Let’s talk about this. Spoilers for TOTK. This is an off-brand, slightly more serious post.
Here’s a TLDR:
1. Sidon fills a niche few other characters in LoZ fill
2. Nobody expected SidLink to be canon
3. Sidon’s fiancé felt shoehorned in and served no purpose other than pissing people off.
First of all: As someone who has been playing LoZ games for a long time, there have been very, very few options for attractive male-presenting/male characters. And before you say that LoZ is not a romance game or meant for people to be thirsty, please understand that there is an obscene amount of explicit content for nearly every attractive female/female-presenting character. Ffs, there’s a Zelda for all the season. There’s Midna, Din, Ilia, Ruta, Mipha. When players were into these characters- and believe me, doesn’t matter if the game isn’t a dating sim, they were- they weren’t shamed for them. Sidon gave players this option, but since Sidon is a guy and the part of the Fandom that likes him is predominantly female or queer, it’s suddenly a problem. And yes, maybe the fans are more fiesty than the rest, but can you blame us? How long have we waited?
Secondly, I see the Fandom split with one side in mourning and the other side celebrating in news of Sidon’s fiancé. I’ve seen quite a few posts- some here, but a lot on reddit- shaming Sidon fans and Sidlink fans. Considering that we live in the world that we do, I’m pretty sure everyone knew that Sidlink would never be canon. It was still fun and gave players something to look forward to and attach themselves to. You can take your puritanical high ground that Sidlink is “annoying” and never call yourself homophobic or fragile, but there’s no reason to hate a whole subgroup like that. We can just pretend that Zelda wasn’t a bunch of people’s sexual awakenings. Imagine your ship being canon (ZeLink) and still bashing on non-canon ships. Fuck right off.
Lastly, Sidon getting a fiancé served no purpose. She has never existed before in any game and has virtually no connection except for the shoehorned exposition dump in Sidon’s diary. Even from a game development standpoint, why would you slit the throat of your cash cow? You had to put in so little in like a few lines of dialogue and 1 or 2 cutscenes, and you cultivated a massive following. So, is this your version of slash-and-burn because the “wrong” people liked LoZ for the “wrong” reasons?
