Why Link Is Stronger Than Most Superheroes 

Hyaa! Thanks so much for watching! This was a fun one -- a bit of old and a bit of new. See you super nerds in Footnotes, and if you want more video game science and haven't seen it yet the first episode of *THE SCIENCE OF MORTAL KOMBAT* is now live! Check it out and let me know what you think. Saaa! -- kH

If he's hitting with that much force it would explain why weapons break so quickly in Breath of the Wild.

In BotW, Link can parry a Lynel charging at full speed, with just a shield, while also applying enough force to send it backwards as well.

"This isn't his strength, he needs the gauntlets..." *Laughs in parrying linel charges*

If Link hits the front of ganon with the master sword and ganon takes it like nothing in Ocarina of Time, doesn't that make Ganon have some of the highest defense of any character ever?

If Link is that strong... those damn cuccos must be gods or something.

It takes a strong Link to throw a pillar over his head but an even stronger one to resist tormenting roosters in every age.

There was also the bit in Twilight Princess where Link is repeatedly able to stop and push around Gorons that are rolling straight at him with no strength-enhancing equipment apart from a pair of metal shoes.

In breath of the wild, links left arm alone has been calculated to be several times more powerful than a rocket engine. Thank you, Lynels!

"...we have to go back almost twenty years." Me: Oh, is it something from one of the original NES games? "...Ocarina of Time" Me: What?! ...Oh. I'm old.

Hey listen!!! Here is a reference to the strength of link without the gauntlets. He is able to move stone cubes in the Forest temple which seem to be a little above 2 times his height so if link is 1.7m lets say the cube is 3.5m, stone have density of 2691kg-m³ and friction coefficient of 0.4. With this information we can figure it that: Length of cube = 3.5 m Density of cube = 2691 kg/m³ Volume of cube = 42.875 m³ W=V*D = 2691 * 42.875 =115,377kg Watch out!! now we are going to work in an axis ←fr with →F and ↑W with ↓mg.We calculate the mass W = mg = 115,377 * 9.81 = 1,131,845 N the coefficient of friction can be calculated fr = µW = 0.4 * 1,131,844 = 452,738 N Then we calculate the Force require to move the object F = W - fr = 1,131,845 - 452,738 = 679,107 N That translates around a little more than 69 tons of force normal link must overcome to move those giant stone cubes over several dungeons. He is pretty buff for a fairy boy.

This is the REAL reason Link wields the Master Sword-not because it’s imbued with cosmic evil-smiting magic, but because it’s the only sword in Hyrule sturdy enough to not shatter in his beefy muscular hand.

To be honest, Link is even scarier because dude also has to be hella smart to solve all the riddles of Hyrule. So he’s scary strong, extremely smart and extremely creative. Small elf looking guy basically has most superheroes beat by a huge margin xD

There's also his shield parry in Breath of the Wild. It's harder to estimate, but he can stop a charging lynel, and even knock it back a bit, in what appears to be no more than 1/30 of a second of contact. Even more impressively, he manages to do this without moving back himself, which means he's somehow pushing on the ground just as hard as he is on the lynel.

NO THIS IS ALL WRONG He could never have gotten a 20 rupee from a pot

He does hold 1/3 of the power that was used to create the world, a mask that turns him into a deity, and a cape that makes him invincible for a short time to name a few.

He could throw Gannon off of hyrule castle So, should he be helping Mario in mario64?

No major arguments this week but I just have to point out that basalt is probably a better assumption for a hexagonal prism of dark rock than granite. Basalt is naturally darker in color than granite and it also naturally occurs in columns with a hexagonal cross section. It’s called, appropriately, columnar basalt. It matches that throwing stone quite accurately. The only difference for your calculations would be that the average density of basalt is 3g/cm^3 vs the 2.75g/cm^3 for granite. So, it would make Link look even stronger. I’m married to a geologist so I can’t let this go.

