When I was coming up with the heroine(s) for this fic, I wanted to give a good sense of the two sides of Zelda that show up in the series. On one hand, there's the fiery, action-oriented version, who sets out with her weapons to fight. That became Zelda of the Sun, of course. On the other hand, there's the quieter version, who fights by doing a lot of behind-the-scenes planning to ensure victory. That became Zelda of the Moon.
While I do love a good action girl, I must admit that I'm a sucker for people who fight like Zelda of the Moon. There's something awesome about carefully stacking the cards in one's favor, to ensure a quick and easy win. I actually think I enjoyed writing Zelda of the Moon's fight best of all.
When writing about Zelda of the Moon arranging for the fancy dinner, I drew inspiration from how fairy tale heroines would prepare for a fight by asking for noodle implements and, almost always, actually getting them (for example, in the tale of the Linderworm, the heroine faces her wedding night with a dragon by bringing a wash tub, seven dresses, and seven brushes coated in lye, all of which kept her from being killed). Those scenarios were like the fairy tale equivalents of Rube Goldberg contraptions. You just keep reading to find out how all of those things would save the day.
I think Zant's huge appetite came from how power-hungry he was in the game. Or the image of an animal eating huge amounts and then sleeping it off. Whichever. ^^
I felt rather guilty about putting in milk making snakes drowsy, because I did look it up and saw that snakes didn't drink milk. I was tempted to make a change of some sort, but I couldn't think of a good alternative.
I nearly had Zelda of the Moon use a full-sized sword to decapitate Zant, mainly because she was based off of the Princess Zelda of Twilight Princess, who was seen fighting with a big sword. I began to think this was a bad idea when I tried to visualize her hiding a sword in a banquet hall and found it rather silly. I nearly went with the idea of the armor being made to hold swords and her stealing one of those, but that still felt off. I told parrinoyd (my beta) about this issue, and she linked me to an article about how swords were overused in literature, and what some good alternatives were. That gave me the idea to have Zelda of the Moon use a dagger.
I did realize that it would take multiple cuts to decapitate someone with a dagger, as opposed to one or two sword strokes, but I figured that Zelda of the Moon would have the strength (physically and emotionally) to do it, so I made the swap.
On a semi-related note, the swap to a dagger made a later scene work a lot better. The scene was the one where Vaati tries to kill Zelda of the Moon at night, and she uses the dagger to stab him. If I had kept it with a sword, it would have been VERY hard to picture her hiding it under her bed, pulling it out, and swigging it accurately while being strangled. The dagger, being smaller and easier to handle, worked much better there.
I would like to state for the record that I actually have no idea what the effect of pouring milk into wine would have. I'm pretty sure it would affect the taste beyond making it creamier, but I've never had wine period (let alone wine with milk), so I can't say. If I got it really wrong, I do apologize. ^^;
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Part 2
Date: 2012-08-13 02:49 am (UTC)While I do love a good action girl, I must admit that I'm a sucker for people who fight like Zelda of the Moon. There's something awesome about carefully stacking the cards in one's favor, to ensure a quick and easy win. I actually think I enjoyed writing Zelda of the Moon's fight best of all.
When writing about Zelda of the Moon arranging for the fancy dinner, I drew inspiration from how fairy tale heroines would prepare for a fight by asking for noodle implements and, almost always, actually getting them (for example, in the tale of the Linderworm, the heroine faces her wedding night with a dragon by bringing a wash tub, seven dresses, and seven brushes coated in lye, all of which kept her from being killed). Those scenarios were like the fairy tale equivalents of Rube Goldberg contraptions. You just keep reading to find out how all of those things would save the day.
I think Zant's huge appetite came from how power-hungry he was in the game. Or the image of an animal eating huge amounts and then sleeping it off. Whichever. ^^
I felt rather guilty about putting in milk making snakes drowsy, because I did look it up and saw that snakes didn't drink milk. I was tempted to make a change of some sort, but I couldn't think of a good alternative.
I nearly had Zelda of the Moon use a full-sized sword to decapitate Zant, mainly because she was based off of the Princess Zelda of Twilight Princess, who was seen fighting with a big sword. I began to think this was a bad idea when I tried to visualize her hiding a sword in a banquet hall and found it rather silly. I nearly went with the idea of the armor being made to hold swords and her stealing one of those, but that still felt off. I told parrinoyd (my beta) about this issue, and she linked me to an article about how swords were overused in literature, and what some good alternatives were. That gave me the idea to have Zelda of the Moon use a dagger.
I did realize that it would take multiple cuts to decapitate someone with a dagger, as opposed to one or two sword strokes, but I figured that Zelda of the Moon would have the strength (physically and emotionally) to do it, so I made the swap.
On a semi-related note, the swap to a dagger made a later scene work a lot better. The scene was the one where Vaati tries to kill Zelda of the Moon at night, and she uses the dagger to stab him. If I had kept it with a sword, it would have been VERY hard to picture her hiding it under her bed, pulling it out, and swigging it accurately while being strangled. The dagger, being smaller and easier to handle, worked much better there.
I would like to state for the record that I actually have no idea what the effect of pouring milk into wine would have. I'm pretty sure it would affect the taste beyond making it creamier, but I've never had wine period (let alone wine with milk), so I can't say. If I got it really wrong, I do apologize. ^^;