TL;DR
Zelda looks like a hero-rescues-princess story, but Link's endless childhood, the romance that never happens and his wardrobe keep cracking that heterosexual script open.
Most games run the same plot: the hero storms the castle and rescues the imprisoned princess. In the 1990s Nintendo aimed its marketing squarely at boys.
But Tison Pugh, writing in the Journal of Narrative Theory, argues that this heterosexual script cannot quite hold itself together.
The hero who never grows up
Link is an elfin child in The Legend of Zelda and The Wind Waker, and in Ocarina of Time he spends the first half as a boy and the second as a man. Pugh's point: Link is frozen in childhood, and therefore frozen in a stage before sexuality.
Because he must always be the hero, romance must always be postponed. Every game ends at a moment where the words never get said.
The sword and the outfits are talking
In A Link to the Past, upgrading the sword brings up the caption that you can feel the sheer power flowing through your body; a later, stronger sword throbs in your hand. Pugh reads this as the sword written as part of the body.
Link also changes clothes constantly. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom offer everything from a basic tunic to billowing, androgynous ensembles. Pugh says he cannot name another mythic hero this devoted to fashion — not Moses, not King Arthur, not Odysseus, not Harry Potter.
Who speaks for Link
Link almost never talks, so players have to speak for him. Enemies slip him Rupees and warn him to keep it secret, just between the two of them — which, Pugh says, maps neatly onto what queer theory cares about: secrets, who keeps them and who fears them.
His conclusion is simple: you can play the game looking for any sign of non-normative desire. That adds a whole extra layer of play.
In the end, a hero with no lines is a hero anyone can fill with their own story.
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