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WMG / The Legend of Zelda

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WMG Pages for Specific Legend of Zelda Games

Due to the enormity of this page, we also have the following pages for specific WMG discussion.

Furthermore, due to size restrictions, additional WMG entries can go on the following page:

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    X is a Time Lord/Haruhi Suzumiya 

Fi is a construct of Time Lord technology.
Aside from the fashion sense, it would also explain certain... properties of the Master Sword.

The Hyrulean Royalty, Especially Princess Zelda, are Time Lords, or at least have Time Lord DNA.
We have seen two Princess Zelda’s undergo a transformation that look eerily similar to a regeneration. The Hyrulean Royal Family might have stumbled upon this secret of their unknown past, and perfected it to the point where the process can now be used to alternate between preset forms and outfits at will. Also, a third example of this is discussed extensively in Skyward Sword; the goddess Hylia gave up her divine form to launch the islands into the sky. This could be interpreted as a Time Lady giving up all 13 of her regenerations in order to provide the power needed to operate whatever technology was used to give the islands their levitating properties. And one last thought: The robes worn by Hyrulean kings aren’t too different than the ones worn on Gallifrey.
  • This troper speculates that Hyrule's planet is Gallifrey in the distant future, having been rebuit after its destruction by Din, Nayru and Farore. The Sacred Realm is the Matrix, and all the different races are evolved from the Time Lords.

The Temple of Time is a TARDIS
It’s certainly appropriate, and this would also explain why it always pops up in different eras, and in different areas, and the layout is always different. In Ocarina of Time, the pedestal you warp to could very well be the main console, dormant for millennia with the rest of it retracted into the floor, waiting for anyone to discover its secret and make it rise once again. Additionally, when you enter the Temple of Time in Twilight Princess, you’re not going back in time at all; you’re simply entering the TARDIS itself, with the layout programmed to resemble what you see in the Sacred Grove. Bigger on the inside, anyone?

The Twilight Particles are a mutated form of Vashta Nerada.

Gohma is a Time Lord.
Think about it. Gohma appears in practically every game. Each time it looks pretty different (except for its one eye, which could be like the Corsair's tattoo.) Perhaps it is the same Gohma traveling through time and trying to destroy the upstart time traveler who doesn't know what he is doing and restore order to the timeline.
  • Better yet, Gohma is a mutated Dalek that has cast aside its metal shell, and obtained the gift of regeneration from a freak accident.

The Heroine of Light (from Ancient Stone Tablets) is Minus and by extension Haruhi Suzumiya
The universe seems determined to protect her (e.g. she gets infinite silver arrows and magic right before fighting Ganon). Ganon wants to steal her power indicating that it rivals the Triforce's power. She doesn't change form upon entering the Dark World. She's from another world and she goes back to her world despite it being apparent Ganon wasn't really defeated. Finally, she's a female in a male role not unlike when Minus became Victory Man.
  • What Zelda game are you talking about? I haven't heard of a Zelda game with stone tablets and a Heroine of Light.
    • BS The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Stone Tablets was only released in Japan (and no legal copies exist now). In it, you play as a boy or girl (called the Hero(ine) of Light) from another world who must save Hyrule from Ganon in Link's absence (presumably because he's busy waking the Wind Fish). As for the part in the spoiler tag, After you defeat Ganon if you re-enter the Pyramid of Power you'll see guards whom if spoken to will ask you to defeat Ganon which indicates you failed to do so. This troper chose to use the Heroine of Light for this WMG because it works better that way; also, the Hero of Light has a stupid looking hat.
    • But those games aren't part of the canon, last I checked...
    • BS The Legend of Zelda is basically a third and fourth quest for The Legend of Zelda (except you don't play as Link) and thus not canon. BS The Legend of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods is a port of A Link to the Past and is thus as canon as the SNES version of that game. Ancient Stone Tablets on the other hand tells a new story which doesn't contradict anything in the other Zelda games and thus there isn't any reason to exclude it.
    • That would be like saying that the CDi Zelda games are canon because nothing contradicts the rest of the series (speaking from an objective standpoint here). Also, if you have a wanna-be Zelda game that has the exact same subtitle as the Japanese name of the game, of course it's gonna be a port. Unless they're ignorant and/or plagiarists.
    • The BS Zelda games were made by Nintendo, the CDi games weren't BIG difference.
  • Wow, you jammed in the "X is Haruhi" WMG earlier then I would've thought. Don't worry folks, there's another down the line.

Tetra is not the actual Princess Zelda. She's Haruhi Suzumiya
She's a FEMALE pirate captain, who seemingly also happens to be a princess.She's bossy, has some rather weird ideas of "good plans" (Barrel + Catapult + Link = Victory WTF?) and gets pretty angry when she doesn't get what she wants. Oh, and the way she threats Link. Pretty Kyon-like, huh?

My guess is that Haruhi played some Zelda (probably Ocarina of Time) and started telling the brigade how great that game is and how they should make one of those themselves. Kyon objected ("Can you program? No? Neighter can I") and so she trapped him and herself in what she imagined to be the PERFECT sequel to the game.It was awesome.

  • Right, because Suzumiya came out before Wind Waker. Oh and you spelt "neither" wrong.
  • Also, the barrel thing isn't that bizarre. Both Japanese and European pirates and sometimes even naval forces would use that as a legitimate method of infiltration, though typically minus the catapult. It was more like "appear to be drifting salvage/whatever from a shipwreck".

The Song of Storms is either a Time Lord or an Eldritch Abomination
Considering the way it was created via a paradox, and how horrific the Shadow Temple/Bottom of the Well are, it could be assumed that The Song of Storms is yet another "being" that came unto existence due to the dark energies of the aforementioned locations. It came from nothing. It IS nothing, and yet became something. The Alpha and Omega of The Windmill Hut. Fear not neither thunder nor rain, but The Song... of Storms! *Dun dun dun!*
  • Above troper, will you marry me?
  • Even better, what if the Windmill is a TARDIS in disguise?

