I’ve been seeing some chatter online about a specific scene in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time that’s extremely beloved by longtime fans. It’s easy to miss: if you visit the Hyrule Castle Town back alleys after Zelda and Impa flee from Ganondorf, but before the time skip, you can find a soldier on the ground slumped against the wall. In the original, if you speak to him, he asks if you’re the “boy from the forest” and, in a pained stutter, tells you that Ganondorf has betrayed the king and that Zelda has escaped, but that she wanted to give something to you before she left.
His final words direct you to the Temple of Time, the text speed slowing as he finishes his line, before he shudders and fully collapses. Trying to speak to him further prompts Navi to say, “He’s not moving anymore….”, and that’s it. The soldier’s dead.
This moment has been cited by many as a prime example (among very many!) of the “darkness” of the original Ocarina of Time. It’s an otherwise noble and normal NPC dying a painful death in a back alley due to the cruelty of the villain, in front of the child protagonist who, up to this point, has only seriously fought soulless monsters. He’s not yet had to face down death in this particularly tragic way.
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