A LEGEND OF REGRET:FALLEN KINGDOMS AND POSTCOLONIAL GHOSTS

IN TWILIGHT PRINCESS

Kathryn HemmannGeorge Mason University

Of course many of you are familiar with the WilliamFaulkner quote that bears repeating: "The Past is neverdead. The past is never dead. It's not even past. " And sowe live with the ghosts of our past. (Davis 114)

1begin this essay with a quote from Angela Davis drawn froma speechshe delivered in February 2013 for Black History Monthat Davidson College. Davis, a radical activist for global humanrights, is of speaking from an American perspective, and it mayseemodd to reference her work in the context of a conversationabout Asia. However, I think it's important to emphasize theuniversalrelevance of the Gothic genre, as well as to acknowledgethat postcolonial ghosts are not a thematic concern specific to asingle national origin. The alignment of center and peripherywritten into the colonial script is not limited to an Atlantocentricperspective, after all, and Japan continues to be haunted by thehorrific legacy of its actions during the twentieth century. Nomatter how assiduously the current neoliberal politicalestablishment attempts to suppress historical memory, conflictsover issues such as the Yasukuni Shrioe, American military basesinOkinawa, and textbook censorship and revisionism indicate thatthe ghosts ofthe past will not remain silent.

Unquiet postcolonial ghosts have manifested in a wide rangeof Japanese media, from literary fiction to televised animationserials, and it is not surprising that they have drifted into digitalnarratives as well. This essay focuses on a video game called TheLegend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Zeruda no densetsu:Towairaito purinsesu), which was originally released for theNintendo GameCube and Wii home consoles in 2006. TwilightPrincess is extremely popular, selling seven million unitsworldwide within five years of its release and about a million andhalf more units since then. The game received dozens of perfect

PAJLS, Volume 18 (2017)

48 A LEGEND OF REGRET

and near-perfect scores in the domestic and international gamingpress, as well as numerous industry awards. In March 20I6, anupdated high definition version of TWilight Princess was releasedfor the Nintendo Wii U console to great acclaim. A month before,in February 2016, a manga adaptation began serializing onpublisher Shogakukan's MangaOne mobile application, and withinfour months of the publication of its first installment internationalmanga licensing giant Viz Media announced that it had acquiredthe English-language rights to the property.

I have referenced the positive critical reception and highcommercial sales numbers of TWilight Princess in order tohighlight the fact that the game is one of the central texts ofcontemporary gaming culture. The Legend of Zelda series, whichconsists of more than a dozen titles and is one of the top twentybestselling gaming franchises, is central to the experience of manygarners who have come of age since the late 1980s. As videogames continue to demonstrate that digital narratives are just ascompelling as fiction and cinema, it is worth reading TwilightPrincess as a literary text that both reflects and influencesmainstream and subcultural ideologies. For generations of garnersaround the world - in North America, Asia, Europe, and LatinAmerica - video games provide the defming stories of people'slives, pushing young writers, artists, and programmers forward tocreate their own work. Engagement with these texts is rewardingbecause it is not passive; the stories of video games demand theplayer's attention and active participation, and it is important tounderstand what these stories are and how they function.

When fans and professional gaming joumalists write aboutTWilight Princess, they generally focus on the gameplay, which isessential to the experience of consuming and interacting with thetext. Twilight Princess is also known for its large and colorful castof characters and its multilayered and engaging story, whichleaves a significant portion of its particulars open to playerinterpretation. This essay will analyze both gameplay features andin-game text and animated sequences to argue that the "evil" ofTWilight Princess is in fact a manifestation of the horrors ofimperialism. Moreover, by defeating this "evil," the hero has notin fact solved anything. Twilight Princess delivers a subtle yetpoignant protest against neoliberal discourses of empire reflected

HEMMANN 49

in therhetoric of heroism informing the geopolitical movements ofJapanthroughout the twentieth century, in which the glorifiedactionsof a colonial and then postcolonial nation have resulted intragedyand regret.

