One of the major struggles with being a Shinto practitioner (shinja) in the West is a sore lack of resources, academic or otherwise. Much of what one finds is regurgitated Wikipedia articles, gross oversimplification, or someone trying to fit square pegs into triangle holes so to speak; pressing a vast, fluid, non-centralized belief system into concrete Western definitions of religion tends not to represent us very well. Hence we end up with, in general, a divide between the Western understanding of Shinto, and what Shinto actually stands for.
Fortunately, religion and culture are baked into the products of any society, and video games are no exception. Even for those with no exposure to Japanese culture, the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild conveys a certain, unique spirit. To those of us who can see that spirit for what it is, though, the game gains a deeper sensibility, a method behind the method. Without being too reductive about it, I’d like to try to break down a few major ways that Breath of the Wild opens the gates of Shinto spirituality to wider audiences.
The Nature of Nature
Existence to exist, not to serve
At the heart of Shinto is not a doctrine, but rather a feeling. Shinja strive to capture that whole-hearted awe one feels when witnessing a beautiful sunset, a breathtaking vista, a wide, life-giving river or a mountain bathed in morning mists. For us, this feeling is peaceful, invigorating, and we feel connected to the world and the web of life which surrounds us. We give thanks for what the world has revealed of itself to us. This feeling is Shinto, and for most of us, to be Shinto is to strive to capture that feeling whenever and wherever possible. The goal of a shinja is not to bend the world to their will, but rather to do their best to live in harmony with it, as it does for us.
So often in games, we see the world so blatantly exists only for the sake of the player. Bland terrain plasters the world only as a buffer between fast-travel spots, and the farther one gets from major trade hubs or settlements, the less there is to do or to see. With Breath of the Wild, though, the opposite is true. Settlements are small, and designed as temporary stopovers between greater excursions. For most of the game, the world is the main character, and we, as Link, are the silent observer, doing what we can to eke out a meager existence, dwarfed by the unparalleled soul of the world. We are not some super-powered hero destined for great things (despite what the game says). We are nothing but a boy, whose power grows as his relationship with the world around him evolves.
Kami, Korok and the understanding of divinity
Meoto Iwa, the Married Rocks, sacred as kamisama.
At the center of our worship and understanding of our world is kami. Often mistranslated to “god” or “spirit”, kami is the term we give to the power which inspires awe, appreciation, and spiritual reverence. The sun is kami, the mountain is kami, the stream, tree, and myriad life they support are all kami. So too are fire, wind, and humanity itself. From this broad definition of kami comes the urge for western scholars to take the easy route and define Shinto as animism which, while partially true, does not encompass the entire religion. It is not as simple as attributing a soul or spirit to everything, but rather finding joy and appreciation in all things, from food, to rubbish, to the earth and the universe itself. A lot of Westerners have been exposed, whether they realize it or not, to basic Shinto thought through Marie Kondo and the Konmari method. The idea of earnestly thanking each item for its time and value in your life is a concept very similar to the respect we show to kamisama, though the scope of appreciation is much wider and greater in Shinto.
We recognize the difficulty of seeing kamisama in all things, small and large. In Breath of the Wild, our efforts are well rewarded. Scattered throughout the entire world map are the Korok. These small beings are revealed to us when we overturn rocks, complete simple puzzles, traverse difficult terrain, and so on. More often than not they reside at mountaintops, in deep canyons, and other noticeable markers around the world. Others appear when offerings are made at certain statues or shrines, similar to the purpose of jinja (Shinto shrines) and kamidana (home shrines) in real life. When we uncover a Korok, we are rewarded with a Korok seed, a small token that allows us to expand our inventory to carry more weapons and items. With 900 Korok to be uncovered, it’s hard to walk very far without stumbling upon one of them. Hence the player is trained to be always conscious of the world around them, to search beyond what may seem, at first glance, to be mundane.
A Korok
Awaiting an offering, which will make a Korok appear.
Likewise in the real world, it is good to be aware that we are surrounded at all times by a similar divinity. Kami are everywhere, because kami are everything. While the relationship between us and they is nothing close to being given a tiny seed and being sent on our way, for some of us there is still the thrill of discovery, a sort of “Yahaha! You found me!” moment as found with the Korok in the game.
