i rly need a zelda icon

was thinking a lot during the post-op/recovery process (hi i'm alive lmao) what was it about botw's "story" that made it feel so utterly empty; this is something i've complained about here before, but more from a gameplay/temple structure side, not necessarily story side -- and if there was a way to minimally tweak it to get the charm of zelda's weird nostalgic deceptive morbidity back.

and it hit me that ME2 has such a hallowed spot in my heart because Shep basically dies right on the table, in the very beginning; it's Cerebus that resurrects her and there's always this unspoken element of cyborgy-medical-body horror that's spoken to me.

and then it hit me in a genius moment that's all BOTW needed - link "dying" in the hot tub water? thing??? or whatever it was at the beginning. just have him being resurrected from a suit of armor or his grave or some shit. doesn't have to be right in the face in a scary way, just a blink and you can miss it thing.

because it essentially changes "nothing" (him finding zelda's memories, him being tasked to kill Ganon, reduce the miasma...) but also changes "everything" in a perfect way tonally because he's totally out of time again, in that weird deja vu way of Majora's Mask. Except it's more sorrowful and muted because he's a failed ghost walking a failed land. it's the ghostly sensation that'd flavor every conversation, and would make him more similar to the Sheikiah, almost, than anyone else. (and it's a double bonus since we, as the players, mourn for the land that we knew what it was.)

that would have been such a minimal but metal story I've been aching for in a zelda game for a very very long time.