A Song of Storms and Metaphysical Debate
How Ocarina of Time sparks conversation about free will vs. determinism
The last time I tried to play through The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I got about as far as the Water Temple. This attempt was made on the Nintendo Wii console, where Nintendo 64 games were available for purchase via the Virtual Console. Anyway, the constant shuffling back and forth between the three slots to raise or lower the water drove me nuts, and I ended up forgetting about looking for a rogue key to unlock a crucial door. I’m not sure why exactly I lost interest. Maybe I had other things to do. It was a good few years ago. Two consoles later, Nintendo finally made Ocarina of Time available to play again on their current generation though the Nintendo 64 Online. The seminal Zelda title was one of the games available at launch, along with Super Mario 641, Sin and Punishment, Star Fox 64, and a couple of other straggling titles.
Ocarina of Time wasn’t the first game I played out of the lot, but it was the first one I really sunk my teeth into. I’m one of the few people online who doesn’t consider the game near the pinnacle of Nintendo’s output in the series. At best, it’s probably the sixth-best title, after, at least, Breath of the Wild, Link to the Past, Skyward Sword HD, Wind Waker, and Majora’s Mask. After that, it depends on how I feel on a given day about the two original NES titles or the excellent 3DS sequel to the SNES classic, Link Between Worlds. I also need to play Twilight Princess for my own completist purposes, but that’s less on anyone else but myself. However, do not take this as a slight; the sixth-best Zelda title is probably miles better than the best titles in some other acclaimed series.
I used to have qualms with the title because, compared to its direct predecessor and the first game on the console after, it had a distinct dearth of “stuff” to do. Perhaps I was looking at it from the eyes of a bored and socially aloof teenager who wanted weeks of gameplay, not days. Playing back as an adult, there was plenty of “stuff” to do, especially given that I left two major sidequests unfinished2. Maybe your perspective changes when you have limited time to do things you at one time had nearly all the time in the world. My opinion of the game in the all-time pantheon remains unchanged, however, because as I replayed it, I found each of the five Adult Link dungeons and the first half of the final battle were irritating in their own special ways. I’ve written about how special a title this game was before, and those things that are great about it offset the preternaturally annoying difficulties. I’m not here to write about those things, however.
I’ve also written before about time travel, how it is heavily utilized in fiction writing without any understanding of how it should work. Mainly, no one understands how it works because it is, at present time, scientifically impossible. The children that always travel with time skip narration involve multiple universe theory and the idea of free will. Ocarina of Time does not dabble in multiverses, but the Zelda timeline on the whole sure does! Once again, I will post for you the Zelda timeline, all of which hinges on Ocarina of Time as a nexus point:
Again, I do not wish to litigate the multiple universes that split from Ocarina of Time and yet somehow all converge upon Breath of the Wild. I’m more interested in discussing the idea of free will. There is a certain plot point in the game where you must both learn the “Song of Storms” from an odd man playing a one-man-band rig inside the windmill at Kakariko Village while you’re an adult and teach it to him when you’re a child. The order is in reverse. He teaches you the song having already known it from learning it… from you… seven years ago. The apparent time paradox is enough to make someone’s brain bleed and have the product leak from their ears.
The entire episode reeks of belief in determinism. Even if the events suggest that the entire chain of events should not be possible given that neither Link nor the Music Box Man know the melody independent of each other. Given that gods manifest themselves in interventionist ways during points in the series, it’s not farfetched to think that some god-type character, be it one of the three creator goddesses mentioned in the game, or the goddess Hylia (who exists in the game, but if I told you who it was, it would be a huge spoiler for Skyward Sword), or some other heretofore unnamed deity, planted the tune in both character’s heads and needed them to interact to manifest it. The variables do too much heavy lifting for it to make complete sense, but it’s such a minor plot point in the game that if you spend too much time thinking about it, you will just end up having your viscera and humors sucked out by a ReDead.
Destiny is destiny. When you happen upon the village for the first time as a child, the well is full, and if you enter the windmill, the Music Box Man is blissfully unaware of any songs that cause rain on demand. When you enter the town for the first time as an adult, the well is empty, and the Music Box Man has been out of his own mind for the last seven years over a song he was taught that he has to pass onto you. That tells the player that no matter what else happens in the game, you will teach him the “Song of Storms,” and thus drain the well. Destiny is destiny, after all. Free will is a mirage.
Except it isn’t. Like I noted above, I did not destroy all 100 Gold Skulltulas. I did not complete the chain of events that led to the completion of the Biggoron Sword. There is a group of noticeably soft patches of soil that will only bear magically levitating lilypads if you plant beans there. There are multiple nodes in the game that depend on the things you feel like doing. Free will absolutely exists. “But TH,” you might say, “all those things, even the magic beans, are optional. The important things are all determined before you already.” Sure, if you want to beat the game, they certainly are assumed to happen.
However, the Zelda Timeline linked above is splintered because the final result is not set in stone. The first three games in the series all happen on the darkest timeline, one where Ganondorf ultimately defeats Link in the final battle. The results are not set in stone, even when some nodes are. What says more about what the Zelda series says about free will and set futures, the “Song of Storms,” or the triple splinter off how the final battle in Ocarina of Time plays out?
Perhaps it’s neither. Perhaps the fact that no matter what happens in that final battle that everything ends up careening towards the events of Breath of the Wild is the big tell. “The Song of Storms” is both an insignificant signpost but also foreshadowing for the next few millennia of Hyrule’s history. No matter if Hyrule was beset by the reign of Ganon, or by twilight, or by floods, the road was going to converge into the hundred-year stasis and the final calamity that takes place in the seminal WiiU/Switch title that many people, myself included, feel is the greatest Zelda title ever, possibly even the best game ever.
Looking to video games on the debate of destiny vs. free will probably isn’t the smartest idea, but it is interesting to hear different voices weighing in on the subject. Books from the Bible all the way through the Harry Potter series weigh in on it, but no one really has a concrete answer. They probably won’t until someone invents a method of traveling backwards in time to prove either way the answer on the fluidity of the timeline (or the existence of the multiverse). Until then, the answer probably is that everyone has free will, but until then, we’ll all just have to allow our brains to collectively bleed every time we play through Ocarina of Time and ponder how the fuck the “Song of Storms” came to be when its existence only bears fruit in a paradoxical feedback loop.
My favorite N64 game, but one I was able to play by procuring the limited-window Super Mario 3D All-Stars game. What can I say? Nintendo is one of two companies that has my brand loyalty. The other is Huy Fong Foods.
For posterity, I only killed 63 out of 100 Golden Skulltulas, and I did not complete the quest for Biggoron’s Sword. C’est la vie.