Please. Please make the ride stop. I'm gonna die, Aonuma. Srs.
*Actual footage of Jennifer immediately following the Zelda U trailer
So okay, this is my own fault. I know better than to read anything on the internet. I know better than to do anything outside of just watching official events and trailers. But to be fair to myself, Aonuma did kinda bait me. Well I'm done chasing the carrot on the stick, sir! First, the tech demo, then nope. Then you tell me it might not be Link, then hahalolol.
No, no, wait, let me back up further. FIRST you make another game that looks just like Ocarina, and I put it in my N64 and Mother of God the horrors (wonderful ones, but still). And then we go off to Spaceworld 2000 and I see Link and Ganondorf fighting it out, then:
I was all set for "Ocarina of Time: Super Badass Edition" and I get Wind Waker. Okay so Wind Waker is wonderful, but you still faked me out. Then I learn Twilight Princess will be on the Wii when I was waiting for it on the Gamecube. So I bought it on the Wii even though I was sure I was gonna hate motion controls, and it was the best thing ever, but it was still another unexpected turn. I thought I would never be able to use the controls in Skyward Sword after loving and being used to the ones in Twilight Princess, but now it's also the best thing ever. Then you go and tell me A Link Between Worlds is gonna be omg so different and open and non-linear, and I wanted to kill myself right then because I like linear and building a story. Turns out A Link Between Worlds is pretty linear with fun options to provide curves in the lines and is an amazing game.
Wait! Wait, no, let me go back further still. There I was, little toddler Jen, playing The Legend of Zelda on my NES, then well hello Zelda II. To be fair on that one, I still liked Zelda II. I was just watched the cartoon then played both of the games switching back and forth. So you faked me out for the first time ever then, but I don't think I noticed. I didn't know that was to become your cruel, cruel modus operandi to hold me prisoner and play with my emotions for around 25 years.
All these fake outs, Nintendo. All these fake outs. I have never experienced one like the one(s) I've gotten with this new trailer. You just can't be satisfied, can you? You just can't stop toying with me. You're sick.
No. No, it must be me that's sick, because I know I can never leave your brutality.
Through all the previous fake outs, one thing was pretty constant: Link. Now you're really effing with me. Link has always been there. I must say, I have never "been Link", no matter your intent. I am Link's companion, just like Navi or Midna or Fi (I was even with him back when he had no companion). I have never felt the need to change him. Instead, I was happy to see him blossom into a strapping young man, with denotations of "cowboy" beside his artwork for Twilight Princess. Together we've become a master horse wrangler. I've helped him be such a badass archer he can shoot stuff while upside down, magnetized to the floor---heck, we can even hit the pole at the end Kakariko on our first try now. We've become so strong we can pick up Gorons and chunk 'em (shirtless if we have to..."have to" might not be exactly accurate). Heck, we can even pick up huge slabs of stone and chunk them. Falling fearlessly from the sky like a boss during a freakin' volcano eruption, Link and I even infiltrated bokoblin camps with nary a weapon.
Ah, we've come a long way, my friend Link. A long way indeed. Here's to us. From the Wii U sizzle reel, it's looking like we're only going to get better, compadre. *glasses tink*
Mother******* ponytail be like "Nope! And, here have a light-up mechanical bow cos regular bows aren't kewl."
Well here comes Aonuma with another fake out saying that the trailer might not have been Link--wait.
Announcer: "Wait! Wait no! Oh my--TRIPLE FAKE OUT FOR ZELDA WII U! OH MY GOD!!! This has never been done before ladies and gentlemen, a TRIPLE FAKE OUT FOR ZELDA and Aonuma has just totally stunned Jennifer. This is unbelievable, sportsfans. I have never seen anything like this. A Triple Fake Out. Wow."
So, trying to get up off the canvas, my first thought on this comes from the point I was trying to make earlier about how long I've "known Link". He's always kinda the same. There are changes, some more obvious than others like the Toon Link look, some more cosmetic like a shirt with sleeves or without, and some are more subtle, like degree of hotheadedness or what have you. But he's always kinda the same. He always also, despite the cosmetic changes, has the same look about him--exuding determination, whether as a scappy looking young lad or badass young man. He always has his little "Linkisms" like sleeping in and being kinda lazy but being able to go from 0-60 in 3 seconds. He always has his awesome manly eyebrows, his slightly long nose, his sharp and expressive eyes, frowny mouth, etc.
