The story doesn’t come first with , but it’s impossible to deny the role narrative has played 🧔across the entire series. From as early as Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Nintendo established the franchise as one with lore, continuity, ♉and history. By A Link to the Past, Zelda was a cohesive wo🐓rld with hundreds of years of stories to diജve into.
Over time, the Zelda timeline has only gotten more complicated, but it’s not particularly difficult to understand. What trips up fans more than anything is the repurposing of Lඣink and Zelda, two common mainstays. While they’re familiar faces, they’re not always the same character, and the different Links & Zeldas of the series end up enduring their own unique struggles.
Where Link is given agency via the pl𝓀ayer’s control, Zelda is often left in the background, waiting to suffer at the hands of Ganon. If she appears, there’s almost a 100% chance that something terrible is going to happen to her.
10 Zelda II: Cursed Into A Coma
Considered the first record꧃ed Princess Zelda as far as early Zelda continuity is concerned, Zelda II’s Zelda has been in a coma for basically, well, forever, and it’s up to Link to save her. She’s very specifically not Princess Zelda who Link rescues in the first ga♛me and is the first insta🤡nce of the series featuring another Zelda.
While being put into ꦐan eternal slumber is never fun, this Zelda presumably doesn’t suffer all too much– at least not while sleeping. Waking up to her world fundamentally changed and everyone she knows dead must have been a shock, but she seems happy enough to just kiss Link and go about her life.
9 A Link To The Past: Family Slaughtered And Nearly Sacrificed
A Link to the Past ups the🍌 ante for the franchise almost immediately. In the game’s very own demo reel, the King of Hyrule’s skeleton is just straight up shown on his throne. He’s vaporized, blatantly dead, and Zelda is being escorted into the dungeons. From there, Link has to break her out and rescue her.
Unfortunately for Zelda, she’s captured again as soon as Link gets the Master Sword, but this time he ends up being too late. Zelda is transported 💖into the Dark World and Link doesn’t manage to rescue her until the very end of the game. Considering Link’s wish undoes everyone's deaths at the end of the game, though, Zelda could have had it worse.
8 Ocarina Of Time: Entirely Livelihood Destroyed
Ocarina of Time’s incarnations of Link and Zelda suffer worse than almost any other pair in the series. Through Zelda’s poorly orchestrated plan to oust Ganondorf, Link opens the Sacred Realm and leads Ganondorf straight to the Triforce of Power. Link falls asleep for seven years, Hyrule is decimated, and ♓Zelda is forced into hiding.
For seven years, Zelda bides her time, waiting for a hero that suddenly disappeared. When Link awakens, Zelda has been ♔going by Sheik for some time, presumably, and she aids Link on his quest. Like most Zeldas, however, Ganondorf gets the last laugh and captures her right before the final battle. She does get to help Link defeat Ganon, but she’s ultimately left in a future she partia💫lly ruined.
7 The Wind Waker: Identity Warped
It’s de🦩batable how much Tetra is in Zelda and how much Zelda is in Tetra. The Wind Waker’s story ups the stakes around the same time Tetra transforms into Zelda𒉰, so she wouldn’t be her usual chipper self, but there’s no denying the fact that Zelda acts one way and Tetra acts 𝕴another– to the point where they’re basically different characters.
Regardless of the context, Tetra’s identity is wiped clean when she becomes Zelda. Even the context doesn’t help when everything in the script points to them being fundamentally different characters. The closest Zelda comes to sounding like Tetr🐎a is at the very end of the game, right before fighting Ganon, but that’s not enough to change the major discrepancies between the two personalities.
6 The Minish Cap: Petrified And Nearly Sacrificed
The Minish Cap feels like a proper evolution of 2D Zelda, featuring deeper combat mechanics, a more engaging narrative, and dungeon progression with the same scale & presentation of 𒁃the 3D titles. The Minish Cap also notably marks 𝓀the first time Link and Zelda have a discernible, pre-existing relationship with one another.
Like all Zeldas, this Zelda gets dealt a bad hand. She’s petrified very early on in the game and remains so until the end where Vaa♓ti attempts to sacrifice her. Interestingly, the final chunk of gameplay is on a hidden timer where Link’s failure will cause Zelda to actually be sacrificed. Oops.
5 Twilight Princess: Sacrificed Herself, Later Revived To Be Possessed
For someone who’s barely in half an hour of Twilight Princess (if that, honestly,) Princess Zelda sure gets ser✅ved a raw deal over the course of the game. Zant marches on Hyrule Castle with an army Zelda can’t fight back against, takes over the kingdom, and then imprisons her. Later, Midna– the one person who by no means can die– shows up on the cusp of death on Link’s path, forcing Zelda to sacrifice her life.
She’s really just dead from here o🔥n out, but Ganondorf brings her back to life so he can possess her. He uses her body a🔥nd Link is forced to subdue Zelda in the first phase of the final boss fight. Zelda gets some comeuppance by the end of it the game, but it’s no wonder she’s so dour in Twilight Princess.
4 Spirit Tracks: Full Metal Alchemist’d
Spirit Tracks isn’t great even by just basic action-adventure game standards, but it’s a decent middle of the road follow🍷-up to Phantom Hourglass. This one also features the most fleshed out relationship betwe🍬en Link and Zelda, with the two together 🍎for pretty much the whole game.
Zelda is the game’s main character and she actively develops alongside Link. Early on, she’s t𝐆urned into a spirit who’s forced to get around by following Link and possessing suits of armor. It’s a fate she reasonably detests and it takes the course of the entire game for her to get her body back.
3 Breath Of The Wild: Emotionally Abused By Her Father
Breath of the Wild’s Zelda unquestionably has it worse than any other Zelda in the series. Even before Calamity Ganon went and ruined life as♛ she knew it, her father was making it incredibly difficult for her to live a♛s herself. Constantly pressured by him to awaken her powers, Zelda was essentially abused to the point of locking herself up completely.
It takes the end of the world for her powers to manifest. Her father kept her so repressed, so broken, that Zelda doesn’t have thওe means to fight back when the time comes. The King realizes his part in all this in hindsight, but he dies an emotionally abusive and neglectful father.
2 Breath Of The Wild: Forced To Watch All Her Closest Friends Die
Before Zelda c▨an awaken to her powers, however, she has to suffer a bit more. As the Champions set out to fight in their Divine Beasts, it becomes abundantly clear that they’re outmatched. One by one, Ganon’s forces overwhelm the Champions and they all die within their Divine Beasts, leaving Link and Zelda the only two who c💧an fight back.
Tragically, the fight proves to be too m🌜uch and Link is ultimately overwhelmed, either killed or on the brink of death. Zelda awakens to her powers just in time to save herself. From there, Link is placed in the Shrine of Resurrection and Zelda puts the Master Sword to sleep before confronting Calamity Ganon one last time.
1 Breath Of The Wild: Stuck Fighting Calamity Ganon By Herself For 100 Years
Of course, this “one last time” ends up lasting an entire century while Link very slowly resurrects. All Zelda can do to fi𓆏ght back against Calamity Ganon is stall. She keeps him dormant for 100 years, waiting for Link 🌠to awaken and finish the fight. It’s incredible she manages to survive through it all, and it really speaks to the volumes of Zelda’s powers.
Under pressure,💜 she rises up and takes charge. Shꦕe goes from incapable of acting to the only thing keeping Hyrule together. It’s an excellent arc and while Breath of the Wild’s Zelda suffers considerably, she’s a much better character for it– f🎃ar and away the best depiction of the character.