The Gaming Persona

Link's Legacy and Our Own Heroic Journeys

• Daniel Kaufmann Ph.D. | Dr. Gameology • Season 5 • Episode 3

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This episode explores the impact of 'The Legend of Zelda' on personal identity and societal themes such as courage, wisdom, and power, represented by the Triforce. The hosts delve into character evolution, psychological connections, and the franchise's cultural significance while also discussing gameplay experiences and the importance of representation in gaming. 

• Exploration of personal gaming histories and their significance 
• Discussion on the psychological impact of character roles in Zelda 
• Analysis of the Triforce and its representation of life's challenges 
• Conversation about Zelda's evolution into a strong character 
• Examining how gameplay mechanics foster personal identity 
• Reflection on video games as modern mythology and their lessons 

Jump into our community discussions and share your favorite Legend of Zelda moments! Let us know how these games impacted your journey.

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Thanks for Listening, and Continue The Journey!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the gaming persona podcast. This is the show that explores who we become when we play games. Your rightful announcer and introducer, me, dr Gameology, welcomes you to the show, and I'm joined by one of my best friends from gaming, marcus V814. Actually, marcus, we need to set the record straight here. Do I just call you Marcus? Do you just call me Doc, or am I Dr Gamology? Or am I Daniel, or are you Marcus V814? What's our naming convention for the show?

Speaker 2:

now, I'm always Marcus, Um, but my handle is always Marcus B814 and you are forever doc, Like it would be like uh calling doc Dr Emmett Brown from back to the future. Dr Emmett, can I talk to you? It's always doc, it will always be Doc it would be Dr Brown.

Speaker 1:

It would be Dr Brown. Yes, we don't go Dr First Name hardly ever, unless that's a thing the person wants. Okay, so we are here to talk with you about who we become when we play games, and this is the strangest intro that we've ever done, because last week my brain was broken irreversibly and I don't remember how the intro goes anymore because of it.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think last week's episode it was flawless. I think I brought the energy, I explained to everybody what we did and it threw everybody for a loop. Because when somebody clicked on the new show to listen and they were like, oh, the intro music's going, they're starting to flow with the music, they're feeling it, and then all of a sudden, bam, they get my voice and they were like whoa, what just happened?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Okay. So how are you doing this week?

Speaker 2:

Marcus, so I have the flu. It sucks, but I'm on the mend. I basically have had a 102 to 103 fever all week and I played minimal video games, but I'm on the mend, so I'm excited.

Speaker 1:

How are you that sick and bedridden and play less video games than in your normal life?

Speaker 2:

routine, Because when I'm sick like I never get sick, so when I get sick I get really sick and the last thing I want to do is stare at a screen and have to concentrate on anything. But I did play this week two games in the process, but I'll tell you about it after. I kind of found a secret thing and I didn't even realize it was a thing until I stumbled upon it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that sounds mysterious. I was able to play some video games this week. I played final fantasy 14, like usual, and I don't think I see seven. Rebirth was my stream game this morning and I think earlier in the week, and making really great progress on the story there. I have downloaded the legends of Zelda tears of the kingdom in hopes of preparing for tonight's episode, but it just didn't get fully downloaded onto my switch in time for the episode. So we're going to have to rely on the other Zelda games that I have played, and I love almost all of the ones that I've played. So I'm still really excited to cover our personal histories with Zelda and what that franchise means to gamers, and that's going to be a really great talk that I've been excited about. Where can our listeners find us?

Speaker 2:

Well, you can find me on the YouTube at Marcus B814.

Speaker 1:

And I am on Twitch, youtube and all the social media apps as Dr Gameology and you can, of course, read all of my neat ideas about how video games have become the modern mythology in the Gamer's Journey, and you can buy a copy of that on any bookseller online, including Amazon. So I really hope you do that. It's going to tie into this show and probably all of our episodes in a big way. Actually, that's going to be a neat road of trials discussion for later. A big way. Actually, that's going to be a neat road of trials discussion for later. Marcus is just my realization of where this show is at in terms of preparing for any topic of these major tentpole franchises for Nintendo, microsoft and Sony. So are you ready to get into our topic for today?

Speaker 2:

let's do it okay.

Speaker 1:

So when we were getting ready to do this episode, at the end of our final fantasy talk, you asked me what are we going to talk about next? And you said that I caught you off guard and I've been curious all week. What kind of answer did you think I was going to give?

Speaker 2:

I did not think zelda, zelda and you, like I know you've played them, but like zelda and you, for me, don't mesh I shouldn't say mesh, like I know you've played them, but it's not. It was just the last game I thought you would have picked, or or franchise to talk about.