Additional Note
It should also be noted that Koroks are not the only kami-equivalencies in Breath of the Wild. The Great Deku Tree is a common element in many of the Legend of Zelda games, and another straight kami equivalent. Likewise for the Great Fairies, the blupees, the Golden Goddesses (Din, Nayru, and Farore), and their dragon incarnations. The goddess Hylia specifically can be seen as an almost direct parallel to Amaterasu-Omikami, the Sun kami, progenitor of the Japanese imperial family, and common figure across much of Japanese history, mythology, and philosophy.
Purity and Cleansing: The Inevitable Calamity Ganon
In Shinto, things are rarely defined so eagerly as “good” and “evil.” Rather, distinctions are drawn between “pure” and “polluted.” Shinto believes that humans are naturally good and pure beings. But through exposure to impure thoughts, things, and actions, such as dishonesty, guilt, malevolence, proximity to dirtiness, death and disease, and more all soil our natural purity. This soiling is called “kegare(uncleanness, pollution),” and is considered to be a spiritual muck that stains and sticks to us. It is not a declaration of sin, but rather a natural occurrence that must routinely be taken care of. A deeper form of defilement of our purity is tsumi, a word closer to sin, and primarily means actions of violence or those which steal the autonomy of another, through force or other means.
To address our accumulation of kegare and tsumi, we must regularly perform harai, or purification rituals. These rituals vary between the different subsets of Shinto, but many include water or fire as the purifying agent, and the common thread throughout all harai is to return us to our original, pure state, the state within which we are closest to kamisama. This cycle of impurity and cleansing is one of the pillars of Shinto.
Waterfall Misogi, a classic form of harae since ancient times.
Corruption is key in Breath of the Wild. The influence of Calamity Ganon is a sickly black pus oozing over structures both man made and natural, and a howling, malevolent mist with the power to resurrect monsters at certain times. The game itself simply names this influence, “Malice.” Ganon himself appears cloaked in a similar miasma of dark reds and violets, and beneath he is nothing but lumps of scarred, burnt, darkened flesh. Flames dance across his back, but these too are an incorrect, corrupted color, not the pure and cleansing flame of harae. His influence has spread across Hyrule, even corrupting the Divine Beasts—gigantic, ancient machines that think and feel for themselves, and that were originally created to destroy the very thing which plagues them now.
Darkbeast Ganon, the final form of the Calamity that we fight.
In many ways, Calamity Ganon is the most tragic iteration of the character the series has ever seen. He has wholly revoked any humanity that remained within him. There is no grand plot, no subtle manipulation, no self-aggrandizing reveal to the hero. Instead, what little is left of Ganon is fully consumed by hatred and by Malice, a rudderless antithesis to everything that Hyrule stands for. All that stands between him and absolute destruction of the land is the princess— whose honest intent and pure heart have kept Ganon at bay for one hundred years—and you, Link, the player, endowed with the collected power of the ancient shrine sages, the blessings of the four Champions, and the purifying blade itself, the Master Sword.
Ganondorf in his original form, and Calamity Ganon in BotW
Breath of the Wild is not a story of performing harae. We are harae. Malice, as kegare, and for Ganon as tsumi, has inundated every aspect of body of Hyrule. We are the force that drives it out and returns Hyrule to its rightful state of tranquillity and reconstruction. We expel Malice and the Blight Ganons from the Divine Beasts, granting peace to the spirits of the Champions. We kill monsters and corrupted Guardians, and each time we do, they expel a cloud of Malice, the kegare of the world, and vanish. By the time we finish, Ganon is defeated, Malice is vanquished, and the pure of heart remain: the core of harae.
“Breath of the Wild” as “Kami no Michi“
The Japanese characters for Shinto (神道) break down into 神 (kami) and 道 (path, way, or road). Translated literally it says kami no michi, the kami way: the path through life we take to live in harmony with kamisama. It encompasses everything we do, everything we think, and everything we feel in order to maintain our relationship with the world and with ourselves.
The title ‘Breath of the Wild’ could be taken in much the same context. The game almost forces you to appreciate and respect the natural world you survive in. Every item you pick up has a purpose, and feeds back into your experience, whether as ingredient, weapon, or simply a moveable object. The world becomes a part of your journey and a part of you. When it rains, you rest. When it thunders, you take cover. When the world is peaceful, you and your adventure are peaceful. It’s a constant give and take, an action amd reaction, a dance of peaceful, intense, beautiful survival. In essence, you are the Wild, as much as the world itself is the Wild, and when the world breathes, so do you. This indestructible relation, this ineffable symbiosis, is the core of Shinto, the definition of Kami no Michi, and no game has ever shown it in practice nearly as well as Breath of the Wild does.
Ambitions, Regardless 