    Crossovers 

Big Boss is a reincarnation of Link
Specifically The Hero of Time from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Link sneaks into Zelda's castle, the Gerudo compounds, and the Deku castle fairly effortlessly. He is a legendary warrior. Every woman he meets falls in love with him. Do I need to go on?
  • True, Link and Big Boss are both serious Chick Magnets. But this troper can't help wondering what sort of repercussions this theory, if it were true, would have on Super Smash Bros. Brawl...
    • Well, considering that the connection is between Big Boss and the Alpha Link, and the Links in Brawl were Beta and Omega, all it adds is a curiosity. Depending on how you look at it, Adult Link and Solid Snake are cousins, brothers, or reincarnated-father and son, the last one being in the vein of Soma Cruz and "Genya Arikado", a familial relationship with no easy-reference name. Toon is, at best, a distant relative-by-reincarnation, too far down the wheel-of-karma tree for the reincarnated-father aspect to be significant.

Batman is a reincarnation or descendant of Link
One does not have to compare them for long to notice the similarities. Both are orphans, are men of few words, wear strange clothes while doing their hero work, are good at solving puzzles, and have a wide array of strange tools to help them along the way, most notably a boomerang and a Grappling-Hook Gun. While the Hyrule family line was eventually ended, Link continued his lineage, continuing the chain of heroes. Eventually, the legends were lost or forgotten, and the new heroes were stopped being named Link, and sometime during all of this the lineage merged with the Wayne family tree. Bruce, while on his travels, somehow learns of his many ancestor's heroics, and that helps secretly inspires him to become Batman. He decides to not wear green and instead fashions his suit after Link's most difficult and also his most annoying enemies: Dark Link and Keese.
  • Link has a cape that turns into wings.
  • ...so Link is Meta Knight?! But what does this mean when Kirby dons a Link hat...
  • THE GODDAMN KEESEMAN

Ra's al Ghul is Ganondorf revived and/or reincarnated
Continuing the Batman theory; Ganondorf is brought back to life once again, this time in the form of Ra's al Ghul. He likes this form, and decides to create new goals for world domination to follow the changing times. He uses the Lazarus Pits so that he can retain this form and so that he doesn't have to wait so long for his return, and so he can continue to antagonize his constantly recurring foe.

The Wind Waker timeline becomes the DC Comics Universe, while the Twilight Princess timeline becomes the Marvel Universe
This makes Peter Parker the descendant or reincarnation of Twilight Princess Link. Recall the City in the Sky and tell me I'm wrong. I dare you.
  • Give me a Word of God that says that dungeon was based on Spider-Man. Then I'll acknowledge it.
  • Shiggy said that he came up with the City in the Sky while reading a Spider-Man comic. TAKE THAT!

The king of Hyrule is Emperor Wakamoto!
It's the only way to explain the sheer amount of children he's had in correlation to the above post! All Ganny did was make his claim to the throne.

Link has at least one Alternate Universe counterpart, possibly more
I point your attention to Neku Sakuraba. The "Over The Top" set even mirrors the Triforce (though they mixed up the left hand and the right hand). This in turn would give his counterpart near-infinite counterparts, meaning that he already has at least, say, 40 assuming we count each "base" Link as an individual counterpart. Even without that, there are too many Link-like heroes to be a coincidence. Maybe his personality depends on the world he's in?
  • Duke Nukem Forever: A corrupted Link has to freeze the whole universe completely to defeat his foe. The timleine may never recover.
  • Isn't this "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"? Most of the games follow the model of these legends. This wiki has a good overview.

The Oocoo City is actually Elysia from Metroid Prime 3
'nuff said.
  • Guest starring Ridley as the boss. Yeah, I can actually see it now.

On that note...

The Metroid universe is actually a continuation of Zelda's

In a gender swap, Samus is the reincarnated Hero of Time. Some of the Lizalfos evolved into the space pirates, while others settled on Bryyo and became the Bryyonians. Elysia is actually Hyrule after some incident covered it in toxic gas, and the Cities in the Sky are the only things that survived. The Chozo are the evolved descendants of the Oocca, or possibly the Cucco. Ridley is the only remaining Dragon from Hyrule, and they keep resurrecting him in hopes they'll eventually be able to bring Dragons out of extinction. Dark Aether is in the same dimension as Termina. Mother Brain could be a corrupted holder of the Triforce of Wisdom, and Kraid could be a permutation of Ganon's beast mode.

  • Alternatively, Ridley is Ganondorf in some distorted form. He has been known to change his form into a monstrous one, And by then, he's gone through so many he has lost his original name, and it would fit the rivalry both of them had.
  • If another WMG about the three gods is correct, that would also make Alex Roivas a hero of time, due to Identical Grandson...

  • I had a similar theory. Other evidence pointing to this being plausible: the presence of the Rito, who are bird-folk like the Chozo. There are similarities in equipment (Suits that grant heat resistance and ability to move unhindered in water, grappling beam/hookshots and whips), both series have an emphasis on exploring. Samus and many Links have blonde hair and blue eyes (and they both have a history of outrageous hair color beforehand), so it's not difficult to believe her to be a descendant/holder of the Triforce. Ridley, of course, is Demise's incarnation of hatred, being brought back at an accelerated rate because SCIENCE.

Super Smash Bros. is the reason the timeline is so messed up.
Other crossovers such as Soul Calibur II or the first two Super Smash Bros. games simply plucked the characters out of their natural environments and had them fight. Super Smash Bros. Brawl, however, creates an amalgamation universe featuring all of the Nintendo franchises together. This is why Toon Link and TP Link are in the same game, even though they are from alternate realities, and why TP Link seems to have attributes of his predecessor from OoT. Likewise, the amalgamation universe survived for a while after the crossover, explaining such things as Link showing up in Tetris or Super Mario RPG. This universe was destroyed at the end of Super Mario Galaxy, rendering all of the universes separate again.

Super Smash Bros. is the reason the timeline split in the first place.
The legend at the beginning of WW says that the hero vanished and leaves it at that. What we're not told is that he vanished into the SSB world and couldn't return to stop Ganondorf's return.

Most Legend of Zelda games take place in Spira, sometime before the game but after the events in FFX's history.
All spoilers are for Final Fantasy X.