Speaker 1:

It just threw me off guard the legend of zelda ocarina of time, though, became a part of my life when I was 11 or 12, and that game was the first one where I started to understand that video games follow a story structure that is very similar to movies and that they have heroes that are similar to my favorite. Heroes like Link and Luke Skywalker have some parallels and, as a you know, barely over 10 years old, the kinds of thoughts that you need to have if you're going to become a late 30s person who writes a book like the Gamer's Journey started to happen. You know, does that make sense? That's a pretty abstract way of saying it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's just thinking about like Ocarina of Time, as you're 11 and 12 playing that. I can remember dying to the bushes in the legend of Zelda the original for the NES because I wasn't fast enough with the sword and I was a little kid.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I definitely did play the legend of Zelda two on the NES One day when I was sick, I think my parents rented it from the gas station slash place where you rent games and movies. You know small town stuff, no, no, it was literally a gas station, marcus Smallest town you can possibly imagine in Illinois. And I remember it was super hard and I didn't even understand how to play it. It felt like I can walk to the other room, I can enter the store, I can attack one enemy successfully and then the next set of two enemies I die, and I just I couldn't figure out how to play it really. So I guess that was my first memory with Zelda. But my first positive memory with Zelda would have been Ocarina of Time would have been ocarina of time.

Speaker 2:

Sure, I I can understand that, but zelda represents so much more than just the game for me. You know he's always. It always starts off the same kind of like final fantasy when we talked about it last week. You start off and you either have all the power and then you something bad happens and you wake up with nothing and you have a wooden sword or, like in Breath of the Wild, you have a stick or a carrot and you have to build up all of that stuff all over again. So it's just basically, I'm going to say, the hero's journey. So it always starts off the same way, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So it always starts off the same way. Yeah, you wake up with pretty much no knowledge of what is going on in the world in terms of good and evil. You're just a kid and you go places in your village, you discover some items, you learn how to manipulate your environment and move things around and open up new pathways. And Zelda is a really good educational experience too. It explains how we learn. Is here's a new thing, try to use it. Oh, you used it this way and it did something. Maybe you should keep doing it that way. And then the challenge escalates. And then the boss battle uses a mixture of movements that you have learned on the way to that boss battle. And then you're successful. You get a new item how are you going to use it? And so on and so forth, until you're capable of saving the world.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't get to save the world often I don't think any of us do.

Speaker 1:

That's why video games are a powerful imaginative tool. That's right. So this might be if we just go straight to the point, talk about it and say you're welcome, welcome everybody. This could be a very short episode. It really depends how much we want to take on side quests. Are we okay with the master sword or do we go after the big or on sword of this conversation?

Speaker 2:

Wait a minute, but you want to talk about who wins throughout all the games is Ganon. So how about this? Ganon wins all the time. He forever wins because he knows that even when Zelda beats him, he's going to still win. He's going to come back and he's going to put a, he's going to do something to Zelda where I mean Link, where he doesn't remember anything. He's going to get to steal Zelda and he's going to run stuff for a while and then Link's going to wake up. So, really, truly, in the story, ganon has a huge role in it, cause, yeah, he's the bad guy, but he always gets away and he always gets to do it again.

Speaker 1:

You know, on my most cynical days, marcus, what you just described is the things that I believe in, the things I hope for mixing together in a way, but I end up feeling like it doesn't matter how hard I try Right, because the Ganondorf is always going to be the problem, how much success I have today, that Ganondorf is going to be sitting there just fine, ready to torture me and remind me that everything I did that seemed successful was not. That's correct, but I don't think human beings are meant to be that cynical every single day of their lives and there are moments where we assemble an amazing story and we get to experience the big moments in one push, and in those moments, ganondorf is also not okay. He has something he wants to and Link and Zelda continuously force him to live in an existence where he doesn't quite have it.

Speaker 2:

Right, but he always survives.

Speaker 1:

Is survival the threshold for thriving, marcus as a villain, as a living thing, as a villain? Yeah, all right. Well, we're doing fine. We're both sitting in front of microphones existing. So as far as the ganondorf mark of mastery, we've got it made.

Speaker 2:

Yes, we sure do I would love to see, like one of their, the next games, the next I'm going to call it like the breath of the wild tears, the kingdom style game. I really want it to be voice acted like a wait, wait.

Speaker 1:

you just made my brain do something. I'm so sorry I cut you off. Breath of the wild tears of the kingdom. If you had to name the next Zelda game right now, what would it be?

Speaker 2:

So hard I lost my powers and I'm coming back. No, no, no. The Legend of Zelda I'm awake again.

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, okay, I was thinking more along the lines of breath and tears are things that come out of your face. So now we're stuck with spit or snot, all right. And then wild and kingdom are locations you find in fantasy worlds. So I'm gonna say something like so I'm going to say something like spit of the clouds, it's just a Zelda game that's all about raining on you.

Speaker 2:

Make it rain.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm sorry, I cut you off for that nonsense. What were you about to say? I don't know, because I'm more enlightening?

Speaker 2:

No, it definitely wasn't. It definitely wasn't. I just think that the the next. The nice part about Zelda is they always innovate with their games. And you know, sure, breath of the Wild changed everything In Tears of the Kingdom. It was great, but it was almost too much. So the next one will be innovative again. Too much, so the next one will be innovative again. I haven't got the.

Speaker 1:

So they put you mean that it's too much, so the next one will be innovative. Again, I haven't got the, so they put you mean that it's too much.

Speaker 2:

Yes took everything that they did in a breath of the wild and cranked it to 11.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

You know what I mean. So, like now, they make you know flying saucers and levitation stuff and it's just everything that they did. A breath of the wild. They magnified it by a hundred and it was almost too much. I think I played six hours of it and I was just like it's just too much.

