Is Twilight Princess a dark fantasy tale?

Coincidence is what made me write this essay. Becuase earlier this autumn I finished decorating and packing up all the stuff in my new apartment, which includes some of my older consoles like the Playstation 3 and my Nintendo Wii. I also found some of my older games, one of them being considered a classic game on the Gamecube: Legend of Zelda – Twilight Princess. Feeling nostalgic, I began to start a new playtrough of this gem. After playing for awhile, I started to think about the older days when the sixth generation game consoles played a big part in my life. Suddenly I realised something: soon it's been 10 years since Nintendo released Twilight Princess!

Considering I finally got the time and I would love to get on with some writing again, I couldn't help to feel that it would be fitting to write about this very particular gem. But then I started thinking...what can be discussed about this game? I googled it and looked up what fans have been saying about this game. What I found most particular is that alot of forums seem to bring up one subject: how dark the game is. 

I can't help to agree that Twilight Princess is indeed right up with Majoras Mask to two darkest Legend of Zelda games. Then I started thinking...could this game be considered to be dark fantasy?

Before we discuss wheterver this is true or not, let's first clarify what exactly dark fantasy is.

Dark fantasy

The genre is in reality kinda hard to define. After researching some, I only found broad definitions of what Dark Fantasy is: It's literary, artistic and cinematic works that incorporates darker and more frightening themes of fantasy. There is no real decided tropes that can connect the works. But they do present some examples that seem common in movies/books/games considered dark fantasy: anti heroic or morally ambigious protagonists, incorporate elements of horror fiction, stories told from a monsters perspective, lovecraftian creatures (cosmic horror of the unkown), psychological themes and apocalyptic storylines. Of course, a dark fantasy doesn't have to incorporate all of these examples, they serve more as guide lines of what a dark fantasy usually have as themes. And now come an important part: presenting examples.

Why it's important? As already mentioned, Dark Fantasy is a troublesome genre to define on it's own so we need examples from popular media that is generally defined by the public as dark fantasy to make it easier to analyze Twilight Princess. First we need to bring up what just makes these examples dark fantasy and then look for similar traits in the Zelda-game. I'm going to use two works of fiction that I enjoy that is considered dark fantasy: Berserk and Dragon Age.

Berserk, a manga written by Kentaro Miura (yes we're focusing on the manga here), serves as a great example since it incorporates alot of the presented examples above. Let's start with presenting some of the artwork of the series:







As you can see, just with one picture we are presented with some examples: mainly lovecraftion creatures and horror elements. These are not simple orcs or uruk-hai, plain evil creatures that are two dimensional but not feared by man....these creatures goes beyond even the human understanding of this world. They aren't simply scared of these creatures: they are petrified, clueless what they even are and some are not even able to handle them psychologically. And then there is Guts, the protagonist. He isn't a hero like Superman, Nathan Drake or Super Mario: he is mostly in the series driven by survival instinct, vengence and won't shy away from stepping on/kill people if needed. Berserk presents us a corrupt and dark world, filled with warfare/rape/torture with only a few redeeming factors like compassionate people and Gut's struggle actually helps people in the long run. And beyond that dark world, in another dimension, there are unkown creatures manipulating humanity behind the scenes to do their bidding.

And now for Dragon Age, which will serve as a example that demostrates how dark fantasy can be portrayed in a less extreme fashion.

We can begin with what Dragon Age lacks compared to Berserk: there are none/few lovecraftion creatures presented in the games, the closest thing would be the demons from beyond the veil but they seem to act like simple predators: waiting for a mage to lose control so they can come into the material world and wreck havoc. Demons seems to be understood by the different races of Thedas and known well enough to create institutions/orders (like the templars) to prevent further demonic interference from coming to their world. In other words: They are feared, but not something that is unfamiliar.

