I did not learn to read because I wanted to explore books. I did not learn to read because someone set out to teach me.
I learned to read so that I could play video games. Boo-yah!
With great amazement, I used to watch my older brother play The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. I’d pester him: “Bruce, what does that mean?” and he’d read: “The Great Deku Tree wants to talk to you! Cloud, wake up!” (Instead of naming his character Link, as the game suggested, my brother would name him Cloud, the main character from a different video game).
“Bruce, what does that mean?”
“Can Hyrule’s destiny really depend upon such a lazy boy?” he’d say.
It got to the point where he just read it aloud at all times. He did not like doing this. To save himself the annoyance he’d send me off to the kitchen to fetch a can of coca-cola for him at regular intervals. Those rare moments without me must have been pure bliss.
Of course, I wasn’t stupid – I wanted to be a grown man and play Zelda on my own one day, so I took it upon myself to learn to read. Of course, that was not all I learned from playing Zelda – I also learned about what it means to tell a story and how to tell it. I learned all about what they call “The Hero’s Journey” in high school, as Link traveled across the land collecting the medallions of the seven sages to save Hyrule from the evil Ganondorf. I learned about Din, Farore, and Nayru, the three goddesses of Hyrule, and the people of Hyrule’s origin story: How the three goddesses created their world, as told to the heroic Link by a magical speaking tree.
It was fantastical, magical, engaging – above all, a well told story. It was, in a word, culture. By first grade, I could play video games by myself. And so a star was born. As we know, all great authors first played video games to get their literary chops up to par. It’s a trade secret.
