Link has always been the iconic protagonist of The Legend of Zelda, but there was an official female version of him at one point. The original game came out in 1986, and while much of the art is recognizable, it took a while for the series to settle on its current art styles. The first few games especially feature depictions of Link and Zelda that are quite different than what the characters usually look like now, but the most novel variation is what appears to be a female version of Link, complete with bright pink hair.
Changes to Link’s hair color aren’t exactly uncommon, and it tends to change slightly between games. Link even had pink hair in A Link to the Past after sporting a shade of light brown for the series’ first two games. Ever since Ocarina of Time, Link has been depicted with hair of varying blond hues, but his character hasn’t altered so much that his gender gets swapped. However, it would appear that the idea of a female protagonist was being toyed with sometime during or soon after the development of the very first Zelda game.
History of Hyrule on Twitter, an archivist dedicated to the series, recently shared newly scanned images (one pictured below) from an official 1987 Japanese The Legend of Zelda tips and tactics guide book. They include the female version of Link, unofficially called Linka, who wears almost the exact same outfit as the male version. The largest difference in Linka’s equipment is the sword she’s wielding. Since The Legend of Zelda‘s Master Sword didn’t exist until A Link to the Past, Link was often shown with a variety of typical, double-edged swords, but Linka’s blade is much thinner with a guard that encompasses more of the hand, giving it the appearance of a rapier.
Female Link Is Only Found In Japanese Zelda Publications
Image credit: Twitter user @HistoryofHyrule
A handful of other female Link illustrations can be found through the History of Hyrule website, or alongside a plethora of archived art from the franchise on a Flickr page from Melora Hart, the archivist in question. Much of the female Link art comes from unofficial Japanese sources like magazine comics published shortly after The Legend of Zelda released. The localized version of the tips and tactics guide, released by Nintendo of America, omitted the pages that include the female Link. These images come from a time when the Zelda series was almost called The Hyrule Fantasy, a name which preceded the subtitle of “The Legend of Zelda” in the original game’s Japanese version.
The female Link’s inclusion in an official Nintendo publication adds some extra legitimacy to its status as an official version of the series’ protagonist. Different Linka illustrations have come from other sources, such as reviews printed in Japanese magazines, as discussed by HistoryofHyrule in a fairly recent Reddit thread on the subject. The archivist described this most recent find as a major milestone in cataloguing elusive art from The Legend of Zelda, but there’s still a lot of work to do.
Sources: History of Hyrule/Twitter, History of Hyrule, Melora Hart/Flickr, HistoryofHyrule/Reddit