Back in the day – that is, in our day – we were debaters. We don’t mean that we spent our days arguing as a matter of course; rather, we were bona fide members of a speech and debate team. Demelza being a tad older than Itzal, we never faced one another in a competitive forum. We recently decided to rectify that with a good old-fashioned debate here. And for our purposes, we have chosen the following resolution to deliberate:
Resolved: Miserable quests, shrines, dungeons, and other game sequences without reasonable intermediate checkpoints should be eliminated from future Legend of Zelda games.
It will come as no surprise that Itzal chooses the affirmative side. Indeed, he nearly knocked his martini over and onto his computer keyboard while racing to type “Dibs!” That leaves Demelza, calmly up to the task, to argue the negative.
But first, the rules. Each side will have no more than 300 words in constructive argument, 200 words in rebuttal, and 200 words in closing statements.[1] There will be no shouting or personal attacks. Assertions must be backed by logic and evidence. Itzal is not allowed to leave the debate in a huff. Demelza is not allowed to pause the proceedings to consult the Internet.
And off we go.
The affirmative constructive
Itzal: Resolved, that miserable quests, shrines, dungeons, and other game sequences – hey, stating the resolution doesn’t count against my word limit, does it?
Demelza: No, I don’t think so. Because that resolution is awfully long. In fact, one might rightly criticize it for leading the witness.
Itzal: Wait, you’re bringing a witness?
Demelza: Of course not. I meant, speaking metaphorically, that the resolution’s very wording is prejudicial.
Itzal: None of this counts against my words.
Demelza: Fine. Take it from the top.
Itzal: Resolved – paraphrasing here – miserable stuff that requires starting over whenever one fails is bollocks and should be banned from all Zelda games forever, because it is unnecessary and no fun and purely sadistic.
(Pause.)
Demelza: Have you forgotten how to debate? You’re supposed to offer evidence to back up your assertion. Otherwise it’s just an ipse dixit argument.[2]
Itzal: Oh, we’re resorting to Latin, are we? Fine. This resolution is self-evident. Self-actualizing. Self-whatever, meaning that any normal human being knows that it is true, as we say in Latin, ipso facto,[3] and no evidence is needed. But if you want evidence, I’ll give you evidence. (Mimes reading from a 3 X 5 index card.[4]) “Last month, large swaths of Great Britain experienced power outages when hundreds of players threw controllers through their television screens upon failing to infiltrate the Yiga Clan Hideout. In New Jersey, a 56-year-old grandmother’s family staged an intervention when she went without food or sleep for 35 hours while attempting to follow Oaki in the Lost Woods. And recently, a Reddit forum devoted to Skyward Sword crashed after the site was swamped by players attempting to access the forum’s newly discovered Spiral Charge Tutorial cheat that bypassed not only the tutorial, but also the ensuing Bilocyte fight.”
Demelza: We both know you’re making that up, but I’ll allow its entry into evidence.
Itzal: Because you know it’s plausible.
The negative constructive
Demelza: My turn. Ahem. Quests, et cetera, without intermediate checkpoints should not be banned from future Legend of Zelda games, because –
Itzal: What does that mean, anyhow, intermediate checkpoints?
Demelza: It’s….it’s when you can’t save during a particular segment. Like in the Trials of the Sword, where you only keep your progress after reaching a particular level. That’s a checkpoint.
Itzal: Oh, you mean it’s that place you’re trying to reach before you die, like, a thousand times. And I notice you dropped the word reasonable from the resolution.
Demelza: It was prejudicial. May I continue? So if there’s no place to save between beginning and, er, dying, then there’s no intermediate checkpoint. But such quests should not be banned, first, because they train the player for similar, but more difficult tasks, later in the game. And second, players relish a challenge and are gratified when they finally succeed.
Itzal (snorting): And where’s your evidence of that?
Demelza (smugly): Let me just cue up this video. You might recall that YOU left Mirro Shaz without the Giant Ancient Core, but I did not…
And now, Itzal’s rebuttal
Itzal: Eh, so you went back for a treasure chest. Nobody said you had to! You didn’t keep respawning there, did you? Is it time for my rebuttal? Well, cue this!