I don't see "the Link" I know so very well in the trailer. I don't see him evolving and growing like he has been all this time. Wind Waker and Skyward Sword (and Twilight Princess to a degree) worked so very hard to let him shine as a person, no different from Mario or Pit or Samus, with his facial expressions, clearly communicated desires, and the importance placed on his personal decisions. I certainly don't want to step back from that and design my own pointless avatar to traverse a world that conversely is built on history, memories, nostalgia, and characters I truly love in context of the entire series or characters Link expresses a desire to help or save within a single game. And God knows I don't want him in a damn ponytail. #noponytail. I felt like my friend was being taken from me.
...Yet...
Just look at the opening of the blog. The entire time, Nintendo has been throwing "fake outs" at me, yet I have grown to love the series more and more with each new installment. I have never truly been disappointed by anything. While it's true that I've very much enjoyed the direction Nintendo has been taking Link all this time, making him a bigger and bigger personality and tougher--a Disney "prince" with an edge, with a westernized sense about the games as opposed to JPRG (at least that's my take)--and while I think the design I'm seeing is not what I would pick (I think we all know by now what I'd pick)...they've never disappointed me. I've been hesitant before. I've thought I wouldn't like something before then grown to adore it--Wind Waker, A Link Between Worlds, motion controls...a whole host of things.
I always love it.
To touch on the gameplay just a bit, I've said I don't like open world games (hate them). I like linear stories with a bit of option. I was horrified when they characterized A Link Between Worlds as a free-for-all. Turns out, it's one of my favorite Zelda games. Nintendo over emphasized the openness, and I overreacted to it. It was a thing of beauty when I finally played it. When Aonuma talked about the Zelda U game being more open, because of my experience with openness in ALBW, I wasn't fearful of it anymore. I hear talk about them shaking up the conventions while I also hear talk about pleasing fans and keeping some Zelda staples. I'm all for conventions, but when they say they're going to shake them up...well, shaking them up is what they've been doing since The Adventure of Link. Every game shakes them up. The characterization of being able to enter areas from any point being revealed alongside saying that will present new puzzles is classic Zelda--new ideas to refresh what we love.
I've said here, too, that I don't want a blank slate to project onto, but, even though Nintendo has clearly given Link a personality, I guess I have also been projecting since I was a toddler doing nothing more than enjoying wandering around in the NES games after watching the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. It might be a little harder for me to project what I like onto the design they're showing me (given just the small characterization of my Link I've shared, that's probably easy to see). But I never thought I'd enjoy Toon Link, either (I tend to call him Lincoln when I'm talking "to him" while I play and he doesn't do what I say, like almost fall off something; I guess cos he's a kid and using a kid's "full name" makes them listen way better).
I have faith that Nintendo will give me something that pulls me in, just like all the other games do. I'm sure that Link and I will be just fine as we have been for, like, a quarter of a century (even if I have to tease him about his ponytail, #noponytail). I'm sure when the game arrives, it will have all the heart and personality the series has always had--if all that can shine through in 8-bits, it can shine here even brighter. I know, most of all, that I will have fun. I know that ponytail or not, they'll never make Link into something that I straight-up wouldn't like.
And, heck, everything is circular, isn't it? Like, a cycle with no end? I'm sure down the road I'll see mah boi back in his broad-shouldered, big-bicepted, sexy-armor-wearin', Goron-throwin' mode. He just wants to do this thing right now, just like he wanted to be a train conductor and a blacksmith and a knight and a cowboy and a...kid wandering around talking to men in caves. This is okay with me. I'll be there with him, even if he has a ponytail
...#noponytail.
So thank you, Nintendo. Thank you for continuing to make something I care so much about. Thank you for making it so perfect all these years that I know I'll enjoy it as I always have. I know it will still have that "same old same old" "Nintendo Magic and Pixie Dust", as Reggie put it. I'm so excited to play it 
PS: This is the game I would make:
+
And an appropriate song to end this whole blog for funsies:
ETA: I'm very pleased with what Aonuma has to say here. Funny that I didn't see this until I posted the blog. I like very much that he says part of the charm is Zelda not being the protagonist. He even says people can just look at Link as one protagonist throughout the series, kinda because he's their's <3