The Psychology of Zeld

The general public’s first exposure to the Legend of Zelda series came from the original Legend of Zelda (1986)— specifically, its opening credits. Before a video gamer even started playing, the “Title Screen” music set the tone of the game. The driving rhythms and grandioso melodies allow the player to know that they’re about to be thrown into an epic journey. The music from the original Legend of Zelda game set the series’ tempo, and to this day, that music remains special to Zelda’s fans. Players hear the songs from the original game and feel those original emotions they had during their first plays of the games. This emotional draw comes from a place more prominent than the game itself. As this original Zelda game was the first to introduce the game-playing world to the kingdom and mythology of Hyrule, its music played a crucial role in engaging a player enough to press “start.”

A player’s initial interaction with a game’s music is vital. Players only spend a limited amount of mental energy determining if a game is worth playing and most of that time is spent in a game’s beginning stages, like the “Title Screen.” The music the player hears while viewing that title screen helps them to maintain their interest in the game. Every note, beat, and rest weaves together a musical narrative that expands the audience’s understanding of what they should expect from gameplay. The Legend of Zelda’s music, from the very start of the “Title Screen” theme, delivers.

Music affects and sticks with us for many reasons, but there are several psychological theories that best explain why the Legend of Zelda’s music does so in particular: the mere-exposure effect, the lizard brain, and the aesthetics of music. To fully understand the impact of the music in the Zelda series and the reason it remains an iconic part of the game—and, in turn, of our popular culture—it is crucial to examine the psychological components that provide the music with so much meaning.

THE SONG OF TIME: MERE-EXPOSURE EFFECT AND THE HISTORY OF MUSIC IN HYRULE

The mere-exposure effect is a phenomenon wherein individuals tend to develop a preference for certain desires and habits primarily due to an increased familiarity with them. Mere-exposure effect goes beyond the ability of a person to recognize a particular piece of music, artwork, or other stimuli. It is beyond the classic construction of memory or perception. The effect is more closely aligned with classic conditioning as demonstrated by Pavlov and his salivating dogs. This conditioning leads to a psychological attachment to those mediated and visual works to which an individual is continually exposed. The more familiar a person is with something—for instance, a musical melody or theme—the more likely they are to prefer it or attribute meaning to it. Yoshihiko Yagi, Shinobu Ikoma, and Tadashi Kikuchi, a group of experimental psychologists focusing on the connection between stimulus and people’s responses, noted recurring musical themes create in gamers a “recognition memory bias,” suggesting that once players are exposed to music to the point they can hum it from memory, the music is considered “affectively preferable” to them. They are instantaneously able to recognize it, name the tune, and associate fond memories with the melody.

The music in the Legend of Zelda series, which provides a near-constant backdrop for the action in the games, is a suitable application of the mere-exposure concept, and in turn, the mere-exposure phenomenon helps shed some light on why the music of Zelda is so psychologically powerful. The classic “Title Screen” theme from the original Legend of Zelda, for example, is a hallmark of the series. Later games build on the initial exposure created in the original game by assembling variations of the original theme. For example, the musical construction of the “Title Screen” music from A Link to the Past, Link’s Awakening, Oracle of Seasons, and Oracle of Ages all share a variation of the melody found in the original Legend of Zelda game. A careful listening to these five themes reveals the same driving beats, tempos, and broad musical phrasing. Two cognitive psychologists studying the effect of media exposure, Robert Bornstein and Catherine Craver-Lemley, noted that the repetition of this classic tune, both within each individual game and across the series, acclimates the player to the song, which, by definition of the mere-exposure effect, creates a higher level of player enjoyment.

Simple familiarity with Zelda’s musical themes alone doesn’t wholly account for the mere-exposure effect among players, however. Someone who has played The Legend of Zelda does not only recognize its “Title Music” or “Overworld Theme” from the first several notes, but also, when hearing it, vividly recalls the experiences associated with those musical themes: for example, the waterfall scene from the opening credit and its fade into the first plateau where the player is introduced to Link for the first time. Memories of beating Ganon for the first time or discovering fairies or getting the Magical Sword from the old man in the Graveyard resurface when hearing the musical themes associated with those moments. As a player completes any one of the games in the series, the musical credits at the end of that game are forever associated with the euphoria of crushing the evil afflicting Hyrule in glorious battle. These memories are tied to the music from the game via the player’s visual experiences on the screen and the muscle memory from playing the game.

