Handedness is quite obviously not as significant as gender, race, or sexuality. But it is at least similar in kind, in the sense that we live in a world that is built to benefit right handers. From things as minor as needing to rearrange cutlery at every restaurant or a lack of understanding about how to teach handwriting to lefties when the script is designed for righties, to more significant things like lefties dying on average 9 years younger than righties.

It was being left-handed that first helped me really internalise (as opposed to merely having an intellectual understanding of) the importance of representation in media. I’ve never played a Zelda game. I’ve never really even owned a Nintendo console, except for a Wii which only got used for Wii Sports. But I heard that Link was originally a lefty, and that they switched him to right-handed in the Wii version. And it hurt, man. A game I’ve never given a shit about, but learning they got rid of one of the only prominent lefties in games hurt, and I realised on a deep level “oh, this is why representation matters”.

And it looks like they kept Link right-handed even in later post-Wii games.