I'm still super pissy that Wind Waker Zelda became white when she turned into Zelda. Really bizarre design choice. Very happy to see the artist here not do that :D
I think you might be mistaken about Zelda being tanned in new game plus. There are skin mods on Game Banana that give Zelda a tan. I'm not finding any info online that is showing Zelda tanned in new game plus without mods.
Zelda has always had fair skin. Tetra's skin is tanned because she's in the sun a lot or for the same reason Sheik's skin is tanned; to disguise her identity.
As people already said, magic. When the triforce of wisdom is put together, her appearance is magically altered until she resurfaces in the sea at the end of the game.
My head canon is specifically that the transformation of her appearance was carried out by the ghost of the king, and this included a ton of makeup to make her look more like his own late daughter.
I think this is pretty consistent with what we see in game, as it's when Hyrule and its king wash away that Tetra regains her true appearance, rather than when the triforce departs.
I don't think this is new information to the artist. I think, especially in the ZeLink subreddit, we should understand that fans take liberties with their art. We see something in canon and decide to put our own twist on it, right? But just because characters are drawn a certain way or shipped with other characters does not mean we are saying "this is the right way and the only way that the Zelda series should be!". So why comment something like this as if you're trying to correct the artist?
If you see art done in a way you don't agree with, why not move on and look for different art? Or make some yourself according to your own vision? Fandom is about having exploring the original work in new ways and having fun after all!!
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u/reddit_bot21 Apr 28 '25
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