Though players are building these memories—and, as a result, fostering an emotional connection to the series—in parallel with the music that is playing throughout the game, they are not “explicitly recognizing” this connection as it occurs. Instead, as psychologists Isabelle Peretz, Danielle Gaudreau, and Anne-Marie Bonnel assert, these associations are unconscious. Each new exposure to the songs from the game then reinforces these unconscious associations and creates a layer of information, memories, and emotions that the player peels through in their remembrance of the game. It is through this layered unconscious remembrance that the video gamer creates the mere-exposure effect, which is in turn what drives players’ enjoyment and connection to the music of the Legend of Zelda. It is a testament to the emotional relationship players feel with the music of Zelda that it even transcends gameplay: this attachment is made particularly clear in the Symphony of the Goddesses live symphonic concert tour. Symphony of the Goddesses, which includes music from the Zelda series’ major touchstones, allows gamers to relive key moments of video-game victory and defeat because they unconsciously associate them with the music they’re hearing live and on stage. The music of Zelda is so evocative that even when a Zelda fan is nowhere near their controller, it can elicit emotions and memories based on their experiences playing the games.

The interconnection between music and memories, and the power of that relationship, also play a key role in Breath of the Wild, both for the player and their avatar, Link. Breath of the Wild is notable musically among the Legend of Zelda games for how little musical accompaniment it provides the player as they walk through the landscape of Hyrule. In other games, background music drives the aural and immersive interactions within the game; in Breath of the Wild, there are more “natural” sounds that reflect the current region of Hyrule that Link is visiting (e.g., the sound of the jungle is an essential addition to Link’s walkthrough of Faron). This use of more natural sounds in the game makes the use of music in Breath of the Wild more critical, especially as music connects Link to his memories.

Link has amnesia and is basically alone for most of the game, and through the lack of music, the player experiences a sort of amnesia by proxy—they lack the memories of past adventures and experiences usually elicited by the series’ familiar musical leitmotifs. When Link finally enters Hyrule Castle at the end of the game and regains all his memories, the castle music is an epic version of the iconic “Overworld Theme,” indicating a restoration of Link’s memories and, at last, a reminder of the player’s own. Thus, the musical transformation is complete as the journey is about to conclude, reminding the player of the importance of their journey, actions, and reasons for playing the game.

Though exposure and past experiences play important roles in explaining why the music of Zelda is meaningful, they cannot fully explain the powerful, primal effect that music has on our brains. To further understand why this effect is psychologically significant, we must turn our attention to a second psychological rationale for the gamer’s enjoyment of this music: the “lizard brain.”

THE TUNE OF CURRENTS: THE LIZARD BRAIN AND MUSICAL PATTERNS

Gamers are already primed to understand an increase of tempo in the music of a game as connected to an imminent threat. From the first, video games have used this technique to communicate to the player that a hostile NPC is either nearby or is attacking them now. Breath of the Wild uses players’ previous mediated training to signal to the player that a threat is coming. The lizard brain of the player appreciates this cue from the game as it acts as an alarm that warns them of danger. The music itself becomes a type of safety blanket that protects the player from harm, which causes the lizard brain to respect the music as a source of protection.

The moniker “lizard brain” refers to two specific parts in our brains: the cerebellum and the limbic cortex. Paul MacLean, a physician and neuroscientist, popularized this term in the 1990s. He argued that these parts of the brain connect back to the older, more primitive drives of our species. Those drives are the same as those found in lizards and other reptiles, specifically coined by Joseph Troncale as “fight, flight, feeding, fear, freezing-up, and fornication.”

Breath of the Wild has its own version of a lizard, the lizalfos, which can provide a window into how the lizard brain in the player is triggered by the series’ music and how the player then reacts to that stimulus. In fact, we can see the connection between the lizard brain and the human “fight or flight” response most straightforwardly in the music that the player hears during a lizalfos fight scene. The Battle Theme that the player hears when fighting in Breath of the Wild triggers this classic fight or flight response. At the onset of a battle, the smooth meditative tones of the background are replaced by the raw, fast-tempoed, and primitive percussive sounds of drums and xylophones supported by sharp, staccato strings that add tension to the overall mood of the already nerve-wracking situation the player is facing. The “Battle Theme” breaks the pattern of calm established by either the calmer transitional flow music of the region or the natural sounds within the game, and that change triggers the stress and fear centers of the lizard brain. The player starts to recognize that the situation that they are in is chaotic.

Some of the lizalfos Link encounters in Breath of the Wild possess a chameleonlike ability to be camouflaged in their surroundings in the wild. This camouflage effect extends to the music the player hears, as the music is unaffected by the introduction of this hidden creature. A player might be able to see the outer silhouette of the lizalfos, but they are unable to hear a change in the overall aural experience. As Link gets closer to the lizalfos, the situation creates an attack of opportunity for the lizalfos, which comes from the increase of the stress and fear for both the player (who is really experiencing those emotions) and the lizalfos (whose actions are simulating a typical fear and stress response in a wild animal in the real world). That stress triggers the fight mode in the lizalfos brain: their camouflage fades, and the “Battle Theme” begins its opening chords. The player’s own fight or flight response is then triggered in turn by a combination of the visual and aural cues: the lizalfos jump out of their hiding spot as the “Battle Theme” signals an encounter with a hostile opponent. The “Battle Theme” adds to the scene’s overall emotional complexity: the player experiences the assault within the game while simultaneously absorbing the “Battle Theme” and its robust and fast-paced structure.