Before Wind Waker, the world was flooded, and the country of the real Zanarkand may or may not be on an oceanic world, but it is long ago in Spira's history, with plenty of time for Hyrule, a neighboring kingdom, to become magically flooded and the waters to spill over to the rest of the world. The reason Hyrule never really has an increase in technological level is because the goddesses want to keep it safe from Sin. The WiiTV April Fools' commercial (which isn't actually a prank, but Nintendo hushed them up about it) shares the building style and potentially the now-lost technology of Zanarkand, and possibly takes place there before Link goes to Hyrule fleeing the Big Bad who later becomes/enables/is replaced by Ganondorf/Ganon. The MacGuffin is the artifact that will eventually become the Master Sword, which becomes depowered not after waiting, but rather after incarnating Link's soul- Steve, or (my preferred name) as suggested by another troper on the Headscratchers page, Reido is a (possibly living) statue that houses the machinery: It crystallizes a soul and enables it to be "unfrozen" later in time — usually in a different body, but in rare cases like Ocarina of Time, the same body several years later. The first Link (likely with a different canon name, something with a similar meaning to "anchor") has a Pyrrhic Victory at the end of the game, just escaping the Big Bad at the cost of his life, and having fled to what would eventually be Hyrule, must himself use the device to keep the Big Bad from being able to take over the world by unfreezing each time he reincarnates or comes back into power. The Goddesses made the soul fragments into the shards of the Triforce (Power for Ganon-to-be and Courage for Link, no idea who Wisdom/Zelda are yet) before making Hyrule (the country, not the world, although they could easily have made the world in the first place).

Anyway, back to Spira: the world floods between OoT and TWW, the continent of Zanarkand becomes the archipelago of Spira, and meanwhile, the Legend of Zelda games are taking place, following the The Wind Waker timeline. The Island Fish in Link's Awakening (no matter the timeline) is a version of Sin, hanging out in the ocean while it regenerates, and Marin was an unsent, influencing Link's dream and allowing her to get her happy ending and manifest as a seagull instead of a fiend. Possibly the guardian of the last High Summoner previous to Link's Awakening, trying to find a way to escape being bound by Sin's body, at least for a short time.

The Zelda universe is part of the Kingdom Hearts universe
Whenever Link kills an enemy, they leave behind a heart, which vanishes after a while. There are also fragments of hearts that seem to have been created by the land itself. Eventually, Link is going to absorb enough hearts to become a Kingdom Hearts completely.
  • There are also some more — excuse me — serious reasons why this theory could be correct. First, look at Sora's Drive-Form: Valor, Wisdom and Master. OK, Valor and Wisdom obviously correspond with Courage and Wisdom in Zelda. Then, the Master Form is Power, which fits. Also, it's called "Master" Form and the term "Master" for something powerful is very common in Zelda. Some more evidence: The Master Sword. It has a chosen wielder and in The Wind Waker, Ganondorf claimed it had also similar functions to a key, being able to cast and release seals. Its power also seems to be that of holy light. Sounds a lot like a keyblade, huh? The keychain could be the yellow jewel, meaning that Link is also a chosen keyblade-wielder, like Sora. Also, all of the "Light and Darkness" and "I will bring an age of Darkness" talk and Large-Hamming of the Big Bads. Then, the fairies. When Sora calls on Tinkerbell, she acts similar to the Zelda fairies, restoring his life and disappearing and reviving him in case he dies. Also, she's green, like the Kokiri guardian fairies, and she is also supposed to a guardian fairy (of Peter Pan, who's story also bares a lot of resemblance to the Kokiri tribe.) Also, the elements of magic: For Ice, we have the Ice-arrows, for Fire we have Din's Inferno and the Fire-Arrows. Lightning is absent from Zelda, but the "Cure" spells have a counterpart in Fairy magic and there's enough wind magic in Zelda to cover "Aero". The Light Arrows, commonly used by Princess Zelda mirror the Light Powers the Kingdom Hearts universe's royalty seems to have: The 7 princesses of hearts and Queen Minnie use similar beams of Light to fight. Heck, Zelda even may be a Princess of Hearts herself, she has all the needed qualities! There may be more similarities, but I think that's a nice start.
  • Freaky coincidence: There's about a month's difference between the releases of Spirit Tracks and Birth By Sleep. The former has collectible star fragments while the latter has the hunt for star fragments as a subplot. The star fragments in both games look almost identical.
  • Keeping going. Let's examine the two latest installments of the split timelines of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and Twilight Princess. In Twilight Princess, we see a world that is perpetually twilight. In Kingdom Hearts II, there is Twilight Town. Twilight Princess features the Shadow Beasts, which could have evolved into the KH Shadows. Darknuts could have become Soldier Heartless as well. Meanwhile, in Spirit Tracks, Byrne looks and acts almost exactly like Saïx. Saïx has pointy Hylian ears. Embrose the Lokomo has Axel's hair, and he is the Fire Lokomo. Steem the ice Lokomo plays a blue Shamisen that looks and sounds almost exactly like Demyx's blue Sitar.
    • Ergo, if the TP timeline continues, KH happens. If the WW timeline continues, Saïx, Demyx, and Axel are born instead as the Lokomo Byrne, Steem, and Embrose.

Dark Link is Link's Heartless.
Well, let's look at Link. He never shows any emotion outside of shock, and possibly anger. Also, Master Sword = Keyblade? He could be a Nobody in the same style of Roxas... Then Dark Link. The dude never actively seeks Link out. He only does so on Ganon's orders, and in the 4SA manga, he wasn't evil, just misled. Who's willing to bet that if you tore off his shirt that there would be a Heartless symbol where his heart was?
  • Dark Link has red eyes, Heartless have yellow eyes.
    • Oh come on. He could be his own type of Heartless.
  • Something to think about; The red eyes are only part of one version. Version 2 is completely black. Version 3 has the same eyes as Link's, which are EVER SO slightly yellow. Plus, it's possible he could be disguising his true form...
  • Are you implying Vanitas? Glad I'm not the only person who noticed. -Zelda Hearts 1337

Link used the Ocarina of Time to travel to the 1920s and write books under the pseudonym of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
It would explain why so many of Fitzgerald's books are dedicated to "Zelda".
  • Considering that Fitzgerald drove his wife Zelda mad and destroyed her spirit, this has BAD implications for the Zelda/Link pairing...
  • Maybe Fitzgerald was actually Ganon instead.

