Addison’s sign obsession in Tears of the Kingdom is a little too real

What’s with Addison? You know, the draftsman inside Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – you must have already met him. He’s a gangly pinhead dude with a dorky bowl who sweats to hold up a billboard. You probably saw him first in the ruins of Hyrule Castle Town, but wherever you go in Hyrule, Addison was there first. He’s on an epic quest himself – only in Addison’s case, it doesn’t save the princess, it sucks at his boss.

Addison’s boss is Hudson, president of Hudson Construction. Like Bolson in it Breath of the Wild, Hudson helps you build a house later in the game, but from the moment you arrive in Hyrule you feel his presence. After the Upheaval, Hudson generously sponsors the rebuilding of the kingdom by leaving caches of building materials everywhere (which you can use to craft strange vehicles or Korok torture devices to your heart’s content). And Hudson wants everyone to know about his generosity, so he’s sent Addison out to put 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. He’s absurd and funny, and he’s the pretext for some simple, fun physics puzzles. When he lets go of the board, it topples over, so it’s up to Link to prop it up with a glued-together Ultrahand construct before Addison can lash it in place. Each character has a different shape, which poses a different challenge, but also serves as a clue to how to solve it. The puzzles are nice little palate cleansers that interrupt Link’s travels, without getting as elaborate or messy as helping a stray Korok get back to his friend.

Addison is also refreshing in another way. He reminds us that Zelda games, as fantastic and mechanically decorated as they are, are also about real life.

The Zelda series has long been Nintendo’s main outlet for saying something about the world we live in. Majora’s mask, with an entire soap opera ticking on a clock in the middle, is the most famous example. But think of any Zelda city and you’ll find memorable examples of the townspeople’s petty jealousies, sad dreams and quirky peccadilloes. To remind Heavenward sword‘s preening meathead, Groose? Or Ingo, the stuffed employee at Ocarina of Time‘s Lon Lon Ranch, selling his lazy boss Talon to Ganondorf? The series is littered with dozens of these petty dramas that poke fun at everyday human vanities.

Addison and his characters are a classic example of Zelda’s pocket-sized satire. He is an overzealous, hapless worker, exploited by his boss’s hubris. The image of him straining to hold up the huge, unbalanced board couldn’t be sharper. Hudson can’t do a good deed without using it as a means of 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. There’s definitely a specific dig here meant for the sycophantic Japanese work culture, but anyone can tell.

It’s a sharp little vignette, perfectly enhanced by the puzzle gameplay. The structures you come up with to support the board are always huge, wasteful and complicated; Addison’s final solution, meanwhile, is sloppy and looks like it won’t take two minutes. The two of you step back and admire your handiwork – all that over-the-top technical effort in the name of nothing but corporate vanity. Then it’s on to the next. In Hyrule, the world has ended, a chasm has opened, and the sky is literally falling down – but life and work go on.