Clifford Geertz Meets the Triforce

So, today I want to do something a little different. As may already be obvious by the catalogue of video essays I’ve created so far, I’m a fan of the Legend of Zelda games. They’re really an inherent part of my growing up - my mother played the original game on the NES before I was old enough to get my hands on it. So of course I want to always talk about these games, but there’s always something to reflect on and think about. The Zelda games prevalence in popular culture and contemporary society means its always a good example piece to grab and use to understand contemporary storytelling and the role of mythology and meaning.

This time, I want to approach things in a slightly different way. I want to reflect on the symbol of the Triforce, and use it to critique a very important anthropologist: Clifford Geertz. Clifford Geertz is one of the foundational thinkers when getting into social anthropology or anthropology of religion, and so I think he may be a fun figure to take into the world of Hyrule. But before we get into the meat and potatoes of Geertz, lets first remind ourselves of the Triforce.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was first released in 1998, and was the first of many types of Zelda games. Ocarina of Time was the first of the 3D Zelda games and the first game that really spelled out the linear narrative progression that came to define almost every Zelda game that came after, until the release of Breath of the Wild. Ocarina of Time provided players with the most detailed rendering of the game world of Hyrule up until this point, in narrative and in the ability to engage with it in more than a top-down level.

Part of this was also the background mythology and narrative given to the Triforce. The Triforce as a symbol had been around in Zelda games from the very first game, but Ocarina of Time was the first to give a detailed history and understanding of the symbol within the actual game, rather than hidden in manuals. After defeating the evil spirit in the Great Deku Tree, he tells our playable character Link about the Triforce.

In the beginning, the world was created by three goddesses. Once their labours in creating the world was finished, the three goddesses departed for the heavens. Three golden sacred triangles remained at the point where the goddesses left the world. These three triangles are the Triforce, and became the basis of Hyrule’s destiny and religion, and the place where the triangles rest became the Sacred Realm - a place away from place.

The story of the Triforce underpins the religious mythology of the world of Hyrule. Its centrality to the world’s religion is demonstrated by its presence in the various temples in the games. The Triforce is not just a symbol, however, it’s a physical object that literally exists. It’s the war and fighting over this object that makes up the narratives of the games themselves. Ganon or Ganondorf, depending on the game, wants to access the Triforce, and the consequence of this is what underpins the narratives of the games.

Before we dig into the nature of this physicality, we should switch tracks real quick to talk about Clifford Geertz. Clifford Geertz was an American Anthropologist, and considered one of the most influential cultural anthropologists. He helped to carve ideas of symbolic anthropology - or the anthropology focused around the study of symbols. He’s known for what’s called “thick description”, which basically just means overly describing every single little detail of everything.

Geertz’s definition of religion is a reflection of this thick description. His definition of religion is: “(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the mods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.”

Yes, this is a very detailed definition, and quite frankly its a bit much to dig into every bit of this. But one of the important factors for our purposes today is the importance put on symbols. Symbols are the first thing Geertz mentions in his definition because its the symbols that carry the importance.

So let’s look into this system of symbols. Its not just that one symbol must be present, but a complex interlacing of various symbols that all interact with one another in different ways. In Zelda, we got many symbols, not just the Triforce. In Ocarina of Time, there are three symbols that are embedded in gem stones that must be assembled in order to gain access to the Triforce. These symbols represent different aspects of the world, as we see the symbol of the forest being replicated in the gem, in the symbol on shields, and painted on doors. There is also something symbolic about bringing these things together, and only through bringing the symbols that represent different people that make up Hyrule that we gain access to the ultimate treasure.

According to Geertz, these symbols must bring about important and influential moods and motivations. The everyday moods and the independent motivations of the people of Hyrule are complicated to determine, as most often we’re interacting with non-playable characters. However, there are signs of the extreme lengths people would go through to protect and maintain the order of the symbols of the world of Hyrule. In the case of Ocarina of Time, we have the seven sages who sacrifice their future livelihoods to become sages to protect the Triforce. Even in future games, we have other sages, other characters who fight for the protection of Hyrule and its Triforce. This willingness to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the Triforce gives us a hint to the powerful moods and motivations underpinning the world, brought about by the Triforce.

The third element of Geertz’s definition is the conception of an order of existence. This order, for Hyrule, is demonstrated in the cosmology, the creation of Hyrule by the three goddesses. Of greatest interest is the importance given to lawfulness. To return to the Great Deku Tree: “Nayru poured her wisdom onto the earth and gave the spirit of law to the world.” We’ll come back to this in a second, but for the purposes of right now, we see that following and upholding laws are considered a kind of divine action.

Order is not only cosmic but also human. The three triangles of the Triforce can be subdivided for the meaning of each triangle individually. They represent characteristics: power, wisdom and courage. The Triforce, the physical Triforce that exists, is said to grant the wish of anyone who touches it. However, this is prefaced that the person needs to be “pure of heart” or else the Triforce will break - both physically and metaphorically - into its separate three triangle component parts. Someone who is “pure of heart” is described as someone who has a balance of power, wisdom and courage. Therefore, this is a particular order of existence for the perfect form of human approach to the world - one that is in balance between wisdom, power and courage.

So far, so good for ol’ Geertz. In this initial understanding of the Triforce, we have Geertz’s view of religion and symbol as all kinda of matching up. However, symbols can be very complicated, and this is where Geertz starts to fall apart. In order to demonstrate this, let’s look at the Triforce again.

