Ah, here we are, already in the final week of Zelda-Ween.  Anytime I get to recount my experiences with this wonderful series is a good time indeed, even if it involves the many things that have scared me down the years.  This week’s topic, however, forced me to put some extra thought into what I would write about, as there are a lot of spooky things in the Zelda series that are fully intended to be scary.  But what scared me that wasn’t actually meant to, I pondered aloud to myself.  And then it hit me, with all the force of an enraged chicken.  Or a cucco, if you’re so inclined.

Yes, chickens, that fluffy medium-sized bird many of us enjoy eating.  But in the Zelda universe, the chickens are vicious creatures that can snap a person’s neck without so much as blinking….  Okay, that’s not entirely true.  As scary as Hyrule’s poultry can be once angered, the chickens in the series do not attack you unless you antagonize them first.  So if Link suffers a chicken-related death, the player is to blame, not the chicken who killed him.  Nevertheless, once these chickens are incited into a rampage, they prove to be an unstoppable force that will immediately make you regret what you had done.  While I’m not typically the kind of person who picks on things in video games, there have been occasions when I have bothered the chickens in Zelda, if only out of sheer curiosity to see for myself what a wild force of nature they can be.  Here are a few of my experiences with them.

My first frightening encounter with the fierce Hyrulian chicken was in Ocarina of Time.  Or, to be more precise, Kakariko Village.  I believe I was Link’s cuter child self, and for whatever reason, I displayed some very bad common sense when I started a fight with a chicken.  Before I knew it, enraged birds were swarming in from all angles.  I fled, and in a second bout of poor logic, I fell down the well.  Yeah, I was working with half a brain that day, it would seem.  I remember the well being empty of water (thus the ability to fall into it), but I don’t believe I could enter the mini dungeon located here, either.  What all of that boils down to is that my only escape route was ascending the long, long ladder back up to the safety offered above ground.

I never made it.  Every time I began to climb up the ladder, the chickens would knock me back down again.  I eventually realized there was no way I was getting out of here alive.  So what did I do?  Um, well, it turned out I was right.  Because I died.  A short while later, I was dead.  End of story.

I was killed by chickens.

Video from Youtube User: LearntoSpel

My second story also takes place in Ocarina of Time, in Lon Lon Ranch during Link’s adult (or possibly late teen) years.  I guess I’m not always the smartest of gamers because I bothered the chickens again.  Yes, even after I was mercilessly killed to death at the bottom of an empty well, by chickens, I still messed with the chickens again.  But this time, it was for science!  You see, I was curious, which was faster, a furious pack of chickens or a horse.  Yep.  I really wanted to find this out.  So I parked my trusty steed Epona nearby, and I started picking on those chickens.  I even threw in some fowl name-calling for good measure.  Get it?  Fowl…name-calling…heh…

Well, that was enough to get them riled up.  Okay, time to collect some data, Link!  I got on Epona, and I started to make her run around the horse track as fast as she could.  I was immune to the chickens at this point, as Epona is apparently blessed with…chicken-repellant, and I watched as they surrounded me.  And pretty soon, the long-awaited answer arrived.  The chickens were faster.  My dear horsey was galloping as fast as her legs would allow, and those darn chickens still managed to fly in front of her.  It was a magnificent sight indeed.

They’re fast, they’re mean, they’re scary.  Chickens.  Never underestimate them.  At least chickens don’t look scary.  I mean, when they aren’t pecking you to death, they are pretty cute, right?  Well, not always.  My final story doesn’t involve a chicken attack (even though the video provided below does), but it does concern the chickens I find the scariest in the series.  In A Link to the Past, the Dark World has the tendency to feature things found in the regular land of Hyrule in a dark and twisted fashion, with the chickens being no exception.  The Dark World chickens have scared me since I was a duckling because of their creepy appearance, with those dark eyes and that hooked beak and the odd, thin wings.  Honestly, I think these things look more like deformed rabbits than chickens.  Shudder.  Now I would hate to have these little beasts come after me.  Nice chicken.  Good chicken.  I’m just passing through, please don’t kill me!  (Oh, and don’t worry if there’s no sound in the video below.  It was silent for me, too.  But now you can see the creepy chickens for yourself.  Humor me here.  They look like rabbits.  Right?)

Video from Youtube User: Pizoe

The moral of this story, don’t attack chickens.  Not because they’ll assault you, even though that is true, but because it’s not nice.  Seriously, don’t do it.  And stay away from the chickens in the Dark World.  They have malice in their eyes.  I have a feeling they don’t make good fried chicken, either.  Just saying.

So, dear readers, do you have any humorous chicken-related tales to tell?  And what do you find scary in the Zelda series that wasn’t meant to be frightening?  Do tell.

Ducks Are Far Nicer Than Chickens…We’re Nicer Than Geese, Too