you could choose Link or a woman to play as? If I remember correctly, he’s called ‘Link’ because they want him to be a link between the player and the game world, a blank slate for people to project themselves onto. It would make it a lot easier to do that for many gamers if that option existed.

It’s interesting how the movie has three layers of frame story and two narrators, none of which involve Gustave, and yet he is still, as you suggest, the person who the story revolves around entirely. I can’t remember the last time a film character has stuck with me so much, and you really get a sense that he has impacted Zero (and by extension the Author) in the same way.

I think it’s also worth noting that Sanderson’s writing was very similar to (and heavily inspired by) Robert Jordan’s, to the extent that people can’t tell who wrote which part. That’s great, but I can’t think of an author who could do that for Martin’s work. In many ways, though, you could come to consider that the TV show’s job…

In many ways, it will kind of take the pressure of both Martin and the readers if the series ends first. We know that Martin often changes his mind about the story while he writes (which was the main reason for the massive delays with AFFC and ADWD), so there’s not way the seventh book won’t have surprises whatever happens!

I think I’ve read that George R. R. Martin has said that he doesn’t want anyone else to finish the series – although honestly, I can’t think of anyone who would be suitable.

In any case, I think that fear that Martin will die before the series is ended is unfounded. He’s only in his sixties!

I love your point about the audience wanting to cheer for Lecter. It brings to mind the end of the film, where really we should be horrified that he’s about to eat someone, bust instead we’re thankful that he escaped and that he’s getting revenge on a character we didn’t really like (despite that character not doing anything ‘evil’ in the entire film). This is all despite the fact that we’ve just watched an entire movie dedicated to hoping that the protagonist can stop a serial killer before he kills again.

Great article! I’d never considered how deep Zelda goes with Link as a player-surrogate (interesting fact – he’s called Link because he’s a link between the player and the game!).

Zelda’s themes are universal, and so it makes sense that Link is a protagonist any player can project themselves onto. I really hope they never make him talk. If I had to give one complaint of the more recent games (Skyward Sword, A Link Between Worlds, Spirit Tracks etc.), it’s that they don’t seem to be as poetic (for want of a better word) with these themes. Some of the musings on the nature of time, death and memory from games like Link’s Awakening, Majora’s Mask and Ocarina of Time are my favourite quotes in gaming.

Dredd had some fantastic cinematography, and I think that’s something else you can add onto an established formula to make a film really stand out. It’s interesting how Dredd lacks much flesh on its story, though. I think that would have also really helped it stand out.