Demelza: Oooh. That was a low blow.
Itzal: Continuing my rebuttal – even worse than the quests that start you over when you don’t arrive at Checkpoint Charlie are the ones that start you over and you can’t progress further in the game until you get past them.
Demelza: You can’t let up on the Spiral Charge tutorial, can you?
Itzal (smugly): It’s a solid argument. Just try to refute it.
Demelza’s rebuttal
Demelza: Right, then. Had we not used a cheat to skip the Spiral Charge tutorial, we would have been able to get the heart piece from the chandelier in the Lumpy Pumpkin, instead of running into the railing over and over again, which I must have done a hundred times before figuring out that the stupid heart piece was never going to fall.
Itzal: You realize you’re making my case.
Demelza: Am not!
Itzal: Very adult of you, that rejoinder. Did you use it in tourneys?
Demelza: The point is that a job worth doing is a job worth doing well! Cheaters never win!
Itzal: Says the woman who bought every Amiibo available for Breath of the Wild.
Demelza: That’s – that’s – another low blow!
The collapse of closing arguments
(Itzal jots a note on the legal notepad in front of him.)
Demelza: What’s that you’re writing down?
Itzal: I’m flowcharting the debate. So far, the negative side – that’s you, Demelza – has conceded that BOTW was easier with Amiibos and that the heart piece in the Lumpy Pumpkin was fruitlessly frustrating. The negative has further conceded that miserable quests without timely checkpoints cause rage-quit, power outages, and collapse of the Internet. You also lost points for dropping the word reasonable, indicating you knew it was true. Finally, I am logging your tacit acknowledgment of the corollary resolution that miserable quests without checkpoints that can’t be skipped are even worse than run-of-the-mill miserable quests without checkpoints, because without a cheat, we would never have made it through Skyward Sword.
Demelza: XYZZY! I call XYZZY!
Itzal: Er…did you say zizzy? Is that more pretentious debate Latin, or is that an argument? I’m not sure where to put it on the flowchart.
Demelza: Well, mister, you can just put it at the beginning of your silly chart! XYZZY is a game code that teleports one to another area,[5] and I want to return to the beginning of this debate.
Itzal: Hey, are you leaving in a huff? That was supposed to be against the rules.
Demelza: I’m leaving to make up a batch of Yakka, the college debater’s cocktail of choice.
Itzal: Oh, huff away, then. And why didn’t we know about this Yakka when we were in forensics?
Demelza: Because we were in high school. By the way, this drink seems to be made in vast quantities, like a giant lemon drop martini.
Itzal (jots note on flowchart): Negative side finally scores sole point in debate.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is where, typically, we would drop a hyperlink to our cocktail of the day, in this case, the aforementioned Yakka. But being (mostly) responsible Zelders, we’ve decided not to, since the recipe involves a trash can, lemons, and more vodka than we consume in a year. Okay, in six months, at least. We’re not kidding. Google the recipe.]
[1] There are many types of debate, for which different rules exist. That said, we are not following the rules of any of these types but instead are making up our own, since clearly the whole discussion will deteriorate before long anyhow.
[2] We vaguely remember this phrase being very much in vogue during our debating days. It is Latin for “he himself has said it,” which in turn translates roughly to “You don’t have a 3 X 5 index card to back up that statement.”)
[3] We vaguely remember this phrase also being very much in vogue during our debating days. It is Latin for “by that very fact,” which in turn translates roughly to “I don’t need a 3 X 5 index card to back up my statement.”)
[4] Yes, this is what we recorded evidence on, back in our high school days, when no one had a computer.
[5] Demelza recently learned this term while reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, a marvelous novel by Gabrielle Zevin about two early video game designers. She apologizes to the author and to video game coders everywhere if she’s using XYZZY incorrectly. Itzal opines that if XYZZY were Latin, it would translate roughly to “The Rohta Chigah shrine is in serious need of checkpoints.”