Woohoo, official off-topic thread!

The hat is classic, and is indeed older than almost every poster on KMC, myself included. It's iconic, and it's unique.

I like that Link doesn't wear ten thousand belts, wield a retardedly big sword, or try to dress intimidatingly.. [See every FF character, Dante, Kratos, every anime protagonist and villain, ect..]

Link's not a Gary Stu, either. 😬 No one would dress that way on purpose, if Link hadn't already done it. He's got no dialogue to flont his apparent awesomenss with, which is good.. See Dante. He never gets the girl, and usually gets screwed over at the end of his games. 😐 Exceptions include PH, LoZ, LoZ II, and aLttP.

Let's see.

Link is good looking.

Link is very courageous and brave.

Link is always willing to stand for t3h forces of good against evil.

Link is very intelligent and able to exploit the unique weaknesses of enemies in combat, no matter the foe.

Link is able to master EVERY weapon he picks up moments after doing so.

Link is physically very fit and makes up for any physical short-comings with random items he aquires in the game.

Seriously, what "flaws" does Link have? From what we can take of his bland, nigh-nonexistant character, he is "perfect," in other words, boring and lame.

Originally posted by ScreamPaste
Link's not a Gary Stu, either. 😬 No one would dress that way on purpose, if Link hadn't already done it. He's got no dialogue to flont his apparent awesomenss with, which is good.. See Dante. He never gets the girl, and usually gets screwed over at the end of his games. 😐 Exceptions include PH, LoZ, LoZ II, and aLttP.

But all of that is irrelevant. Although having little character to begin with makes him crappy, what aspects of it we can see are of someone who lacks any flaws, only qualities.

I edited above. He haz flaws.

Screwed over? Lol, how is that? He always wins in the end, and in OoT it is implied he eloped with Zelda in the game as a child, and in Majora's Mask he made lotz of friendz and shit. In TP, well other than having to say goodbye to Midna, he was fine.

At the end of TP Midna, the obvious love interest is like "lolbyeforever,sir."

At the end of WW, Hyrule itself is destroyed.

At the end of LA, it's all a ****in' dream, and he's still floating around in the ocean and his ship is wrecked.

You should add that standing for JUSTICE is his Destiny. So, he can't really refuse.

Originally posted by ScreamPaste
o_o ..He has a ridiculously large nose, and wears an outfit.

as do most people in those games its the style in the game itself.

Part of being the protagonist. Also, he has the triforce of courage, and part of his characterisation is indeed based around this.

being courageous and brave is not the defining characteristic of a protagonist. either way that doesnt make it a flaw it just supports the fact that he is one massive cliche of perfection.

Part of being the hero chosen by the gods. Besides, anyone put in his shoes will do one of three things.
1. Shit their pants.
2. Die.
3. Do what the ****in' gods say.

but none of this takes away from the fact that he is flawless. yes hes flawless because he was created that way for story purposes but hes still flawless.

A fairly uncommon trait when you look at other protagonists,

what? being unrealistically heroic and good natured is uncommon for video game protagonists? being "chosen" by some super natural force is an uncommon characteristic?

and also one that serves to counteract what you're trying to portray as a one dimensional character. Link fights dirty. 😐

you can be a flawless hero and still fight dirty because ti depends on dirty. using an innocent as a human shield shows greed and cowardliness while kicking a boy in the nuts in a fight just shows youre not honorable. dishonor is not a character flaw.

Name a protagonist who's not physicly fit, and not comic relief.

gordon freeman? he relies on a suit that amps his physical abilities. otherwise hes just a computer nerd.

As a character who's main means of winning is beating shit with a sword, yeah, he's gonna be in good shape, or he's gonna lose.

hm... did you know that losing could be characterized as a flaw?

but... link doesnt lose. 😐

because he is flawless. 😐

1. Dress sense.
2. Breaks the rules to do what needs to be done. If he had an alignment, it'd be Chaotic good. He steals, fights dirty, and has no respect for personal property or privacy.
3. Modesty to the point of absurdity. Never claims credit for anything.
4. Socially awkward, as seen in OoT/MM.
5. Easily manipulated thanks to his innate willingness to be helpful. Ganon uses this a lot.

the only ones of these that can actually be seen as flaws are 4 and 5. but these arent flaws either because hes socially acceptable enough to befriend people and interact with people thus its more of just a quirk then an actual flaw. 5 isnt a flaw either because its that very quality that makes him the ultimate good vs. evil and makes him so good natured.

link is a gary stu just like darth revan is. it doesnt really make him a bad character just a bland and unintresting one, because link isnt link, link is you playing link. as someone said before he doesnt have flaws or a real personality because his personality is supposed to resemble yours... so if you take pleasure in cutting someone in half he does too. if he was shown visibly disliking violence for example while you were enjoying it it would break the immersive illusion.

o_o I lol'd.

