Professor Blastoff Afterthoughts: Power
How many more Zelda games must there be before we learn, power falling into the wrong hands makes an excellent formula for story telling that never gets old, ever?!
Without any villains like Ganondorf to overcome, Link would have nothing to challenge his heroism! He’d probably let himself go, move back into his mom and dad’s and end up killing a lot of time playing video games, powered by fairy magic and sucking on his fingers for comfort. This fan art, I believe, is of gamer Link running out to the store for some Red Bull.
This week in the professor’s hatch we welcomed special guest Aurora Nibley to speak with us on the topic of power, and more specifically dictators. She also made us cookies! Which was a very subtle power play to get on everyone’s good side. Well played.
One of the discussion points that stood out to me was the importance of who leaders are before their rise to power. Going back to the Link example, every sequel the fairies recruit a hero. They look for some pure in heart, seemingly innocent, GREEN clothes wearing, kid that always has three hearts…one more than Doctor Who, if you’re counting. The fairies give the boy special powers because they trust him and they all hate the evil Ganondorf because he keeps stealing the enchanted triforce as well as princess Peach, er Zelda…sorry.
The take home message is you should never allow a kidnapper into power. And the triforce obviously represents the three branches of the U.S. government we learned about in this weeks podcast. Link represents some kid who will one day be president, the fairies represent the checks and balances and Ganondorf represents the devil.
Now that I’ve cleared that up, I’d like to share our cut clip of the week. This clip features a young, working class man named Dennis discussing the intricacies of his self-perpetuating autocratic government, in which the people take turns as executive officers every other week. This is juxtaposed by another man claiming to have inherited the right to lead from a divine source.
Dennis rationally contradicts King Arthur’s claim to power. He argues authority should be given by those who are being led, and that it is too easy to contrive a fantastic story of divine appointment. King Arthur and Link both are called on by non-human guardians and are given special swords to represent their power. When we play the Zelda games, we see that the fairies are really there giving Link the powers so we go along with the story. Also it’s just a game. But in the real world we don’t get to see any fair and balanced clips of Angels attending political fundraisers.
There are many people, including presidential candidates, who claim to have a divine call to lead. Even though I believe in inspiration, that’s a bit of a red flag for me. Where is your Excalibur governor? If you are inspired to lead that’s great, then show us you are inspired with a pure heart and good intentions, let us see how you’ve dealt with a little power before you get the whole enchilada? Let us judge you by your fruits, not just your words. Let us hear how well you sing “Rainbow Connection.” That’s right, I believe that Kermit the Frog is the standard character model to which all politicians should be held.
And with that I will end this weeks blog. Thanks for reading.
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