As much as I love 2024's excellent Echoes of Wisdom being the lone exception. Getting to play as Zelda felt like a long time coming, and I'm grateful the princess is finally getting her flowers, but I'm afraid more drastic measures may be necessary to give her the full breadth of the spotlight.

Nintendo is exceedingly protective of its flagship characters, and it's not hard to understand why. Mario isn't just a popular video game character, he's in the running for the most recognizable fictional character of all time, the face and the image of a massive multimedia franchise, one that aims to be family-friendly. Zelda frequently treads more mature ground than Super Mario, but aside from some shocking imagery in older games and unnerving sub-text, Zelda has also never faced the mortality of its lead characters.

The Legend Of Zelda Has Never Killed Off A Leading Character In-Game

Link & Zelda Are Never Killed On-Screen

Being whooped by a boss and losing all your hearts technically counts as Link dying, but he and Zelda have not canonically met their demise in any game. The closest you can get is by virtue of the hilariously convoluted Zelda series timeline, in which one unseen outcome of Ocarina of Time's final fight against Ganon results in Link's death (and the subsequent imprisonment of Ganon in the Sacred Realm by the Sages). This is a special case, though, as it was seemingly devised retroactively to connect what are essentially self-contained entries in an anthology.

It's also notable that this happens at the end of a game, or in an alternate ending to a game – while it has massive consequences for the Zelda universe, Link's death is never really felt by players, nor is its fallout witnessed. Ocarina of Time remains a curiously tragic game among its peers; death looms over the story quite heavily. Link's mother dies prior to the game's events while fleeing the dies in front of Link in a missable dialogue, Dampé es while Link is trapped in the Sacred Realm, and the royal family sans Zelda is presumably executed as part of Ganondorf's coup.

But Link and Zelda remain (physically) unharmed, or at the very least, alive. This remains true throughout the entire series. Even in Tears of the Kingdom, arguably Princess Zelda's most tragic story, permanent physical harm is not inflicted. I don't necessarily believe The Legend of Zelda needs to strive for a more mature tone – even though I have a soft spot for Twilight Princess' melancholy – but I think Zelda's potential as a playable protagonist is severely stunted by Link's presence, regardless of his role in the story.

Even In Echoes Of Wisdom, Zelda Has To Share The Spotlight

Defeating Null Isn't Zelda's Victory Alone

Echoes of Wisdom is still primarily Zelda's story, and I'm not saying it's worse off because of Link's role, but it is indicative of how the common confines of the series' narratives keep Zelda from being the lone hero. Part of the issue comes down to Echoes of Wisdom featuring the Triforce, known in this era as the Prime Energy. When the Prime Energy splits in Echoes of Wisdom, the series' divine governance ordains that the three pieces are inherited by those with matching characteristics: Zelda gets the Triforce of Wisdom, Link the Triforce of Courage, and Null seeks the Triforce of Power.

It would seem that with the Triforce present, there must always be a Link figure, though there is evidence to suggest Zelda has all three Triforce pieces in TOTK. Breath of the Wild and TOTK show that the Triforce doesn't necessarily have to be a contributing factor to the primary conflict, even when Ganon is the main threat. A solution to truly elevate Zelda as the lone protagonist of a game is therefore to remove Link from the equation, and seeing him killed arguably carries the most dramatic weight.

Echoes of Wisdom is simply a new spin on what the Zelda series has been doing for a long time. Princess Zelda is rarely the typical damsel in distress; she disguises herself as Sheik in Ocarina of Time, leads her pirate crew as Tetra in The Wind Waker, and works to keep Demise imprisoned throughout Skyward Sword. These examples are not unlike Link's role in Echoes of Wisdom, who even s the climactic fight against Null in a ive role à la Zelda and her trusty Light Arrows.

Killing Link Is The Most Effective Way To Ensure Zelda Shines As The Protagonist

Check Him For Bottled Fairies First

I believe that an unutilized plot point in the series at large is a primary character's death, and the inverse would be equally effective: Zelda dying in a game that stars Link would be heartbreaking, but is worth exploring. As the series currently stands, however, Zelda has the most potential benefit as the one to survive. Now that Echoes of Wisdom has finally set a precedent that's long overdue, Zelda could dramatically enshrine herself as a capable hero in her own right by triumphing against evil in Link's absence.

Queen Sonia's death in Tears of the Kingdom is arguably the most we've seen Zelda characters confront mortality, and it's a great example of how emotionally resonant characters being killed off can be.

There are other avenues, of course – Link stars in titles like Link's Awakening and Majora's Mask where Zelda simply isn't present – but killing off the series' traditional lead doesn't just symbolically the torch, it also provides an opportunity to give Zelda unexplored emotional depth. Link has done plenty of pioneering in the series, far more than Zelda has. Killing off one of the main two is uncharted territory for The Legend of Zelda, but there's serious potential in the idea because of how groundbreaking it could be for Princess Zelda as a leading character.