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# Legend of Zelda: Mythopoeia, Tolkien, and the Triforce (Mythic Mind Games, ep. 7)
- URL: https://mythicmindfellowship.com/legend-of-zelda-mythopoeia-tolkien-and-the-triforce-mythic-mind-games-ep-7/
- Published: 2025-07-11T13:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T04:45:56.000Z
- Author: Andrew Snyder

Mythic Mind GamesEpisode 7

# Legend of Zelda: Mythopoeia, Tolkien, and the Triforce (Mythic Mind Games, ep. 7)

Dr. Andrew Snyder in conversation with Dr. Anthony Cirilla and Joshua Traylor

11 July 2025

[Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU3OBUUitis&ref=mythicmindfellowship.com)

## In this episode

The Legend of Zelda can feel like playing Tolkien: home, adventure, and a return that leaves you looking at the primary world differently. What if that is mythopoeia, not nostalgia?

In this Mythic Mind Games conversation, Dr. Andrew Snyder and Joshua Traylor talk with Dr. Anthony Cirilla, co-editor of Mythopoeic Narrative in The Legend of Zelda, about Tolkien’s mythmaking, On Fairy-Stories and subcreation, Lewis’s Myth Became Fact, and the Triforce as a concrete image of power, wisdom, and courage working together. They defend Zelda’s “generic” fairy-story heroics, weigh Ocarina’s saturated symbolism against sprawling open worlds, and ask how digital fantasy can train the imagination without replacing real life.

Guest: Dr. Anthony Cirilla (co-editor, Mythopoeic Narrative in The Legend of Zelda). With Joshua Traylor.

### People

**Dr. Andrew Snyder**Host

**Dr. Anthony Cirilla and Joshua Traylor**Guests, Dr. Cirilla is co-editor of Mythopoeic Narrative in The Legend of Zelda

### Key themes

- Tolkien’s mythmaking
- On Fairy-Stories and subcreation
- The Triforce as a concrete image of power

## Related

- [**Legend of Zelda: Triforce Virtues and the Cyclical Hero (Mythic Mind Games, ep. 6)**Watch the episode](https://mythicmindfellowship.com/legend-of-zelda-triforce-virtues-and-the-cyclical-hero-mythic-mind-games-ep-6/)
- [**Video Games as Fairy-Stories: Tolkien and Subcreation (Mythic Mind Games, ep. 1)**Watch the episode](https://mythicmindfellowship.com/video-games-as-fairy-stories-tolkien-and-subcreation-mythic-mind-games-ep-1/)

## Go deeper

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The First Heaven

Find it on the Cosmos

The Inkwell

### [When the Sword Leaves the Stone: An Ocarina of Time Reflection](https://mythicmindfellowship.com/when-the-sword-leaves-the-stone-an-ocarina-of-time-reflection/)

As we approach the release of the remake for this 1998 Nintendo classic, I aim to examine the game’s symbolic significance and its relevance to our contemporary culture.

Read the essay

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