The Legend of Zelda: A Resurgence of Grail Myth in the Postmodern Age
The Legend of Zelda is one of the latest manifestations of the eternal Holy Grail mythos. This is true of the whole series but Link to the Past, the quintessential Zelda, is the purest iteration.
The most obvious parallel is that of the Triforce to the Grail. The Triforce, also known as the Golden Power, is a sacred artifact left behind by the Golden Goddesses. It is the ultimate source of power, and grants the desires of whoever possesses it, regardless of their morality
Likewise, the Grail is often personified as a golden cup/stone, and radiates a brilliant light. It too, as the source of the virile forces of creation, is seen granting wishes, providing nourishment in the form of bountiful feasts, and even baptising initiates.
The Grail is almost always carried by female attendants, and is often seen as an allegory for the womb of the Mother Goddess. It was also seen as being carried down to the earth by angels. The Triforce too was left behind by the Goddesses after the realm's creation.
The resting place of the Triforce is known as the Sacred Realm, or Golden Land. Much like its mythological equivalents of Hyperborea, Sambhala, or Avalon, it is a land of perfection, representing the original Golden Age from which all civilization sprang. But tragedy looms.
The initial source of conflict in Grail myth is the Dolorous Stroke. This is usually depicted as the wounding of the Grail King, often in the phallus to illustrate his loss of virility. This results in the realm being reduced to a Waste Land, awaiting the healing of the King.
In LttP, the Sacred Realm was tarnished when a gang of thieves skilled in black magic breached its gates. Overwhelmed by greed, the thieves fought for sole ownership of the Triforce. Their leader Ganondorf, emerged victorious and was transformed into the Demon King Ganon.
Ganon is a loaded symbolic figure. The pig imagery is poignant and occurs frequently in Grail myth. In Eschenbach's Parzival, Cundrie, the sorceress who curses the titular hero as unworthy of the Grail, is described as having a boar's snout and tusks.
The boar is very often a symbol of the death of the king/masculine figure, and a paragon of the degraded feminine (Silver) age. We can look to figures such as Adonis or Attis, who were both slain by a boar. Osiris was ambushed and killed by Set out on a boar hunt.
In the primitive civilization of Melansia, hundreds of boars were sacrificed in a dark ritual to confer power. The flashing tusks were seen as a symbol of the waxing & waning moon, another parallel with the lunar/Silver age which is the first stage of degradation from the Golden.
Upon touching the Triforce, Ganon's malevolent spirit twists the Sacred Realm into a hellscape known as the Dark World. He has his avatar, Ahganim, murder the king and sacrifice the Seven Maidens, cutting access to the Sacred Realm off from Hyrule.
As I have previously covered the Grail's female attendants, as well as the Dolorous Stroke, this allegory should be clear. Ganon has cut off the life-driving masculinity of Hyrule from its life-giving femininity, and brought about the Dark Age of ruin, or Kali Yuga.
Now I turn to our hero, Link. Link is the prototypical boy hero, raised in the quietude of an apple farm. He is eventually revealed to be the last surviving member of the royal knights' bloodline, which was purged in the war against Ganon.
As a quick aside, the apple part is significant, as Avalon is often known as the "Land of Apples" and contains a fruit tree grown from the tree of Eden. Think also of the Golden Apples of the Hesperides, among others. This foreshadows Link's true destiny.
A perfect parallel here is the Grail hero Parzival. Raised in the woods by his overbearing mother to hide him from his knightly heritage, Parzival is nonetheless guided by fate into a journey for the Grail. Despite not having an ounce of civilized etiquette or martial training, Parzival possesses raw natural talent by virtue of being the son of Gahmuret, a legendary knight. He eventually overcomes his own shortcomings to heal Amfortas' wound and become the next Grail King, restoring the land to its original splendour.
Link must undergo a rite of passage where he first collects three pendants symbolizing the virtues of Courage, Power and Wisdom. Only then does he become worthy of claiming the Master Sword, the only weapon capable of defeating Ganon.
This rite of passage represents a common theme. Evola details that in the Bronze Age, the masculine overcomes the feminine and restores a martial patriarchy. Unfortunately, due to still being divorced from the feminine, it remains incomplete.
The aspiring hero must first pass tests of virtue to make the leap from mere warrior to holy knight. This allows him to overcome the sterilizing, materialistic aspects of the overmasculine Bronze Age & embody the edenic Golden Age where the opposing forces are united once more.
The Master Sword itself is commonly recognized as a counterpart of Excalibur, the sword pulled from the stone by Arthur. But Excalibur is but one manifestation of the Lance. Sometimes characterized as the spear that pierced Christ, the Lance is the partner artifact of the Grail.
The Lance, as the inverse of the nourishing and life-restoring properties of the Grail, represents its destructive tendencies. The unworthy who attempt to seize the Grail are destroyed by its purgative fires. The Lance appears dripping with blood as a demand for revenge against those who inflicted the Dolorous Stroke. Only when the Fischer King is avenged can the Grail be seized, and the damage undone. The Lance is the phallus as the Cup is the womb. The Grail unifies male and female.
This brings us to our last important symbol: Princess Zelda herself. As leader of the Seven Maidens, Zelda is a descendant of the Wise Men who originally imprisoned Ganon. This connects her to the image of Merlin, the druid/Brahmin that provides the necessary Wisdom to the hero.
Zelda is typically the holder of the Triforce of Wisdom, reinforcing this motif. At the very start of the game, it is Zelda who calls to Link in a dream and sets him on the path to freeing Hyrule. She is also the final Maiden who must be rescued before Link can confront Ganon.
This again links to the theme of the divine union between male and female. The Silver and Bronze age respectively represent an excess of femininity and masculinity, each found lacking without the other, whereas the Golden Age is the original undifferentiated unity.
You may ask yourself, "This is interesting and all, but what's the point?"
The answer is that myth is the eternal source of truth from which politics, religion and philosophy are all downstream. It is not merely a symbol, but a true suprareality that the "real" springs from. Only by learning how to see this in our own era’s symbols can we begin to remystify the world around us.
