Talk:Sheik

Corporate form letters

I wrote a letter to Nintendo about Sheik. David Glover announced on behalf of Nintendo, that Sheik's identity is left to the imagination of the players.

Hello and thank you for contacting Nintendo,

I'm afraid there isn't an answer to your question about Sheik, the character from The Legend of Zelda franchise. Nintendo excels at making sure our fans can get each Heart Piece, weapon, item, and--most importantly--the information required to conquer each dungeon and defeat the final boss. This happens through Nintendo's website (www.nintendo.com), the official Legend of Zelda website (www.zelda.com), as well as Player's Guides and Nintendo Power magazine.

Having said that, there are details about the games that will remain mysteries, left to the active imagination of the player.

Sincerely,

David Glover

Nintendo of America Inc.


Nintendo's home page: http://www.nintendo.com/
Power Line (Automated Product Info): (425) 885-7529

— David Glover

Then again, it was sort of the same as this other letter, where I asked them about Link:

Hello and thank you for contacting Nintendo,

I'm afraid there isn't an answer to your question about Link. Nintendo excels at making sure our fans can get each Heart Piece, weapon, item, and--most importantly--the information required to conquer each dungeon and defeat the final boss. This happens through Nintendo's website (www.nintendo.com), the official Legend of Zelda website (www.zelda.com), as well as Player's Guides and Nintendo Power magazine.

Having said that, there are details about the games that will remain mysteries, left to the active imagination of the player.

Sincerely,

David Glover

Nintendo of America Inc.

Nintendo's home page: http://www.nintendo.com/
Power Line (Automated Product Info): (425) 885-7529

— David Glover

Sometimes I wonder if Nintendo cares. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fado 01:04, 30 August 2008

So... basically NoA doesn't even know. In fact, probably only the core Zelda team knows, and we all know how easy THEY are to get a hold of. Man, if only my Japanese was a bit better, I'd email Nintendo of Japan. —Ando (talk) 02:17, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Smash Bros.

Anyone think they can get Sheik's Smash Bros. Melee moves up? And, if the Brawl Zelda is capable of becoming Sheik as well, we should get those moves up, too. I thought having their moves up from the Smash Bros. games was a nice touch. Dinosaur bob 21:59, 5 October 2007 (EDT)

Wait a minute, Sheik was originally going to appear in Twilight Princess? Is there any proof? Paper Jorge 03:44, 19 February 2008

No well there isn't any proof, but on the official site Sakurai stated that that how Sheik would have looked like if she was going to be in Twilight Princess.--Green 23:46, 18 February 2008 (EST)

Well, he simply could have been stating that, that is the appearance of Sheik if she would have been in the game. He wasn't necessary saying that she was going to be in Twilight Princess. Paper Jorge 05:49, 19 February 2008

Well that's what I meant. :p --Green 23:53, 18 February 2008 (EST)

Oh. Silly me. Paper Jorge 06:16, 19 February 2008

Well, what about this quote: "Sheik doesn’t appear in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, but we based her model on a design that was drafted up during the development of that game." found here: http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/characters/sheik.html

Yeah, but anyone can argue "Well, it doesn't explicitly state that Sheik was definitely going to be in Twilight Princess, so maybe they just made a design during the development that was completely un-related?" So while Sheik MIGHT have originally been planned to be in Twilight Princess, there's no definitive proof -- only strong evidence. —Ando (talk) 21:00, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

"He"

We have no evidence that Sheik is male; to the contrary, "he" is more often "she" (the official Zelda site, SSBM...). It would be more prudent to refer to Sheik as a "she", yes? Or else, avoid using third-person singular personal pronouns entirely. I'm going to edit this.

"Her advice and knowledge of the world make him a great ally in the Link's quest, as well as the melodies she gives Link that allow him to teleport."

Can we decide a gender and stick to it please? I realise that this is a thorny subject, but it's clear that for this article to be in any way "encyclopedic" this issue must be correctly dealt with. And, IMO, despite the age of OOT, Sheik's true identity is still a spoiler to younger generations whose first introduction to the game may well be this site. —Adam ^(talk) 13:07, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

Hahaha! That's awesome. I say we stick with "He", honestly, primarily due to what Adam said. I'm cool with any paragraphs dealing with Sheik-is-actually-Zelda using "She" (as long as those paragraphs are appropriately pre-spoiler-tagged), but all others should use "He". Yup yup. --Ando (Talk) 14:25, 9 March 2008 (EDT)

Does ZeldaWiki.org follow the basic editing policy of Wikipedia? If it does, it's not necessary to tag anything as a spoiler: an entire article is expected to be in-depth and spoil something, so it's true policy states that it isn't practiced. (Spoiler Policy) Saibh 19:54, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