Speaker 1:

So, like you couldn't focus on specific things, because it's just, uh, it's a, it's an adhd nightmare yeah.

Speaker 2:

So like, oh, now you can levitate, like, make yourself go invisible underneath the rock to get to where you need to go, and you're like wait a minute. All right, this is a little, or you know what I'm saying Like, in breath of the wild, you have the magnet, or you had, you know, people figured out how to, you know, make them make wind and stuff like that. But then they got creative with things where, in tears of the kingdom, they actually have motors for you to do stuff.

Speaker 1:

It was just, it's just everything that you could do in breath of the wild times 100 one of the things that really made me struggle with breath of the wild was the lack of the traditional zelda weapons. Um, the hylian shield. I know it's in there somewhere, but you have to be so talented to find it that by the time you find it you don't really need it, so it's more like a badge of honor than it is a useful tool. There's no mirror shield, there's no hover boots, there's no hook shot, and so the hook shot is the thing that I miss the most, because I love that item. It is one of the most iconic abilities that Link has, and for it not to even make it in the game just made the experience feel weird to me Again, they were being innovative.

Speaker 2:

Yeah but do you always have to be innovative? Well, I agree with you, just like I don't like a mechanic where your weapon breaks yeah, that was also very frustrating I'm not a fan of that, and it's.

Speaker 2:

I understand why they did it just to make it just adds one more layer of complexity to the game. But I remember I was fighting one of those the beasts and I was using my weapons and like three of them broke and I was in the middle of a fight. The thing's almost dead and now I don't have an extra weapon. Right there and me switching weapons, I died and I was just like all right that that that stakes yeah, there's something about our psychology, you and me, the way we play games.

Speaker 1:

I think, coming from an mmo space, you I at least really want to be efficient. I want to be efficient, I want to keep getting stronger. I don't want to go backwards and use weaker items. I want my gear level to keep going up. Yep, and in Breath of the Wild, they seem to make a lot of things how the game functions and the mechanics to be deliberately frustrating. And I play a game every day that's deliberately frustrating. It is called life and so I was gonna say elden ring.

Speaker 1:

Your weapons don't break in elden ring. Nope, you don't freeze in elden ring. Those are the, the top two, I mean. So's a? There's a research study from back when I first started going in the psychology of games direction with my work, and it talked about what you need in a game in order to be classified as an MMO, and one of those features was physicality. What that means is you are actually physically existing in that virtual space, meaning if you fall from a tall height, you will take damage as an example. Fall damage for some reason we're all very familiar with and we don't say this, ruined my escapist mentality that I fell and I actually got hurt like it's real life mentality that I fell and I actually got hurt like it's real life, but for some reason being in 10 degree weather and your health just depleting every five seconds and watching those hearts evaporate because you didn't eat any spice apples. That really bothers me.

Speaker 2:

Well, the other thing I'm going to say too, with Breath of the Wild versus others was you finish the the, you come off the cliff, you get your hang glider and you come off. And now they show four points on the map and they're like, okay, go have fun. And I was like, all right, I'm gonna go this way. All of a sudden, I was in an area where I couldn't even beat one of like the regular what are they called Hobokens?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I couldn't even beat one. They were too strong and I was like, okay, I got to go the other way now, and that was. You know, you walked in the wrong neighborhood, Marcus.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and I get that.

Speaker 1:

It's just the the. I like open world, but I like it to be guided a little bit.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like make it impossible to go to the places where you will instantly die, right, yes, yeah, where an elden ring, they pretty much. You're pretty much. You only have really one area that you can stumble your way into and it is like, if there's ever a flashing light on the screen, the ground turns red and everything turns to like a reddish, gray sky and you're like all right, I don't know if I'm supposed to be here, because clearly it's changed. And that's when you're in Limgrave and you end up in Caled.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's yeah. So that whole point about open worlds and letting you just walk into places that you don't belong and you see what level your enemies are on their health bar above their head, you can very easily decide I'm not going to engage them. I must find a way around this area to get to the other side, and so you don't lose all that progress trying to walk through that area. But there's not a leveling system in Zelda, so I think that there are little things where I can see what they were aiming for. It's a beautiful game. It's executed very well. I'm blaming us and the psychological things happening in our heads for why we struggle with some of these design choices. It's because other games taught us what to expect and Zelda is not trying to be those games.

Speaker 2:

What is your favorite Legend of Zelda game Twilight?

Speaker 1:

Princess Interesting? Yeah, I played. Okay, marcus, any game that I played in the 2005 to 2010 era is happening at really important moments in my life. That defined who I am today Finishing college, getting married, finishing my master's becoming a counselor that all happened in that five-year window. A counselor that all happened in that five-year window, and so that's approximately the time in there.

Speaker 1:

I don't remember the exact year, but that's around when I played Twilight Princess on my Wii and I loved the way Link was characterized in that game. I loved the way Zelda was. I loved how Ganondorf shows up. I loved Midna as a character. I love the dueling modes of being a wolf and being Link. I thought all the classic weapons showed up in a cool way. I mean, it just hit me at a time where it gave me all the vibes that I remembered from Ocarina of Time, a little bit of Majora's Mask, but Ocarina of Time is my preferred and then so, okay, ocarina of Time is my favorite Zelda, but in terms of the one I've played the most and the one that I love the gameplay of, it's Twilight Princess, what about you.