Link as seen in Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass grows up to become...Guybrush Threepwood!
Both Link and Guybrush are cute, blonde and clumsy, yet brave and noble, and both live in an Anachronism Stew populated by The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. Plus Link's parents are absent without explanation, and Guybrush's parents are said to have abandoned him at a young age. Plus Guybrush mentions having a sister at at least one point in the series. Guybrush's ambitions to become a pirate could stem from getting sick of having to fight Ganon and aspiring to live a normal life.
  • This is just too funny to disagree with it.
    • This makes more sense than any Zelda timeline, really.

Bongo Bongo is an evil Rayman
Two disembodied hands inexplicably linked to a body? This is obviously Rayman mutated... or at least his evil counterpart.

Kaepora Gaebora is Cedric.
They're both The Scrappy in their respective games, and they're both owls. Not sure how a scrappy owl could get from Hyrule to Serenia and back, though.

The Legend of Zelda and Dragon Age share a universe.
Dragon Age is just some random part of The Legend of Zelda timeline; also, Ganondorf is somehow of the Qunari race, and either the hero of Ferelden, Hawk, or the Inquisitor is a reincarnated Link.

Ganon is the Kwisatz Haderach
Prophesied male? Check. Comes to age under stressful circumstances in a desert environment? Check. Leads indigenous desert dwellers in a rebellion against the established order? Check. Goes to great lengths to shape and change the future in ways that are impossible to foresee, through various pawns, by longevity and reincarnation? Check.

Tetra and Gonzo are shoutouts to Ender's Game.
I was reading the book a long while ago when I came upon the characters Petra and Bonzo. Giving it some thought, I began noticing similarities. For starters, Petra and Tetra are five letters with only one letter differing in each, and P and T are three letters apart; the same holds true to Bonzo and Gonzo, except G and T are four letters apart. They are also close personality-wise; Tetra being a calculating cool-headed warrior with a massive ego and Gonzo getting by with brute strength without the ability to resist a challenge (If Alfonzo is any indication). Also the fact that they work together in both instances, which tipped me off.

Navi left to become the Overlord of the Netherworld. One day she will return with a demon army and slay any pitful soul in her way.
Evidence: Her voice.
  • That's a joke theory.

The Legend of Zelda represents the First Age of the Wheel of Time
"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again."-This is why so many distinct-yet-similar versions of Hyrule exist: each time the wheel comes around to the First Age the details are a bit different but the main points remain the same.-When Zelda uses the Triforce, this begins the Age of Legends.-Ganon is the Dark One, at a relatively low power level (well under NINE THOUSAND!!!) because he's still mostly imprisoned.-Link is the first age's version of the Dragon, and if Rand tried hard enough he'd probably remember how to play the ocarina.

Link was the Man in Green for the prophecy.
See the mirroring WMG on this page for more details.

Bellum is some sort of Beholder.
I've got nothing to back this up other than that Bellum has a bunch of eyes and one big eye.

Link is one of the Exalted
The Link we all know and love, complete with affinity for color green, ability to quickly master weapons, and other such attributes is the Exaltation. In every era it attaches itself to a child of great courage, Linking that child to the ones who came before him and giving him the tools he'll need to save the world. Naturally, Zelda and Ganondorf hold the other two Exaltations.

The Hyrule Royal family has some connection to Soleanna.
Just take a look at the Hyrule Royal Crest◊ compared to Solaris' second form.◊ It's TOO similar to be a coincidence!
  • Also, the Imprisoned's relation to Demise is exactly like Iblis's relation to Solaris. Thank Hylia Demise didn't have any equivalent to Mephiles (no, Ghirahim doesn't count, as he's Demise's weapon, not his consciousness; that's stuck in the Master Sword). Otherwise Hyrule would have been fucked.

Hyrule is a representation of a child's psyche
  • The child, the creator of Hyrule, you could say, is a our-world version of Link. With his imagination being vibrant and innocent as a child's always is, he comes up with numerous adventures, all involving the classic bad guy kidnaps good girl, hero rescues said girl plot. That's why it's so simple in the beginning, the child has just come up with the idea. Then, getting bored with the story, he comes up with more complex plots. The Darker and Edgier stories are when the child nearly becomes insane, or when generally not good stuff happens. The child is always center in the plot (through Link) because the child views Him/Herself as The Hero and feels very protective of his/her made-up fantasy of Hyrule.

Midna and Link are Takato's mother and father
Zant made a last dick move after Midna and Link reunited and threw them out of the home dimension. His plan was to throw them into the Sacred Realm (which, not being the Dark World yet, would probably kill Midna horribly), but he messed up and threw them into Japan. Midna and Link disgused themselves as the closest thing they could become to a normal human — Ordonian natives. Takato was told about his family history and only his partner Guilmon knows. Takato inherts his dad's Triforce, which fused with the Digitale hazard and suppressed it, letitng Takato stay his nice shy self. His mega forms Megidramon and Gallantmon/Chaosgallantmon are his twili side at full max and overriding the triforce. Without being aware of it, he controlled Megidramon A — a manifestation of his family's bloodlust and hate. As Gallantmon, he is in more control but more in touch with his Hylian side, and Chaosgallantmon is his twili side. Crimson mode is him in perfect balance with his true inner self.

The LoZ world is the distant future of Chrono Trigger's world.
  • With the time travel elements in the ocarina and a floating island at one point, it makes sense. All the different races might be the evolution of humans and Mystics/Fiends interbreeding. Schala and Marle are possibly ancestors/past incarnations of Zelda, while Crono is one of Link's, and the various sages reincarnations of the other party members in CT (and/or the Gurus of Zeal). Demise/Ganon would be the vengeful spirit of Lavos. Note that this entire theory completely ignores Chrono Cross.

    Future Game Speculation 

There will be a fourth Four Swords game.
And it will be set in the "Link Wins — Child" timeline, falling between Twilight Princess and Four Swords Adventures, starring FSA!Link on his first quest to defeat Vaati. Evidence of this can be found in FSA's prologue.

At some point, the series is going to do a Chrono Cross and fuse the timelines split by Ocarina of Time into one.
I'm sorry, but it is very likely.
  • Some have postulated this was achieved by the Oracle series.
    • Please elaborate.
    • I'm guessing the theory is that since there are two ways of playing the Oracle games (you can play either one first and the other one will follow it) that each way of playing takes place in a different timeline and that since both ways end the same, that Hyrule's history ends up being the same from that point on.

