I Can See Sleep… No, Wait, It’s a Mirage…
Finally, we head to the Gerudo Desert. I’ve always wondered the meaning of why the Gerudo Desert isn’t explored until so much later in the game but, after careful reflection, I believe I might have an answer. You see, in the early stages in the game Link is exposed to so much of Hyrule, with the exception of the Gerudo Desert. Why? Well, I speculate that it is because Miyamoto wanted the player to experience a certain hostility towards the Gerudo. After all, their King Ganondorf is the game’s antagonist. It makes perfect sense to dislike them. So, this curiosity all that stood in between me and my night’s rest, I headed to the Fortress.
After rescuing the carpenters from the femme fatales inhabiting the building and being rewarded with a Membership Card, I moved through the desert and arrived at the Spirit Temple posthaste, where I was confronted by another lady… Man, there are a lot of women in this game! I’m not exactly complaining, especially since there’s variety, but still! But this lady Nabooru is different from the other Gerudo. She wants to steal from her kind, differentiating herself and thus allowing Link to bond to her. And when she is kidnapped later, Link feels a desire to save her, as she is a good Gerudo.
I think what Miyamoto was doing here was to try and show, through Link, a world without prejudice, without racism. To that end he populated it with Gorons, Zora, Hylians, and even Gerudo, all kinds of different people, and showed through Link that they all had some common good. He delayed showing that side of the Gerudo presumably to build up Ganondorf, but when I went to the Spirit Temple I saw a different side of them. The Gerudo are different, but they have the capacity for good and to be the same as the other races of Hyrule. They just got the bad end of the deal when Ganondorf was born.
As for the temple itself, it was actually easier than the previous one, for reasons that elude me. I did, however, like the witches, and thought they had some of the best character development from non-playable-characters in the entire game.
Hey, it's been seven years. It's perfectly fine to wonder what Zelda looks like now.