So when I told my son Nate (10) you were doing Link’s strength, he got super excited and wanted to do an experiment for it. In Skyward sword and Breath of the Wild, he compared the height of link to the tower in Skyloft and the great plateau. Counted the lengths of Link’s height it took to climb up (12.4 and 38.5), times Link’s height (170 cm) and timed jump after jump off the tower for how long it took to fall. With distance fallen (21.08 m and 65.45 m) and average time (1.49s and 1.98s), I helped him with the math and came up with acceleration of 9.495 m/s/s for Skyward sword and 16.737 m/s/s for BotW. Compared to Earth’s gravity of 9.8 m/s/s Skyward Sword has 0.97G and BotW has 1.71G. So he wants to know, would the higher gravity make BotW Link stronger than Skyward Sword Link? Or would the lower gravity in Skyward sword make Link’s feats of strength easier to accomplish? (Such as being so skinny but able to lift heavy looking doors in the Skyward Sword temples)

If link is that strong than how strong are the chickens that annihilate him in seconds when provoked

Are we just going to forget that Link redirected a guardian's laser with a pot lid when he was only but a child?

I had a little fan theory that you just confirmed. In Breathe of the Wild, the weapons keep breaking because they are not made of tinfoil, but because Link is so strong, everything in his hands shatters. Quite literally. But this is just a theory, a fan theory! Because science!

If Link is this strong.... Why does he use such small weapons. Screw throwing the pillar away, carry it around and drop it on people. Insta-win.

With Age of Calamity being out (and Daruk's diary in BOTW), it's funny how you can't dismiss Link's strength as gameplay outliers because in AoC, he straight up smacks a massive chunk of concrete out of the air with his shield *in a cutscene.*

I believe that special mention should also go to Link's superb durability. For example, in Ocarina of Time, Link is tough enough to withstand getting sliced apart by Ganon's massive sword strikes, which could break apart massive piles of stone debris (let alone withstand the force of a stone-pillar-shattering swing from an Iron Knuckle's massive axe). Also, he can survive falling from great heights and bomb explosions with barely a scratch, and if he were to fall into a bottomless pit or pool of lava, or get crushed by a falling ceiling, he would somehow be warped back to the start of whatever room he was in with barely a scratch.

So wait...where do Cuccos fall in this. They can tank earth shattering attacks from Link like it's nothing.

Hey Kyle, Instead of adding to the episode or coming up with a correction or what have you, I'd like to take a moment to say thanks for these shows. I'm 31 and I work full time as a watchmaker. I watch your shows on lunch break and comment frequently not because I want the attention, but because your show makes me think, and reminds me of my childhood. Ocarina of Time was my first dip into an open world, RPG type game, and I fell in love with it. When I saw you were doing this episode next I was transported instantly back to the days I would spend playing in gradeschool. So often, people get wrapped up in the day to day grind and are sucked away from the things we enjoy. I personally wish I had more time for gaming, but i have a family, so gaming falls to the wayside. So when I can watch a video on something from my childhood that brought me so much joy, I am energized and thought provoked to the point where i feel i must participate in some small way. Thank you Kyle, you and your team are awesome. -Mike

Ganon has the Triforce of power and is supposedly stronger then Link so imagine how strong that Bastard is.

He doesn't always appear that way through his gameplay, but even without powers and magic items, Lore accurate Link could basically get into a 1-v-3 against Achilles, Beowulf, and Hercules and sneeze on them and win. Link is pretty much a Kratos level threat.

Mario: Man, it almost seems like Nintendo has a habit of creating overpowered characters with absurd strength. *Is currently holding a castle above his head.* Right Kirby? Kirby: POYO!!! *splits the planet in half.*

Well.. I guess this explains why the weapons in Breath of the Wild shatter like glass as soon as Link swings them a time or two. Although I'm incredibly curious of how much the gauntlet increases his strength.

This is the Hero of Time we're talking about, he's a dainty little fairy boy who just kinda vibes in a forest for 10 years, think of the capabilities of the Hero of Twilight, the guy who worked on a farm his whole life (he's 17 in canon)

Ocarina of Time Link is also carrying a 100% metal shield for most of the game without any of the gauntlets. He is able to carry this shield when he's 10. Yes, a ten year old carrying a fully metal shield on his back

Well, we know he is stronger than Darth Vader...he has three times the force.

