It's never a particularly easy time to be a ZeLink shipper. As The Legend of Zelda celebrates its 40th birthday, it's never been explicitly confirmed that Link and Zelda are in a romantic relationship, despite many, many hints over the years that they're more than friends. Now though, Zelda actor Patricia Summersett has doubled down on the idea that she thinks it's better for things to remain so "ambiguous."
Speaking to IGN in a new interview, Summersett, who voices Zelda in Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity and Age of Imprisonment, is asked to share her thoughts on the kind of relationship Zelda and Link have – be it romantic, platonic, or something else entirely.
"I have all sorts of personal theories about what this might be," she says, "but I think there's something beautiful in the way that it's left ambiguous, it's left in a kind of – if there are romantic undertones, it's left in an unrequited state. There's obviously a deep friendship and a protectorship between the two of them. It's a gorgeous relationship and it continues to evolve and be left open in so many iterations of this."
From Summersett's perspective, "as somebody who represents the character at things like conventions," it means "anybody can come up to me" with their interpretation of the two characters. "A lot of it comes in the form of coupleship – people proposing to each other and getting engaged with Zelda as a theme, or they feel like it's something that they want to just celebrate with family or friends. It can mean kind of anything, and I love that it lives in that space," she says.
The actor is cautious with her choice of words when it comes to discussing the nature of the pair's relationship, especially after having to previously clarify older comments she made to say that she did "not imply that Link and Zelda are a romantic couple," and that "we are all in different types of relationships." She's previously made it clear that "I personally love the ambiguity and that if there is something there it's left to us."
On that, she notes that she has to "be careful with that word unrequited," which "might be one interpretation of what their particular kind of relationship is – and relationship meaning that they could be friends, they could be warrior buddies, they could be a princess and a soldier, they could be a lovership, or people who are destined to be together even in a non-romantic way, but for their life they're going to have this lifelong friendship. It could be anything."
Even so, she continues, suggesting that ZeLink becoming official might not be the best move, anyway. "Even for those who do put an obvious romantic tinge onto it, it would still be really on the nose to suddenly have Link and Zelda, because they have this deep relationship, having to get together in a romantic sense. Because that's not the way life works. I think that I prefer that it's not so on the nose as that, personally."
I'm sure the most enthusiastic shippers out there would beg to differ, but I don't think Summersett has anything to worry about when it comes to Nintendo potentially removing the subtlety from the pair's relationship. After all, series producer Eiji Aonuma previously stated that he'd "leave it to everyone's imagination."