The player does however have the choice to make a protagonist that is morally ambigious/anti-hero/greedy/lustfull etc that can choose to form his/her surrodings as they want to. And Dragon Age: Inquistion actually have a apocalyptic storyline where demons are pouring out from different rifts and are about to destroy the world before the protagonist challenge them. The world of Thedas might at first look like a typical fantasy world, with elves humans and dwarfes, but all of the races deal with issues that come from the darker side of our history: apartheid, corruption, civil war, slavery, racism etc that brings a more mature and dark tone of the games. We need also to bring the aesthetics in to the discussion, since there is alot more to talk about there compared to Berserk (it being a manga an all, black and white). All of the games, mostly the first one, has pretty dark and gritty textures, enviroments and less of a high fantasy design when it comes to objects like the armors for an example. Especially when you dwell into the deep roads in DA:O, where it's extremly dark and even got some body horror thrown in. It tries more for a look that's less welcoming then...well... Lord of the rings.

Gosh Mister Frodo, this world looks just like New Zeeland!!

All in all: there are discussions that Dragon Age shouldn't be considered dark fantasy, but there are elements that definitly fits the description. Dragon Age is simply a lesser form of dark fantasy compared to other works like Berserk.

Now that we have discussed two levels of dark fantasy, it is time to discuss whetever Twilight Princess would fit the description.


Now...about that Nintendo game – is it dark fantasy?

Let's start with the story shall we? Well, it is the classical Legend of Zelda set up: A quiet hero named Link helps a princess Zelda save the world from evil forces...lead by a evil man/creature named Ganondorf/Ganon (sometimes they are the same person...makes sense if you play the games!). And what follow is: going trough dungeons, fighting monsters, collecting gadgets etc etc. The structure is pretty much the same from game to game, but the tone and style that decorate the games have changed alot. We will start with one of the things that really sets Twilight Princess apart from the other Zelda games: the evil forces Link has to fight.

We have seen monsters in previous Zelda-games with a dark/horrofying design before, like in Majoras Mask or Ocarina of time.

freaky-deaky!

But other than that, the overworld enemies looks less threatening and even sometimes adorable.

awh, it's not so bad after all!


Now, let's discuss the enemies of Twilight Princess. There are also goofy looking bad guys in this game, I know, but the main enemies of this game come from a whole new dimension...so they look like something that absolutely doesn't belong in the world of Hyrule.



The weird patterns all over their bodies, the long creepy fingers, the tentacle like hair, the lack of a real face....looks like we got something straight out of H.P Lovecraft here. It's like taken from a more horror setting than an actual Zelda game. Sure, there are still Zelda-esque design touches here and there but these creatures differt much from the other enemies from the game. And let's not forget another thing in this game that steps it up: possession, a common occurence in horror/dark fantasy. Not only are demonic powers corrupting good creatures of this world, it twists and turns them to monsters from your own personal nightmares:

 

...was really 13+ enough?

And heck even one of the villians with a pretty goofy personality, Zant, also has his moments taken from a horror flick:



Think we can wrap it up here with: These are the most dark and twisted creatures Link ever faced, some of them even belong in horror films. Next on, we'll discuss the aesthetics. If we put it this way: the game starts a sunset, in a forest.

This picture kinda sums up the color tone of the game. Of course there are brigther moments on like during the days on the field of Hyrule or when you visit Hyrule Castle...but then there is also the twilight realm itself which makes the earlier dark worlds of the Zelda-franchise look bright:

color scheme, the twilight realm, the dungeons...you can't help to think of dark colors when you talk about this game.

But it is here we must stop and make it clear: only the presentation of a game/movie/comic doesn't distinguish whetever it's dark fantasy or not. After all, the examples we mentioned above focus primarily of the themes that is usually present in this unpleasent genre. However, it was still important to mention the presentation since it also plays a part in presenting the world and characters in this game. Now while we are on the subject: does the characters in this game have their dark sides, their inner turmoil or anything that we would see in a dark fantasy tale?

The answer is pretty much a no. Link is the typical hero: he do what he's told and only want to save the world becuase...well...it's a nice thing to do! Zelda is a typical helpful damsel in distress: she also wants to save the world and help our hero since...well...it's a nice thing to do! Midna at first appear to have some more complexity and even mocks our heroes for their naivity, but then over the course of the game also want to save their world since it's so a nice place(well, there are more details to it, but still). Ganondorf is pretty much evil personified, just want's to take over the world and gain more power. There is a lack of psychological depth and the archetypes of a fairy tale still make so this Zelda-game don't stray away to much of a typical game of the franchise.