I think you're also missing out on a non-strength superpower that link has, that could be used to significantly higher effect. Throughout the legend of zelda games he picks up currency in the form of rupees, each of which are valued differently depending on colour. Given his ability to store many hundreds of rupees, each of which appears to be several inches tall, and his seeming ability to convert any and all rupees into any other as required, this could imply an ability to perform mass-energy conversion, whereby he stores all these large bulky gems as a form of compressed energy, and re-constitutes it at whatever denomination he wishes at any time when he decides to spend them. If this was the case, he could defeat enemies by simply doing the same thing that he does with rupees, converting them into nothing but energy for him to manipulate as he pleases. He could quite literally turn his foes into cash and finally retire to a beach somewhere.

Remember that Link gets the Goron Bracelet pretty early on in OoT, which has magical strength-giving abilities. I think it would have been more reliable to measure how young Link pushes a massive stone block in the Deku Tree to approximate his strength. I'm guessing it's 1x1x1 meters of stone, likely granite. This makes the block Link pushes weigh just over 2,750 kilograms, which is still a lot to push about 3 1/2 meters, especially with two rough surfaces and a child's strength.

It always bugged me that the Silver and Golden Gauntlets didn't let Link deal more damage. Also though, it's just a testament to Ganondorf that he can take those sword swings without instantly dying. You should calculate how sturdy Ganondorf's body is, since all he did after their fight was cough up blood.

Would'nt Link just sink in the floor given the small surface area of his feet and the enormous weight he can lift?

How strong is the "FUS RO DAH" scream in skyrim?

I love everything Kyle Hill does. I miss him doing these shows, but I'm glad he's happier now.

Pick him up by his tail and throw him out of a castle So long-a Ganon!

Plot Twist: Link>Thanos

Something that wasn't mentioned. Is how durable he is. Or how resilient to damage he is. Even without the golden gauntlet. After collecting several heat chambers he of course can take more damage. For one quick example think about the battle with Gannondorf in Ocarina of Time. At full health you can jump of the pillers to the bottom level and still survive. If I remember correctly it was roughly five to six stories high.

link can lift tthe megaton hammer with out gloves and it ways a ton

In Twilight Princess Link could toss Gorons like they're nothing. Sure he needed the Iron Boots but that was only to keep him grounded; he could lift and toss Gorons with his upper body strength alone.

Wait, a LoZ related episode sponsored by Mortal Kombat...? Link confirmed for MK11 Switch?

It’s said in Botw that Link was so skilled that he managed to deflect a guardian laser with a potting lid! He’s strong as hell!

And remember that OoT Link isn't even the "stronger" one, it is the one from A Link to the Past, in feats, variety of items, abilities, etc.

Ultra instinct Link confirmed

I think that link's most impressive feat of strength is stopping a linel dead in its tracks with a single parry while its at max speed. It looks like its about the size of a rhino that must take immense amounts of force Edit: the best thing about this is that he does this feat without any assistance and can do it with a literal pot lid

Wow! I really didn't expect Link to be this strong. I thought most of his strength came from the usage of the magical artifacts, but he's sure a force to be reckoned with. What made me feel the most powerful in the Zelda series was playing with Fierce Deity mask. That was just too awesome not to do against Majora.

You can tell he grew up with Ocarina. A true man of culture

Kyle, I am THRILLED you did this. However, I think that the pillar is not black granite but rather black marble (comparing the look of the texture between them). This makes the pillar even heavier than calculated. A Marble pillar at the size offered (just shy of 28 meters) means the pillar would weigh in at a hefty 40,893.8888 (etc etc) so let's call it 40,894Kgs. Rather than the 3,656.4636Kgs that granite would weigh at the same dimensions. This would mean that Link would have to put out an insane amount MORE power to chuck the prism. I have to wonder how Castle Town ruins even stand after the quake that would be created by the impact of the thrown pillar landing... buh bye Temple of Time. (And wouldn't that cause Death Mountain to erupt again?)

