Myth Watch: The Legend of Zelda- The Trinity of Triangles

Here's a little segment of the Corpus Timotheus I like to call "Myth Watch". This is where I take something from popular culture (a modern myth) such as a movie, TV show, comic, video-game, Internet meme, or some such and look at it as if I were a Jungian analyst trying to find the symbols and archetypes expressed by a dream, because myths and dreams do spring from the same place. Superfluous to say, originally this was going to be some grand series of Internet videos, but I soon realized that doing something of that scale was just not feasible for me to do. But I still liked the idea quite a lot, so what I'll do now is, whenever I see mythic patterns in things, I'll post them here. 

Now, for today I'm going to be looking at the Triforce and the Golden Goddesses from the Legend of Zelda series of video games. Is Din really benevolent? What do Nayru and Princess Zelda have in common with Christ? What does a fan-speculation say about our collective need for psychic totality? I can't garantee that I have any of these answers, but here's what I think. 

Now if that ain't a classic archetype of the Jungian "Self" I just don't know what is. 

In Ocarina of Time, we are given the creation story of Hyrule. In the beginning, the Three Golden Goddesses descended upon the chaos that would become Hyrule, they being Din, Goddess of Power, Nayru, Goddess of Wisdom, and Farore, Goddess of Courage. So we have a Trinity here. The Triple Deity motif is actually very common in a lot of myths and religions- The Fates and Graces in Greek mythology, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost of the Christian Trinity, the Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva trio in Hinduism, The Goddess in her triple aspects of Maiden/Mother/Crone in Wicca, and so forth. The number three itself can be seen as a symbol of uniting opposites by adding one more. Think of the triangle. You have the two points that converge upward (or downward or wherever) into a single point.

Anyway, back to the Hyrulian cosmogony, Din is the one who shaped the land out of the primordial chaos, crafting the physical landscape. This kind of creator god is very similar to the idea of the Demiurge, a platonic and Gnostic notion of a creator deity that crafts and maintains the world, much like an artisan crafts his or her art. What differentiates this notion from that of the typical monotheistic idea of a Creator is that the Demiurge didn’t just create the world out of thin air, but made it out of something. Din never spoke and thus it was so, rather “with her strong, flaming arms she created the red earth”. It’s also interesting to note that this Demiurge needn’t be benevolent. In fact, in some Gnostic sects it was believed that the Demiurge was actually evil, because they thought that physical matter held the soul captive within it, and so the goal of life was to escape from the material into the realm of the spiritual. So, is it any coincidence that it is Ganondorf, the freaking King of Evil, who wields her piece of the Triforce? Oh, and remember there‘s that strange incident in Twilight Princess where Ganondorf is about to be executed, but by “some divine prank,” he turns out to have the corresponding piece of the Triforce, allowing him to escape death. Din is also often seemingly associated with fire, only to further solidify her demonic demeanor.

After Din shapes the world, it is Nayru who bestows it with the spirit of law. She gives order to the world. This goddess seems to correspond to the notion of the Logos, the great cosmic “word” that orders the universe. It is literally reason, rationality. Now, her corresponding piece of the Triforce is always associated with Princess Zelda, the eponymous reoccurring ruler of Hyrule. WARNING: TANGENT AHEAD. Okay, so in Skyward Sword, it’s revealed that every Zelda ever born is actually an incarnation of the Goddess Hylia, protector of the Triforce, reincarnated into mortal form (which I think had something to do with being able to use the Triforce or something, but that‘s not important... Or maybe it is...?). Hmm… A deity that takes on a mortal form to become something of a sacrifice in order to save humanity from their demise, and who is eventually resurrected... 

Hmm, where have I heard that story before...? 

That‘s right. That pretty much makes Zelda (at least in Skyward Sword) the Hyrulian Christ. Why, you ask, did I go off on that messianic tangent about Christ Zelda? Well, Christ (Jesus Christ, not Zelda Christ) has often been identified with the divine Logos. According to the Gospel of John, he is said to be the Word of God personified. I find it fascinating that Nayru can be compared to the Logos, and who is associated very strongly with Princess Zelda, who was revealed to be a divine being taking on a mortal form, which eerily parallels the nature of Jesus who is identified with the Logos, that which Nayru can be compared to… This is getting weird… Um, back on topic, I suppose Nayru can also be seen as a kind of Sophia, as both she and Nayru are goddesses of wisdom… Yeah, still not as interesting as the Logos thing, but I thought I should still mention it.

After Nayru gives the land order, it is Farore who bestows it with life to uphold her sister‘s laws. After all, what’s the point in having rules if there isn’t anything to abide by them (or break them, am I right?). So Farore creates life. This perhaps makes her the most feminine of the Golden Trinity, in that she begets life itself… Y’know, kinda like birth, or something. The closest thing I can compare her to then would be the Earth Mother archetype, or a kind of Gaia figure. I find it interesting, though, that she not only is the Goddess of Life but of Courage too, which seems to suggest a kind of correlation. Does it not take courage to live? I mean, there are dangers all over the place that could harm or even kill you. Only a coward, I would imagine, would wish to pull out of this grand enterprise. Also, her corresponding piece of the Triforce is almost always associated with the Hero, Link. Always garbed in the green of the forest, our hero braves life-threatening dangers so that the people of Hyrule (or wherever) can live. I guess that's another correlation between courage and life. Also note that Link cannot really die, at least, not while on his heroic quest. This might just be an artifact of the medium of the stories themselves, what with them being video games and all, allowing the player (the Over-Soul of Link, if you will), to make fatal mistakes. But one is always able to return to the quest, able to "try again".

So once the Goddesses have done their thing, they leave behind the Triforce, the most iconic symbol of the entire Zelda series. The number three motif abounds here. It’s a triangle composed of three triangles. Interesting that it forms a kind of anti-triangle in the center there. Could it be the location for the fabled “fourth” piece of the Triforce, the “Tetraforce”? In case you don’t know, the Tetraforce is a fan-speculation that the Triforce has a mysterious fourth piece. There are a few in-game hints at this, which have only fueled the theorists to speculate further.

Such as this here- the fourth triangle at the bottom of the Hylian Shield. 

While it has been denied by the developers themselves that this Tetraforce exists, I still find it fascinating that it was ever brought up at all. C. G. Jung proposed that all trinities, all groups of three, are actually incomplete and unbalanced until a fourth element is introduced, creating a Quaternity, and thus bring the thing into completion. He thought of the number four as a symbol for totality and of the Self archetype. For the Christian Trinity, he thought of the Virgin Mary as its “Tetraforce” so-to-speak, the fourth, feminine element to the predominately masculine Trinity. The nature of this fourth part of the Quaternity is usually the inferior, or shadow element. It is often speculated amongst Zelda theorists that this Tetraforce would be of a malevolent nature, even calling it the “Triforce of Shadow“. Though this is assuming the other three Goddesses are benevolent, which is debatable… Weird. I talked more about a fan-theory than something that’s actually in the game… Huh… Well, I mean, what else can I say about the Triforce? It’s the Holy Grail, the Philosopher’s Stone, the One Piece, the Transcendental Object at the End of Time, the Panacea, the Self; it is that which all seek to find.