Music

Fans petition Nintendo to make Christina Grimmie a 'Zelda' character

by Jeremy Mersereau

As part of the litany of horrible things Orlando, FL has been enduring these past few weeks, 22-year-old former The Voice contestant Christina Grimmie was shot and killed on June 11th by deranged fan Kevin Loibl. The singer’s death has brought about an outpouring of love, grief, and support of all kinds, including some from a few unexpected sources… which now include fans of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda.

Grimmie herself was a fan of Nintendo’s hyper-popular action-adventure series, as evidenced by her many social media postings praising the games and her penchant for Triforce T-shirts.

Fans are now petitioning Nintendo to honour Grimmie by naming a character after her in the new Zelda, Breath of the Wild. “[Christina] was impossibly bright, loving, and talented and will continue to inspire us all. An open secret however, was her deep love for video-games. Especially Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda series,” states the largest such petition, which has has amassed nearly 60,000 signatures.

The torrent of support for the idea of a Grimmie character in the new Zelda game has been so massive, it’s forced the notoriously closemouthed Nintendo to comment, an event which is rarer than finding a Golden Skulltula in the wild. Here’s Nintendo’s reply, through a spokeperson in TIME:

Ouch. In case you can’t read PR-speak, that’s a hard pass – which is too bad, because the name “Grimmie” is absolutely perfect for a Zelda character. I mean, the character would have to be some kind of goblin creature, but it would have still been a fitting tribute to the real-world, Hyrule-obsessed Grimmie.

[h/t TIME]