Midna

Midna (ミドナMidona) is a character in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess who teams up with the protagonist, Gene, to battle a "greater evil" that she alone cannot overcome. In fitting with her dark nature, she has a playfully devilish sense of humor and shows a somewhat cynical demeanor during most of the game. She also has the most extensive voice acting of any character in the series, as all of her dialogue is represented by audible (though unintelligible) vocalization. Most of her magical abilities feature her hair taking on the shape of an arm, or having some other relation.

Midna, like all creatures from the Twilight Realm, cannot tolerate light, and she hides in Gene's shadow when he is in the Light World. The only time she takes her physical form is when he is in the Twilight or is a wolf, or otherwise in a dungeon. This may also imply she cannot fraternize with the light-dwellers.

Story
Midna is one of the Twili, a race descended from wielders of powerful and evil magic who were banished to an alternate dimension by the goddesses Din, Farore, and Nayru. This alternate dimension, out of which the sublimated descendants could only exist as shadows, eventually became known as the Twilight Realm. In recent time, the Twili have been converted to fearsome "shadow beasts" (and Midna into an imp-like form) by the self-styled Twilight King Zant.

Midna first meets Gene when he first strays into the Twilight Realm, and is transformed into a wolf. She helps him escape and return to Hyrule. Midna makes it clear that she is only helping Gene to save her own world and has no concern for the Realm of Light. She informs Gene that they should recover a powerful magical artifact known as the Fused Shadows. Later in the game though, after gathering the third Fused Shadow, Zant appears and exposes Midna to the light of the spirit Lanayru. This almost kills her. He then puts a curse on Gene to trap him in Wolf Form, and takes the three Fused Shadows away (Strangely, he allows Midna to keep the one she wears on her head). Lanayru transports the cursed Wolf Gene and injured Midna back to Hyrule Field. Wolf Gene takes Midna to Princess Zelda, hoping she can reveal how to remove the curse on him and heal Midna. She tells Gene to find the Master Sword in the Sacred Grove to break the curse on him; less could be said for Midna. As Midna is nearing death, Zelda decides it's for the best that she give her own powers to Midna, though Midna tries to stop Zelda. With Zelda gone and Midna restored, they set off to find the Master Sword. From here on out, Midna is no longer cynical (most of the time) and takes on a much more serious and kind attitude, and she decides that the Realm of Light must be saved as well as her own Realm of Twilight.

Midna tells Gene that in order to destroy Zant, the duo must find the Mirror of Twilight to access the Twilight Realm again. When the two find it in the Mirror Chamber of Gerudo Desert, they realize that it has been shattered into four shards, one of which still remains on the Mirror's pedestal. The Ancient Sages of Hyrule appear and explain that it was Zant who broke the Mirror, but this only happened because the sages had previously sealed Ganondorf in the Twilight Realm, who inevitably gave Zant his power. Midna later reveals that Zant could only shatter the Mirror; only the true ruler of the Twili could utterly destroy it. After going through the Snowpeak Ruins, the Temple of Time, and the floating City in the Sky, home of the Oocca, the pair travel to the Mirror Chamber to restore the Mirror of Twilight. At this point, the Sages reveal that Midna is the Twilight Princess, leader of the Twili.