The next game will be a FPS of sorts involving crossbows.
Link's Crossbow Training. Go figure. Hopefully it'll use the Metroid Prime 3 engine, I love those controls.
  • That sounds AWESOME! Lets get on this idea... you could through bombs like grenades, and use the hookshot in first-person.. oh and it should definitely be grittily realistic.

The new Zelda game will contain a Shout-Out to Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series.
That is, if anyone with even a little creative control over writing or translation for the new Zelda game spends much time on the English-speaking Internet. The fans have decided to name the sword-person Steve, after all, until they get a real name.

There will eventually be a Zelda game featuring Link with a gun.
Not the Wii one, though, since that seems to be finally telling the origin story for the Master Sword. But the ground has already been laid with steam-based Zelda games, cannons in several, and Link's Crossbow Training. Remember that Miyamoto's original concept for Ocarina of Time was Zelda done as an FPS. Link will get a gun eventually, probably done tastefully to maintain the medieval European theme, as in Fable 2 — a primitive but powerful weapon that needs reloading, and will no doubt include several magical varieties of ammunition.
  • Or... y'know... a crossbow...

Aforementioned game will be Steampunk.
Can you say Rule of Cool?

In a future game, Link and Zelda will be dual player characters through the whole thing.
Given the way the games have been changing Zelda's role to make her more active in the story, and how switching between two characters has become a semi-regular feature in the series, it only makes sense that they'd eventually use it to make a game in which Link and Zelda cooperate to save Hyrule.

  • It has been confirmed that they are working on implementing a two-player mode into Breath of the Wild 2.

We will eventually get The Legend of Ganon
  • Or Ganondorf, to be precise. At some point, we'll get a game detailing Ganondorf's origins, with him being the protagonist. It will take us from his early life as the King of the Gerudo with Koume and Kotake, his rise as a great thief, his desire to gain entrance into the Sacred Realm and claim the Triforce, all leading up to his version of Ocarina of Time, conquering the lands of Hyrule with the Triforce of Power. The end? He wins, giving us a concrete starting point to the Fallen Hero timeline.

Remember the trailer they showed a long time ago when the Gamecube first came out (with Link and Ganondorf sword fighting)?
That game really exists. Nintendo, being the crazy bastards they are, showed us what looked to be an awesome game and then gave us something else (which was good, but not what we were promised). They then gave us a few more games in hopes of making us forget about the broken promise, but were secretly working on it. This is the same reason they named the "Revolution" (awesome) the "Wii" (WTF), they purposly make asses of themselves to make their eventual victory sweeter (They are Nintendo, we cannot beat them).
  • If you're talking about that Spaceworld demo that showed Link and Ganondorf fighting and was the cause of the whole Wind Waker Backlash: Personally, I found that demo's graphics to be disgustingly ugly. Link looked like Tidus from Final Fantasy X and Ganondorf looked just retarded. I was actually glad that The Wind Waker looked different from that. Also, Twilight Princess looks a whole lot better as well.
    • Regarding the trailer. Anyone else notice that Link had the *EFF!*ing Hero's Shield from Majora's Mask? This troper was like "WTF?" when he noticed it.
    • It looks like a remake if anything. It's about as much of a game as Meowth's Party, which was a tech demo.

The DS games are going to be a quadrilogy
One person on Gamefaqs pointed this out. Bellum is War (due to his name being Latin for "War"), and Malladus is Pestilence (due to it being similar to "malady"), leaving the next game to be Famine (perhaps a drought hits Hyrule, and spreads, and Famine happens to be a wizard turned genie, and Link gets a Flying Carpet that gets more powerful as he goes to more temples, letting him fly higher and for longer?). Then the fourth game ties them all together, and they are Ganonjacked by Death.

An alternate version would place Bellum as Pestilence (as he drains the life out of everyone, like an illness), which would mean the Bellum comes from somewhere other than Latin (perhaps a part of the brain, to indicate that this one was formed in Oshus' head as an illness that, by sucking his power, could eventually get into the real world) and Malladus as War (due to his obviously violent nature). Then it would continue to Famine and Death after that.

  • Here's a thought. You know another word for Death? "Demise". Maybe Bellum, Malladus, and the missing Famine one were originally his Co-Dragons.
    • Or maybe Skyward Sword was also part of the quadrilogy and Famine is the only one that hasn't yet appeared.

There will be a game showing the Hero of Winds (TWW/PH Link) arriving in New Hyrule and sealing up Malladus.
Or not. Would be awesome, though. After all, we missed the event itself, leaving old Niko to look after the guy who finally gets to kill the beast.

A future game will reveal someone named Kasuto (?), and Fado, as sages
They've hinted at them being sages and it's too good a plot point to miss out, especially in the WW timeline. I'm betting on reincarnations but flashbacks or even a OOT era game would be nice. Thumbs up if it reveals why Mido has a town named after him.

A future Zelda game will have two Zeldas, twins; one will grow up as Sheik
.Half-Identical Twins, maybe? It Was His Sled that Sheik and Zelda are one person, so why not twist it?
  • No.
  • The only way there will be two Zeldas, is if they go back to Zelda 2, where the original Zelda was put under a Sleeping Beauty-spell, and her brother had all future Princesses be named Zelda. By the game's ending, this Princess woke up. Unless something happened to the Zelda from the first game, that is the only one with two Zeldas.
    • Exactly, every future firstborn-female. If you have twins, I can imagine the parents going, "eh, let's name them both Zelda".
      • Not altogether a bad idea really.
  • This is kind of an interesting idea, mostly because this troper has read Drowtales. One twin is Zelda, the princess, the other is Sheik, the princess' guardian. If Zelda dies, Sheik takes her name and her position (a la Vy'chiriel and Yaeminira, without the Bodyguard Betrayal).
    • Made even more interesting if Sheik is a boy. Prince masquerading as a princess? Maybe they'd castrate him at a young age.

A Dungeon Idea...
If there's ever another game in the The Wind Waker timeline, and for some reason the Master Sword is needed again, the dungeon you pick it up from will be a recently-drained Ganondorf's Tower, rechristened the Tower of Hope. The unique feature of this dungeon is that there are no monsters and no boss, only puzzles and a serene, subtle background music that builds on itself as you ascend the tower, finally revealing itself to be Fi's Theme as you reach the top, where the Master Sword has remained intact, waiting for you the whole time.