In short, no. Unlike Wikipedia, ZW.org has no Content Disclaimer, or any general spoiler warning, only a basic General disclaimer. As such, the Spoiler warning is used generally to warn readers of information which spoils either the game ending or major plot twist, or for example a character's true identity (e.g. Oshus, KORL, Tetra, Midna, etc). It's not generally used for minor spoilers, as that's basically what all the rest of the information here is! For a better idea of usage, check here. —Adam ^(talk) 02:31, 11 March 2008 (EDT)

Smash Bros Dojo refers to Sheik as "she", because Shigeru Miyamoto is running the site shouldn't it be she?--Link hero of light 11:11, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

Shi... Shigeru Miyamoto isn't running the site. Masahiro Sakurai is the one writing the updates, which then get translated into English by localizers. I just went through the Japanese version of today's update, and, while I'm not INCREDIBLY fluent in the language, I couldn't find a single reference to Sheik's gender at all. The Japanese don't really use pronouns unless they don't know the name of the subject, which in this case they obviously do. This means that it's most likely that any reference to gender in any other language's version is added by the translator. --Ando (T : C) 11:42, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

Ohh, I remember hearing that somewhere, but I'm not used to Japanese names so I got Shigeru Miyamoto and Masahiro Sakurai mixed up.--Link hero of light 17:22, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

Besides that, Brawl isn't canon, and neither is Melee. Brawl even less so, because TP Sheik doesn't even exist. Although I think we can all agree that Brawl Sheik is female, yes? Saibh 19:01, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

Just because Sheik doesn't appear in the Twilight Princess doesn't mean TP Zelda can't turn into Sheik.--Link hero of light 19:06, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

We have to assume it does. We can't just add things to canon because they never do it, and therefore have the possibility. On that logic, Zelda could be a fairy, or moonlight as a pirate, or actually be a man. That only applies to things like timelines and such, where the dots don't connect. Even then, nothing non-canon can't be construed as such. Or, at least, that's what I think. Saibh 19:18, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

Sheik is both male and female, in a way. Shiek is only a cover for Zelda. Zelda is only disguised. The voice of Sheik is clearly female attempting to sound male. Sheik also keeps the mouth covered up. Sheik wears an outfit that hides the major feminine features. The only major changes between Zelda to Sheik is the eyes, which should be quite easy for the Triforce of Wisdom to accomplish. Sheiks hands are feminine. This leads to the assumption that the Triforce of Wisdom does not transform major physical features. That function is the domain of the Triforce of Power. (Note that the Triforce of Courage does not turn Link into a wolf but rather alters the twilight's effects on him.) Therefore Sheik is most definitely a female disguised as a male.--Emma 00:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

• Sheik's voice isn't "clearly" female trying to sound male... I never got that impression in Ocarina of Time. And, as I said in the Zora page discussion, the Japanese do like to give some slightly androgynous voices to guys. Why that is, I don't know.
• Yeah, Sheik keeps his mouth covered... so do most fictional ninjas. And people wearing ski masks. Doesn't mean they're hiding their gender.
• I'm sorry, but I've yet to see an absolutely convincing outfit that makes a girl look like a guy... and I've seen a lot of crossplays in my time. Sheik totally looks like a dude in Ocarina of Time.
• Quite a bit changes, actually. Eyes, hair color AND hairstyle, clothes, voice, skin color, overall physique... I mean, come on, you can't look at Sheik's head and Zelda's head and tell me that they're not totally different shapes...
• And so... I don't see why it's so easy to believe that all of the above changes can be done but Zelda turning into a guy isn't... Doesn't seem like that much of a stretch to me. --Ando (T) 00:38, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Changes or not it is still Zelda. Last time I checked Zelda is female. Sheik is meant to look and act male. But nothing will ever change the fact that Zelda is female. Zelda will still have the same mind no matter what form she is in. That means that Sheik's personallity is female. Sheik is male only in form not in mind.--Emma 03:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Well... yeah. That's what I meant. While Sheik technically has the mind of a female, Sheik is physically male. I thought you were saying that Sheik was still physically female. Alright then. --Ando (T) 04:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the Triforce of Wisdom does not alter Zelda's mind. Although, the same cannot be said about the Triforce of Power.--Emma 06:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

ok, in responce to the fist thing said in this area, there is proof that nintendo wanted you to think shiek was a guy, ruto said "A nice young man named Sheik saved me" or something like that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sibonsmagee 16:07, June 6, 2008 (UTC)

That was already discussed. Ruto had no way of knowing if Sheik was male or female. So she guessed. Please don't change the article just because you think it should be a certain way. Talk about it first.--Emma 16:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

How about this. Let's change every instance of the word "he" and the word "she" in the article to "he/she", and of course anything with "him" or "her" to "him/her". This way, the article is consistent. Also, it will not appear that ZeldaWiki.org has any stance of Sheik being male or female. This should quell debates.--Emma 16:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