Speaker 2:

Snes Link to the Past Ooh, that is a good one that I spent hours and hours and hours and I remember, when you like, when you go into the past, yeah, I. It took me months to figure it out because I was a little kid and I couldn't figure out all the things that I had to do because you basically had to go back to the areas in the regular world. But you're in the opposite world, you're in the upside down and you got to find everything and do extra stuff and it's. It was crazy for me, but it, that game defined zelda for me still to this day. I don't think they ever made a remake, did they? They might have for the ds. They made.

Speaker 1:

They made a sequel on the 3ds, actually, and I had it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I never finished it because I'm pretty sure I soft locked my save or hard locked my save, meaning I got link into a place where there's no way out, but I ruined the way forward by not doing something right earlier, so I create a dead end for myself Now.

Speaker 1:

That being said, sometimes I run into a problem in terms of navigating the map in games and even if I'm staring right at the solution, I don't see it. My brain just does not understand that that's an option. It happened to me on my stream in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. I ran around the same hallways for 30 minutes with Yuffie in Chapter 8 of that game and my stream is watching. I'm kind of apologizing to them but getting really angry and like oh god, we're wasting time on my stream and I'm pretty sure that could have happened in the legend of zelda a link between worlds might be the name of it. Yes, yeah, I'm pretty sure I did that to myself in one of the early dungeons and instead of starting the game over and getting back to that same spot and doing it better, I abandoned it, because it's easy to abandon handheld games, I guess I don't know no, it's just when you get frustrated.

Speaker 2:

I've been there. I got super frustrated with elden ring and I shut it off and I didn't turn it on until two weeks ago. Yeah, so I get it, but you say no, the frustration with maps on the same way. You know, I was battling lindell with the map because lindell is very vertical but the map is very one-dimensional because they can show that. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Maps are just an X and a Y axis. Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 2:

They don't care about Z but there is something to be said for when you are playing it and you get that next upgrade to the, to the next sword or to the shield or the eventual you know master sword when in, like Breath of the Wild, it didn't matter If you didn't have the master sword. You didn't need it. There were so many other weapons that you didn't need to have the master sword.

Speaker 1:

I thought having the master sword for those four dungeons, because it has the light energy that all the bosses are weak to, I thought that that was actually a really important item. Wow. So you know, zelda taught me the same thing about improving items and I think that it started to create the D&D wizard mentality, where my solution for everything is just throw a fireball into the room Like it's a big magic spell. It does a lot of damage, it destroys multiple enemies at once, it solves a lot of problems but could create chaos, right.

Speaker 1:

And I remember, in Ocarina of Time, spending extra time trying to find the really large fish so I could get the gold scale, so I could dive an extra three seconds before coming back up for air, which is incredibly useful in the water temple in the water temple. And I also remember spending an extra 30 minutes to an hour every playthrough, advancing through daytime and nighttime with the song that changes the sun, so that the giant Goron blacksmith in the Goron Mountains could forge the big Goron sword for me, because I wanted the giant two handed sword that can kill multiple enemies in one swing instead of the master sword. Always, like it just taught me, you want the biggest, baddest weapon, and that mentality still lives inside me today in terms of the way I plan. What activities will I spend time on in this next video game?

Speaker 2:

I only so the master, short of course I went after. But I would, I've never been like, I've always been find the weapon you like and just keep it and upgrade it. You know what I mean? Yeah, I, I'm very stick to the routine kind of a player.

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, up until Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, I always kind of looked at the Zelda games. As you're not choosing your weapons, you know you're going to be doing sword and shield, because that's what Link does, right does right. That's really interesting that you got so much of a psychological strategy for yourself out of how the weapons work in the two newest games I love the boomerang, believe it or not, in the in the younger games like the boomerang was awesome because I was at range and you could throw the boomerang three times and kill an enemy before he could even get to you, then you could throw the boomerang three times and kill an enemy before he could even get to you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah yeah, in the 2d games, like link to the past, yeah yeah, that's really helpful. So, gang Ray, for this talk. I was thinking to myself what are the things that a person should know if they haven't played a Zelda game, like, what are the pieces of a Zelda game that when someone talks to you about Zelda, these are the things you should know so that you can understand what they're talking about.

Speaker 2:

Oh boy, an epic journey to withstand the test of time, to save the world.