Link must also have super human durability as well to go with his super strength, and it's shared to varying degrees among his many reincarnations and iterations. Many Links can fall from great heights and not break break their legs from falls that should be leaving them crippled. after gaining enough hearts, BotW Link eventually becomes able to survive a direct strike from lightning. which easily contains more than enough volts to fry a person. With the twilight princess link, the amount of forces his hook shots should theoretically unleash on his arms and bones should be dislocating his limbs, and breaking his bones. however even these forces pale in comparison to the time he got shot out of a cannon that launches him to a sky island above the clouds. considering the launch is pretty much instantaneous from a stationary position, the amount of G-force his body should be experiencing would incapacitate any normal humans, yet link is still fine after splatting on the surface of a flying island. while there's many more examples among the games, but listing them would probs just go on and on.

Botw, Lynelle parrying with a single swing with out move.

Link- "i'm one of the strongest game characters" Steve-"hold my potion"

Kyle you didn't even mention things like the iron boots, Link can lift those to walk (even underwater), those boots allow Link to not be knocked back by the Gorons (Rolling down a hill or wrestling) in Twilight Princess and he doesn't even have the silver or gold gauntlets to aid him. Keep in mind the Gorons are a race of literal rock people, though it isn't as impressive as lifting the pillars that Ganon/Ganondorf placed over certain areas in Hyrule, it is using his own strength. Plus I would imagine going down hill some of those Gorons would be going pretty fast. Great episode was fun to see the references to the first Zelda game I played and the work you put in getting all the calculations. Keep it up Kyle. Edit: Hoping to see more dinosaur/prehistoric videos on your channel those are very enjoyable- especially when we can correct you >:)

Did you say 'Oak'arina?

You should do a video on how tough Link's body must be e.g. when his full body mass is pulled in a straight line up to 20m by the long shot without tearing his arm off.

I think in a age of calamity cutscene, link -without any power amping gauntlet- just parries a big ass chunk of castle rock or something that'd been falling from a great height, casually.

Kyle, if Link was lifting the pillar in Ocarina of Time, wouldn't the granite slab crumble? I dont know what the tensile strength of granite is, but I know that it can easily fracture under less than 18,000,000N of force.

Links strongest superpower, the ability to roll everywhere, riding boats or change great altitudes quickly and frequently without throwing up. I myself can barely swing on a swing set....

I was six when Ocarina of Time came out... HAS IT BEEN 20 YEARS ALREADY?!

Link in TotK going at Mach II on his Zonai hover device while standing centimeters away from beams of condensed flame and ice: This is fine :)))

Link throwing Ganon like Mario throws Bowser in Super Mario 64 is a funny idea. Plus, the castle was surrounded by some serious pit.

Wait, if Link once he gets the gauntlets is able to exert the pressure at the center of the earth and Ganondorf was able to take hit after hit, that means that Ganondorf was even more powerful than we thought he was.

Let's not forget that in BotW by taking a little dinky wooden broadsword and hitting it into the ground, he can generate enough force to knock a Moblin off it's feet.

Link: Superhuman strength That one Gerudo lady: NO ABS

Seeing that link was only able to lift the pillar up after he got the gauntlet. Wouldn't it be the gauntlet giving him the strength? It would be equivalent to Tony Stark having a suit of armor like the Hulkbuster. But instead of Technology it's magic. 💪

I love how Link smashes all the superheroes like pots, but spiderman crumbles to sand. Thanos would be proud.

Awesome vid. Matpat also theorized how strong Link's arms have to be in order to not be ripped off by the hook/clawshot. Link is real stronk boi

All the Zelda jokes throughout this video make it so much better (Especially the pot smashing ones)

This is why it doesn't let you fight without a weapon. Link could just punch a Lynel and it would explode. On a side note, how much force is behind Link's Shield Parry in BOTW, for him to be able to fully deflect Guardian Beams and charging Lynels?