There will be a direct sequel to Skyward Sword
  • Taking place before Ocarina of Time again, it will detail the establishment of the kingdom of Hyrule and how the various races fought amongst each other for the Triforce. It will also have a Princess Zelda being put to sleep, leading to the decree that all females in the Royal Family will be named Zelda, as detailed in the backstory of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

The next major game after Skyward Sword will take place between Skyward Sword and The Minish Cap
If you look at the official timeline◊, there are three historical eras (the Sky Era, the Era of Chaos, and the Era of Prosperity) between Skyward Sword and The Minish Cap. This, particularly the "Era of Chaos" noted as being the time when the Sacred Realm was sealed away, seems rather noteworthy and unusual that it is on the list without a game of its own...
  • It follows that this game will be about the end of the Era of Chaos, with the sealing of the Sacred Realm and the founding of the Kingdom of Hyrule — possibly even the rise of the Sages.
  • There would be one question though — would this center around the second use of the Master Sword, as hinted at by the Sealing of the Sacred Realm (to which the Master Sword is part of the lock), or would it center around the Picori Blade, as hinted by said blade's cultural prominence in the set-comparatively-shortly-thereafter Minish Cap?

Alternatively, the next major game after Skyward Sword will take place in the Child Timeline.
The adult timeline has room for events after Spirit Tracks, but is rather limited by the loss of Hyrule and being railroaded a bit by the ending of Wind Waker sealing the Master Sword and Ganondorf away so idiosyncratically and in a non-magical as well as magical way. Likewise, the Loss Timeline is rather restricted by events; the only times that are open without too much restriction to storytelling are at the beginning and end of the Era of Decline — which, as the name and examples we have from it indicate, is too lacking in knowledge and population to have the feel of a modern Zelda game. By contrast, looking at the official timeline◊, the child timeline seems underexplored — games could be set between the Twilight and Shadow Eras without too much trouble (just need another game to kill Ganondorf off again before Four Swords Plus), and the time after Four Swords Plus seems wide open for storytelling without restriction.

There will be a game where all the split timelines will merge.

The final game's final boss will be Demise
.With the revelation that he is the sole reason Ganondorf exists, it's inevitable. I imagine we'll fight Ganon, then when he appears dead Demise will rise from his corpse in a dramatic fashion.
  • But Demise is destroyed at the end of SS. Only his consciousness was sealed in the Master Sword, and even that is eradicated eventually. The incarnation that becomes Ganondorf isn't so much a host for Demise as it is a successor — a separate entity that was created by Demise but doesn't serve or identify with him.

Ganondorf will turn against Demise
in the end.He does hold the Triforce of Power, so he is more or less a chosen of the gods. I also can't imagine that Ganondorf will react well to the news that he is Demise's hatred.
  • Alternatively, given that Demise isn't around to turn on, it will be a metaphorical turning, as Ganondorf becomes an Aloof Ally of Link against some other villain, helping save the world while being a total jerk in dialogue and minor annoyance in behavior to Link and Zelda in order to fulfill the letter of the cursenote  he embodies while rejecting the spirit of the cursenote .
    • Which goes very, very well with the "Ganondorf is a descendant of Groose" WMG on the Skyward Sword page; Ganondorf would be repeating his ancestor's Character Development!

Nintendo will eventually make a game based on the battle at the very beginning, with the player assuming the role of Hylia battling against Demise

One of the games in the Child Timeline will take a page out of Castlevania's book and force the new Link to prove himself worthy in a half-temple, half Boss Rush called "The Master Sword's Memory".
On the assumption this game comes after Twilight Princess, this means there will be a series of small but challenging areas of exploration interspersed with special boss fights; the first against The Hero of Light who first attacks you in Wolf Form but then proceeds to fight you using all seven of the secret sword techniques through the Sol-empowered Master Sword, the second against The Hero of Time, who can use all three magic arrows along with Din's Fire, Farore's Wind (here repurposed as a Flash Step), and Nayru's Love to supplement his swordplay, and the third against The Hero Of Legend, who acts as a Perfect Play A.I. with an extremely powerful Skyward Strike. As a mix of Gameplay and Story Integration and an Anti-Frustration Feature, the player Link will be able to recover three hearts from the brink of death by refusing to give up no matter how outmatched he seems, and the last fight will reveal this was a Secret Test of Character; even his ancestors/previous incarnations at their best weren't strong enough to break the current Link's courage, and so Fi will awaken for the first time in millennia to welcome back her Master.

A future title will have Link and Zelda be related
Probably siblings.

A future title will have a incarnation of hatred be Link's friend.
They'll start out as friends but both he and Princess Zelda will be kidnapped by the big bad, who is aware of the situation like an evil Skyward Sword Impa, in order to make him cave into the hate. The final dungeon will be the one required to save him but at this point it will be too late, he had given into his hatred over the fact that his friend saved the princess before him and become that game's True Final Boss and the series new over arching big bad.

A future title will have you play as Zelda.
Specifically, OoT Zelda who spent seven years dodging Ganon and his goons. She will be able to switch between Sheik and Zelda inside dungeons, and their differing movesets will be the puzzle-solving mechanic. She must remain Sheik in the overworld, or Ganondorf, who she can't beat, will show up. Her dungeons will be about finding the songs she teaches Link, along with spells she can use as Zelda. The final battle will be a slight Retcon of OoT's final battle, where she more actively assists Link.

A future main series game will feature a playable Zelda
She has already appeared as a playable character in non-canon and side games, but always as an extra option in a larger group or alongside Link. It would be quite fitting for her to get a starring role in a central game, after all this time. This could take any number of forms; one option may be that the game's Link is unavailable for some reason, such as having been captured early in the game or being too elderly in the game's time to fight a new threat, or Zelda having gotten caught in an adventure outside of the cycle of Demise's curse.

Zelda's playstyle ought to differ from Link's, at least to a sufficient degree to make her seem more than a purely aesthetic face swap. In general, Zelda is not really portrayed as a melee fighter, but usually has powerful magic and is skilled with a bow. Thus, a playable Zelda would probably be a more range-focused character than Link is, with decent or middling melee attack but as good a bow game as Link and a range of powerful magical attacks and techniques. Mechanic advancement could focus on refining her ability to channel magic and learning more powerful spells.