However, Zant does brings some depth to it: since at first, he was loyal to the royal family and dedicated his life to serve them. But he hated being trapped in the Twilight Realm and is even more frustrated with Midna taking his place on the throne. His despair over his existance and situation made him in desperation see Ganondorf as a "god" that could bring salvation to him and the twili, so you could argue that he in a existential manner decided to dedicate his life to this "god" and take the throne for himself. You could even make the argument that his change of character at the end of the game also plays a big part of who he really was: a pathetic creature, trying hide away his weaknesses by displaying power and authority....which he really didn't have in the first place. He even admitted it to Midna early in the game: "I need you". Zant does bring a more tragic and even dark nuance to the story, telling us how easy it can be to push a loyal servant into a power hungry maniac that bets their actions on a mysterious deity. I could probably even bring some existentialistic analysis into the mix but that would be for another essay.

I sit on a throne of lies

Lastly there is another aspect we must discuss that is incredible important to bring up: the gameplay. When presenting a genre, having a fitting gameplay is essential for making the message/genre/themes shine trough. Let's take Last of Us as a good example: the story is set in a post-apocalyptic world where mankind struggles and have to ignore ethics to make it trough the day, and the gameplay fits well as you have to scavenge supplies/save ammo/kill other people you encounter. How does Twilight Princess hold up? As a fantasy it does: fighting evil and helping people you meet with various great deeds like save them from the monsters to more trivial matters like fetch a bottle of water or play a nice tune for the sad kid on the street corner. As a dark fantasy?....let's just say that there is a lack of moral ambigiouty and just that makes it hard to distinguish the gameplay "dark".

And now, it's time to decide whetever this game could be considered dark fantasy.

We already established that Berserk is a definitivte example of a series that is dark fantasy. Then we made it clear that even if Dragon Age isn't as much dark fantasy as previous mentioned series...it is still a fantasy too dark to be just considered a typical fantasy.

And where would we place Twilight Princess? We can easily say now it can't be compared to Berserk with it's lack of morally ambigious protagonist and it's optimistic world which lacks serial killers or rapists (thank god). So it would probably to more correct to compare Twilight Princess with Dragon Age.

Comparing these two, you could sum it all up with: While Twilight Princess sure looks more like a darker game with it's color scheme, enviroment and some it's enemies/bosses comes straight out of a horror game. However it got nothing against Dragon Age's more dark themes like corruption, racism, apartheid, rape and all the more morally complex characters. Plus even if Dragon Age looks brighter than Twilight Princess, it still got a pretty grim color scheme that works with a dark fantasy. So out of these two, Dragon Age is certainly the one that mostly fits the genre...and considering that some even argue that Dragon Age isn't a dark fantasy tale, makes it harder to argue if Twilight Princess is.

Finale

And here comes the part I would say "No, Twilight Princess isn't a dark fantasy". Then again, as we mentioned earlier: there are really do decided tropes that can truly clarify what is a dark fantasy work and what is, there are more guide lines. For now we have to rely our own perspectives/point of views to define what a "dark fantasy game" really is.

But from studying the other examples, look up the common themes most dark fantasies have and finally from writing this essay....I can give you my take on it: I don't consider Twilight Princess to be a TRUE dark fantasy. However, I cannot brush it of as a regular fantasy either since this game still has similarities of what most of us would perceive as dark fantasy. It is still strange though, just the idea of a Zelda game being labeled as a dark fantasy, but yet I'm having this discussion on paper.

Perhaps this game got inspired by dark fantasies, but couldn't go fully through with it since it would be too much for long time fans of the franschie. Yet they couldn't ignore it completely since a dark fantasy does bring out a interesting story that for an example Lord of the rings can't give us. And quite frankly, in some respects they actually succeded: even if it's not considered the best Legend of Zelda, it not hated by any means since most of us found it to be an interesting attempt to make something different. Wind Waker also tried something different, but with much more succéss.

When you really think about it, the title "Twilight Princess" fits not only becuase of it exists a twilight princess in the game. You could even make the argument that is serves as an answer of our question: since it's a game that stands between a bright and a dark fantasy, somewhere in the Twilight.

Whetever it's the twilight before the dusk or the dawn is up to the player to decide