Whose Blog?–Linkkam’s Family Values
March 28th, 2006 at 10:54 pm

It’s time for Whose Blog Is It Anyway?! The show where everything’s made up, and the points don’t matter! That’s right, the points matter about as much as the King of Hyrule! Hi, I’m your host, Drew Linky. C’mon, let’s have some fun!

As you’ll notice, I made an entire category for these, so that means it’ll likely come back to haunt you later! But for now, several people mentioned the nonexistence of Link’s parents… and the random existence of uncles, grandparents, second cousins, annoying half-fairies, evil stepsisters, and college roommates that seem to pop up in every game. So today, we’re going to have a metafiction to discuss… Link’s family…

~~~

It’s been frequently said that “it takes a village to raise a child.” Most children dread the phrase as they likely only hear it at the inopportune time when their neighbour is taddling on them for breaking her window with a baseball or digging up her petunias. The theory goes if that an entire community served as model parents for a troublesome youth that he or she would be too busy constantly looking over his or her shoulder to see if someone was watching them that they would never get into trouble. Unfortunately, or fortunately–depending upon your perspective, communities don’t seem to be like they used to back before the Ice Age hit, and now we’ve got all sorts of children playing Pokémon TGC in the back alleys. What has this world gone to? Some people say it’s the lack of parents taking charge in children’s lives. Others say that it’s video game violence. Others say it’s lack of community awareness.

In the case of some children, it’s all three. Take Link Harkanian, age 17.

According to reports that The Hylian Enquirer managed to obtain, both of Harkanian’s parents disappeared shortly after birth, and it was then when the Kingdom moved in and sent him to the Hyrulian Orphanarium located in the Kokiri Forest where he stayed for the greater part of his young life. There he grew up with many other children, each of them orphaned just like Harkanian. The administrators of the Orphanarium established a strict set of rules to keep the children from leaving since they would be provided for there. Fresh food was served every day, individual rooms were provided to every child, and education was even provided by sending them to the Hyrule Public Academy for Underprivileged Children and the Criminally Insane. All in all, it was what should have been the end of the story. He was in the village that should have provided for him.

But Link found a way to break out of the Orphanarium and began to run amok throughout Hyrule. Without any of the guidance that his parents would have been able to provide him, he began his life of lawlessness and crime. He was caught hundreds of times randomly breaking into and entering many of the homes in Kakariko and Hyrule Castle Town, trespassing on royal property, vandalism and destruction of property, theft and grand larceny by pilfering citizens’ life savings… the list goes on and on. By age 10, his criminal record was longer than most people’s when they’re on their deathbed! Yet the village thought that he was a cute boy, and instead of punishing him for his crimes, they either did nothing or, worse yet, gave him treats and money, telling him to run off and go play.

Hardly the village to raise the child.

But where were the parents during all of this? We talked to Impa Sheikah, the mayor of Kakariko Village. “It’s always been rumoured that the boys’ parents were killed, but frankly I’m quite skeptical of the thing. One day a man came into our town saying that Hyrule Castle Town had been attacked. We assembled the police to head over there, but when we arrived, we found out the report had been falsified.” (Editors Note: The above report is consistent with our political views and, as such, we believe it to be well-sourced and documented without need of acquiring other witnesses’ accounts.) The man was never to be heard from again, and so Link Harkanian’s parents simply disappeared without trace, the mystery about their disappearance never being solved despite the family’s insistence on keeping their pictures present on cartons of Lon Lon Milk for months after the incident.

That said, the popular belief is that Link’s parents were precisely the type of thieves and crooks that their own son became to be, and that they were only in Hyrule long enough to pull a grand heist from the First Royal Treasury Bank. After Link’s birth, the child would have been cumbersome and would have given their location away rather easily, so they abandoned him upon the success of their heist. It is because of these near-facts that it has been suggested that criminal tendency is genetic in nature and can be passed from parent to child. Further interviews of their former neighbours many years ago have shown that Link’s parents were also wild party-goers, frequently imbibing alcoholic beverages such as Chateau Romani. Yet despite all this, despite the crazy antics they have allegedly done, we found at least one person who believed that, had they stayed around and raised young Link, Link would not have turned into the raging criminal and he is today.

After it became clear that Link would refuse any attempts to return to the Orphanarium, the Kingdom repeatedly called upon the members of Link’s extended family to take care of him. At first, Link was sent to live with his grandfather, the honourable Sir Inigo Harkanian, world-renowned swordsmith. The judges who ruled in favour of this solution had hoped that his noble ideals would curb Link’s criminal tendencies, but they soon found out that this was not the case. In fact, Sir Harkanian actually allowed Link to play with swords on a frequent basis. Link, no longer satisfied with mere misdemeanors, began moving onto felony offenses. He would take swords from Sir Harkanian’s collection and then enter Hyrule Field, murdering whatever monsters happened to get in his way. The Business Skrub Union nearly left Hyrule altogether after Link began harassing card-carrying members, and only the King’s intervention managed to save the DAFTA, the Deku Alliance Free Trade Agreement.

He then moved in with his uncle, who was a famous researcher for the crown. He lived in a small shack just outside the castle walls, and it was widely hoped that Link would pick up education from his uncle. However, days later, Link’s uncle was found murdered in the basement of Hyrule Castle, and they soon found Link with his uncle’s sword and shield again on a murderous rampage. The district attorney attempted to get Link tried as an adult, but the judge overthrew the case, warning Link that any further indiscretions would not be looked favourably upon.

Link was then adopted by his maternal grandmother, Doris Dogooder, who lived on the remote island of Outset Island in the state of Hawaii. There, Link celebrated several months happily, but tragedy struck once more. After a practical joke on his birthday (giving him the “Hero’s New Clothes”), Link became enraged and poisoned his grandmother before leaving the island forever aboard a pirate ship. Authorities managed to come just in time to curb the poison, but she never was the same again.

As can be shown, the presence of parents during the developmental years of children are absolutely critical to the proper raising of a child. Yet practically, even his parents could not have stopped the eventual downfall of Link. After all, Link is avid video game player. In fact, he told us that “he’s practically been playing video games his entire life.” As we all know, video game violence = evil; for all we know, he’s probably is a huge fan of Grand Theft Horsie: Lynna City. And of course, even proper parenting can’t solve that one…

Written by The Missing Link

Back