When faced with an attack, the player can choose to fight the beast or flee, in either case invoking the lizard brain. A confrontation with a lizalfos could lead to either response, as these beasts are dangerous foes. But ultimately, Link must resolve and reduce stress (by either killing the beast or running away) to stop the “Battle Theme” from playing. The return to the simpler, purer tones of the background music and natural sounds acts as a form of psychological healing from the trauma of the battle.

Breath of the Wild takes the sense of tension created by the “Battle Theme” further with the “Guardian’s Theme.” Whenever Link enters the visual vicinity of a Guardian, the music becomes forebodingly faster and adds a series of techno-beats with strings and percussion adding the underlying presto tempo of the melody. The hypertempo of the piece signals that an extremely hostile, laser-shooting nightmare has targeted them and elimination is near.

This particular piece of music acts as a trigger to the lizard brain as it builds off of players’ expectations, through their experience with Zelda and other games, that hearing music that is dramatically different from the background music implies an immediate threat to players in-game. Most gamers have played games in the past that taught them “bad things happen when the music changes.” This stimulus acts as the classic conditioning discussed in the earlier section on mere exposure. When exposed to the stimulus of the music and the corresponding visual of impending danger—in this case, a massive robot bent on destroying Link—the lizard brain responds to this threat by triggering the fight or flight mechanism.

This musical information that triggers the fight or flight response is a fairly simplified method of communicating what is happening in the world of Hyrule. It is this musical construction, along with all of the other aural cues within the series, that confirms to the player that they are experiencing a masterwork of gameplay. Every note, beat, and rest creates a musical narrative that is embedded in each interaction the player has within the gaming environment. That this music sticks with the player through repeated play is a testament to its psychological staying power. This musical narrative and its psychological resonance in the player are further aided by the aesthetic decisions and constructions in the game’s music by the game designers.

REQUIEM OF THE SPIRIT TRACKS: THE ROLE OF AESTHETICS AND GESTALT WITHIN ZELDA’S MUSIC

One final theory can help us explore the impact and appeal of the music of the Legend of Zelda: the theory of aesthetics. The concept of aesthetics in psychology is directly tied to one’s emotional response to the visual artwork, music, or literature that society deems “beautiful.” Psychological aesthetic theory dictates that the creators of such visual or aural art achieve maximum psychological resonance with their audiences when they use the patterns found in the natural world to reinforce what a person should expect to see and hear in a given mediated work. This psychology of aesthetics plays an essential role in the Legend of Zelda series’ ability to connect its players to the game’s music. It provides the foundation of musical storytelling that the Zelda series relies on to draw players in. The most notable aesthetic concept employed through the music of the Legend of Zelda series to bolster its connection to gamers is that of a basic aesthetic theory known as gestalt theory.

Arguably, the most significant way the Legend of Zelda uses aesthetic theory to provide its music with meaning is through basic gestalt theory. Gestalt theory states that the presentation of a work as a whole is greater (meaning, more psychologically impactful) than the sum of the individual parts of that presentation. Most important for our purposes, gestalt psychology also suggests that human beings look for patterns to establish order in a chaotic world. Through viewing new stimuli as variables of a whole (or the gestalt), they gain a meaningful perception of their current situation.

Three tenets of gestalt theory in particular—proximity, similarity, and meaningfulness—are key in understanding how the aesthetics of music in Zelda resonate psychologically with gamers.

GESTALT AND PROXIMITY

The first notable way gestalt theory is reflected in the music of Zelda is through proximity. The music within the series acts, through its variations, as a secondary mapping within the gaming environment. In most versions of the game, by listening to a new location’s music and discerning its patterns, players can find out where they are on the map.

For example, in Ocarina of Time, when Link is near a village, the player hears the voices of villagers and the background music becomes more pastoral. Each of those individual sounds that the player hears within the village adds a small part to Link’s overall experience within the village. When all of the pieces are put together (the music, the voices of the villagers, the natural sounds within the village) is the moment when the player feels that they have entered Kakariko village. Individual sounds that may not possess much meaning on their own become part of an important, larger message to the gamer; through gestalt, players are given an aural context for their surroundings and can determine their location based on the cumulation of these aural cues.