A future game will canonize the Master Cycle
  • Confirmed. In The Champions' Ballad DLC of Breath of the Wild, a rune you can earn lets you summon the Master Cycle Zero.

Missing entry speculation
This isn't so much a guess as a collection of implied events thanks to what would otherwise be throw-away lines in the games.

  • The original incarnation of Hylia's Chosen Hero, the focus of the SS manga in HH. Whether or not this game will resemble the manga remains to be seen.
  • FS prequel — In the instruction booklet for the GBA re-release of ALttP, FS revealed that Vaati had been defeated once before, when he was sealed in the Four Sword. The hero in this story could be a descendant and/or reincarnation of TMC!Link, receiving the Four Sword from his family/retrieving the Four Sword from wherever his predecessor left it and going off to challenge Vaati.
    • HH both Jossed the original idea that TMC was about this hero, and provided the final implication that this is, in fact, a Missing Entry. HH confirmed that Vaati died in TMC and was resurrected somehow later with no memory of his past.
  • MM/TP interquel — Nonspecific adventure where the Hero of Time learns the Hidden Skills that he passes on to TP!Link.
    • What sets this apart from other And the Adventure Continues ideas is that it fills the plot hole of where the Hero of Time picked up the Hidden Skills in the first place.
  • FSA prequel — If you pay attention to FSA's opening text, you'll notice a line that implies that Vaati has, in the past, broken out of his prison and gotten pwned by FSA!Link, all before the events of FSA even take place.
    • The pre-HH theory was that FS was what was being referenced, just as the backstory for FS was believed to be referencing TMC, but HH Jossed both by (A) placing TMC and FS before OoT, (B) placing FSA after TP, and (C) providing the aforementioned statement of Vaati the Minish being Killed Off for Real in TMC.
  • OoT interquel — A game following Zelda/Sheik over the years during which Link is sealed in the Temple of Time and Ganondorf is establishing his control over Hyrule. The point of the game would be learning and collecting the songs that Sheik teaches Link in the main game, explaining where these songs came form in the first place. It would be a much more stealth-focused game, as Sheik might be better suited for a more careful and cautious playstyle than the more aggressive combat style Link's skillset tends to gravitate to.
  • BotW prequel — A game set in the ten thousand-years-ago period described in Breath of the Wild's backstory, describing the ancient hero and princess facing the original rise of the Calamity Ganon.

A future game will be set in a more high-tech setting
A game set in a more high-tech setting — the idea of the existence of technologically advanced cultures in Hyrule, and potentially a periodic rise and fall of such cultures, is not particularly foreign to modern Zelda games — Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild both use this idea. The next logical step is to set a game in a period where this kind of technology and Magitek is still commonplace, and featuring more direct interactions between advanced magic and technology. This could overlap with a Skyward Sword or Breath of the Wild prequel, or could be self-standing. The aesthetics of the technology could potentially range from realistic to steampunk to the Tron Lines-heavy magitek used in Breath of the Wild.

The end of the timelines
One day there is going to be Zelda game that takes place at the end of all three timelines that deals with Link, Zelda, and maybe even Ganondorf/Ganon going around Hyrule to break the reincarnation curse that was put upon them by Demise in Skyward Sword.

    Meta 
Eiji Aonuma regrets splitting the timeline and is using Spirit Tracks to set up a retraction of this stance and restore a linear timeline view.
Evidence? The official acceptance of "New Hyrule." See, new Hyrule used to be a major component in linearist time line building as a way of Linking the SNES and NES games in an unexpected way (taking place after The Wind Waker). Splitting the timeline eliminated the need for such complications.

However, Two Hyrules is back and as others have mentioned the map bears similarities to the Hyrule maps of ALttP and LOZ. Meaning those games, (and Twilight Princess) could now be set after Spirit Tracks. Why has he done this? Because, after thinking about it, he's changed his mind and wants a fully linear timeline.

  • I fully and completely doubt that, because of the fact that Twilight Princess was originally set to play in the TWW timeline (Aonuma once stated it was supposed to show the last days of ancient Hyrule before being flooded), before they moved it to the Majora's Mask timeline instead, in order to be able to have a (sort of) happy end. They wouldn't have done that if they were actually planning to move every single game into the The Wind Waker timeline. Also, Spirit Tracks having a New Hyrule merely allows to set more games in the The Wind Waker timeline, but most definitely not all of them. Some just wouldn't fit.
    • Not to endorse the OP, but TWW's intro pretty unambiguously states that there were no Links between OoT and TWW. I quote: "and The people believed that the Hero of Time would again come to save them. But the hero did not appear."
      • Objection! This is the same legend that has forgotten the name "Hyrule." It is equally likely that in the time it took for the legend to fade into obscurity, all the previous Heroes were amalgamated into a mythical (heh) Hero of Time. As a single timeline heretic, I must admit that the WW Master Sword chamber is MUCH more compelling than the prologue.
      • If that's true, then you'd think you'd hear King Daphnes talk about it, since he was kind of there when Hyrule was flooded and sealed beneath the sea. He expressed guilt for not being able to save his kingdom himself, and had a hero been there, he probably would've recognized said hero as such and not forgotten his services. However, on the other hand, since he didn't recall anything (if the hero even existed to begin with), we can assume that he really didn't appear due to complete erasure from the Adult Timeline or was Doomed by Canon before he could make an impact on Ganondorf's forces.
      • Let's not forget that every character that would have probably been able to remember the old legends accurately (The Great Deku Tree, the King of Red Lions, Ganondorf, maybe Valoo and Jabun) give no indication of that they know of any Link other than the one from Ocarina. Plus, there's the fact that the Ganon back-stories of Twilight Princess and Wind Waker are inherently irreconcilable unless we either split the timeline or accept that Twilight Princess's Ganondorf was a completely separate individual from the one in Ocarina and Wind Waker. Also, there so far has been absolutely nothing either with regards to Word of God or in-game that has yet contradicted Aonuma's statement that the timeline got split, so the single timeline idea is out, at least until Nintendo chooses to contradict themselves once more (I'm looking at you, Imprisoning War).