But again, what about those who DON'T know that Sheik is actually Zelda? They'd be seeing "he/she" and thinking "what the crap, Sheik's totally a dude, right? But... WHAT". This would be an issue. I'd rather not have the entire article "Spoiler'd"... --Ando 17:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Good point. We might want to think of something. It would be better to have consistency in the article. Maybe we should have the article say male. We could only have one spot in the article be a spoiler. Since most people will instantly think "Sheik is a guy", we should go with male. Most visitors are not going to care about the little details and the inconsistencies with Nintendo. It might just be what we will have to settle with.--Emma 17:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I think people that come to this site looking for info about LoZ will end up finding spoilers either they want it or not, so it's annoying having to care about what you write on the discussion page to avoid spoiling info. The article page already has spoiler warnings, so the discussion page should be open to spoiling info. --Fella 00:43, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Now about Sheik's gender. If you stop to think more about Sheik himself/herself you'll see that, in my pont of view, he's not a "real person" but a "character" created by Zelda to fool Ganondorf. So you can say that Zelda, with the intent of meeting Link without been chased by Ganondorf, disguised herself as a male sheikah named Sheik. Sheik is a disguise and obviously resemble Zelda in some ways (like feminine hands and voice) but it's a minor detail, even though Sheik looks like a man too (male fit). --Fella 01:10, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your argument there, or at least I think I do. If I portray a female character in a play, I may be a male, but the character is still female. I think female pronouns inside the spoiler tags, 'cept those for Super Smash Bros., where Shiek is intended to be female, should be changed to male. Jimbo Jambo 07:18, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'm surprised nobody else came forth with this argument but since I know some japanese I can pretty much 100% confirm that Zeldas alter ego Sheik is male. Here's the proof...

"ボクは　シーク。シーカー族の生き残り…".

Thats an original line spoken by him in Ocarina of Time and translates to "I'm Sheik. Survivor of the Sheikah tribe…". The interesting part is the very first word ボク which is just 僕（ぼく/boku） written in katakana to give his speech an exotic sound to it. The word means "I" or "me" and as you may know the japanese have alot of words for the words "I" or "you". Alot of them either gender specific or related to social status. "boku" is a term used by males and to be specific it's mostly used by younger males. If my word isn't enough you can look it up here.

So you guys might consider deleting the whole gender debate section on the content page but this decision is up to you. Bakeneko 05:04, 14 February 2012 (EST)

Even though I agree that Sheik is a male, your argument is fallacious. "Boku" is masculine, yes, but that means that it is also used by tomboys or...girls pretending to be a guy. All that the usage of "Boku" means is that Sheik was acting masculine, but it makes no implications as to its actual genitalia.KrytenKoro 12:02, 14 February 2012 (EST)

Indeed, there's an established trope in Japanese media, including video games, of characters using first-person pronouns that aren't the norm for their gender for a variety of reasons, especially females using male pronouns like 僕. It would be unusual in real life, yes, but it's a fairly common thing to see in fiction on, say, a tomboyish female character. (See http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/JapanesePronouns.) So 僕 isn't as sound an argument as you'd think. (FWIW, I personally don't care about Sheik's gender and I think it's fairly clear at this point that Nintendo doesn't care anywhere near as much as the fandom seems to, but I had to point out the issue with using 僕 as an argument.) I'm specifying media here because this is a speech pattern that's mostly seen in fiction rather than in real life. And yes, as KrytenKoro pointed out, if someone wishes to be thought male as part of a disguise, obviously they will use male pronouns.--Osteoderm Jacket 12:09, 14 February 2012 (EST)

Seriously, you guys are splitting hairs...

Of course "boku" can be used to pretend being male or to have a more masculine sound to your speech but what's the point in quarreling about this argument anyway? I mean what are we actually talking about? Is Sheik an independent character or not? Fact is, Sheik is just Zelda in disguise and we all know for sure that Zelda is female. Zelda is said to be somewhat tomboyish despite her elegant and feminine looks. In the japanese text Zelda herself uses 私　（わたし）　a rather neutral pronoun used by both men and women. Zelda created the character Sheik and decided to act as a male and to sound like one, so if this a contend page about the character "Sheik" there is no questioning that he is male. He is male because Zelda wants him to be. If your still trying to say Sheik is female because he is in real Zelda, you might as well merge this page with Zeldas Page.

Just as a side note, before I looked at Sheiks page I didn't even know that there was a debate about this topic. I've played Ocarina of Time (and almost all the other Zelda titles) many times and in different languages and Sheik had always a masculine appearance and speech to me. Just thought I would help out, after seeing that people are struggeling to make a decision on this topic, because for me it's 100% clear knowing some of the japanese text. I don't care what you will do with the information I gave you, but if I had written this page or would have to do some major overhaul, I would definitely delete the section with the gender debate.

Also, I've consumed a good amount of fictional japanese media and until now I never found a character falling out of line when using pronouns. Well, maybe I'm watching the wrong stuff... :) Bakeneko 15:03, 14 February 2012 (EST)

---

It would seem that my last argument wasn't compelling enough, although I think it's obvious to me. So here's another thing to take into consideration...

