Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom Inverts One Of The Oldest Story Tropes
The Legend of Zelda has always leaned hard on the «legend» part of its namesake. While official material like the Hyrule Historia has attempted to stitch together the various parts of the series into a cohesive whole, it's arguably best read with some flexibility as a loose assembly of similar stories with repeated themes and tropes. You'll almost always find some combination of a princess, a Master Sword, and a Triforce. And of course, there is always a hero named Link who rises to the occasion, often as the culmination of an ancient prophecy. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom smartly turns this most familiar of storytelling tropes on its head, and in doing so, makes Zelda the true hero of her own namesake franchise.
Spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom follow.
The «hero of prophecy» trope isn't unique to The Legend of Zelda, of course. It's a common trait of high fantasy, and Nintendo certainly knew it was playing in those waters when it first began utilizing it across several Zelda games. The first to do so was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, which explained via the game manual that Link was told of an age-old prophecy about the Triforce after finding a mark on his hand as he approached his 16th birthday. (This also implies that Link was 15 or under when he first squared off against Ganon in the original Legend of Zelda, but let's just ignore that.)
The prophesied hero trope would go on to be used several times in the series history. A Link to the Past had an inscription etched into the pedestal of the Master Sword that imbued its retrieval with mystical significance.
«The Hero's triumph on Cataclysm's Eve wins three symbols of virtue. The Master Sword he will then retrieve, keeping the
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