At the time of writing, Tears of the Kingdom is just about nine hours away from release, and soon players will be able to experience what sure sounds like north of 60 hours worth of fiddling about Hyrule in a game early reviews say is densely packed with content.
For most fans of Breath of the Wild, that's extremely good news, as many players remember that one of the major joys of that game was exploring and doing whatever they wanted, particularly if it had nothing to do with the main quest, which could technically be completed in about 20 minutes.
The idyllic, largely carefree and occasionally goofy stroll through Hyrule was at odds with the game's main plot (Ganon imminent destruction of the world), but that bit of narrative dissonance was easily forgiven by most players who knew the true adventure was the friends we made along the way (or something like that). However, memories of bumbling about Hyrule came back in full force after the release of Nintendo's "final" trailer for the game, released on April 19th.
In Nintendo's final Tears of the Kingdom trailer, an unnamed voice says "Our last line of defense will be Link" before Zelda looks up hopefully and repeats, "Link?" The camera then cuts to Link doing a whole bunch of super cool action game stuff.
Of course, most players of Breath of the Wild didn't spend their time in the game doing super cool action-hero stuff with Link (though some did). Instead, they spent the game running naked through volcanoes and icy mountains, falling to their death for accidentally hitting the dismount button from their horses, slipping in mud, blowing themselves up with bombs and cooking garbage food.
When Zelda repeats "Link?", the trailer wants you to think of Link as a cool hero, but memers know from their time controlling him that Link is, at least in their headcanons, a big dummy. This set up great potential for cutaway gags.
The first parody of the scene came from YouTuber Arcade Cafe, who actually used pre-release footage of Tears of the Kingdom showing Link on a sort of robot refrigerator vehicle attacking a moving Bokoblin castle. From that humble origin came a swath of videos showing some of the more elaborately dumb Breath of the Wild fails ever recorded.
As the memes spread, Zelda's line reading of "Link?" began sounding less like "We must place our faith in the hero of Hyrule" and "Oh God, we are so screwed."
The meme has been something of a fitting sendoff for Breath of the Wild as we enter the Tears of the Kingdom era. For all the game's well-earned accolades, it could perhaps be best remembered as a game that let players be complete doofuses and have their attempts at creativity blow up in their faces. With Tears of the Kingdom's Nuts and Bolts-like approach to creativity, many more goofy experiences are sure to come.
For more information, check out Our last line of defense will be Link on KnowYourMeme.