The more I think about it, I've come to believe that this is not a matter of Sheiks gender per se, but rather a matter about which Sheik the community wants to write this page. Sheik isn't a real character and since this page was written by many people some wrote about Sheik himself considering his prominent male appaerance(He) and others wrote about Zelda(She). So it seems somewhat natural that this problem caused a debate about Sheiks gender. Still, if you really want to deal with this problem and don't intend to keep a stupid OoT rumor alive, there are three solutions to solve this...

• #1: You write about the Sheik that Zelda tries to show us. Which would mean Sheik is male because Zelda wants him to be. He uses 僕 (ぼく) which is undeniable proof no matter how you think about it. Disguising as a man would be the most reasonable thing to do for Zelda to hide from Ganondorf who is looking for a young woman. Remember yourself playing OoT for the first time and knowing japanese. Until the end of the game where Sheiks identity is revealed you would have thought that he's a young man no matter what. And don't try to argue that Zelda, herself being a woman, disguises as a woman who pretends to be a man... First of all there would be no profit for her doing that neither would it profit the storytelling and secondly this would be just nuts... Zelda would be twisted in the head...

• #2: You write about Sheik knowing that it is Zelda in disguise. Which would mean you would write about Sheiks biological gender which means Sheik is female. No matter what Zelda tries to show us her biological gender will not change and will remain female. Of course you could argue that Zelda used magic to disguise herself. The game makes it look like it was some kind of magic, so she could be able to change gender, which leaves the question why people have so much trouble choosing solution #1.

• #3: You leave Sheiks gender unspecified. Problably the most elegant and neutral solution to this problem. Unfortunately it is also the most complicated one. If I'm not terribly mistaken it should be possible using some smart rewriting. It should work like this... You mention in the very first sentence of Sheiks page that it is Zelda in disguise. After that you never mention Sheiks name again and always use Zeldas name instead. "Zelda helped Link learing the warp songs..." and so on. You can mention his name anywhere else in the wiki pages, you just have to be carefull not to give away his gender.

Anyways, whether you believe Sheik is male or female, a decision should be made in the end, because Sheik is neither a supernatural being nor a hybrid. I have nothing against rumors and theories. They are quite interesting actually, but this whole debate is just useless information in my eyes.

So, what do you think about that? Bakeneko 00:14, 21 February 2012 (EST)

Rewrite

I'm not sure I'm cool with this new gender-ambiguous re-write. I mean, we pretty much determined how we want to do it above. Plus, this method completely avoids all pronouns, which exist to make the text not sound repetitive ("Bob saw Bob's dog and picked Bob's dog up and hugged Bob's dog" - compare with "Bob saw his dog, picked her up, and hugged her". See how much easier that is to read?). I understand the idea and I appreciate it, but I'm not sure that it's what's best for the article (not to mention inconsistent with every other article's writing which DOES use pronouns; the lack thereof would certainly confuse people, especially those who don't know Sheik's true identity). Thoughts? —Ando (talk) 19:07, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it is odd too. But I can't think of a better alternative, that would not specify gender. This solution is the best we have at the moment. The thing about using gender pronouns is, you actually have to know the gender to use them. We don't know the gender for certain, so therefore we can't use gender specific pronouns to meet this goal.Emma ^(Talk) 19:11, August 13, 2008 (UTC)

We may just have to use all male pronouns, like I said above. No instant spoilers. That is better.Emma ^(Talk) 19:18, August 13, 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought that the solution we had before worked fairly well. Using "he" except in specific spoiler-tagged sections specifically dealing with the true identity. —Ando (talk) 19:35, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe use he, yet announce around the top of the article that it's unknown? —Seablue 20:04, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey, Sea, no offense, but... did you even read the above discussion (the "He" section) at all? If we were to state that his gender is unknown, that would confuse and spoil the plot for anyone who doesn't know that Sheik is actually Zelda. This would be bad, which is why it should be confined to a specific, spoiler-tagged section as it was before the re-write. —Ando (talk) 20:50, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree in identifying her as a "he" until her true identity is revealed. (the specific spoiler-tagged sections) Onyx 21:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

"Hey, Sea, no offense, but... did you even read the above discussion (the "He" section) at all?" - No.

"If we were to state that his gender is unknown, that would confuse and spoil the plot for anyone who doesn't know that Sheik is actually Zelda. This would be bad, which is why it should be confined to a specific, spoiler-tagged section as it was before the re-write." - Good idea. —Seablue 00:40, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Do keep in mind that the "Bob saw Bob's dog, picked Bob's dog up, and hugged Bob's dog" example isn't really all that valid when the name "Sheik" is used sparingly enough that it doesn't sound awkward to use it more than just once in a sentence. In this case, I believe it's alright to always refer to Sheik as "Sheik" instead of "him" or "her." Besides, if you want to use gender-ambiguous pronouns, you'd have to refer to Sheik as "it," and that would seem strange and almost make Sheik sound nonsentient to some, if not only me. I think that the gender-ambiguous rewrite is the best way to keep arguments from being stirred up over Sheik's gender. Personally, I myself believe that Sheik is a girl, but since I want this Wiki to be able to respect both sides of the argument and everyone's opinion, as it should, I say we leave it the way it is. Teamrocketspy621 03:09, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The Wiki was "respecting both sides of the argument" already, by writing in such a way that it uses the information that the player would have up to that point in the game (e.g. believing that Sheik is just a stand-alone guy) until the parts of the article that actually deal with the alternate identity, at which point the gender pronoun switches to "she". You also say that this re-write helps to prevent arguments regarding Sheik's gender, and yet since we implemented the idea detailed above, we haven't had any complaints or arguments about it, except from you.