Speaker 1:

Hmm, like in Majora's mask where it says you have like a certain number of days and then the what is it? The moon crashes into the earth, right? That game was just created to teach us about trauma and anxiety disorders, I'm pretty sure, yeah, lots of mental health professionals talk about majora's mask with a reverence that I don't have towards that game. I liked ocarina of time better and they came out in a way that made. I mean, majora's mask is a sequel, it seems, to ocarina of time. It is yeah, so I just I played it. I played it once, got all the masks so that I could have the special mask that gives you a projectile ray of energy that comes out of the Master Sword, and then beat up the final boss and then went back to Ocarina of Time.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 1:

So I think also, it's really important to talk about the triforce and the characters that are represented in the triforce, marcus, because this is the the central point of why the games exist is well, this is the first time we're bringing up the Triforce, and that's shocking.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, 31 minutes into the episode, right, yeah, so this is where video games become. Mythology is. The Triforce, is an energy source that's created by the goddesses Din, nehru and Faror, and they use this energy to create the world. That is Hyrule and it's a triangle, that is a series of three triangles with an empty triangle in the middle, and it gets broken apart and that creates a disruption in the flow of energy. It creates an imperfect existence, and this is something that we should be familiar with if we're scholars in areas like philosophy and religion. Is the imperfect creation right? You're created by a perfect energy source that is corrupted by the fact that humans are imperfect, and then all of us exist in a journey to try to reclaim that perfection, and then we use that to describe the life cycle, from birth to living to death and then generation to generation, and it turns out that Link goes on this journey to save the world from Ganondorf and help Zelda.

Speaker 2:

It's always. I've never heard it explained that way before about the Triforce I always thought the Triforce is what gave Zelda her power, which then gave it to Link.

Speaker 1:

Well, yes, the flow of energy usually is Zelda has it from the get-go Link, gets it by finding it or earning it or realizing he had it all along. You know, whatever version of the hero's journey they give Link for that particular game installment. Also, link is not the same Link every time he gets to Link around Hyrule, it's true? Yeah, I'm pretty sure Ganondorf is the only one that is the same person every time, that's why he's living the best life.

Speaker 1:

Where he never quite has what he wishes he had. It's actually how most religions would explain hell, marcus, not paradise. You think so, though it's like purgatory. He's imagining that he could be the dominant force in all of existence, but he never quite gets there. He just knows he's not going to get killed when the fight starts yeah so that explains the Triforce.

Speaker 1:

We've mentioned the three central figures, but I want to make it very clear. The three members of the Triforce are link Green elf boy goes hi. Yeah, zelda, she represents wisdom and usually is a princess of the kingdom, but sometimes has warrior tendencies. Now, I mean, she got added to Smash Brothers and now she gets more and more badass every time she gets put in a game.

Speaker 2:

There's a game where you actually play as Zelda now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's Echoes of Wisdom. Echoes of Wisdom, yep, it is in the style of Link's Awakening, which also I played. That one, I thought it was amazing. I played the original and I played the Switch remake and I thought both were great. You collect magical musical instruments to hatch an egg that is somehow tied to whether existence is good or evil. So also childlike imagination, which also is found in a lot of ancient mythological stories, is a giant egg with all of the energy for good and evil in the earth. Right, it doesn't make any sense when you think about how the actual world works for adults, but in the mind of a child that can be powerful imagery that has deep meaning.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm thinking about it. Like I told you, my brain is working a little slow this week.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you have some malware in your brain, marcus yeah, for sure I'm all those unofficial nintendo websites you're going to oh, to find out about the switch too yeah, and how. Now you can go to official websites to find out of those. You won't get malware anymore yeah and now.

Speaker 2:

And realizing that the connectors are awful.

Speaker 1:

No, they're great. Marcus, do you have a iPhone? Yeah, do you have a case that has the MagSafe circle on it? Yeah, okay, I have a little ring that allows me to use it as a stand. Okay, listen to this, it's beautiful. It's not going anywhere. Now I can pull it, I mean, unless I apply force like it's. Listen again, no, I get it. That's going to be our Switch 2s. This is brilliance.

Speaker 2:

I just have a bad feeling about it.

Speaker 1:

Well, if it doesn't work, then you just go buy another joy con, which is the same situation we're currently in with the stick drift or whatever they as your stick ever drifted many times like man the if people are not gamers and they're listening to us for like professional reasons, we probably should explain that so they don't think we're creeps.

Speaker 1:

So the Nintendo Switch has a problem where, if you play it too much, the stick will get stuck pointing to the side when it's not physically pointing to the side, which means your character will constantly drift in a direction instead of standing still, which is a major problem if you're playing a lot of video games, because you need to be able to stand still and control what direction you run. So Marcus and I made a little bit of an adult humor joke because it's kind of silly that Nintendo could not make dependable Joy-Con controllers for the switch one. But it is a known problem and because of that, a lot of people who play the switch a lot just buy Joy-Cons every once in a while, which is the name of the controller for the switch.

Speaker 2:

Wow, so my stick does drift sometimes.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, marcus, for acknowledging what all of us knew already.

Speaker 2:

So, moving on into the switch 2, I'll be curious to see if there's a zelda game. I don't think it's going to come out at launch, but there's going to be one not far behind with the new console.

