The Japanese company named the princess of Nintendo’s franchise after a writer and dancer, but her story was not at all what you might first imagine.

The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia is a collector’s book, and in it Nintendo has confirmed that the inspiration behind Zelda’s character was a pioneer of feminism brought to her audience in the 1920s by Zelda Fitzgerald, who lived between 1900 and 1948. Fitzgerald did not choose a good marriage, however, as her husband was abusive and she was an addict herself, so it is no wonder that she struggled with mental illness (she was schizophrenic).

Zelda Sayre was the sixth and last child in a wealthy family. Her father, a justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, was very strict at home with Zelda, who was born into a very traditional and religious family. She wore short skirts that exposed her knees (a frowned upon practice at the time), smoked and drank alcohol. She met a young writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, who dreamed of becoming a famous author. He considered Zelda to be his muse and the inspiration for his first book, published in 1920. It was This Side of Paradise. He plagiarized in a rather blatant way, copying entire entries from Zelda’s diary.

The book was a success, and the couple married and settled in New York. They threw many parties in their apartment, which were popular with the young people. All was well and good on the outside, but not behind the scenes: after the honeymoon, Scott’s cover was blown. He was as power-hungry and abusive with Zelda as her father had been with her. Things only got worse as the writer became jealous and alcoholic, which took its toll on Zelda. She began to flirt with suicide after Scott locked her in their house, and the word “divorce” came up…

Zelda found herself in a sanitarium after her European travels and a deteriorating relationship with Scott. Here she was diagnosed with schizophrenia, which eventually became bipolar disorder (manic depression). Her life was ended not by him, but by a fire at Highland Hospital in North Carolina. She was a resident there, and during the fire the fire exits were blocked, and she and nine other women in the building burned to death.

Much of her work was lost in a sense of failure (she didn’t feel her work was good enough), and Scott stole much of her work, which turned out to have been created by Zelda…