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Tears Of The Kingdom Raises Eyebrows Over Zelda And Link’s Dating Status

A house in Hateno Village led to Zelda voice actress Patricia Summersett commenting on the two iconic characters

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Hylian princess Zelda is staring at her open palms in Tears of the Kingdom with a mountainside in the background.
He loves me, he loves me not...
Image: Nintendo

Since The Legend of Zelda’s inception, Link and the Hylian princess have long been by each other’s side. That relationship has been considered platonic, with Link serving as Zelda’s knight in a green tunic. Tears of the Kingdom appears to change their relationship status by having Zelda move her stuff into Link’s lovingly rustic home. And now, Zelda’s voice actress has also commented on Link and Zelda’s relationship status, which remains as complicated as ever.

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As some fans tell it, the franchise’s recent games, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, seem to suggest that the two’s involvement with each other is far deeper than just fate and time. The latter game in particular, which has been a massive commercial and critical success since its May 12 launch on Nintendo Switch, shows Link’s house in Hateno Village populated with a plethora of Zelda’s items, from pictures to her journal and more. Folks have taken this to mean that Zelda allegedly came through and redecorated Link’s house. This redecoration also happens to only have one bed in the room, leading fans to believe that Nintendo officially shipped the two.

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The Hylians’ relationship status appeared to be further underscored when Zelda’s voice actress Patricia Summersett gave an interview with TheGamer on May 18, which many understood to mean she was saying the two were in an active romantic relationship with each other.

“As a voice actor, looking at the overall relationship between Link and Zelda over the ages, I personally love the ambiguity and that if there is something there it’s left to us [to determine],” Summersett told the gaming publication. “I guess in my own life, I can respect and celebrate relationships that aren’t conventional. It also dodges the ending, and you’re always wondering what may occur which keeps the relationship active. There’s a tension in that, and this defiance of a definition is something really nice. I always come back to that, and I really love it as both an actor and as a human. Those relationships are super important to portray, too, and I think they’re the best relationships we have in life, whether it be friendship or something that doesn’t have to fit a definition. I know that [Link and Zelda] are in a relationship with each other, it’s active, there’s a lot of care and a lot of listening, and I just love that about it.”

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There’s love between Link and Zelda, just not romantic

Since stories have popped up suggesting Link and Zelda—Zelink? Lelda? Zink?—are a thing, Summersett has taken to Twitter to clarify the record. She tweeted on May 22 that her quote doesn’t imply that the Hylians are a romantic couple.

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“The quote [I gave] means that we are all in different types of relationships—with friends, family, loves, colleagues, pets, trees, dubious food,” Summersett said. “It is not up to me to determine.”

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Summersett has since replied to a Nintendo Everything tweet, explaining that the publication misconstrued her words and that we’re all in a relationship with others. She has also replied to a Twitter fan who said they viewed Link as Zelda’s “loyal retainer,” saying she “[loves] that we all get to choose for ourselves” what the relationship between Link and Zelda means to us.

Kotaku reached out to Nintendo and Summersett for comment.

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While it’s certainly possible the two are in some sort of active relationship, it appears to be vague according to someone who would know Zelda best.