Speaker 1:

I could even see them remastering Tears of the Kingdom or Breath of the Wild or both. Yeah, maybe combo, pack them, but have them have some graphical upgrades so they get into that PS4 graphic category that the Switch 2 is talking about.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm excited for it. Once you can pre-order it, I'll pre-order it. But I have found a newfound love for my Switch late in the game. Believe it or not, my kids have their own Switch and they have the regular ones. I have a Switch Lite and I love it.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, I had a Switch Lite as well. I loved it. There was one thing about it I didn't love which caused me to trade it in and get a regular Switch, and that is you cannot connect it to a capture card, meaning I cannot stream these games. So if it was just about handheld gaming, yeah, switch light is a magnificent device. It's, it's light. It's not as clunky as holding a steam deck. Um, it doesn't overheat like a steam deck, because switch games are not requiring that much power like a Steam Deck game would. Oh, marcus, this is not related to Zelda, but can I tell you what the handheld gaming news that I'm actually most excited about from today is? It actually stole the Switch 2 Thunder from my soul. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth the crown jewel of graphics for my PS5. Like that's a personal statement, I'm not saying it's the best graphics of the PS5, but for me it is. It is Steam Deck verified for next week. Somehow they got this gorgeous PS5 game to be Steam Deck verified before launch.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know that's the hardest part too with Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth. If you can be patient and wait for it to come out on the PC, you're better off, because it's a way better version of the game than the PlayStation version, because you're getting all the graphical upgrades.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's very true, but I'll just have both. That's part of being me. So back to Zelda, the three central characters of the Triforce. These are people living on the Earth fighting for the fate of existence, and the Triforce attaches itself to their existence, right? So they represent one-third of this powerful energy that allowed for existence to be created. And Link represents courage, zelda represents wisdom and Ganondorf represents power itself. Okay, and it's always two on one. There has not been a moment where Link chair, shot Zelda and joins Ganondorf. This is not the shield, you know they are. It's always Link and Zelda versus Ganondorf, and the earlier games had Zelda be the damsel kind of character, but she has become more empowered and capable, even if, as the player, you are controlling link, and they do need you to show up at the end and bring all the forces of good together. Uh, and, and so zelda may still need captured, but it's done in a way that doesn't make her seem damsel in distress well, and it's a show of the times, because right now, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2:

Years ago it wasn't like this. And now I don't want to say women are empowered. I don't know if that's the right way to say it. It's just women are you know, women are strong voices, or I'm trying to think of the right way to say it in making zelda strong, wherein the original legend of zelda, she was just a weak princess that got captured, like princess peach.

Speaker 1:

You know what I mean peach also has been empowered in recent years she's the most badass character in the mario movie. That's correct. Yeah, and actually I was thinking about when did zelda switch this script? And I don't know if it happened before this, but they started to switch this around for young girls across the world in Ocarina of Time because Zelda gets abducted as a child in that game in the child timeline. But when you go into the adult timeline, because Link gets put into stasis in the Temple of Time and awakens as an adult, he encounters this character named Sheik, and Sheik is acrobatic, ninja-like, assassin-type moveset, and actually is Zelda. Set and actually is Zelda.

Speaker 1:

So even back in the mid 90s, Nintendo was giving us the opportunity to see a strong female character who has a purpose and will show off some badassery in order to accomplish that goal.

Speaker 1:

I think it's great. Yeah, In fact that kind of takes cues from Princess Leia, right, Like she's stuck in a cell in A New Hope, but as soon as they let her out of the cell, she starts giving orders and showing that I've got poise in this situation. I'm going to do anything to solve this problem and get off this death star. And and the the guys in the group are like who did we just rescue? You know like it's. It's a really neat dynamic. So I'm pointing this out because these fandom experiences do teach us a lot about not just what we are, but what we could be, and that's why representation and inclusion is important. That's why paying attention to how you characterize the different people in your story based on gender, based on skin tone, based on ethnicity, based on other features is so important, because you might have a person playing who sees themselves in a part of your game and you're teaching them what their limits are and what their ceiling could be.

Speaker 2:

I think that, as the time goes on, there's so many different options where, in so many games, you can create a character and you can make it your character, whatever you want it to be. You can create a character and you can make it your character, whatever you want it to be, whereas Zelda, the Zelda games, you're basically hey, princess Zelda is getting captured, link, you're going to save the day. These are your characters. You know there's no customizing, that. You get the NPCs who you talk to throughout your journey and those are the ones that make a difference in the gameplay.

Speaker 1:

There is some customization in the two newer games in the sense that you can choose your outfits and go after different set pieces that are going to give Link different abilities, that make some things possible that were impossible before. When I'm watching a video on YouTube of someone who played Breath of the Wild 300 hours and then compare it to me played like 30 hours to beat the game Right, their Link looks like something that I did not even know was possible in the game just because of the outfit. Like my link looks like the classic link, like he looks like the character yeah.

Speaker 1:

You just select him in super smash brothers he's got like the teal tunic he's got yeah, he's just so boring. And then you see these other people. They found these items and they got some extra stealth or extra speed or like double the time with zooming in arrow mode, and I'm just like they are doing things that are like neo in the matrix compared to me, and they're so talented, and so that kind of experimentation with how Link looks and what he's capable of as a result that's how customization occurs, not in character creation, but in what tasks are you willing to do to make your Link better? So, marcus, when I was collecting research about what we have found in psychology about the legend of zelda, there were some articles and thesis publications that were very interesting to me, and one of them was from brown 2012. It was a master's thesis about Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs and how people who play the Legend of Zelda are able to see themselves in the context of achieving these levels of need fulfillment. And I love Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Speaker 1:

Have you gotten to the part in the Gamer's Journey where I show off the pyramid with the different levels of needs? What chapter that game players have? Chapter one, oh, come on. Actually, I have a question for you. How does the audible version do the pictures?

