Where do Hyrule's Rivers Go?
Where do Hyrule's Rivers Go? (33:04) by Any Austin
My son, a bigtime Zelda fan, found this video and asked to watch it together. Nice work, kid! I shared this with some friends, and half of them couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of Any Austin. One of today’s lucky 10,000, I guess.
He carefully traces every river in Hyrule and has a great time doing it. I love this guy’s style. His word choice, his timing. Comedy gold. I went to his Patreon and gave him a few bucks, due to this video alone.
“These games seem to either have absolutely incredible subtle fascinating displays of hydrology or just straight up wizard magic.”
"Sure, you could make the argument that in some ways these floating sky islands are the real source of water for the river system here but I don’t think I accept that.
I think that’s a little bit like saying that rain is the true source of the Mississippi River and that Lake Itasca is just one more stop in the water cycle—which is literally true. All of this is just water and gravity. That we even call them lakes and rivers and streams is largely just ontological utility. But that’s what we do! We make categories so that we can make sense and we make sense because that’s the thing that only we can do. If we didn’t do it, nobody would and so we have rivers."
The kids’ science curriculum starts with “people made these categories and their labels”. I look for excuses to reiterate it, and I was chuffed to see a reminder here. 🤩
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