These themes are tightly intertwined with the main villain ofTwilight Princess, a man named Ganondorf. In the distant past, thehighmedieval Westernesque fantasy kingdom of Hyrule launcheda campaign of territorial expansion, uniting multiplegeographical1yproximate tribes under its banner. Ganondorf wasthe leader of the desert-dwelling Gerudo tribe, a matriarchalsocietythat resisted Hyrule's imperialism. After several years offighting,Ganondorf was eventual1ycaptured and imprisoned. Themagical Sages of Hyrule were unable to execute him, however,and so they sealed him away by casting him into the TwilightRealm, a world of shadows that exists alongside Hyrule. Theevents of Twilight Princess are triggered by Ganondorfs escapean indefinite period of time later. Ganondorf manages to persuadea prince named Zant to stage an uprising against Midna, thelegitimate ruler of the Twilight Realm. Guided by Midna, theplayer's task is to take on role of the teenage hero Link in order todefeatZant and Ganondorf and save Hyrule by rescuing its crownprincess, Zelda. Many (if not the majority) of players wil1 beinfluencedby the archetypes reproduced in this heroic narrative tounderstandLink as "good" and Ganondorf as "evil."

Ganondorf is introduced to the player as a mindless monster;but, when he is allowed to speak for himself, he is revealed to behighly intelligent with motivations that are not unsympathetic. Atthe very end of Twilight Princess, when Link finds Ganondorf inthe throne room of Hyrule Castle, he is sitting alone. The world heonce knew is long gone, and all he has left is the rage he hasdirected against Hyrule. Ganondorf has finally succeeded inconquering the kingdom; but, because his people have been kil1ed,driven away, or assimilated, his victory no longer has meaning. Ashe talks to Link, he gestures toward the symbols of power he hasacquired, the magically restrained princess Zelda and the imperialTriforce crest above her throne. The game's camera uses forcedperspective to make it seem as if he is holding them in his hand,even though they are high above his head. This is an ironicjuxtaposition with his taunt to Midna, who has led Link to this

50 A LEGEND OF REGRET

point. Ganondorf calls Midna' s people pathetic and speaks of theiranguish, but it is clear he is projecting his own suffering assomeone whose own people were similarly "cast aside by thegods," as he says.

Over the stages of the final battle, Ganondorf becomes less ofa demon and more human. He begins the fight by possessing thesleeping body of Princess Zelda and using her magic to attackLink. He then transforms into Beast Ganon, a giant boar thatrampages through Zelda's throne room, destroying the columnsthat support the high vaulted ceiling. After this stage of the battle,Ganondorf returns to his own form, leaving Hyrule Castle behindas he fights on horseback while surrounded by the ghosts of deadriders. In the end he faces Link alone in an intense sword fight. 10other words, Ganondorf progressively sheds his layers of darkmagic, bestial rage, and his past as a military leader to finallystand as a man, armed with nothing more than the sword onceused in an attempt to execute him without trial. Throughout mostof Twilight Princess, Ganondorf is characterized as evil incarnate,a ruthless warlord who attacked Hyrule merely because of hisgreed and lust for power. As indicated by his monologues andgradual humanization Overthe course of the [mal battle, however,Ganondorf represents much more than simply an evil to bedefeated, and it is deeply problematic to villainize him withoutquestioning the biases and motives of the characters whoencourage the player to attack and kill him without ever hearinghis side of the story.

Ganondorf is a member of a minority group called the Gerudo,who historically maintained uneasy relations with the majorityethnicity of Hyrule.' For representatives of the majority ethnicity

1 Aside from Ganondorf no self-identified Gerudo appear in TwilightPrincess. Many garners, however, will be familiar with the tribe from The Legendof Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1997), which has been hailed as one of the mostcelebrated and influential games of all time. The relationship between Ganondorfand the Gerudo tribe is complicated in Ocarina of Time, as is the continuity (orlack thereof) between Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess. For the purpose ofthis discussion, it will suffice to say that the area of Twilight Princess called"Gerudo Desert" is uninhabited save for itinerant bands of Bulblins, goblin-likecreatures that the game establishes as an "enemy" race. Other than the temporarycamps of the Bulblins, the only other point of interest is a large abandoned prisonbearing the imperial Triforce crest of Hyrule. Although it is never explicitly

HEMMANN 51

to demonize a member of the minority ethnicity as savage andbestial is uncomfortably close to historical colonial narratives ofthe supremacy. In addition, the views once espoused by the peoplein Hyrule concerning the Gerudo are inarguably reminiscent ofOrientalist stylizations, in which the peoples of certain "non-Westernized" and therefore "non-civilized" nations arecharacterized as being either unintelligent brutes incapable ofgoverning themselves or decadent and weak and thus ripe forseduction.

