Sheik dari The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Tidak Ada Artinya Tanpa Androgini Mereka

As a transgender woman and someone who doesn’t conform to their birth gender, there are a handful of characters throughout video games who I treat with a certain level of reverence.

During my "firmly still in the closet" teen years, I found myself fascinated with Guilty Gear’s Bridget, as they blurred the lines between masculine and feminine long before their queer identity would be cemented into canon. Vivian from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door proved equally impactful thanks to a personal arc that reinforced the woman she wanted to be and always had been. Though neither explicitly stated their queer narrative intentions, my growing mind subconsciously read between the lines, regardless: Both offered quiet forms of queer representation that, decades later, still rings true.

The same compelling allure can be attributed to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s Sheik, a character I was first exposed to in Super Smash Bros. Melee, in which you could perform a simple button prompt to transform Zelda into Sheik and suddenly have an entirely new appearance and moveset at your disposal. I didn’t know it at the time, but seeing a cute Princess completely subvert their identity in real-time would stay with me for years to come.

Prior to Melee, I had no idea the beloved male Sheikah was actually Princess Zelda in disguise--I merely thought they were another famous mascot like Kirby, Samus, and countless others I was exposed to through the platform fighter. But as I played Ocarina of Time and discovered the intended context, the brilliance of Sheik finally came into view. 

However, I now worry that the upcoming remake risks ruining what made Sheik such a powerful, resonant, and lasting addition to the Zelda mythos.

Sheik is a mysterious character who not only guides Link on his journey, but subverts everything Princess Zelda is forced to represent. Sheik enables Zelda to present herself to Hyrule as a man who is free to  navigate this fantasy world with power and privilege, and androgyny was a core part of his execution.

While likely unintentional by Nintendo, Sheik became a lightning rod for queer representation with nuanced readings by players and how he was not just a gender-swapped take on Zelda, but applied more complicated characteristics that walked a careful line between masculinity and femininity. Piercing eyes, he/him pronouns, and an overall aura of fierceness to Sheik’s character, combined with long hair and tight-fitting clothing, resulted in him occupying a gendered space many had never seen in games before.

It also forced heteronormative players to rethink their approach to gender in a world where so many of the terms and labels didn’t yet exist in the mainstream lexicon. And when Sheik was revealed to be Princess Zelda in disguise, his identity wasn't erased. Who he was, the things he did, and the role he played in Link’s journey were still vitally important.

According to a Nintendo Power interview way back in 2008, the initial idea for Sheik was to prevent Zelda from being little more than a damsel in distress. At this point in the story, she had already defied Ganon and demonstrated she isn’t afraid to fight back against evil and oppression. Link finding out what happened to the princess immediately would have been profoundly underwhelming, so Sheik offered Zelda more to do in the story, an addition that quickly took on a life of its own.

Queer stories were few and far between in most mainstream art back when Ocarina of Time first released, and those that were available often found themselves marred by stereotypes. People like me were forced to read between the lines or find value within subtext, knowing that until the world was ready to change, we had little choice but to stick to the shadows.

The remake is likely to keep Sheik’s story intact for the most part, but it appears Nintendo's new take on Sheik is trading his traditional androgyny for a more feminine appearance. His hair now flows down his back into a gorgeous golden braid and the fringe is longer, more lustrous, and more obviously, well, Zelda. Snatched hips, a slimmer figure, and brighter red eyes remove so much of his enigmatic presence. I have to imagine Sheik’s voice is also set to play a role in how he’s presented in the remake as well--there was no voice acting in the 1998 original--and it will be interesting to learn if this gives their identity away or if Nintendo chooses to cast a queer actor in the role. I’m afraid that Sheik’s new, far more feminine presentation is going to take away from his character more than it is going to add.

Erasing Sheik’s androgyny dismisses much of the incredible narrative work done by the Nintendo 64 original, and now I fear new players are simply going to point at him and scream, “Wait, isn’t that Zelda?” instead of slowly connecting the dots and viewing Sheik as his own person. It breaks my heart, thinking that this complicated reading of androgyny could be stripped away in favor of predictable femininity.

A more generous reading has me considering that this updated Sheik design is aiming to depict him as a bishonen, which in Japanese translates to "beautiful youth" or "pretty boy" and is a concept that can be seen in beloved characters such as Griffith from Berserk, Ouran High School Host Club’s Tamaki Suoh, or even Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife. All are young, blonde pretty boys who can easily be perceived as androgynous by audiences.

From what we’ve seen so far in official screenshots and footage, the remake’s take on Sheik feels as though it belongs to this group, and will likely be successful in its intentions.Yet that doesn’t take away the tragedy of losing a queer reading that for decades has meant so much to so many people.

Sheik is an explicitly male character who, since his inception, has always made distinct use of visual traits associated with femininity to leave audiences in a state of deliberate confusion. It is not a disguise that requires much thinking to see through, but there was just enough inside his androgynous appearance to make queer audiences feel seen and that ensured Sheik went down in video game history.

The Ocarina of Time remake, whether intentionally or not, risks erasing that powerful aspect of Sheik's character at a time when stories and characters like this are more important than ever. Sheik is more than Princess Zelda in disguise, but Nintendo's updated vision of the character risks losing that element--and so do players who will soon experience Sheik for the first time.