While you may not think so, I believe that the original version was fine and that the current re-write sounds awkward; based on the above posts, others agree with me, and you're outnumbered here by 4 to 1. So while it may be what you want, it's clearly not what the Wiki wants. I'm sorry, but I'm reverting the edits. —Ando (talk) 04:22, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

gender

your forgeting the magic element. if zelda was from termina then this debate will go on forever but hes/shes not. Dragonstetraforce 23:27, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Sprucing Up for Featured article

This article, is in a little need of work. Being Sheik it is an important article, and I think we should all work on bettering it, to a featured article quality. {{:User:Melchizedek1866/sig—Preceding undated comment added on 08:52, October 30, 2008 (UTC)

First things first. We need to add references.Emma ^(Talk) 15:53, October 30, 2008 (UTC)

Theme Song Section

Without being able to link to the songs anymore, the Theme song section seems quite short and pointless, especially seen as no other page I've seen has the appropriate theme songs listed as this page does. It just seems like a pointless little entry. Maybe adding it into the other text is better than having a heading of its own. Thoughts. - M E L C H I Z E D E K  (TALK) 08:46, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I've always questioned that section to begin with. I don't really see much need for it, so I'd say toss it. I don't see any need to mention any portion of it anywhere. —Ando (talk) 20:07, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've gotten rid of it! - M E L C H I Z E D E K  (TALK) 20:42, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Merging

No reasons were given by the person who suggested it, but I definately think that Sheik needs to remain completely separate to Zelda, and shouldn't be merged. Also someone searching the wiki for Sheik who doesn't yet know he's Zelda finds it on the Zelda page would... well that's too massive of a spoiler. So no merge. I'm taking that off the pages too because of spoiler! and yes, I know dedicated Zelda fans who haven't quite reached that in OoT!- M E L C H I Z E D E K  (TALK) 03:44, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

A Definitive Gender

While I can understand the reasoning behind not discussing Sheik's true gender until after a spoiler warning I don't know that it's necessary anymore. Ocarina of Time is getting up in years and I'm pretty sure that there isn't anyone left who doesn't know Sheik is Zelda. She does, after all, change from one form to another right in front of the player in both Melee and Brawl. In light of this I think the article should be revised to include the correct pronouns throughout, as well as some type of opening describing Sheik's true nature as a persona of Zelda's. In addition to this, I think the actual Gender section of the article is incorrect. It says that there are no official announcements on the gender of Sheik but in reality both the Melee and Brawl trophies explicitly state her gender as female in both English and Japanese. The trophies don't describe SSB Sheik, who I know is a different character, but instead they directly describe OoT Sheik. ~~Funkenstein23~~ 19:02, 10 June 2009

Since most fans don't consider the Smash Bros. series as cannon, saying Sheik is a female just because the trophy descriptions say so is not really an adequate source. We can't really say neither pronouns are correct because that depends on what people think, so labeling Sheik as a "she" is far from being 100% right. Ruto herself calls Sheik a "he," which comes straight from the text dump of Ocarina of Time, and I would consider that to be far more reliable than a trophy description of a non-cannon series. But that's just me. :P Dany36 17:07, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

But whether or not the Smash series is canon is irrelevant. The sole purpose of trophy information is to describe established canon about previous titles. The Sheik described in the Melee and Brawl trophies is not the Melee and Brawl Sheik. It's the original one from OoT, being described in what is essentially a virtual museum. This is, in effect, a final word on Nintendo's part on their characters gender and because the character is theirs it is up to them what gender she is, it isn't, as you say, a matter of opinion on the player's part. Also, Ruto calling Sheik a man was accurately explained in the article. She had no way of knowing what gender Sheik was, and simply took a guess and came up with man. Considering that Zelda was essentially cross-dressing I'd say that is a reasonable mistake. ~~Funkenstein23~~

The article does need to establish consistency as to whether or not Sheik is female or male. Ruto did not know that Sheik was Zelda, so her word on the matter cannot be considered definitive. It's like in Star Wars when Obi-Wan lied to Luke about Darth Vader killing his father when Darth Vader was his father. Since the spoilers for OoT are largely obsolete, the game being over ten years old now, I say that all of the pronouns in the article should be switched to the female form, except for the manga since he's male in that one. Nintendo exclusively refers to Sheik as female now, since they know that everybody knows the ending of OoT. Ganondorfdude11 21:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