>r·~~,~d;~H ;,; [j'I,J; ..'il:: ~',J:.:,.:\0 ',,, I' \::".. i" -~;!·1·1~!

Fig. 1. Ganondorfs final words at the end of Twilight Princess.

-...- lIIiIIiioIillillWOii- --iiiiili--·ii:::"- -,'

Even within an East Asian context, Orientalist valuations areessentially a justification for invasion and colonization, asdemonstrated by ] apan' s ideological representations of itssupposedly equal fellows in the "Great East Asia Co-ProsperitySphere" of the first half of the twentieth century.

When Link finally bests him, Ganondorf speaks one of hismost famous lines, "The history of light and shadow will bewritten in blood!" (Figure /) He is not wrong. As the player haswitnessed during the past forty to fifty hours of gameplay, Hyruleis filled with ruins and ghost towns, a mere shadow of what it oncewas. As Zelda herself apologizes to Link and Midna roughlyhalfway through the game, "These dark times are the result of our

stated what happened to the Gerudo, the evidence suggested by the skeletons ofboth adults and children in the prison does not speak highly of Hyrule, whichmay have perpetuated a genocide against Ganondorfs people.

52 A LEGEND OF REGRET

deeds, yet it is you who have reaped the penalty." As Zeldaherself is blameless, she must be referring to historical violencethat has resulted in the gradual decline of Hyrule. The kingdomhas achieved its imperialistic aim of establishing hegemony overits outlying territories and crushing all rebellion against itsmilitaristic advances, but on the grand scale of history its empirehas suffered from cultural stagnation. Without the dynamicdiversity symbolized by Ganondorf and the Gerudo, Hyrule is nowin economic and political decline, isolated from any contact withthe world beyond its borders.

The villainization of Ganondorf and the Gerudo as deceitfuland lawless thieves within the world of Twilight Princess echoescontemporary neoliberal postcolonial discourse, in which formercolonial powers exhibit a longing for "the good old days" ofexpansive imperial hegemony. Sociologist Paul Gilroy has termedthis fabricated nostalgia "postcolonial melancholia," which isoften represented by the Gothic figure of the postcolonial ghost.Ganondorf is a textbook example of a postcolonial ghost _ amenacing (and possibly supernatural) figure who represents thefrightening native traditions of the past that the supposedlyenlightened colonizers tried to fix but were prevented fromcompletely eradicating by the untimely end of their rule. In orderfor global capitalism to move forward, postcolonial ghosts must bedefeated, regardless of whether they are symbolic or actual humanbeings. Such narratives are not uncommon in the politicaldiscourse and popular narratives of Japan, which is still coming toterms with its history of colonial violence on the Asian mainland.'In essence, the demonization of Ganondorf reflects the historicaland contemporary villainization of both specific and broadly

2 This speech occurs immediately before Zelda sacrifices herself to saveMidna, who has been critically injured during an encounter with Zant after Linkpurifies the Lakebed Temple.

J The figure of the postcolonial ghost has been critically and ironicallyemployed by progressive intellectuals, especiaJly authors with an internationaloutlook such as Oe Kenzaburo, Natsuo Kirino, and Murakami Haruki. Incountless examples of more lowbrow culture, people from other countries in Asiaand the Pacific are still demonized according to wartime stereotypes, which playto what are assumed to be the xenophobic prejudices and political leanings of amass-market audience.

HEMMANN 53

definedgroups in the real world, including entire nations of peoplewhohavebeen positioned as "enemies."

As a medium, video games require challenges for the player toovercome.Narrative-based games such as those in the Legend ofZeldaseries tend to be relentless in their construction of a "badguy"whose ostensibly evil deeds propel the hero into action. InTwilight Princess, as in many digital texts broadly classified as"role-playing games," there are two primary categories ofcharacterswith whom the player can interact: NPCs, or non-playercharacters,who offer material assistance and advice on how thehero can proceed through the quest, and monsters, who must beattackedand generally yield tangible rewards when defeated. Thisclear-cut division is ahnost a direct facsimile of Gilroy'sexplanationof imperialism, in which "the ruthless logic of colonialgovermnentplaced black and white, settler and native in mutuallyantagonisticrelation" (Gilroy 51). In other words, the fundamentalelementsof gameplay reflect a worldview built on the foundationof a battle of "us" versus "them," which is given literal expressionin the dichotomy between who cannot be attacked and who mustbe. Many players take it for granted that any given game willpresent a class or race or species of being that innately deserves tobe destroyed, and the widespread lack of alternative options forinteraction suggests that it is still quite radical to suggest thatperhaps the player-character is not entirely justified in thedemonization and abuse of people who don't look or think likethem.'