Speaker 2:

Well, they explain it. It's harder to like they it's. They basically just explain what's there, but they don't. It's not the same.

Speaker 1:

It's, it's there, it is OK. So there's five levels of needs, and the top one is what we call self-actualization, which is this is the perfect balance of understanding yourself and that your needs are met and you're content being yourself. Basically, you're the best version of who you are, and so, basically, playing the Legend of Zelda builds in this awareness of self purpose and how we can get to being what we were meant to be, that people who have not played Legend of Zelda can get in different ways but maybe not understand. Also, maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a triangle and the Triforce is a triangle, so it's like a match made in heaven kind of. I've always felt that, and that's why that pyramid is in my book so early. But you want to know why Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is taught by people who play the Legend of Zelda? Marcus, tell me this thesis and another article from 2022 that's about active imagination and playing the Legend of Zelda. Which imagination is big in Tears of the Kingdom, for sure, but also the ability to solve the puzzles in the dungeons. Yep, you have to have an imagination to rotate those items, to figure out how they fit into the puzzle. That's the truth, okay, and the reason that we can learn how to become accepting of ourselves and more fulfilled by playing Zelda is because both of these articles, published 10 years apart, talk about how the legend of Zelda is modern mythology. Talk about how the Legend of Zelda is modern mythology. So when I was doing the research for this episode first article I find Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, also in chapter one of my book says Legend of Zelda is modern mythology. Second article active imagination is important for children, which I said last week when I was ranting about society and sounding a little bit tinfoil hat.

Speaker 1:

Okay, but also, why is imagination important in playing video games? Because video games are modern mythology. They inspire imagination. They inspire us to see a positive explanation of how we fit into our existence, see a positive explanation of how we fit into our existence modern mythology. And then I'm thinking well, my book was written without me ever seeing these articles, because I've believed all games can be a source of modern mythology if we believe in the lessons from them, hard enough to apply them to our lives.

Speaker 1:

And I was just like, wow, there are so many game players that picked up on this feeling that my book is all about. And it's nice to look up other people's work and add them to the show. Aj Howe 2022 is the active imagination piece, and then Brown 2012 is a thesis on Abraham Maslow's theory of needs and the legend of Zelda, but I guess we're at the point if I ever am too far behind to find more research for the show. We could have just gone with the gamer's journey. I feel like that's cliche, isn't it? But they are saying the central point of my book.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but you got to understand. Other people are going to be using the gamer's journey 2024.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's so cool, marcus, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so hopefully they will. Of course they will, it takes time.

Speaker 1:

But mythology gives us a sense of purpose and belonging, and belonging is a need that we have. And purpose allows us to grow and level up and keep fighting when things are not easy. And video games encourage us to keep fighting when things are not easy. And video games encourage us to keep fighting when things are not easy. And sometimes in life we put so much of an emphasis depending on who your parents are and what your school is like from early childhood that you need to succeed on the first try or else you're just not good enough.

Speaker 1:

That's how I felt. I felt like I did not get to be bad at things and then get better over time. Somehow the message that came to me was you have to be great immediately, because if you're not great when we check on you, then that means you were not paying attention when we tried to teach you which is wrong. That is not the right, that's not even true. I know that now as an adult, but I didn't as a child, and even knowing it doesn't mean that I will live my life by it. I still put the pressure on me that I learned in childhood, but video games never put that pressure on me. They allowed me to get destroyed by this fight a hundred times in a row and when you're done being not good enough, try the fight again. Maybe you'll win.

Speaker 2:

So, as we come back to the return and we go back to our daily lives to take the next step forward, right, I just want to make a big shout out real quick. Back to the return and we go back to our daily lives to take the next step forward, right, I just want to make a big shout out real quick. Shout out to kitty kisses.

Speaker 1:

Co-host to the utini cast podcast love utini cast my first podcast um hi chill.

Speaker 2:

So kitty kisses has achieved partner on twitch oh man, let's go so he sent me the text message earlier today.

Speaker 1:

Congratulations, buddy that's so great. A lot of people in slow tour are doing amazing right now in that regard.

Speaker 2:

Oh, really awesome, well, I mean, yeah, I see a few. Well, I guess they did that twitch drops and it really worked and helped some of their streamers out which is great he earned it man, he's been doing it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's awesome. It's important to be consistent and entertaining and get people that like the vibe that you're putting into the channel Right. So, Marcus, what are some of your final thoughts from our talk about Zelda that you think will stay with you during the week that we're about to have? Our talk about the Triforce and your Majora's Mask.