The Triforce is not present only in religious statues or architecture. In fact, the way we see the Triforce the most is in relation to the Hylian royal family. This means that a symbol that we’ve already established as being inherently part of the religious dynamics of the world is also tied to the primary seat of political power.

The Triforce is more than just symbolically linked to Hylian religion. In future games, the narrative unfolds that the goddess Hylia took physical form and became the princess, founding the Hylian royal family. But even when this narrative isn’t present in the game, the royal family is inherently connected. Even in Ocarina of Time, the royal family holds secrets about the religious worlds. Zelda says she knows how to gain access to the Triforce due to the information being a “secret… that has been passed down by the Royal Family of Hyrule.” The family’s holding of a secret about the Triforce demonstrates their possession of not only political power, but also religious power. Not only that, but they also hold the ability to influence the way that their people can experience religious truth.

One of Geertz primary critics was British social anthropologist Talal Asad. Asad’s work primarily focused on the interplay between power and religion. According to Asad: “It is not the mind that moved spontaneously to religious truth, but power that created the conditions for experiencing that truth… the patterns of religious moods and motivations, the possibilities for religious knowledge and truth, have all varied with them and been conditioned by them.” In other words, we shouldn’t think that religious experiences are inherently separate from systems of power. Not only that, but people who hold power can also influence the ways through which those without power can have access to both knowledge and experience. This is something we see in the Hylian Royal Family.

And here we start to have a strong disconnect between Geertz and the way that symbols function, particularly in our case study here of the Triforce. We should first review what Geertz actually thought of symbols themselves. Geertz sees a symbol as “any object, act, event, quality, or relation which serves as a vehicle for a conception - the conception is the symbol’s ‘meaning’”. Symbols are therefore focused on meaning. Geertz sees symbols as giving form to social and psychological realities, and also shaping these realities into the symbol. But there’s an important element here: the two are remaining somewhat separate.

Asad also picks up on this separation, and notes that focusing on symbols as meaning-carrying objects in the way Geertz does it also keeps objects away from the social conditions that the symbols live in. It’s not just us that are impacted by our social conditions, but everything that we create and experience - like our symbols. We can’t remove these from their social contexts, and to study them we need to also focus on these aspects. Like their political or social realities.

But so far, we’ve only looked at the Triforce from the game world itself. But the Triforce also has an important life outside of the games.

What happens when the Triforce is supplanted into a different world context is dependent on the human ability to assign multiple meanings to the same symbol or image. Anthropologist Michael Taussig makes this point in this book The Corn Wolf. The Corn Wolf is a field spirit in the shape of a wolf from German folklore. Taussig uses the Corn Wolf because of its multiplicity of meanings. He points out how the Corn Wolf is hidden in the last sheaf of corn harvested, but is also the last sheaf itself, and also the man who binds the last sheaf. But Taussig continues to provide a fourth meaning of the Corn Wolf: the human being or animal that stands in for the corn spirit for sacrifice.

It is not that we are confused by what exactly the Corn Wolf is. But rather, it is all of these things all at once. We are capable of understanding that a symbol can hold multiple meanings at once, and understand the different contexts in which different meanings can come about.

Outside of the game, the Triforce has come to represent the game series of the Legend of Zelda itself. Despite there being many symbols in the game, and some of which are just as wonderfully complex as the Triforce - such as the Sheikah eye symbol - the Triforce is the constant. None of the other symbols have come to hold the same amount of meanings attached to the Triforce. The Triforce represents the cosmology of the world of Hyrule, the ideal types of a person, the political force of the Hylian royal family, and now, on a larger scale, the series of games called the Legend of Zelda.

The Triforce thus is similar in structure to other religious symbols outside of game worlds. For example, we can think of a the cross as a representation of Christianity, in the way that the Triforce represents the games. In a similar manner to the Triforce, the cross represents not just Christianity more generally, but also several other elements that underlie Christianity, such as the death of Jesus and sacrifice, the notion of redemption, and the idea of ever lasting life in Heaven. All of these concepts can be understood at once in just one symbol. We can apply similar conceptions to other symbols, such as the Om, or the Hand of Fatima, or even the One Ring in the Lord of the Rings.

Clifford Geertz’s view of cultural patterns gives little leeway for the meaning of the symbols to be shaped by the viewer’s sociological, psychological, economic or political context. This is in direct contrast to material culture scholar David Morgan. Morgan speaks of the act of gazing as a “social act of looking”, which involves several parts: the viewer, the context or setting of the viewing, and the rules that govern the relationship between the viewers and the subject. This means that two people from two very different contexts can view the same object and have a different meaning or experience gathered. For example, we talked about the multiple meanings that are embedded in the Christian Cross, but someone who has had a traumatic experience in the Church may have added meanings to the Cross that someone who has only had positive experience may not have, and vice-versa.

The power the Triforce holds as a symbol is dependent on the relationship the viewer has with it - both in game and outside of game. Someone who has never heard of the Legend of Zelda games before may have no relationship or understanding of the symbol. Meanings of symbols are not inherent to the symbols themselves, but rather are gifted to them by their social context, it’s present in the mind of the viewer who ascribes meaning to it. Those players who have fond memories of the games, or who played the games with their siblings, or remember sitting on the couch with their mother who also loved the games, are going to have a different understanding and relationship with the Triforce.