Video games are adept at engendering a sense of subjectivity,meaning that one of their functions is to give players a feeling ofcontrolling their movement through the gamespace while enactingtheir will via the actions of the player-character. This playersubjectivity has interesting implications on reading games asliterature, as it might be argued that the player acts as the narratorof the story. Many games with an emphasis on story feature a

4 There are several exceptions to the standard garneplay dictate that enemycharacters must be killed, although they tend to feature in independently-developed games. A notable example is as Under/ale (2015), in which the playeris given the choice to talk with randomly encountered enemies instead ofattacking them.

54 A LEGENDOFREGRET

narrator. Final Fantasy X (2001), for example, is narrated in theform of a voiceover. Other games, such as Final Fantasy f7I(1997), have a decidedly first-person narrative perspective that islimited by an emphasis on the subjectivity of the main player-character. None of the games in the Legend of Zelda series hasanarrator, however, and the player-protagonist Link remains largelysilent.

5In addition, the Zelda games are structured in a way that

subjects Link to endless items of hearsay as he is guided bycharacters who are clearly biased and never give him moreinformation than he needs to carry out their directives. In anexpansive game such as Twilight Princess, which can easily takemore than forty hours to complete, Link can miss any number ofdetails if the player is not thorough in her exploration of thediegetic world. One might argue that the player herself functionsas the narrator, but this is not precisely accurate, as the player isnott presented with a wide range of choices. The player is notallowed, for example, to talk to monsters instead of attacking them.It is therefore worthwhile to consider the gameplay itself asfunctioning as the primary form of narrative structure. If thegameplay demands that Link defeat enemies to advance, then Linkmust kill. If the gameplay demands that Link ransack ancienttemples to progress through the story, then Link must become amarauder. The gameplay does not allow Link to ask questions, nordoes it allow him to converse with or otherwise pacify thecreatures and people who attack him. As a narrator, the gameplayis unreliable, and the characterization of Ganondorf as purely evilis SUspect.At the end of the game, Link must fight and defeatGanondorf, no matter how much sympathy the player may feel forhim.

The gameplay elements of TWilight Princess therefore performabjection, the process by which We demarcate the boundaries of

s The "silent protagonist" is a Common video game trope used to facilitateplayer identification with a character. In many of the games in the Legend ofZelda series, Link is occasionally offered binary dialog choices (for example, toconfirm or deny whether he has understood a set of objectives), and the playercan trigger verbal responses non-enemy NPCs by positioning Link next to themand pressing the "Action" button. Actual conversations are not possible, however.as Link is not intended to be a character in his own right but to exist as a "link"between the player and the world of the game.

HEMMANN 55

the whole and wholesome "self' by setting up a contrast against afragmented and unclean "other." As individuals, we employ thisprocess to construct monsters that violate the sanctity of ourbodies; and as cultures, we employ this process to constructenemies that violate our sense of belonging to a shared identity.Unfortunately, the dualism of "the pure" and "the abject" causesus to become blind to the nuances and possibilities denied by theartificial division of the world into "good" and "evil." Ganondorfscultural barrier-crossing, his protean physical form, and hisoccupation of the liminal spaces between one world and anotherplace him squarely in the realm of the abject. The postcolonialnarrative of the game, as conveyed by the narrative functions ofthe gameplay, therefore demands that the abject ghosts of theempire be purified and expelled.