I like the fact that the Zelda games have an in-game explanation why you can retry a level after dying(because videogame doesn't count.) The Triforce of Courage literally brings Link back in time after being defeated ala Edge of Tommorrow to try again until he wins. Very few games do that and I thought it was neat.

8:09 *spiderman turns to ash* I see what you did here

With his bullet time and flurry rush he can charge at enemies with the force of a train. By simply aiming the destination of the rush behind a guardian and dashing through them rather than too them you can end up launching them ridiculous distances.

💎and that’s not all! In BOTW, Link can parry/reflect any attack with ONE ARM, that includes guardian blasts, strikes from all the blights and calamity ganon, and even stop a charging Lynel dead in its tracks and send it reeling back. He can do all this with ONE ARM without a sweat💎

6:13 Holy shit, that second blue keg landed right on the other one, that's much more impressive if you ask me

On the Cloud vs Link debate, people often forget FFVII is a turn based RPG. Link can move freely in real time, making him much more of a threat. Cloud has to wait for his turn meter to fill before making a move

0:15 I think Tony Stank is going to have a problem with that...

7:25 "He could just take Ganon by the tail and throw him out of Hyrule Castle." So long, gay Ganon! Yahoo!

personally I believe that the Link from Twilight Princess is stronger. I say this because he can catch and throw a Goron that is rolling at him with only the really heave Iron Boots augmenting him and those boots are just making him harder to send flying through the air. that same Goron will send Link quite the impressive distance without the Iron Boots and that's just a normal Goron, in the Goron Mines the mini-boss is a Goron wearing heavy armor and Link catches him and throws him off the platform the fight takes place on several times. then there is the Ball and Chain from the Snowpeak Ruins which Link can carry in his hands. the Ball and Chain slows him down a lot but he can spin it over his head and throw it to hit enemies with the heave ball on the end of the chain then just pull it back to him with barely any effort. Twilight Princess Link can do that all on his own, Ocarina Of Time Link needs special gauntlets to perform his feats of strength, all Twilight Princess Link needs to catch and throw a Goron in some Iron Boots to increase his weight so he is harder to move.

Not to mention that link can stop a charging lynel just by shield bashing it and he also defeated single-handedly a bunch of enemies in one of the memories including some lynels

I adore this editing and mix between professional and goofy!

What about steve from minecraft? you can load him up with 64 blocks of stone 36 times (one for each slot in your inventory), or some other heavier material I cant think of right now. AND he will continue to run, jump, and mine like normal. Oh right, GOLD is heavy, and remember it doesn't matter what block it is, he can hold the same amount and it doesn't hinder him at all. So lets do some math... 64 items x 36 slots = 2,304 total items. Gold has a density of 19.3 grams per cm cubed, and the minecraft wiki tells us one block is 1 meter x 1 meter x 1 meter. Some boring math later, one gold block is 19.3 metric tons (check me if you want). 19.3 tons x 64 = a whopping 1,235.2 metric tons. But remember, that's just one stack, steve can hold 36 stacks. So 1,235.2 x 36 = 44,467.2 metric tons. For scale, steve is now holding just under half an aircraft carrier, in his back pocket. Again, he can run and jump normally. One block is 1 meter, and steve can jump exactly one block, or one meter high. The average force with which someone jumps is about 620 newtons. This is an assumption that the person weighs an average weight of 62 kg, but our steve here weighs 44,467 tonnes (44,467,000kg). So plugging that into an equation I found (that may or may not be accurate, here it is :: www.quora.com/How-much-force-in-Newtons-on-average-does-someone-exert-when-they-jump) when steve jumps, he is exerting about 444,670,000 newtons unto the earth. (again, could be wrong, probably am, but jumps are complicated and I didn't feel like calculating). Please check my math, but either way, this dude is strong. But we're not done. Now take into account he can hold 36 shulker boxes, each box containing 27 more slots, which can each hold 64 more items each. So 36 x 27 = 972 slots in total. 972 x 64 blocks each = 62,208 blocks total, x our weight of 19.3 metric tons for one block of gold = the unholy amount of... 1,200,614.4 metric tons. Some reference, he can now hold 12 of those aircraft carriers, 6,000 blue whales, and that little building, the burj khalifa? He can hold two of those with weight to spare. Please, I'm not very smart, just intrigued, so most of these calculations are probably far off, which would definitely ruin the confident undertone. Check, correct, and most importantly, shout me out on footnotes maybe?

