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| Way cooler than Zelda. |
Yes! It's finally here. The article you've all been waiting for! Or not. But here it is! The Legend of Zelda and literary criticism! Psychology and Princess Hilda! The Dark Triad! And it's completely chock-full of spoilers! Let us begin.
As I've stated before, Hilda exhibits all of the traits of the Dark Triad in spades. Throughout the text of A Link Between Worlds, Hilda shows her narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism through her actions and words. Let's take a look, shall we?
Narcissism
This point becomes evident slightly further into the game. Whenever Link makes his way to a new area of Lorule, Hilda will speak to you, telling you about the area itself and potential dangers you will face. Her narration changes each time, but has a basic formula to it:
I. Greeting: "Welcome back to Lorule Kingdom, Link…"
II. Message: She warns you about dangers and gives tips on how to continue. Sometimes she makes a revelation about herself or the plot in passing.
III. Closing: "So say I, Hilda of Lorule…
The part we're interested in is the closing of each address. Every time Hilda talks to Link about a new area, she begins and closes her address in the same way. "Hilda of Lorule" wishes you to find all seven sages and stop Yuga's evil plans. Here, and in a previous instance, she refers to herself in the third person. The manner she does so could be interpreted as merely florid language. However, she is delivering an important, urgent message. She could have just said "That's it, Link. Go save the world!" or "KTHXBYE" but she instead chose the affected manner. Who else speaks in an affected manner like that? Stereotypes of rich people and actors.
Let's take actors, because I have some small experience with that topic. As an actor, I have a modicum of narcissism behind my presence on the stage. After all, I'm there to be seen, right? I put on a character to entertain or inform (mostly entertain) people. Later on in the game, we find out that Hilda has been manipulating both the hero, Link, and the villain, Yuga, into doing her bidding. Everything she says to you, affected or not, is an act. She believes that she can trick Link into doing her will, and she succeeds in that endeavor. Hilda's ego leads to her downfall, however, at the hands of Yuga-Ganon.
Why does Hilda fall to Yuga-Ganon? She bit off more than she could chew, metaphorically speaking. Ganon was a much more powerful force than she could ever hope to be, at least alone. One key component of narcissism is the belief that the individual is special, or better than other people. Hilda beleived she was important enough to warrant the downfall of an entire kingdom just so she could have her way. Yes. She wanted to remove Hyrule's Triforce, which would potentially result in the same disaster that destroyed her homeland in the first place.
Psychopathy
For reference, here is a description of what psychopathy is: "a particular constellation of antisocial behaviors and emotions, including shallow affect, low remorse, low fear, low empathy, egocentrism, exploitativeness, manipulativeness, impulsivity, aggression, and criminality" (Jonason et al. 2012). Hilda exhibits quite a few of these.
For the most part, whenever Hilda interacts with Link, she speaks and behaves herself in a composed, calm manner. She calmly describes new areas that Link reaches. Even after helping Link escape Yuga for the first time, she maintains a certain cool. (Part of this is because she was manipulating, or at least trying to manipulate, Yuga the whole time.) This is a trait common to both psychopathy and narcissism, as Theodore Millon, in Disorder of Personality, notes that individuals with narcissism exhibit "Insouciant temperament ... a general air of nonchalance and imperturbability;" except "when narcissistic confidence is shaken" (Millon, 2011). (At the very least, Hilda is narcissistic. All the traits given, even the revised ones, fit her perfectly.)
As for low remorse and low fear, she doesn't even stop to consider the potential destruction her actions might cause to Hyrule. The absence of a Triforce caused a tumult that wrecked the ecology of her native Lorule. Ravio has to jump in at the end to remind her of the madness she was seeking to avoid. Prior to that, she showed low fear when she attempted to command the Yuga-Ganon hybrid to hand over his Triforce. Naturally he declines, and absorbs her as well; despite this, she behaved as one without fear of being usurped. She felt she was in control.
Machiavellianism
To speak to Hilda's Machiavellianism is to speak to her narcissism. She felt that she was strong enough to control both the hero and villain of A Link Between Worlds. She wanted to create a new Lorule with a stolen Triforce. She manipulated Link's emotions by causing Princess Zelda to be kidnapped. (This also brings up "low empathy" of psychopathy. In a cutscene, we see Hilda standing before and addressing the very Zelda that Yuga had previously turned into a painting.) Hilda only wanted Zelda for her Triforce.
Her Machiavellian traits also line up with the exploitativeness and manipulativeness mentioned in psychopathy. Link, Zelda and Yuga are merely toys for her to play with. Between the three categories of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism, there is a lot of overlap, especially in the case of Hilda of Lorule. She is almost a perfect poster child for DT personality; this leads to a final characteristic of DT personality, at least DT in literary characters. That characteristic is:
Redeemability:
Throughout her presentations on DT personality, Jacq emphasized the fact that individuals with DT are in fact redeemable. They are not so far gone that they can't be brought to the light. In literary terms, a lot of DT characters are anti-heroes. These characters are usually the protagonists of their stories, but they don't fit the good guy shoes perfectly. Sometimes they're extreme or break the rules, like Batman. Sometimes they aren't very personable, like Sherlock Holmes in the ongoing British series. Sometimes, however, DT character is a villain. Jacq's example of this was Loki. My example of this is Hilda.
Despite her methods, Hilda truly cared about Lorule and wanted to see it brought back. Her methods were extreme, and somewhat unwise (You can't control Ganon, silly.) She took some missteps from the light. Zelda and Link, however, pick up on this; they use their Triforce-granted wish to grant Lorule a restored Triforce of its own. Hopefully, with Ravio's help, Hilda can further redeem herself and restore her lost kingdom.
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Works Cited/Referenced/Used:
http://www.zeldadungeon.net/wiki/A_Link_Between_Worlds_Text_Dump
Millon, T. (2011). Disorders of personality: Introducing a DSM/ICD spectrum from normal to abnormal. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley.Jonason, P. K., Webster, G. D., Schmitt, D. P., Li, N. P., & Crysel, L. (2012). The antihero in popular culture: Life history theory and the dark triad personality traits. Review Of General Psychology, 16(2), 192-199. doi:10.1037/a0027914
http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Princess_Hilda
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