When it comes to video game princesses, there’s perhaps none more famous than Princess Zelda, who has been the title character for the popular Nintendo franchise since it first released more than 30 years ago. Though she often has been relegated to background, “damsel in distress” kinds of roles, Zelda’s portrayal over the past three decades has been a key part of what makes The Legend of Zelda quite so legendary.

Her name came from Zelda Fitzgerald – the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald – after Zelda series creator Shigeru Miyamoto had read that Zelda was a beautiful woman. Miyamoto also liked the sound of her name, and decided to use it to name both the game and its princess.

In her inaugural appearance, Zelda has been kidnapped by the villainous Ganon, and in order to protect the land of Hyrule, she scatters the pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom and hides them away to keep them away from the antagonist. Link eventually reclaims the Triforce and frees Zelda from her prison. Though she’d continue to be abducted in many further appearances, her powers were expanded upon greatly – for instance, in 1991’s A Link to the Past, she is kidnapped because of her inherent powers as a descendant of one of the Seven Sages that had originally sealed Ganon away. In Ocarina of Time, she is revealed as a Sage herself.

Zelda gains far more agency in later titles; she appears as the pirate Tetra in The Wind Waker and is unaware of her true lineage until late in the game, but eventually uses her latent powers to assist Link in defeating Ganon. In 2009 she acted alongside Link in Spirit Tracks, as her spirit form possesses various Phantom Knights so that she can fight alongside the hero. Most recently, in Breath of the Wild, her massive ancient power is the only thing keeping the Calamity Ganon in check and under some sort of control for a full century – she struggles against the pure evil of Ganon while Link slumbers and recovers from his near-death experience.

For more than 30 years, the name “Zelda” has been synonymous with video games. Most importantly, Zelda’s evolution over the years has shown that being a princess doesn’t relegate her to simply being an object to be kidnapped by the villain; Princess Zelda has proven that her title doesn’t define her character, and instead has shown that princesses have the ability to be the hero of their own tales.