Miniature Worlds: Platypus Nostalgia

The kingdom of Hyrule has one castle, one village, one church, and a myriad of ruins left from an older civilization. Evidence suggests that the primary industries of Hyrule are logging and fishing. No evidence of large-scale agriculture exists and, as such, we must conclude that a large portion of the kingdom's foodstuffs are imported. Hyrule makes Lichtenstein look large. On the other hand, maybe asking where Link gets his rice balls is like asking where the Narnian factory is that supplies Mrs. Beaver with her sowing machine.

A friend of mine, staring at the map of Mordor that hung on the wall in our bachelor apartment, once asked how Sauron could feed all his orks. Another friend and I quickly pointed to the sea of Nurn and explained that there was an agricultural region on its banks and that additional foodstuffs could be imported from the tributary states in the south. It wasn't the answer he expected. The point is that Tolkien had an answer for just about everything. He wanted Middle Earth to feel as large and detailed as the real world. Dr. John Mark Reynolds points out in a lecture on "The Magician's Nephew" that this was the opposite of Lewis' intent in the "Chronicles of Narnia." While Tolkien threw his considerable creative genius into creating a "big" world, Lewis purposely created a "miniature" world. He was not trying to create an alternate reality for the imagination to run riot in, but a simplification of reality that would distill eternal truths in a way that the imagination could readily comprehend.

Take a look again at a map of Hyrule; or any of the old Squaresoft maps. Notice anything? It's all too simple to work. Where are suburbs to provide the workforce for Final Fantasy III's industrial state? Where are the grain-growing regions to keep Hyrule fed? The answer is that they're not there. They aren't important. As with Narnia, the worlds of Nintendo and Squaresoft's video games are "miniature worlds." They boil the world down, essentialize it, in order to give the player a clear picture of the truths they wish to portray: heroism, opposition to tyranny, the good of friendship, the power of a just cause.