Speaker 2:

Oh, we didn't really talk too much about Majora's Mask. You did because you were talking about all the. I didn't play Majora's Mask, but then you were talking. When you spoke about all the masks, I went and did the Google and I typed in all the masks and I was just interested in it because I never played it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, masks are a big part of the Jungian concept of personas personas and they allow us to shield ourselves from reality but to broadcast out our preferred image for what we hope people will interact with. So instead of interacting with us, they interact with what the mask is. Actually, I just submitted my first draft of my Darth Vader chapter for Psychology of Villains. Hopefully it gets accepted. I'm not sure it's my best work yet, but I hope that I get a chance to tweak it and make it better. But of course, the Vader mask is an iconic mask and we know Anakin Skywalker is just a burnt up little boy who sat inside that mask. But the galaxy doesn't know that they are Vader. They are terrified of Lord Vader, and so you know.

Speaker 1:

The Majora's Mask concept is another mask, or a series of masks from my childhood that I remember. Just they inspire mystery, like what does this mask do? And also that game is on a timer right, like you have to fit in everything you're gonna do for that dungeon in the set of days, yep, or else the moon crashes into the planet and you die. That is such a powerful problem for a video game to put in your face. So, marcus, before we go. I want to ask you something. Sure, if you could have a piece of the Triforce embedded on the top of your hand and guide you through life, which one would it be?

Speaker 2:

I think I already have it and it's wisdom Okay. A lot of my friends always ask for my advice and I, and I've always, I always positive preach and bring that ultimate positivity to people.

Speaker 1:

So I would say wisdom for sure I had this conversation with my ceo and director at KindBridge and I'm the director of gaming services and I was talking about our chemistry as a trio and how we cover the blind spots of each other and we were trying at dinner to. I talked to them about the Triforce and how it's a really critical concept in the Legend of Zelda and Zelda is a major franchise for video games and just educating them about that for some reason, while we were eating dinner and try to figure out, well, there's three of us, what part of the Triforce are we? So the CEO is power, right, that's easy. And then I said you know, the clinical director I think would be wisdom and that leaves me with courage, but I'm not sure if that is right or if we're both wisdom and you. Picking wisdom kind of leads to the same conversation here.

Speaker 2:

And the clinical director said well, you could just to interrupt you, I could also be courage, because I'm always positive and giving people courage.

Speaker 1:

The rules of the universe clearly state you cannot have two pieces of the Triforce. You're right, marcus. Like in in real life, we are not just one thing. Ok, in terms of this question, though, we are, and what the clinical director said to me when I was doubting whether I was courage or not is she said you stand in front of mental health professionals that think they know what video games are, and they think they know what addiction is every day, and you tell them you're wrong.

Speaker 1:

And here's why and I fully thought this through there's really no argument with this and please change the way you're seeing this, because it will help people have a more positive existence. And she said to stand in front of people who don't agree with you and constantly be talking about why you see things the way you do, that takes courage. Constantly be talking about why you see things the way you do, that takes courage. And I just was like I was touched because I don't. I think I mentioned this in our first episode together, marcus, but I don't quite see myself that way. But if other people do, then let's just keep doing what we're doing. Yeah Right, doing what we're doing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, right.

Speaker 2:

Also, that means, if we ever find a third person for our podcast, they must represent power Unlimited power.

Speaker 1:

All right. So, Marcus, we did not discuss our next topic before we pressed record. Oh, I love it.

Speaker 2:

So I'm ready for it.

Speaker 1:

So you want to be the person who decides it?

Speaker 2:

I will give that I have three choices and I want you to pick one, two or three. Let's do it.

Speaker 1:

Pick number one. You just want me to pick a number.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I have them in my head One, two and three One. Next week we're going to be talking about fighting games, oh, not a specific one. I like that. That's very smart. Well, the reason why is because so you have mortal combat, fatality, blood, blood, blood. Then you have street fighter, which has been around forever, but then you have king of fighters, and then what was that other, like the dc one? Ah, what was that called? Injustice, injustice among us, yes you have that and then think about all the other tekken.

Speaker 2:

I mean power rangers has one yeah, and well, there was another dead or alive remember. Yeah, that's a fun one yeah, from back in the day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think, though, man, that's hard because I don't like where fighting games are at right now, but we can talk about that next episode. So I want to give another major shout-out to KindBridge Behavioral Health. We're doing great things over there. If you are interested in doing counseling and you want to do telehealth, check out kindbridgecom and we will be able to place you with a therapist or coach, and these are counselors that are trained by me to have a more positive, pro-social view of things like video games, but also be able to create a treatment plan that's personalized for you.

Speaker 2:

If these conversations sound fun to you and you're looking for some great people to play online games with, check out AIE, go to aie-guildorg, jump in their Discord and find one of the many, many games that they play, because they are such a great gaming community and everybody is welcome on that topic.

Speaker 1:

Join our discord, jump into general or community questions and talk to us about what some of your favorite legend of zelda games and memories are. I would love to hear from you and build more conversations around the triforce, personas, maslow's hierarchy of needs and so on and so forth. And how did we end up not talking about persona as our next topic after that?

Speaker 2:

I've never played persona mask.

Speaker 1:

That's why Okay, well, someday we're going to tackle persona. I have one last quest for everyone to collect for the day Go after your purpose and get it in there before the moon crashes into your planet, and continue the journey later Everyone, thank you.

People on this episode

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Daniel Kaufmann

Host
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MarcusB814

Co-host