In my Fall 2018 Advanced Creative Fiction Writing course, Dr. Sinor made us write "flash" pieces that were really short and had subtle but not too subtle layers of deeper meaning and pretentious crap like that. As an Aspie, I was horrible at it and this, written the night before my chapbook was due, is the only thing I wrote that I didn't hate and felt came close to the objective.
The Legend of Christor
By C. Randall Nicholson
My parents never let me have a Nintendo or a Playstation. It shouldn't have been a big deal, but I had enough trouble making friends already without being unable to participate in my church and school peers' conversations about the video games they played on the Nintendos and/or Playstations they all had. So it wasn't a small matter when we visited my grandparents one year and Aunt Laurel or Aunt Michelle – they're twins, so I don't remember which – asked if I wanted to use their Nintendo. I asked if they had any Legend of Zelda games. They said they did have one, and they put it in and the rest was history.
I'd only seen one Legend of Zelda game, "Majora's Mask". The kid who owned it never offered to let me play, but I had so much fun just watching him that I fell in love with the series. Laurel's and Michelle's game was the prequel to it, "Ocarina of Time" – which, unknown to me then, is widely regarded as not only the best Zelda game, but one of the greatest video games of all time. Understandably so. It sucked me in just as much as the first. I played it every chance I got, trying to compensate for years' worth of missed opportunities in two weeks. Laurel and Michelle had to play for me half the time since I didn't know where to go and didn't dare take on the Bosses myself, but that was all right.
Link was the default name for the protagonist, but I named him Christor. I don't remember if there wasn't room for Christopher or if I just assumed there wasn't because there seldom was. Anyway, Christor started the game as a small, unassuming boy from the middle of nowhere. A silent protagonist, in fact, with no dialogue beyond grunts and shouts.
At one point in the game, Christor drew the Master Sword and opened up the doorway to the Sacred Realm where the sacred artifact, the Triforce, lay hidden. And suddenly he wasn't a kid anymore. He was too small to wield the Master Sword, so it put him to sleep for seven years. When he awoke, he was a ten-year-old in a seventeen-year-old body, forced to grow up too fast and emerge into a darkened world full of evil. Because it also turned out that his quest to stop Ganondorf from stealing the Triforce had enabled Ganondorf to steal the Triforce. Christor, the alleged hero, had royally screwed everything up. But it wasn't his fault. If only he hadn't listened to Zelda, Hyrule would have been in that mess.
Then there was a whole new quest, a much longer and more difficult one. The rules were the same, building off what he had learned in his trials as a child, but the puzzles got harder and the enemies got stronger. At least he'd had a chance to learn, to prepare before growing up. But could anything really prepare him for what he had to do? In any case, he must have been terrified. He must have lain awake at night sometimes, sweating and palpitating over the things he'd seen and experienced.
When all was said and done, though, Christor was significant. Christor made a difference. Christor saved Hyrule. And then Zelda, realizing that everything was her fault, sent him back in time to before he fell asleep, so he could live through the years that he'd missed. Since he never said anything, I never knew his thoughts on the matter. I wonder if he considered it a blessing to live time over, or if he worried about all the mistakes he would now have a chance to make. After his one big mistake that wasn't really his fault, he'd been safely out of harm's way for seven years. Now that would be undone.
Another side effect of this was that Ganondorf's reign was prevented (why didn't they just do that in the first place?) and people no longer remembered what Link had done for them. After all the countless hours he spent serving people and being a hero, he didn't even get to attend the victory celebration, and then nobody cared at all. As far as they were concerned, he was insignificant, even nonexistent.
I didn't think about all these implications while I was playing "Ocarina of Time" as a child, but I think about them now.
Read more of my essays here.
I'd only seen one Legend of Zelda game, "Majora's Mask". The kid who owned it never offered to let me play, but I had so much fun just watching him that I fell in love with the series. Laurel's and Michelle's game was the prequel to it, "Ocarina of Time" – which, unknown to me then, is widely regarded as not only the best Zelda game, but one of the greatest video games of all time. Understandably so. It sucked me in just as much as the first. I played it every chance I got, trying to compensate for years' worth of missed opportunities in two weeks. Laurel and Michelle had to play for me half the time since I didn't know where to go and didn't dare take on the Bosses myself, but that was all right.
Link was the default name for the protagonist, but I named him Christor. I don't remember if there wasn't room for Christopher or if I just assumed there wasn't because there seldom was. Anyway, Christor started the game as a small, unassuming boy from the middle of nowhere. A silent protagonist, in fact, with no dialogue beyond grunts and shouts.
At one point in the game, Christor drew the Master Sword and opened up the doorway to the Sacred Realm where the sacred artifact, the Triforce, lay hidden. And suddenly he wasn't a kid anymore. He was too small to wield the Master Sword, so it put him to sleep for seven years. When he awoke, he was a ten-year-old in a seventeen-year-old body, forced to grow up too fast and emerge into a darkened world full of evil. Because it also turned out that his quest to stop Ganondorf from stealing the Triforce had enabled Ganondorf to steal the Triforce. Christor, the alleged hero, had royally screwed everything up. But it wasn't his fault. If only he hadn't listened to Zelda, Hyrule would have been in that mess.
Then there was a whole new quest, a much longer and more difficult one. The rules were the same, building off what he had learned in his trials as a child, but the puzzles got harder and the enemies got stronger. At least he'd had a chance to learn, to prepare before growing up. But could anything really prepare him for what he had to do? In any case, he must have been terrified. He must have lain awake at night sometimes, sweating and palpitating over the things he'd seen and experienced.
When all was said and done, though, Christor was significant. Christor made a difference. Christor saved Hyrule. And then Zelda, realizing that everything was her fault, sent him back in time to before he fell asleep, so he could live through the years that he'd missed. Since he never said anything, I never knew his thoughts on the matter. I wonder if he considered it a blessing to live time over, or if he worried about all the mistakes he would now have a chance to make. After his one big mistake that wasn't really his fault, he'd been safely out of harm's way for seven years. Now that would be undone.
Another side effect of this was that Ganondorf's reign was prevented (why didn't they just do that in the first place?) and people no longer remembered what Link had done for them. After all the countless hours he spent serving people and being a hero, he didn't even get to attend the victory celebration, and then nobody cared at all. As far as they were concerned, he was insignificant, even nonexistent.
I didn't think about all these implications while I was playing "Ocarina of Time" as a child, but I think about them now.
Read more of my essays here.
