legend of zelda breath of the wild case cover art

Robert Doran says this about Kant’s somewhat awkward phrasing: “we fear nature only to the extent that we find that we are “no match for it,” and yet we resist it all the same. Kant starts with an encounter with natural power “nature considered in aesthetic judgment as a power that has no dominion over us is dynamically sublime” which is somewhat paradoxical, in that he’s saying that this power is greater than our own, yet does not have dominion over us. Kant also explores a second form of the sublime, which he calls the “dynamically sublime,” which has much more to do with relations of power and dominion. Which makes some sense when he follows that up by saying that the ‘absolutely great’ can be expressed as either “that which is great beyond all comparison” or “in comparison with everything else which is small.” We reach Kant’s ‘mathematical sublime’ when we encounter something that causes us to either suffer a failure of comparison or allow us to make an absolute comparison. Kant’s thoughts on the sublime are focused on the inner turmoil we feel when trying to make a judgment of something. In a paper on the sublime, Laure Cahen-Maurel summarizes part of Kant’s thoughts in this way: “the sublime brings to light a limit that is both ‘mathematical’ and ‘dynamic,’ that is, theoretical and practical, concerning the capacity of the human being to directly access whatever surpasses the sensible world.” What is being teased here is the sublime is beyond what is rational, beyond judgment.

It is from here that we can better see what Caspar Friedrich’s painting is all about, and as such, how the cover art of Breath of the Wild is itself sublime.

There is much more to be said about Longinus’ ideas on the sublime, but let’s fast forward to the 18th century, and Emmanuel Kant’s look at the sublime in his Critique of the Power of Judgment. Indeed, the notion of sublimity as being identified with an exceptional or extraordinary state of mind – with intensity, as contrasted with its normal, everyday state from which it is displaced.” He then talks about how terror is considered the strongest emotion that would likely cause displacement from the mundane condition, which is why an element of terror and fear is associated with the sublime. In Longinus, scholar Robert Doran says “ ekstasis is explicitly related to an experience of the divine as a momentary transcendence of the human condition. There is this idea that something is so powerful it’s as if you are staring into the face of God, an immanence that envelops the subject, leading potentially to feelings of ekstasis (feeling outside of oneself). Longinus’ work on the sublime saw it as an effect of impeccable rhetoric, but even in the early days of the term ‘sublime’ there was always an element of a spiritual closeness to God.

While this is nothing new, the ‘Wanderer’ is a common image used in all forms of media, it’s usage here for Breath of the Wild feels deliberate, and meant to evoke direct comparisons to the original work.įirst brought about by Longinus in the form of what he called hypsos, the sublime has had a long history of putting man up against the grandeur, splendor, and immensity of nature and thought, overwhelming the senses and often leading to an introspective battle with the subjective self. The box art for Breath of the Wild pays homage to Friedrich’s painting almost perfectly.

Painted in 1818, Caspar Friedrich’s “Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog” is often used as a perfect example of the concept of the sublime, an utterly confounding idea that being awe-struck can have an effect on one’s ability to rationalize and cause one to be consumed entirely by the immense beauty/power of something. How fitting, for an open-world Zelda game that feels massive to immediately draw parallels to the sublimity of Caspar David Friedrich’s famous painting “Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog.” Nintendo’s 2017 masterpiece The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild makes use of the iconic painting’s thematic gravitas to start a conversation on the sublime in video games. Standing on the Great Plateau looking down at the swirling mess of fog and malice surrounding Hyrule Castle, our hero (and the player) is presented with a world of such scale, such magnitude, that it may very well, overwhelm us.

Legend of zelda breath of the wild case cover art