At this point, I agree. Is anyone ever surprised anymore that Bruce Willis is a ghost? I have a real shocker for you: Tyler Durden isn't real! Snape kills Dumbledore! The mother is the son! Soylent Green is made of people! :D The general argument of this article isn't whether Sheik is male or female, but whether we should "spoil" it. There's nothing left to spoil. Twilight Princess can be spoiled, not Ocarina of Time. I think the article should refer to Sheik as she, unless someone can come up with a non-silly reason for Zelda to remove her ovaries, vagina, fallopian tubes, uterus, breasts, change the production of estrogen and testosterone in her brain, and give herself a penis and testicles. Among other things. Really, now, a jockstrap and some bandages would do the same trick. Saibh 19:35, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

HERE.

Aonuma said it himself:

“We recently received information from a survey conducted in the US that indicated that, among our female characters, users had a preference for those that were more on the independent side, such as Shiek and Tetra.”

Aonuma lists Sheik as an "independent female character," and he would not have mentioned her were she, in fact, male, because that would defeat the purpose of being an "independent female." The fact that he recognizes her as an "independent female" is proof enough that Aonuma simply accepts it as fact and refers to her as such. She's been called female more times than male within canon, and this is proof enough for me. Teamrocketspy621 17:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I support this and agree that the pronouns should be changed to she and her and etc for the time being. Sephiner 19:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

TP Sheik

Sheik was not in Twilight Princess, but Zelda and Link Were. Since in SSBB they are present in their Twilight Princess form, would it be possible to assume that SSBB Sheik would apear in the same style from Twilight Princess? -- կրակ ^(խոսել) -- 05:17, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere (I think on the SSBB site when he was updating before the release) that Sheik was originally going to be in TP, but they decided to take her out because it'd be too much like OoT. Then he said that they used the Sheik model that they had made for TP, but scrapped later. So yes, I think it's safe to say so. DekuLink 05:28, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Sheik is stated as male in 3D OoT

I'm not a sheik male/female bashing or anything like that :) I just want to say that in the official OoT 3Ds website, Sheik is referred as a "he".

"シーカー族の生き残りを称する、謎の青年。 リンクの元にたびたび姿をあらわし、リンクの行くべき道を示すが、その真意は不明。ハープで音楽を奏で、さまざまなオカリナのメロディを授けてくれる。"

Translation (Google):

"Survival of the tribe called the Seeker, a mysterious young man. Often represents the original form of the link, the link will show the way to go, its true meaning is unknown. Play music on harp, ocarina will grant a different melody."

Source: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/3ds/aqej/#/character/sheik/

That's all :) --Isamisa 14:31, 13 June 2011 (EDT)

Ohhh boy....now that's interesting... I've always referred to Sheik as a male, so I'm glad this supports it, but we'll see what other folks think. Thank you for the heads up! Dany36 15:03, 13 June 2011 (EDT)

It's more like "[This] mysterious youth is said to be the survivor of the Sheikah tribe. [Sheik] often makes an appearance at Link's side, and shows Link which path he should take, though [Sheik's] real intentions are unknown. [Sheik] plays music with the harp, and teaches various ocarina melodies"

The word 青年 (seinen) literally means "young years" and can refer to either "youth" or "young man". I'm by no means a Japanese speaker, but the Japanese Wikipedia page seems to make it a general age bracket, not a male-only age bracket. — Abdul ^{[T] [C] [S]}  01:18, 14 June 2011 (EDT)

Sheik being a transformed/disguised Zelda is supposed to be a plot twist. Why would they call him a girl? It's not like everyone has played the game, plenty of younger kids are completely blind to the plot. Reign 10:57, 14 June 2011 (EDT)

For what it is worth, Eiji Aonuma, director of Ocarina of Time, in an interview with Kotaku, listed Sheik as a woman. His words: "We recently received information from a survey conducted in the US that indicated that, among our female characters, users had a preference for those that were more on the independent side, such as Shiek and Tetra," seem to indicate that even someone like Mr. Aonuma thinks Sheik is a woman. Worth noting that Ruto refers to Sheik as a boy, so the article could probably stay masculine so as not to cause confusion. Of course, whether or not Ruto was simply fooled is another matter, seeing as how people mistake Link for a Kokiri, and the like. —Preceding unsigned comment added by CorvoSol (talk) 10:22, October 2, 2011

Good catch! I've added that info to the article. Hmmm... The debate section looks a little messy to me. Maybe we can have someone clean that up. — Abdul ^{[T] [C] [S]}  04:17, 2 October 2011 (EDT)

Sheik is about as male as Samus was before beating the first Metroid. As in not at all, just people thought she was because of how she was dressed.Ganon with 2 n's 22:21, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Off-Topic Messages

This series of messages doesn't relate to improving the page that this talk page corresponds to. Zelda Wiki is an encyclopedia, not a forum, so please direct these messages to the Zelda Universe formus or to the #general on Discord.

