Welcome to Green Tunic Hero

Introduction

When I was a child in the summer of 1989, my Mom brought home (after work on a payday), an NES; we LOVED it.

She and I were the gamers in our family, my Dad liked to sit back and watch and help us strategize, my sisters were still too little and didn’t really get interested in gaming until much later. We didn’t even call it gaming back then. We played that thing for countless hours until late in the night on many nights, even (school nights sometimes!).

We had many video stores in town, this was the late 80s, but our local one was 24 Hour Video in the strip-mall a half block from our house in our (at the time) small township.

24 Hour Video had a rent 5 games for 5 days for 5 bucks deal and man, did we ever take advantage of that. One day as I was browsing the aisles, I came upon a cartridge that still had a book and a…was that a map? And that’s how my Legend of Zelda began…

Link

Link was the perfect protagonist for young me.

He was a kid (granted at 10 years old he was twice my age, but that didn’t stop me from living vicariously through him), he was alone (a lot of my childhood was spent alone, especially from 3-8 when we lived in town as our house was being built in the suburbs well away from town), he was quiet (I usually was because I was gaming, reading, or adventuring), and he spent much of his time adventuring (this was my jam; in town, when my cousin’s were over, we’d build weapons and armor and attack imaginary foes, or my grandma’s trees and bushes as plant monsters).

When we’d go out to our property I was often alone and would explore and adventure alone. I had many forts, usually that were just natural formations, that my Dad and his brothers had used as forts when they were kids.

The Hero’s Journey

I’ve always had a touch of main character syndrome; it comes from being the oldest of 3, with 2 sisters, generally being a big and naturally athletic kid, and having an obsession with scholastic achievement and flaunting it. Generally becoming the leader of every group because my creativity and opportunities were allowed to be stimulated and grow a lot more than the other kids who weren’t as affluent, or didn’t have parents as attentive and loving as mine didn’t help. I’ve come to realize in the past 30+ years, we’re all on our own hero’s journey. We’re all the star of our own show and we all matter and have things that matter immensely to us. Sometimes empathy is a quest too.

In games, characters have journeys and quests, arcs of growth and development, achieve goals etc. We all tend to do that. Most of us wish we did it more, or the things we did do were more dramatic or got us more attention (or even made us more money). I think that’s why LoZ was and is so important to me and so many people. Like other great works of fictitious art, it allows us to live vicariously through the arcs of others who are far more important than ourselves.

The Green Tunic Ethos

I called this book/website Green Tunic Hero because it’s not violating any intellectual property but still acknowledges the inspirational origin of this project. There have been a few prominent heroes in Green Tunics over the years (Robin Hood, his various Merry Men, Peter Pan), so it also demonstrated a common aesthetic thread in general heroism also. From the Incredible Hulk, to the Ninja Turtles, to Saint Christopher and the Arthurian Green Knight, many heroes wear green. It also symbolically ties in a traditional sense to prosperity, nature, renewal, health, and balance. That last one is especially heroic.

Purpose of this Book

The purpose of How to Be a Green Tunic Hero, is to help readers become heroes in their own right through the lens of the skills one would need to have to become like Link from the Legend of Zelda or similar characters. Traditional self-help and personal development is cringey and doesn’t work for me, but this kind of structure does, so I assume it will work for others too. Coupled with pop culture analysis and inspiration to make it all a bit more fun.

Structure of this Book

So far this book is outlined at over 50 chapters covering a myriad of subjects related to the thesis. Survivalist skills, crafting and trades skills, entertainment skills, are all covered here. In addition to the book and its chapters, there is a multimedia section showing lectures and demonstrations to expand on chapters that will be permalinked forever for the book. It also has a blog for news and updates.

Who this Book is For

This book is for anyone who always wanted to be a hero. Who always dreamed of being the one to solve someone’s problem by swooping in at just the right time with just the right thing (whether that’s a piece of knowledge, a skill, or a tool or item). It’s for people who just want to better themselves in general and are curious about the relevant subject matters or my takes on them. It’s for fans of the Legend of Zelda and similar games and stories.

My Credibility

In addition to always being obsessed with stories of heroes my whole life, scholastic achievement on up through university, and nearly all aspects of science and engineering, I was raised by my father to be one of the Popkum Hillbillies. He was raised in the undeveloped forests of Popkum, BC Canada, as well as Hope, BC and Flood, BC before finally settling in Popkum.

Raised by his logger father and logger/trad-wife mother in the 1950s, they were very much a family “out of time” in an area that wouldn’t have water until the 1960s (when Dad dug their well and plumbed their house after Grandpa broke his neck), or power until BC Hydro eventually got out that way I think in the early 1970s.

He was born in 1950 to parents who were middle aged for that era (Grandpa was 41, born in 1909 and Granny was 38 born in 1912). So consequently he had a very off grid and survivalist upbringing from people who lived much the same, and passed much of it on to me. He’s no longer with us, but I still have all of his old tools and do my best to use them regularly.

My Call to Action for You

Everyone says you need a call to action these days, to fire people up and get them to engage with your content. Here’s mine to you, read the book, it’s online for free and always will be (within my power). Glean from it anything you can that’s useful to you, and become your own version of a Green Tunic Hero. Share your experiences and insights as you progress through this journey with me. I’ll leave the comments open around the site in various places I’ll make easy to find. And I can be reached at Brent@GreenTunicHero.com

How to Read This Book

Generally, this book is told in semi-linear way. Each section’s chapters are a progression from and to the chapters around it. Each section though can be read independently, and individual chapters can as well for the curious. As I said, glean what works for you, and if bouncing around to your interests works best for you, do it.

In Closing

Well that’s the intro. I’m as excited to get into this as you are, so let’s do it, Semper in altum!


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