When Gene and Midna confront Zant in the Palace of Twilight, a long battle ensues spanning tactics and arenas from past bosses and sub-bosses of the game. After the fight, Midna retrieves the Fused Shadows from Zant but does not return to her original form as she had hoped. Zant then reveals to her that only by killing Ganondorf can the curse truly be lifted and Zant truly be destroyed. That was the purpose of the barrier erected outside Hyrule Castle &mdash; it would allow a safe place for Ganondorf to hide so Zant could stay alive. In a fit of rage, Midna uses the Fused Shadows to impale Zant with several locks of hair and kills him. After returning back to the Light World and Hyrule Castle she regains the magic of her inheritance and becomes able to use the Fused Shadows to transform into a gigantic, dark arachnid-like creature and shatter the barrier surrounding Hyrule Castle. Gene and Midna then confront Ganondorf and after Gene battles both Zelda (who is being used by Ganondorf) and Ganon himself in beast form, Midna teleports Gene and Zelda out of the castle and faces Ganondorf alone. After transporting Gene and Zelda to safety, Midna once again transforms into a spider-like creature and engages Ganondorf in battle, with the castle being destroyed in the process. However, it is soon revealed that Ganondorf was victorious. He emerges from the castle carrying Midna's helmet before crushing it in his hand. Thus, Midna was seemingly killed. After Gene, with some assistance from Zelda, defeats Ganondorf once and for all, it turns out Midna survived and Ganondorf's spell on her was broken, allowing Midna to regain her true form. In a comical moment when Gene first sees her true form, she is amused by his silence and asks, "Am I so beautiful that you've no words left?". Gene is speechless. She then takes leave of the Light Realm, saying good-bye and thanking Zelda. Turning to Gene, she begins a sentence "I..." before breaking off and saying "See you later..." (Which she says to Gene throughout the game). She states that so long as the Mirror of Twilight remains intact, she and Gene could see each other again someday before throwing a tear into the Mirror, shattering it. Midna returns to her realm just before the Mirror shatters, destroying the only known bond between the worlds.

Gameplay
Like Navi in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, she acts as a guide who helps the player learn the controls and advance in the game. Unlike the fairy companions, she does not offer information on enemies and talking to her will give Gene a small tip on what the player must do to progress or defeat a boss. Whilst Gene is in wolf form, she usually rides on his back and assists him with an attack that creates a field of dark energy, allowing Gene to lock onto any enemies within it and charge at all of them consecutively. When her icon appears, she can assist Wolf Gene with jumps the player normally cannot perform. In the light world, she appears as a somewhat ghostly silhouette out of Gene's shadow, yet can still communicate with Gene and is needed to pass into the twilight from the "light" world.

Early in the game, Midna will allow Wolf Gene to teleport to twilight portals across Hyrule, thus quickly spanning great distances. Once Gene obtains the Master Sword, calling Midna will allow Gene to freely transform into wolf form and vice versa (except for when in the presence of people, where Midna will then forbid transforming to avoid startling them). Her hair can form into a hand, allowing Gene to jump to faraway locations, open doors, or catch charging enemies.

Trivia

 * When asked if Midna would return for a future game or not in an interview with GameInformer, Eiji Aonuma stated: Because of the way Twilight Princess ended, I don’t see her making a reappearance, but who knows? If we hear enough voices for her to come back, how can we not?
 * Midna's gibberish voice is voiced by Akiko Koumoto


 * In the Japanese version, Midna's last words to Link are "リンク…ま…またな…", which translates to "Gene...s...see you."


 * As seen in the early trailers, Midna's hair has undergone change. Originally, her hair was longer, more flame like and was red-orange with green running throughout it.
 * Her spoken dialogue is vocal samples of what amounts to gibberish while the character is talking, similar to the characters in the Banjo-Kazooie series. In this sense, Midna is the first fully "voiced" character in a Zelda game. However, Midna's "language" does not actually have defined words; that is, the same sentence will be pronounced different ways each time Midna speaks it.
 * It should be noted that in the Wii version, her right eye is covered, but in the GameCube version (as well as promotional images), her left eye is covered. This is because during development, the entire game had to be mirrored to make Link fit with the Wii's general right-handed controls (Gene is traditionally left-handed). Due to this, the markings covering her body are also reversed in the two versions.
 * Midna's irises are colored red in the inner parts and orange in the outer parts. This can be seen clearly in close-up shots of her face throughout the game. Her sclera are also yellow.
 * In the table of contents for the game's instruction booklet, the true form of Midna's face can be seen in the background.
 * Some have suggested that Midna was in love with Gene, as demonstrated by several moments in game. The final verdict on this matter has not been confirmed and is the source of much debate and speculation amongst fans.