Note: The Off-Topic notice only applies for Ganon with 2 n's' contribution, as it does not relate to the actual discussion about Sheik's canonical gender and is instead a subjective expression. - Tony^{T S C} 06:29, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

He is not off topic in the least. This discussion is about Sheik's gender, and he made a statement towards the discussion which had a valid point. Just because he didn't elaborate more is no reason to put up the OT tag.User:Justin ZW/sig 07:27, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Paper Mario Trivia

Sheek is not an obvious reference. Sheikh is an Arabic honorific/name referring to elders. Sheik and Sheek's names are likely derived from the same source. There may be a connection, however, it is far from guaranteed. I see little reason to mention a possible similarity of a character from another game. Champion of Nayru (talk) 06:46, 14 November 2013 (UTC)Champion of Nayru

It may be a coincidence, but I find it easier to believe it is not. Paper Mario and OoT were both first-party Nintendo games released within a couple years of each other. OoT would have been highly relevant to the time of Paper Mario's development. Both use the pronunciation "sheek" instead of the more common "shake."

In any case, the article should at least mention the name's Arabic origins. — Hylian King ^[*] 09:07, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Sheik's gender debate ended?

Today Nintendo (through Bill Trinen, Shigeru Miyamoto's translator and member of Nintendo Treehouse) stated that Sheik is female.

Source: http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/5/5948989/zelda-nintendo-sheik-gender-cosplay

Dragon NJMB (talk) 21:00, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Bill Trinen States Sheik is Female

In an interview Kotaku had with Bill Trinen earlier today, the latter was asked about Sheik's gender. Trinen said, "The definitive answer is that Sheik is a woman — simply Zelda in a different outfit."[1] Normally, this could be brushed off since he didn't make the game, but he translated almost all of Ocarina of Time by himself. Should we now update the page to state Sheik is female or should we just leave it the way it is and just put this under the gender section? ~Nintendocan (Talk · Contribs) 21:04, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

From a previous example, we go with what the game says over Word of God: Aonuma doesn't consider Fi female, but the game constantly refers to her as female, so we go with that (despite my personal opinion otherwise). Ocarina of Time refers to Sheik as a male, so we should stick with that. A mention in the Gender section will suffice. - Tony^{T S C} 22:43, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

So, are you saying that the revelation of Hero's Shade of being Young Link from Majora's Mask is false? Or the Link being the same one from A Link to the Past, the Oracles series and Link's Awakening is false? What I'm saying is that Nintendo have the ultimate word on the Zelda canon instead of the happenings in the games. Ej: Scrapper saw Fi as a female but in reality, she or it is genderless and Ruto in Ocarina of Time thought that Sheik is a man because of the Sheikah Warrior's looks but it's only a magical disguise of a man but really it's a woman. Dragon NJMB (talk) 05:18, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

But thats the thing tho, Sheik never once claims to be male them self. The design of Sheik is masculine, I'll give it that. But Sheiik has the same body type as female body builders and profesonal athleties. Just google profesonal female swimmers on google image search, she has the same body type as they do. I always figured Sheiks design was meant to come off as Gender Ambiguous, because as a kid playing OoT, I never considered Sheik male. I always thought she was female from the get go, so when Ruto called her a "he", I figured it was a text error of some kind. But that actually helps play into the ambiguity of Sheiks design. Sheik was meant to come off as what ever the viewer interpited her to be until her reveal as Zelda near the end of OoT.

Sheiks gender is meant to be ambiguous so the player can determine what they might be, but that line with Ruto in the Water Temple is, literally, the only time Sheik is ever referred too as male in any of the Zelda games, which can easily be chalked up to her interpiting the ambiguous design for male. And besides, we don't even know the context of their meeting. Sheik could have been too far for her to tell what Sheikl was, or maybe she didnt even see sheik, and only herd her. And came to the conclusion Sheik was male simply by how deep her voice is in OoT

Again, I reitterate, Sheik never claims to be male. We only even have this debate soly because of that one line of diologue by Ruto in the Water Temple.
Ixbran (talk) 05:45, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

• So, are you saying that the revelation of Hero's Shade of being Young Link from Majora's Mask is false? Or the Link being the same one from A Link to the Past, the Oracles series and Link's Awakening is false?

There is nothing in the games that contradicts this information, so this is entirely irrelevant.

The persona of Sheik, as canonically defined as possible, is male. Sheik is really female because it's Zelda in disguise, but the identity assumed is only known as male. Hence, Sheik is referred to as male. Fan conjecture on why doesn't matter.