1. No protagonist loses in their own game.
2. Link's the only character with such a schnozz in his games.
3. Link's the only character in such an insane outfit in his games.
4. Link often /does/ lose before the end, but makes a comeback. and even in the end, gets screwed over.
5. The arguments against Link here are pretty incoherent as a whole.

Arguments against the hat: It's lame, it doesn't look 'cool', ect.
This is because the hat is /different/. No character looks like Link 😐

Then they argue he's a bland cliche. Which is also untrue. Not only was he there first, but he's not flawless as you all seem to pretend. Things go badly for him, he loses to Ganon/Zant without the master sword, he's socially awkward, has a penchant for theft, and he fights dirty. He's easily manipulated. He's simply not a Gary Stu. There's no case for that.

Hell, the points that have been raised could be used against any character.

Master Chief? I think so.
Snake? Yep.
Kratos, a much better candidate for Gary Stu-ings. He fights gods.
Dante, 'nuff said.
Every FF character ever.

Wanna talk cliche? There's more cliche to the above listed characters than Link, easily. Possible exception in Kratos, who atleast makes looking badass look natural, rather than overloading himself with belts and a stupid single pauldron on one shoulder. 😛

Originally posted by ScreamPaste
1. No protagonist loses in their own game

Arthas

Originally posted by ScreamPaste
1. No protagonist loses in their own game.

Originally posted by Hierarch
Arthas

Tarnum.

Kratos a Gary Stu? He is anti gary stu over the fact that he failed to get his nightmares rid from him also losing to Zeus once is a big indicator that he's not as much as you think. also killing getting tricked to kill his wife is a big one, too.

Snake he's as flawed as they come.

As for a protagonist never losing in their game?

Play Fear 2 your guy gets raped at the end

Originally posted by Hierarch
Arthas

Pretty sure he'd be classified as an antagonist, not protagonist.

Also, I want to point out something about Link's 'intelligence' because he can exploit enemies' weaknesses - he almost always has someone instructing him and telling him what these weaknesses are (Navi, Tatl, Midna, Ciela, etc); he's not figuring them out on his own.

And yeah, every single main character in a "omg save the world" sort of game is going to be courageous and brave. Even if they don't always act like it. But they are, because if they weren't, they'd just go "screw this, I'm going to hide in a corner and let someone else do it".

Originally posted by Peach
Pretty sure he'd be classified as an antagonist, not protagonist.

Arthas was a protagonist in the Human campaign in Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos. Needless to say, he failed as a protagonist. Miserably.

Originally posted by Peach
Pretty sure he'd be classified as an antagonist, not protagonist.

From a total game PoV, he's the anakin skywalker of warcraft. He goes Hero ---> Anti-Hero ----> Main villain

But he doesn't fail at all, on the contrary he's very successful

I am pre-ordering Bruetal Legend today, but am unsure of whether to do so for PS3 or XBOX 360.

Originally posted by EvilAngel
But he doesn't fail at all, on the contrary he's very successful

He quite obviously failed as a protagonist.

Originally posted by EvilAngel
From a total game PoV, he's the anakin skywalker of warcraft. He goes Hero ---> Anti-Hero ----> Main villain

But he doesn't fail at all, on the contrary he's very successful

Originally posted by NemeBro
I am pre-ordering Bruetal Legend today, but am unsure of whether to do so for PS3 or XBOX 360.

Xbox, imho.

Originally posted by NemeBro
I am pre-ordering Bruetal Legend today, but am unsure of whether to do so for PS3 or XBOX 360.

Psst - the umlaut over the 'u' in Brutal is simply decorative, you don't write it out as "Bruetal" without it 😛

Also, I think that game looks terrible.

Originally posted by Peach
Psst - the umlaut over the 'u' in Brutal is simply decorative, you don't write it out as "Bruetal" without it 😛

Also, I think that game looks terrible.