Favorite character is Midna from Twilight Princess. Her design is just so weird but it works. She antagonistic towards the player but I can't help but love her. Your friendship grows throughout the game until that one incredible shot together. And the surprise ending is both fun and tragic.
Favorite relationship is Marin from Link's Awakening. She's wonderful on her own, but then she shares so much about her life on the island and her dreams and grows even deeper as a character. I feel a stronger bond between her and Link than any incarnation of Zelda.
I completely agree on Marin, it's really a tragic love story.
The scene when you take her to the beach and she wishes she was free like the seagulls always sticks with me. She is so happy Link came to the island but neither she or Link can be free and still have each other.
She's awesome. Loved her ability set in Hyrule Warriors already, and in Tears of the Kingdom she's the one you return to frequently enough, serving as the game's "anchor".
Zelda. She frequently surprises the player with how much of a badass she is.
In Wind waker she commands a gang of pirates many times her size. They respect and trust her and would follow her to the edge of the world. She also kills Gannon by bouncing an arrow off Link's shield. How badass is that? The hero doesn't even kill Ganon. Zelda does.
In Ocarina of Time, you spend all this time trying to save her after you saw her get kidnapped, only to find out she's the badass ninja who's helping YOU the whole time. She don't need no saving. She ain't no damsel in distress.
In BotW, you watch her struggle and struggle while she tries everything to unlock her power. Then in the face of certain death, she unlocks her power, and without hesitation, and without any training using her power, she fights Ganon for 100 years, holding him off to buy time while Link cooks food in his underwear.
In TotK, Zelda makes the ultimate sacrifice, trading her humanity to give Link back his trusty Master Sword so he can defeat Ganondorf. She also becomes immortal when doing this, so this is a massive sacrifice. She may never be reincarnated, as she's not dead. She has to live in that dragon body forever. It permanently altered her mind, too. She lost all her intelligence as part of the transformation. She's basically going to live in torture for eternity, but that was the sacrifice that she made without hesitation to give Link a chance to save Hyrule.
Link would rarely be able to save Hyrule without Zelda. They both have important roles to play each time.
I personally like Zelda. She's kinda kept the franchise going after all this time ya know... and she's the only one that's in ALL of them. That link guy is just a side-character.
Do bosses count? Because I'm gonna throw in Molgera and Volvagia because both of them are great fights with stellar music.
I did a 3-heart run of Ocarina a year or so ago on original hardware. I died almost 50 times in that run, and Volvagia and Morpha were at least 35 of them.
I'm not 100℅ sure if this count's as Character. Majoras Mask. I love the Mystery around it. I can watch 100 YouTube Theories just about this Mask and I will never get bored.
None, never liked the series. Was forced to buy and play Breath of the wild as there were no games on Switch when it Launched. 100% it in about one month at which point I stoped playing it and never touch it again. Have no interest in playing tears of whatever. And frankly if I ever play any of them now it will be just as a protest meaning I will play them pirated on an emulator because fuck Nintendo for killing Yuzu and Citra!