Talk:Sheik

S/heik

Currently, the article noticeably tries to write around pronoun usage in a few places, and in other places, it's a bit inconsistent. The former would be fine for a small-scale subject, but for someone as important and popular as Sheik, the writing comes across as repetitive. It's also going to seep into other articles regarding Sheik, which will no doubt confuse future editors. That's why I think it's better to adopt a sort of characterization policy sooner rather than later. It's my assessment that there are about two optimal ways to handle it in an accurate fashion.

1) The key creators stance, which is closer to the Mario Wiki. Simply put, the viewpoint of Eiji Aonuma and Bill Trinen is that Sheik is a she, and their word shouldn't be ignored. The article will acknowledge that certain characters and statements confuse Sheik for a male, but will maintain overall that Sheik is officially female. To be honest, this is also my most preferred option since keeping it clean and simple in a unified manner will lead to less hassles in the long run, but I'm open to the alternative below.

2) The case-by-case stance, which is closer to the Zelda Wiki. The wiki will flip pronoun usage depending on what is most relevant to each appearance. This won't always be immediately obvious, so it will probably be messier than the above. To elaborate, Sheik is clearly referred to with feminine pronouns in the Super Smash Bros. series and Hyrule Warriors; to address Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, while the website uses a masculine pronoun, social media posts all use feminine pronouns as well as in the in-game tips, which makes the punchline of the guidance fairly blatant, in-character teasing at the expense of Pit and some players.

That leaves Ocarina of Time. In-game, it seems about even since Ruto offhandedly considers Sheik a young man in dialog yet Sheik has a shriek reserved for Gerudo women. For our purposes, despite not being as nearly an authoritative source as series supervisors, I believe we should look to the official game guides (note that I'm overlooking Zelda Universe and Hyrule Historia for now). My findings are as follows: Nintendo Power's, Versus Books', and Prima's Ocarina of Time guides use masculine pronouns (the latter even calls Sheik a young man), as well as Prima's Nintendo 64 Game Secrets, 1999 Edition, and The Wind Waker guides (which cover Ocarina of Time), but BradyGAMES' Ocarina of Time guide uses either pronoun depending on the page and Nintendo Power's Collector's Edition guide and Prima's Ocarina of Time 3D guide use feminine pronouns. In light of this, we can amend the second approach into two methods of looking at it.

2a) Use the most recent usage. This gives the edge to Sheik being referred to with feminine pronouns regarding the Ocarina of Time appearance. If we do go the case-by-case route, this would be my preferred choice since Sheik's character profiles throughout the Super Smash Bros. series use feminine pronouns in the context of the original Ocarina of Time appearance, and this happens to align with that interpretation.

2b) Use the most common usage. This gives the edge to Sheik being referred to with masculine pronouns regarding the Ocarina of Time appearance. This is admittedly supported by a line apparently in Hyrule Historia, but the way it's phrased leads me to believe the writer had the manga adaptation in mind, which took artistic liberties with the source material (and the contents of the timeline section are openly presented as more of a set of loose guidelines rather than concrete rules).

To sum it up, the bottom line is as follows: #1 would universally refer to Sheik with feminine pronouns, 2a would only refer to the Ocarina of Time manga with masculine pronouns, and 2b would add the Ocarina of Time game to the aforementioned; regardless, all subsequent appearances will use feminine pronouns. Personally, I don't think Sheik as a character would really care about gender pronouns - so long as no one thinks the Survivor of the Sheikahs is the Princess of Hyrule, the disguise did its job - but, well, as an "English-language wiki", it just reads more naturally to use third-person pronouns instead of overusing the person's name. LTL (talk) 18:15, 1 May 2020 (MDT)