It's sort of intresting to think about the fact that due to Newtons third law of motion, Link would actually just tore his arm off trying to lift something like a giant granite pillar. Since that's roughly 10kN for a human at least. Of course the specifics of how it's applied changes the value. But even more, when he does lift the pillar, he is exerting an equivilant force on his feet into the ground. Which means that with force of 18million N on two feet with an area of around 230cm^2 per foot, he's excerting 391.000.000Pa which is the sort of force exerted by a ".300 Weatherby Magnum" at point blank range. Which could easily shatter any and every bone in his body. Unfortunetly I couldn't manage to find how far he would sink into the ground with that pressure, but judging by the obsurd values, I don't think it's necessary for knowing that he would be all kinds of messed up upon lifting the pillar. Btw love your show Kyle

One of my favorite videos you have done featuring one of my favorite characters! Well done!

Im sure someone else has made this comment already but i must express this. In breath of the wild,(and probably some other games too) there is a variety of materials link can pick up. 149, to be exact. And you can carry 999 of each material. That brings us a potential 148851 items. Find out the weight of each item, add it all up and multiply it by 999, you can see just how much link could carry. I know this kinda thing is normal in video games, but the scale link takes it to is kind of crazy. On top of being able to carry this, he does everything with breaking so much as a sweat. He can walk, run, swim, climb and (somehow?) glide with his paraglider. Side note: he also carries weapons, shields bows, arrows, ALL his clothes, money and every key item. I know that’s kind of insignificant at this point, but still. So on top of his monumental ability so throw or apply force to things, it’s kind of crazy simply how much this man holds all the time.

So you're saying he's not the weakest Link in the chain?

7:22 So long gay Ganon

Not to mention his crazy reflex which makes him see the world in slow motion. He can also parry lasers and both a charging lynel and its crusher with a pot lid easily

This video... Kyle, this made my heart smile. Memories from my late youth immediately flooded back. This game taught me two very essential things to know in every videogame ever, from Mario 64 and Donkey Konga, all the way to Dark Souls 2-3 and Dead Rising 1-4. Always search every nook and cranny of any and every map of any game I can and... BREAK EVERYTHING EVEN REMOTELY FRAGILE IN SIGHT.

But wouldn't that amount of force applied over a surface area as small as his hands just split (or at least crack) the granite when he tried to throw it? Especially over the period of time it takes him to accelerate the pillar from 0 m/s to ...whatever speed it hits before it leaves his hands and begins to decelerate?

Oh yeah he's stronger than most superheroes. He never complains.

Dude not only smacks a charging Silver Lynel with a shield to a full stop without being pushed back, he even recoils it backwards

And this is without even talking about Link's OTHER superhuman abilities. He can be on Death Mountain without protective gear in air hot enough for his skin to SPONTANEOUSLY CATCH FIRE (that would mean he's in conditions comparable to the surface of Venus) and he can survive it just by wolfing down food every few seconds.

Link for MK11! (never gonna happen)

So Link IS stronger than Cloud huh? Good to know they got it right.

I should note that Link usually isn’t the same person as another Link in a different Zelda game as the Link in Breath of the Wild is not the same person as the Link in Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask.

Caveat, most super heroes aren't above building level. Kind of hard to right a compelling story of violent conflict when someone can toss smaller moons on the regular, which is why Link needs to _unlock items_ to use that strength and can only use those items under specific PUZZLE SOLVING situations. He fights with clever uses of tools and a magic sword, not with the ability to throw rocks bigger than he is.