Breath of the Wild Discussion: A Post-Apocalypse Without Murder?

This article will contain spoilers from various games in the series, including Breath of the Wild, so read at your own discretion!

Back in March, Nintendo surprised the industry with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a huge open-world game and a complete change in direction for the series. The game has many merits, but today I'd like to discuss a strange rule the game seems to stick with: Link isn't allowed to kill anything that is - or looks - human. 

Breath of the Wild's world is populated with many monsters such as Bokoblins, Moblins, Lizalfos, Chuchus and Lynels. But seasoned fans of the series will notice a few fan favorites are missing: Poes, Gibdos, ReDeads, Stalfos and Stalchildren, for example.

ReDead from Ocarina of Time 3D. Source: http://zelda.gamepedia.com/ReDead

What do these enemies have in common? They are all undead people. (Though Nintendo has admittedly tried to retcon the ReDead into being a magical, non human creature.) Indeed, though Breath of the Wild has tension and atmosphere, it very rarely engages with the dark locations and enemy designs that Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess or even Ocarina of Time dealt with.

At this point, you may question the premise, pointing out that the absense of the aforementioned enemies simply resulted from Nintendo's choice to steer away from disturbing locations and enemies, and not actually a problem with killing humanoid enemies specifically. However, considering which enemies are in the game, the problem with this argument becomes clear: most common enemies have a 'Stal', or skeletal, equivalent.

Link fights a Stalnox. Source: Robinotta on YouTube

In other words, Nintendo had no problem involving undead skeletal enemies... so long as they weren't human or Hylian. On top of Stalnoxes, Breath of the Wild includes Stalkoblins, Stalmoblins and Stalizalfos, but the classic Stalfos and Stalchild - humanoid skeletons - are missing.

However, Breath of the Wild actually does have humanoid enemies. It's time to address the elephant in the room: The Yiga Clan.

Link is ambushed by a Yiga Clan assassin. Source: DivDee on YouTube

The Yiga Clan, though masked, are confirmed to be Sheikah defectors and thus part of the same race of people, and Link is able to fight them. However, the way these fights end proves the original premise furter: unlike monster enemies, which visibly die and drop guts and teeth, people of the Yiga Clan teleport away from Link when defeated, dropping only Mighty Bananas and money. They are completely unique in this regard.

The one exception is Master Kohga, who does seem to die after you defeat him.

Master Kohga in all his splendor. Source: Zelda Gamepedia

But rather than having Link strike him down, in the cutscene after his battle, Kohga brings about his own demise by summoning a large metal sphere which ends up pushing him into a chasm. Words don't do it justice; You can view the clip here.

And even Ganon himself, whose human form Ganondorf met a grisly end in Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, has no such form in this game. Instead, his first form is a monstrosity with a vaguely human head.

Calamity Ganon. Source: Boss Fight Database on YouTube

Interestingly, though thousands must've died in the events leading up to Breath of the Wild, Link isn't allowed to seriously harm any human being, alive or undead. Human enemies are kept to a minimum, with even their skeletons replaced by those of standard enemies, and human enemies that do appear aren't killed. That's why I think Nintendo consciously decided that Link wasn't allowed to kill any human in Breath of the Wild. 

That's my conclusion from these design choices, but I could be completely wrong. I'm very interested to hear your thoughts on why Nintendo made these choices, and whether or not you feel there is any meaning to them at all. Depending on responses, I may write a follow up to address the best arguments and theories.