Green Tunic

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Green Tunic
Owner	Link
Debut	The Legend of Zelda

The green tunic (also known as the Hero's Clothes, the Green Jerkin or the Kokiri Tunic) is the primary clothing worn by Link throughout the Legend of Zelda series.

Information

Link's ensemble usually consists of a green tunic with a pointed cap. It usually offers only the barest of protection against danger. However, the clothes act as a powerful symbol in some games, due to the tales of the previous Links wearing the same garb. One wearing these clothes would in some cases be assumed to be a hero or laughed at for being bold enough to dress as one (such as Ashei's reaction). Links usually start the games with their tunics, with little explanation for their coincidental choice in clothing in the early games. Ocarina of Time was the first to provide an origin for the tunic, as it was shown to be the standard clothing worn by the boys of the Kokiri forest. The girls instead wore green skirts and tunics. However, later games would undermine this with the possibility of Links who wore the tunic prior to Ocarina of Time.

The Wind Waker is the first game in which Link starts off with a different set of clothes, which are a blue set of pajamas. The Hero's Clothes are given to him by his grandmother on his birthday. It is established that children receive clothes identical to that of the Hero once they reach a certain age so that he could follow his example. It could be inferred instance that similar legends provided reasons for other Links' unexplained attire. The next interesting example was The Minish Cap, which appears to be set early in Hyrule's history. Although Link has the usual green tunic for the duration of the game, he does not have the accompanying green hat. Ezlo, trapped in hat form, acts as Link's hat for the entire adventure, and at the end he gives Link a green cap to wear. The preceding Link shown in a stain glass window also lacked a hat, which implies that this game was intended to be the historical origin of Link's hat, although that would ultimately depend on the timeline placement.

Link also started Twilight Princess with a unique set of clothes. He received the Hero's Clothes when Faron restored Link to his true form after Link saved the province from twilight. In Spirit Tracks, tunics similar to Link's were the uniforms worn by Hyrule's military, likely due to the lingering inspiration provided by the Hero of Time, the Hero of Winds, or both. Link started the game wearing an engineer's uniform, but he was given the green tunic after he became a recruit of the Hyrulean guard.

Other Tunics

Although Link usually starts off with the green tunic, and it is the most emblematic of his outfits, in most cases he winds up getting upgraded tunics with special abilities later in the game game. The basics are the Blue Tunic and the Red Tunic, which were preceded by the Blue and Red Rings that changed the color of Link's tunic when equipped in The Legend of Zelda. Another special version is the Magic Armor. Different colored tunics are important in the Four Swords subseries for tellling multiple Links apart. Link always starts out with a green tunic, but when he is split into four as an effect of the Four Sword, each Link has a different tunic. One Link still has green, while the others wear red, blue and violet. This was foreshadowed in The Minish Cap, where Link could use charms from Din, Nayru or Farore to temporarily change his tunic to one of the three tunic colors used in the Four Swords.

As a bonus in a second playthrough of The Wind Waker, Link will instead receive something called the Hero's New Clothes at the beginning of the game. This is apparently identical to the green tunic, but it can only be seen by the honest. The the player and most other characters only see the blue pajamas Link is wearing underneath until the game's final scene.

Other Appearances

Video Games

• Since it is his basic costume, Link wears the tunic for his appearances in the Super Smash Bros. series as well as Soulcalibur II. All these games also have ways for Link to change the color of his tunic which match the alternate tunics in the series (as well as some original colors that do not match with existing tunics).

Trivia

• Link is not the only character who wears a green tunic, aside from the Kokiri children. The Wind Waker implies that giving the Hero's Clothes to children was a tradition practiced by the cultures of some of the islands of the Great Sea. Phantom Hourglass also shows Nyeve, who acts as a parody of the Hero of Winds and wears the same clothing, and who is likely another product of that tradition. Additionally, a man wearing a green tunic was depicted in official artwork for Zelda II.
• Tingle also wears green clothes that he considers to be similar to Link's attire, although his outfit is more of a skintight costume with red briefs on the outside.
• The Hero's New Clothes seem to be based on the folk talk of the The Emperor's New Clothes, in which con men trick an emperor into thinking that they made a special robe that can only be seen by those worthy of their position, so the emperor is forced to go along so that he does not risk revealing his incompetence.
• In Phantom Hourglass, a set of the Hero's New Clothes are used in the trading sidequest and are traded to Nyeve, as an extension of the character's The Wind Waker parody.