Talk:Gerudo

Neutral Point of View: Reception

The reception section of the article currently doesn't mention any positive reception of the Gerudo across The Legend of Zelda series. The criticisms currently mentioned in the article are of course important, but while I don't have examples to hand, I think that to claim that the Gerudo have been received predominantly negatively without any mention of any positive reception or the scale of the reception from either side is likely to be misleading. TollyH (talk) 17:29, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I would strongly encourage you to find sources discussing their positive reception found in sources listed here or here. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 20:14, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Late reply, but this article is wildly biased to the point I wonder if the editors who added those sections have some ulterior motive in painting the subject in a negative light. The Gerudo are arguably the most popular out of the races among fan spaces given the abundance of fanart and praise the Gerudo Town section of BotW alone recieves. A largely undue amount of weight appears to have been placed on specific criticisms, which are fair to note in the article as criticisms that have been made, but to say that the Gerudo have been "overwhelmingly negatively received" or whatever was said in the opening paragraph is completely false and paints a misleading picture. A cursory Google search reveals at least three separate articles that have a generally positive view of the Gerudo and their portrayal, with the most negative thing I could find from a quick glance is that there are aspects the author felt were underutilized. Conversely, I could not find any articles speaking negatively of the characters from the five-minute search I did. Not to say they don't exist, but pointing out the bias here. In fact, one article cited in the reception section actually has a rather neutral to semi-positive view of the Gerudo, with the main criticism being that the author felt the sociopolitical and cultural aspects present in Gerudo Town were not explored thoroughly enough, not that the Gerudo were a negative depiction of Middle Eastern culture. BubbleRevolution (talk) 16:35, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

You listed three articles written after I wrote this article, so yeah, they aren't listed in the article. I cannot include things that do not exist Cukie Gherkin (talk) 16:44, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Why insist on continuing to include the opening paragraph when it clearly doesn't accurately reflect the overall perception of the characters, then? I could probably go back and find examples within reviews from the time period but either way, it proves that the claim they were "generally poorly received" isn't exactly painting a full picture. BubbleRevolution (talk) 16:47, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Do it Cukie Gherkin (talk) 16:48, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

It's a bit difficult to sift through search results from 8 years ago while having to weed out the forum threads and walkthrough sites, but generally most mentions in reviews of the game at the time are neutral to positive from what I can find. this article describes them as amongst several "charming" races featured in the game, while this one lists them amongst the "entertaining and broadly written" characters, describing them as "cooly strong". What ELSE I found was copious forum threads citing the Gerudo area as the standout part of the game and how interesting the cultural aspects of the sidequest are in relation to gender dynamics. Not exactly citable as high-quality sources, but I think using specific criticisms and determining that as the end-all be-all of how the characters have been received doesn't reflect the neutral point of view that articles are supposed to have, when it's evidently not the case. Plus there's the three articles I cited already. The weight placed on it MAY have been justifiable back when OoT was the most prominent appearance since there wasn't a lot of focus on them and thus not much in the way of commentary in general, but the Breath of the Wild appearance onward was received generally well and at least some of the examples provided show it's hardly a largely negative reception. BubbleRevolution (talk) 17:13, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Why aren't you adding these sources to the article

Also, forums have 0% significance in determining such a statement.

Also also, having reviewed your sources, these are not really strong at all. They're aside comments, made with little thought. If you want to try to find WP:SIGCOV, try using this. I encourage you to add the three sources you linked earlier if you would like to demonstrate non-negative reception. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 17:22, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

I may well add them, but the point is I'm contesting the bias of the article. And yeah, they are aside comments, but it shows the sentiment that the Gerudo are widely hated by critics is far from accurate. Forums, as an outlet for general audiences absolutely have significance even if they cannot be cited. Professionally published critics alone do not determine cultural relevance or overall reception, the fact that Wikipedia doesn't allow forums is not due to their opinions not mattering, it's done as a baseline to curate well-reputable sources, which makes perfect sense and I'm not arguing against it. However, there's an inherent issue with that is it applies a standard of legitimacy in terms of how something is received or viewed when in actuality there's nothing more or less legitimate about someone writing an op-ed vs. someone posting on a forum thread. There's ways of rectifying this in terms of articles, but it's been a consistent problem on the site for ages, especially when you have editors who might want to push a specific viewpoint.

The fact of the matter is that the Gerudo, particularly in the context of their appearances in Breath of the Wild and its sequel, are very popular amongst audiences as evidenced by the large amount of fanart and discussion praising the portrayal in BotW, which is the point I was making. Published critic views are not necessarily representative of overall general reception, there are copious examples of this, like The Thing, which was almost universally reviled by critics but developed such a strong cult following that it's now considered one of the greatest horror films of all time, something noted in its article. However, when it comes to something like the Gerudo, it's a much more niche topic and you're not going to get a ton of professional sources reflecting the general audience reception of a single race in a game series, which is why I raised the point I did.

I may add the articles I linked earlier but like I said, the way the article was written gives off the vibe of someone with an intentional bias against the Gerudo as a concept and wants to paint the subject as definitively being viewed in a negative light by critics, regardless of whether or not that was the intent. I actually think the "mixed reception" tagline being changed in the opening paragraph is a more agreeable change, but prior to that if you'd read the article with little to no knowledge of the general reception of the series, you'd think they were universally reviled by the general audience which is unequivocally false. BubbleRevolution (talk) 18:33, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

The article is biased towards what is written in the article. Your notion that "professionally published critics alone do not determine cultural relevance or overall reception" is at odds with how Wikipedia functions. The fact that you can't cite the forums makes any claims in the forum posts unverifiable. You cite The Thing, but the fact that critical reception down the line differed from initial reception is verifiable. In fact, you can find sources stating this explicitly. There are not reliable sources that go to say that reception from fans differs from reception by critics. I would also argue that I've seen lots of reception from fans on forums that differs from the praise you've identified, so it's moot. That you think intentional bias makes no sense; the only sources you presented were written after the article was published. Please familiarize yourself with relevant guidelines and policies: WP:AGF WP:VERIFIABILITY WP:GNG WP:SIGCOV Cukie Gherkin (talk) 18:49, 25 August 2025 (UTC)

Gerudo would die out

If the Gerudo's lifespan is like real humans, they'd die out quickly. Most people don't live 100 years. Plus they can't reproduce til puberty and women can't reproduce past menopause, males and females become much less fertile about 35-40, so a once in 100 years male would not be enough to sustain the species. BlueRockThrush (talk) 14:30, 25 May 2026 (UTC)