Link's victory is bittersweet, however, as it is notcharacterized as a triumph for him or for Hyrule. At the end ofTwilight Princess, Princess Zelda barely looks at the young manwho supposedly rescued her. Midna, whose people were oncebanished to the Twilight Realm for opposing the royal family ofHyrule, takes her leave of Link, shattering the gate between theirworlds after she departs. Midna explains her decision by saying, ""Light and shadow can't mix, as we all know," and Zeldaresponds with, "Shadow and light are two sides of the same coin ...One cannot exist without the other." As Link and Midna'sfriendship throughout the game has demonstrated, light andshadow can indeed coexist, and many players have expressedconfusion and frustration concerning this less than triumphant turnof events. Neither Midna nor any other character in TwilightPrincess explains why she would choose to destroy the Mirror ofTwilight that connects the Twilight Realm to Hyrule, but it issignificant that this occurs immediately after she has witnessed thefight between Link and Ganondorf. Perhaps the violence ofGanondorf's defeat has convinced Midna that there is no room formonsters in Hyrule, and it may be that she fears her people willalways be seen as abject outsiders, just as Ganondorf and hispeople once were. It is not clear to whom the title of TwilightPrincess refers, and it could easily designate Midna, who emergesfrom and returns to an abject and liminal space. The title couldalso apply to Princess Zelda, however, as the supposed victory

56 A LEGEND OF REGRET

over the forces of evil at the end of the game does not presage anend to her kingdom's decline. Before the end credits roll, Zeldasends the hero back to his village and returns alone to her emptycastle.

Despite the narrative arc of Link's growing competence as anadventurer, this element of sorrow and regret has been presentfrom the outset of the game. Unlike the other games in the Legendof Zelda series, Twilight Princess begins not with Link waking inthe morning, but with him returning home in the evening. Theopening scenes are suffused with the golden light of the settingsun, and the first spoken line is delivered by Link's mentor Rusl,who asks, "Tell me ... Do you ever feel a strange sadness as duskfalls?" (Figure 2) The player's first few minutes with TwilightPrincess thereby establish melancholy and lament as two of themajor themes of the game. The people of Hyrule are entering thetwilight of their civilization under the rule of an ineffectualmonarchy that has not allowed its people to be revitalized bychange and diversity. The slow apocalypse suggested by theenvironment of Twilight Princess, such as eroded ruins anddecaying ghost towns, is not presented as an opportunity forrenewal, but as a definitive ending. The potential for energeticdynamism represented by Ganondorf has been violently denied infavor of cultural and ideological purity, and the severity of thisloss is reflected in the somber tone of the game's closing scenes.

{r'&J 1j)1: 1% l.J.!J.~J (~-'h!! ij.;J:d! ;i~~l,".:.riln:.· ~~llil"f~~~;_.;.~.. -'~JY:1~~li:..l~h:~',

Fig. 2. The opening line of Twilight Princess establishes amelancholy tone.

HEMMANN 57

This is an intriguing portrayal of the concept of empire for thedevelopers at Nintendo to present to its global market, the largestand most influential component of which is the United States.Although Twilight Princess is not overtly political, its gameplayelements present a clear statement on the dichotomy between"good guys" and "bad guys," and the fairy tale quality of its storylends itself to allegory regarding the real-world implications ofthis worldview. In an essay on the Wild West themed open-worldadventure game Red Dead Redemption, Matt Margini evokesHayden West's 1974 study Metahistory to argue that a pessimisticattitude regarding the narrativization of history is "at the core ofthe game's narrative of coerced self-destruction; it's at the core ofthe gunplay and horseplay that results, often in the words 'DEAD'in caps on a blood-red screen" (Margini 93). The violent gameplaytherefore does not necessarily romanticize the violence of history,but can serve as a critique of the lack of choices any given playerhas as an actor in larger historical currents. In a similar manner, byhumanizing Ganondorf but then forcing the player to fight himanyway, Twilight Princess employs various tropes relating to thefigure of the postcolonial ghost not to invoke unironic neoliberalpostcolonial melancholia, but rather to force the player toexperience the violence of these tropes in a subjective and visceralway. Twilight Princess is therefore not so much a heroic legend oftriumph over "darkness" as it is an elegiac legend of regret inwhich the lingering traces of imperialistic ideology are the trueevil threatening the player.

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58 A LEGEND OF REGRET

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Paumgarten, Nick. "Master of Play: The Many Worlds of a Video-game Artist." The New Yorker, 27 Dec. 2010. Web. AccessedI Jan. 2017. <http://www.newyorker.comlmagazine/2010/12/20/master-of-play>.

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