The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

In a traditional three-act structure, the Crisis beat occurs once, directly before the Climax. This holds true for the majority of entries in the Legend of Zelda series. Skyward Sword stands apart in its introduction of an Third Act Obstacle: the quest to obtain the Triforce. Even though this section is light on plot, it represents a significant obstacle on Link’s journey and does not fit neatly into the climax. It’s also followed by another Crisis beat, defying structural convention. This irregular structure not only weighs down the Third Act, but also retroactively dampens the impact of the First Crisis. Events that are set up as a total disaster seem pointless in hindsight, leaving audiences to wonder why they occurred at all. 

The First Crisis begins when Link’s return to the Sacred Grounds is interrupted by the return of the Imprisoned. Link is all set to fight him, but this time, he will not have to fight on his own. Groose has used his free time to create a special catapult for fighting the Imprisoned—the Groosenator—and he’s thrilled to take it on a test run. 

When the Imprisoned is sealed away, the old woman thanks Link and Groose for their hard work. Demonstrating tremendous growth, Groose thanks her back for helping him see what he could build on his own. This represents another turning point in Groose’s character arc as it shows how he’s finally rejected the false belief that the universe revolves around him. He could have taken the glory for himself, but instead, he chose to acknowledge the participation of others. 

With the Imprisoned out of the way, Link uses the Master Sword to travel through the Time Gate. Before he passes through, the old woman offers him a word of warning about the Imprisoned: 

“We may seal [the Imprisoned] and reseal it into its prison a thousand times, but it will always shatter the bonds that confine it. Such is its awesome power. We must destroy it at its source or suffer this fate again and again.”

Link enters the Time Gate, which takes him to the moment when Demise was first sealed away. This is the same place where Zelda waits for him. Their reunion is a happy one, but it is also dense with exposition. At long last, Zelda is free to talk about her journey. Most of the details she shares are already known, like where she went on the surface, but the end of her story comes with a twist: she is the goddess Hylia’s mortal incarnation, reborn to fight Demise, and Link is her champion, fated to fight the demon at her side. 

Link is understandably dumbfounded as Zelda explains how she unraveled the truth of her past. Initially, she had no memories of who she once was, but falling to the surface and meeting the old woman awakened something inside her. Her travels led her through the Gate of Time with Impa and returned to when he was first defeated, where she must seal herself inside the temple until Link finds the Triforce to defeat Demise in the present. This contradicts the old woman’s previous statement, where she insisted Demise needed to be defeated ‘at the source.’ This hints at narrative problems ahead, where the defeat of Demise is a repeated plot point. 

As Link reckons with the gravity of Zelda’s task, she explains that he has gained wisdom, courage, and power from all of his trials, and those traits will allow him to find and use the Triforce to rid the world of Demise. She then apologizes for dragging Link into such a horrible situation, and in apologizing, takes on the tone of the goddess she once was. She’s been using him, and she hates herself for it, so she hopes her impending thousand-year slumber will be an appropriate penance. 

Zelda’s tone reverts to that of the girl Link once knew when she tells him all she ever wanted to do was spend her days with him on Skyloft. This shows growth in her character, as her initial desire was to see the world below the clouds. Her last request is for him to wake her when everything is over, just as she used to wake him when they were children. Link promises he will and Zelda seals herself inside the temple, where she will wait for his return. 

Zelda’s long slumber is an interesting turn for the story. It is not only an external disaster, as Zelda is now frozen beyond Link’s reach, but also an internal disaster, as the girl Link loves has been altered in ways that can never be reversed. She is no longer simply his childhood friend; she is a goddess reborn, sworn to protect all of humanity from the dark threat of Demise. He still cares for her in spite of the changes, but they both put up new layers of distance between them. According to screenwriter Blake Snyder, these changes prove that the characters have just passed through the Crisis beat. “[The Crisis] is where the old world, the old character, the old way of thinking dies,” he states. “And it clears the way for the fusion of thesis — what was — and antithesis — the upside down version of what was — to become synthesis, that being a new world, a new life.“¹  Although no one has physically died here, the childhood relationship between Link and Zelda has died a symbolic death. No longer is their reunion just about reuniting two young friends; it is about a goddess and her champion, whose destinies have been intertwined since time began.