What is Addison? You know the signature guy Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – you have surely already met him. He’s a lanky, pinheaded guy with a silly bowl cut, sweating it out to hold up an advertising sign. You probably first saw him in the ruins of Hyrule Castle Town, but wherever you go in Hyrule, Addison got there first. He’s on an epic quest himself – only in Addison’s case, it’s not about saving the princess, it’s about sucking off his boss.
Addison’s boss is Hudson, president of Hudson Construction. Like Bolson in breath of the wild, Hudson will help you build a house later in the game, but as soon as you arrive in Hyrule, you will feel his presence. After the upheaval, Hudson generously sponsors the rebuilding of the kingdom leaving caches of building materials everywhere (which you can use to transform into strange vehicles or Korok torture devices at your leisure). And Hudson wants everyone to know about his generosity, so he sent Addison there to erect a sign with his face on it next to almost every cache.
Addison is one of my favorite characters in tears of the kingdom, for several reasons. It is absurd and funny, and it is the pretext for simple and fun little physical puzzles. If he lets go of the panel, it will fall, so it’s up to Link to brace it with a glued Ultrahand assembly before Addison can fix it in place. Each sign is a different shape, which presents a different challenge, but also serves as a clue as to how to solve it. Puzzles are charming little palate cleansers that interrupt Link’s travels, without being as elaborate or messy as helping a lost Korok find his friend.
Addison is also refreshing in another way. He reminds us that Zelda games, as fantastical and mechanically ornate as they are, are also about real life.
Image: Nintendo EPD/Nintendo via Polygon
The Zelda series has long been Nintendo’s main outlet for saying something about the world we live in. Majora’s Mask, which has a whole mechanical soap opera at its center, is the most famous example. But think of any town in Zelda and you’ll find memorable examples of the townsfolk’s petty jealousies, sad dreams and eccentric peccadilloes. Remember skyward swordis smoothing out, Groose? Or Ingo, the hired employee of Ocarina of timeis Lon Lon Ranch, which sells its lazy boss Talon to Ganondorf? The series is dotted with dozens of these little dramas that poke fun at everyday human vanities.
Addison and his signs are a classic example of Zelda pocket satire. He is an overzealous and unhappy worker, exploited by the pride of his boss. The image of him straining to hold the huge unbalanced panel couldn’t be sharper. Hudson can’t do a good deed without using it as a vehicle for self-promotion – you have to think he has political ambitions – but Addison, so desperate to please, shares some of the blame for his own humiliation. Surely there’s a specific dig aimed at the sycophantic Japanese work culture here, but everyone can relate.
It’s a tangy little vignette, perfectly enhanced by the puzzle gameplay. The contraptions you invent to support the panel are invariably huge, unnecessary, and elaborate; Addison’s eventual solution, on the other hand, is sloppy and appears to not last two minutes. Both of you step back and admire your work – all that over-engineered effort in the name of nothing but corporate vanity. Then it’s on to the next one. In Hyrule, the world has come to an end, a chasm has opened up, and the sky is literally falling – but life and work go on.
