Mythical Historicism as Orientation in The Legend of Zelda

Introduction

The writing of this report has both taken longer to complete and taken me farther than I ever could have imagined. Encompassing the culmination of the last two years of work, I have had numerous conversations with countless fans of The Legend of Zelda – from children to colleagues to professors, the impact the franchise has had throughout its 30 years of existence is far too monumental to even begin to quantify. Nearly everyone to whom I spoke had the same reaction to my choice of topic – why? Though in some cases, more specifically – how? How does a musicologist decide to analyze particular games from a video game franchise and have the subsequent research stand as a testament to all they have learned throughout several years of graduate study in music? The short answer is that it intrigued me.

Early one morning I sat in my living room and watched as a friend played through the ending of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and the medievalist in me began to make connections. Skyward Sword remains the most recent release in the franchise as of December 2016 and employs several aspects of medieval musical performance practices. In the weeks that followed, I began to research additional games from the franchise in which gamers are required to play an instrument or participate in musical practices and quickly found they all reflected their placement on the overall chronology of the series in their performative methods. This report aims to closely examine performance practices utilized in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, and The Wind Waker.[1]
 
Although Skyward Sword was released in 2011, the game is the earliest in the overall narrative chronology of the franchise. Skyward Sword reveals that the three main characters are to be forever bound in battle by way of a curse. Link, the protagonist of the game, at each incarnation is a descendant of the original hero of legend – the same can be said of Zelda, and the antagonist, Ganondorf. Because these characters are constantly reappearing in different generations, their actions also have a large impact for future generations and descendants. For instance, as will be discussed in Chapter Two, at the end of Ocarina of Time, Link is sent back in time to live out his childhood in peace. This act, however noble, essentially creates a rift in the timeline in which a hero appears when needed in some games and is noticeably absent in others. In some cases, this absence results in disastrous consequences as noted in Chapter Three.  
           
As a means of gathering information for this report, I initially played through each game anew taking considerable care to note important dialogue, scenery, and of course musical motifs and performance practices. When necessary, I consulted the popular fan website Zelda Dungeon to recall details and find pictures to further illustrate certain concepts.[2] Additionally, all of the transcriptions present throughout this report were done entirely through my own analysis of musical melodies, motifs, and harmonies. Because there are no published scores for the music contained in Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, and The Wind Waker, I did so in order to reduce the margin of error for the melodies contained therein.

My fascination with connections between The Legend of Zelda and aspects of musical performance from western traditions is just one such example of a growing interest in analyzing video game music among scholars. Throughout the last decade, the field of musicology has seen an increase in research focused on ludomusicology, or game music studies. William Cheng’s Sound Play: Video Games and the Musical Imagination, one of the most notable publications surrounding ludomusicology provides insight into how game music studies impacts both music and gaming as separate art forms.[3] Cheng states, “In social function, technical craft, and vocabularies of appraisal, commonalities between music and games abound. Listening for resonance across these two art forms stands to deepen our comprehension of both.”[4] An analysis of music from The Legend of Zelda series relating similarities to common practices for musical production can thus broaden our understanding of music, the Zelda franchise, and their interaction with each other.
           
Finally, it is important to note that this report is the culmination of my own interpretation of themes and narratives from Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, and The Wind Waker. All three games reference aspects of western musical practices and Greek mythology, among other subjects commonly associated with western culture. I posit that this report will serve as a testament to the influence the hegemony of western culture has had on other traditions. Overall, the goal of this report is to move toward a broader understanding of music, media, and their relation to each other at the intersection of medieval European culture, Japanese narratives drawing on that culture, and North American receptions of those narratives.
 
 
 
 
[1] I must thank Dr. Luisa Nardini for her guidance and support throughout the last two years. This report would never have been completed without her wisdom and encouragement. I would also like to thank Dr. Andrew Dell’Antonio for always providing me with the space to speak and think freely which greatly impacted my desire to pursue my passions openly. Additionally, I am proud to provide a digital supplement to this report in the hopes of increasing accessibility. The digital supplement may be found at http://scalar.usc.edu/works/mythical-historicism-as-orientation-in-the-legend-of-zelda/index.
[2] “Zelda Dungeon.” Blog. Accessed December 1, 2016. http://www.zeldadungeon.net.
[3] Cheng, William. Sound Play: Video Games and the Musical Imagination. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
[4] Ibid.