To put this into perspective, consider the movie Mulan. The titular character assumes the identity of a male named "Ping," thus Ping is male despite Mulan being female. Zelda and Mulan are female, Sheik and Ping are male. We're regarding the identity of the persona, not the person beneath. - Tony^{T S C} 07:27, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Well put. Another thing to consider is that Sheik does seem to refer to himself as male in other languages, specifically languages with grammatical genders. In the German version of Ocarina of Time, he exclusively uses the masculine form when referring to himself. This together with Ruto’s remarks leaves no doubt that Sheik’s persona is in fact male.—Totie (talk) 10:42, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Here is my evidence that Sheik is female. Multiple devs have said she is a girl in the past. Sheik is just Zelda in different clothes, with some magic added to change her hair and eye colour so as to not get caught and found by ganondorf. In Brawl and Melee, she is referred to as female, even in snake's codec message:

• Snake: "What's going on here? What happened to Zelda?!"
• Mei Ling: "Snake, Princess Zelda transformed into Sheik. I can understand the clothes, but to change her skin and eye color? That must take some powerful magic."
• She is female in brawl, melee, hyrule warriors, the zelda manga and comics of ocarina of time. why would she be male in ocarina of time (game)?. ruto only called her male in the game because she was decieved by zelda's disguise as well! this wiki even says she is female in the ocaina of time 3d page! i quote: "Sheik's model is now more curved and feminine, likely due to the debate regarding the character's gender." Plus, she just overall looks like a girl!The Super Smasher (talk) 06:31, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

The Super Smash Bros. series and OoT manga are not canon and cannot be considered evidence in the slightest. I believe this conversation was concluded elsewhere, resolved that the persona of Sheik was male, though Sheik was female because Sheik is Zelda. The article is about the persona, not the princess beneath. - Tony^{T S C} 14:06, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

using that logic tho, for all we know, link could be female in faces of evil. that logic is stupid. sheik is female. end of story. The Super Smasher (talk) 10:08, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Please stop ignoring other editor's points and just calling them "stupid", 'kay?

Canon means canon for a reason, even more so if the people creating the main series aren't in charge of the non-canon entry. As far as Faces of Evil -- if it doesn't specify Link's gender in that explicitly non-canon work, then it doesn't specify Link's gender, "end of story".

This idea that gender must be binary and there's no possibility for Sheik's gender to simply be "unspecified" is deeply offensive as it is.KrytenKoro (talk) 16:46, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

I miss the point where what i said was offensive... The Super Smasher (talk) 08:03, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Please choose your words a little more tastefully. Just because you disagree with something does not make it stupid.User:Justin ZW/sig 13:19, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Also, here are some articles people should really read before they post here, to prevent being offensive:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_continuum
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_binary

KrytenKoro (talk) 14:41, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

None of those are relevant here. You seem to be thinking people are disagreeing with you on the topic of gender identity, but that is not the case. Zelda is female; Sheik is Zelda; ergo, Sheik is female. Simple as that. --SnorlaxMonster 15:33, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Ditto The Super Smasher (talk) 08:35, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but no. The fact that "which gendered pronouns are used" is the main thing being discussed in this thread makes it completely about gender. If you want to make this about sexual identity instead of gender identity, you can pretty much only talk about the physical characteristics, meaning all the back-and-forth about whose use of pronouns count is moot. That muddying of terminology is also at the heart of the Fi "controversy", which also has a simple answer -- Fi is neuter, as Aonuma said, but a woman, as that's the gender identity she presents. Fi is a neuter woman.

In all honesty? Nintendo, especially NoA, has a bad history of queer-erasure in their media - characters in Japanese games who don't fit the traditional gender-sex binary are changed to "fit" when localized. Unless Bill Trinen can actually point to something relevant, like Sheik's speech patterns being gendered a certain direction, then it's just more of the same, and certainly no more reliable than the game itself -- which presents Shiek as a female man, and Zelda as a female woman.KrytenKoro (talk) 13:32, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay that is quite enough already. As a Zelda Wiki Admin, I'm going to be putting a stop to this. I'll make this clear - Sheik is nothing more than a disguise Zelda wears to protect her identity as Princess of Hyrule. There are no canon implication of gender or sexual identity. Sheik is female otherwise because Zelda is female, even though the disguise itself is male in appearance. As such the wiki is going to refer to her as "Female (Disguised as male)". The Zelda Wiki is not a place to discuss this kind of subject, and it is getting out of hand now. Please take this elsewhere instead, such as the Zelda Universe forums' Serious Discussion board. Thank you. -The Goron Moron (talk) 17:13, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Race

There are plenty of gender articles, so I won't add one of them. I will, however, question the race. Recently, his/her/its race was changed from "Hylian (Disguised as Sheikah)" to "Hylian". I wish to know why. Biologically, Sheik is Zelda, therefore a Hylian female, but this article is about Sheik, the persona. Sheik is a male, Sheikah disguise, so "Hylian (Disguised as Sheikah)" belongs, and draws a good parallel to "Female (Disguised as Male)".
Why can't these false identity articles follow one format? For Sheik, you have "Female (Disguised as Male)" but for Vilia you have "Female", when Vilia is Male, but assumes a female persona. Can't we just have it in this format:
Root Character race/gender (Disguised as Persona race/gender).Argentum kurodil (talk) 11:39, 5 March 2020 (UTC)