GESTALT AND SIMILARITY

Another example of how gestalt theory is applied in the music of Zelda, increasing its psychological resonance with players, is through use of the leitmotif. Background and theme music within the series often employs a leitmotif—a recurrent theme associated with a person or theme—that is tied to Link and Hyrule. Hearing those epic tones in each of the games allows the player to connect to a culture that the player has never visited in real life as they feel they are connected to the history of the legacy of the heroes of Hyrule and the world around them.

The effect of leitmotifs on the player can be amplified when they incorporate the same classical conditioning we have discussed in the first two sections of this essay. In Zelda, many musical leitmotifs are grounded in how the music is not only similar to the other music within the series but also to classical music that the player may have heard in the past in other mediated works. This similarity “trains” or “conditions” the player on how to respond to the stimulus the music represents. For example, the Legend of Zelda’s “Overworld Theme” borrows heavily from existing styles and pieces of classical music (specifically Maurice Ravel’s Bolero). It is this style of music that players may have heard in other works, like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Apocalypse Now, and Platoon for the more adult players and classic Looney Tunes cartoons like What’s Opera, Doc? for kids. The general themes coming from this style of music allow the player to imagine a grand epic work in which they play a hero from the old myths—even those, like the old myths of the Legend of Zelda, that represent a mythology that never was.

GESTALT AND MEANINGFULNESS

One final example that shows how gestalt theory helps players maintain a deep psychological connection to the music of Zelda is the meaningfulness of “Saria’s Song.” Link learns this tune in Ocarina of Time. The purpose of this song is different from that of the other songs in the series, as it enables the player to gather information from Saria or Navi throughout the game. Rather than act as a means of understanding Link’s place on the map (as the Legend of Zelda “Overworld Theme” does, for example), “Saria’s Song” acts as a means of understanding the player’s place within the storyline. In later games of the series, the song has a deeper connection to the woods of Hyrule. It could be argued that the game, through “Saria’s Song,” is training the player to gain knowledge in the woods, again via the classical conditioning, from Ocarina of Time (that is, “every time I hear this song, I gain more knowledge about the game”).Therefore, the song has meaning to the player every time they hear those tones. They can feel that they will receive some meaningful experience when they hear “Saria’s Song.”

The use of these three gestalt principles in the Legend of Zelda series all act as basic aural tricks that inform the player what they should be experiencing during their gameplay. These expectations, as communicated by the music, then act as a stable and dependable constant against the chaos of action that occurs within each of the games. When the player hears the same music in each dungeon in the original Legend of Zelda game (excluding “Ganon’s Lair”), they then associate that music with all of the tension and excitement they experienced when going through previous dungeons.

The psychological power of aesthetics, then, as it relates to the Legend of Zelda series is not only in that the music proves a beautiful overtone to the overall experience of playing the game, but also how it allows the music to subconsciously communicate to the player what is happening in the game, thereby connecting the player to the larger world of Hyrule.

USING THE WHISTLE TO COME HOME

The “Overworld Theme” from The Legend of Zelda is a simple and repetitive 5-channel musical score, yet its meaning and attraction in the mind of the player have only strengthened after all of these years. All three of these themes—mere-exposure effect, the lizard brain, and basic aesthetic theory—explain how the music of the Legend of Zelda series, in that first game and beyond, grounds fans in the environment of the game and helps them remain connected to pleasant memories associated with the game even after putting down the controller. Rather than simply being a repetitive series of notes, an earworm designed to hold the player hostage, the music becomes a digital point of remembrance of the hero’s struggle that the player and Link experience together.

Each step that the player/Link takes in each game is reinforced by the musical accompaniment. The music helps move the storyline along without being too heavy-handed in relying on the prose of NPCs or depending too much on interwoven cut-scenes. The breathtaking scenery that the players are exposed to is balanced with the right tones and melodies to give them a comprehensive experience that could not be achieved through a single point of narrative within the game. Songs and performances within Hyrule add to the mythology and legacy that each gamer experiences when playing the series.

The aural legacy of the game is that it evokes a deep emotional response that the most advanced visual work within the design of the game cannot. The mythology and songs of the game are what allow the player to be truly transported via their imagination to the rich environment of Hyrule. Music within the series acts as a siren song calling them to this world, much like the Whistle calls a whirlwind to transport them away.

SHANE TILTON, PHD, is an assistant professor of multimedia journalism at the Ohio Northern University. He was named the 2018 Young Stationers’ Prize winner from the Young Stationers and the 2015 Outstanding New Adviser from the Society for Collegiate Journalists for his work in journalism and communication education. He has published research and provided media commentary on the topics of the digital divide, new media, and the impact of gaming in education. His work on social media and its connection to university life earned him the 2013 Harwood Dissertation award from the Broadcast Education Association.

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