The Word of God that said Ocarina of Time happened first was lying.
Would support everyone saying that either The Minish Cap or ALttP happening before it.
  • Wasn't that announcement made before Minish Cap came out? I assumed they meant it was the first at the time, but they were free to make earlier ones later.
    • I'm pretty sure that statement was actually made before Ocarina had even come out.
  • Announcements aside, Ganon's Start of Darkness is pretty airtight evidence.
  • But Ganon isn't actually in Minish Cap (which is Vaati's Start of Darkness), so the theory still stands.
    • But Ganon IS in FSA, which occurs after FS (FSA mentions the Link you play as sealing Vaati before being called by Zelda), which possibly occurs roughly 50 yrs after MC. This is, of course, dependent on whether or not the Hero who sealed Vaati prior to FS was in fact the same Hero in MC.
      • I've always thought it was. I mean, come on, Vaati is taken down after the Four Sword is created. Sure, the game presents it as him dying (probably forgot that if it's a prequel to ''FS'' he needs to be sealed).
      • I thought so, too, but the FS legend doesn't mesh with MC. Plus there's the whole Palace of the Four Sword in the GBA version of LttP. Since I'm a single timeline heretic who takes great liberties with the WW legend anyway, I figure that MC actually predates the FS legend, which itself is post-LttP. MC may even predate the Triforce wars and the banishment of the Twili, since the Four Sword needs to have been placed within the Palace of the Four Sword in the Golden Land at some point.
      • If I read that right (and if I didn't, here's my theory) it's MC> everything else prior to LttP> FS> FSA> other games that happen later.
      • FSA actually occurs in the Adult Timeline, after TP.
  • ALTTP can't happen before it, both because The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was Ganondorf's Start of Darkness and because ALTTP's ending says that the "Master Sword sleeps again forever", precluding its use in future games.
    • The ending of ALTTP is mistaken.
    • Or, more likely, was using hyperbole. When it said "forever", it meant "a really long time".
      • ALBW showed that "forever" apparently meant "a century or two".
  • Then Skyward Sword came.

The entire series is Nazi propaganda, Link in particular.
Blond hair? Check. Blue eyes? Check. Member of a superior master race that is a "pure" line of descent from superior ancestors, of which everyone else is a corruption? Ka-check- he IS a hylian among humans. With his dark skin, pronounced features, and bestial qualities, Ganondorf can only represent a racist villainous caricature of Africans.
  • Are you really calling Shigeru Miyamoto a Nazi sympathizer?
    • No, back when Shiggy was at the helm, Link had brown hair, black eyes, and everyone was Hylian. It was only after he left being in charge that the Nazi sympathizers turned it to their whims.
      • Um, the Gerudo are pretty blatantly caricatures of Middle-Eastern cultures. Still . . .
  • Perhaps somewhat more plausibly, the characters in the Legend of Zelda were deliberately designed by Nintendo to appear exotic and unusual in Japanese eyes. The game takes place in a fantasy setting after all, and didn't Square do this with Terra from FFVI's former name, Tina? Also, by this troper's examination, few if any Hylians, Gerudans, Sheikah, etc., have the "standard" Japanese phenotype of black hair, brown eyes, etc.
  • But seriously, WWII forever linked wartime Japan and Germany. It's completely feasible!
    • Actually, I was thinking about this same thing when I remembered Nintendo had a game about WWII, called 1942. Also, Italy was linked with the other two also. So we have an Italian plumber, made by the Japanese. Coincidence? Probably.

Freud was right about this whole series
  • Let's take a look at the plotline of the more recent main-series games. You start out with a kinda-wimpy sword, you explore three caves (!) to get a better (and occasionally bigger) sword, sometimes there's a complicated sidequest to get an even bigger and stronger sword than that, you go and explore more caves with your bigger swords, your final battle is with a tall, dark-skinned, extremely masculine badass who either has the biggest sword in the game, or in The Wind Waker, two swords, in order to "save" and thus obtain the most desirable woman in the game. In a Freudian sense, it's about Link overcoming his insecurity about his effeminate appearance by proving that he's at least as much of a "man" as his more masculine rival Ganondorf by "exploring caves" with his "sword".

Navi and Tatl's personalities are tied to that of the players experience
That title may not make things clear so let me explain. In Ocarina of Time, everyone was a beginner. Link, who was a green rookie, both literally and figuratively, and the player, who was experiencing 3D Zelda for the first time. Hence we have Navi; she explains everything when you ask, and as others have so noted, even when you don't. Think of her as a mother guiding a child through a new experience, which is kind of what you are in the first half of the game. Then you have Tatl. Some find her bare bones advice and constant snark to be as annoying as Navi's constant nagging, but by this point both Link (and the player if they had already played Ocarina) would more or less know the score, and as such, probably would not need as much help, except for the monsters that were completely new. Does this make sense to you?

The abundance of Nightmare Fuel (so much that it needs its own page on this wiki) was a ploy to get adults to play.
Lots of kids can’t stand Nightmare Fuel. Solution in kid logic? Ask Mom or Dad or another older person you know well (like, say, your teenage sibling) to get you through the scary part because they’re the bravest person you know! At least that part is known to have happened. But what if someone at Nintendo had made it that way intentionally? Now that would be clever...
  • I am, in fact, sure that this is the case. That's also how they got my father to play Super Mario 64 after all.

The series is a retelling of the 'Struggle between Summer and Winter' myth
Link has to fight Ganon to rescue Zelda and save Hyrule in pretty much every game. Ganon is a giant boar, which is the form the winter god is traditionally supposed to take. Link is dressed in green, which is associated with nature and rebirth. They both fight for Hyrule, Link to protect it, and Ganon to take it over. Zelda is the princess of Hyrule, and whoever wins effectively has her at his mercy, mirroring the fights between ancient summer and winter gods for the hand of the Earth Maiden.
  • Supporting this, Ganondorf froze over part of the world in Ocarina of Time.

The whole series is a Xanatos Gambit on the part of both God and the Devil to try and get a foothold back into human society and belief systems.
We all know that Hyrule was apparently created by three Godesses, but do we ever see them? Not just as a flashback or as a look-alike, but the real thing? No, but we've seen both Gods and demons, and actual souls ascending into Heaven (Granted, WITCHES' souls, but still.) Not to mention the original Link had a Cross on his shield, had a bible (Japanese version), and prayed to a Crucifix. Since the popular theory holds that these games are at the end of the Timeline, suffice to say that either the game had their own version of Jesus and God, or this is our universe, in the future. Some time in the future of man, a calamity will happen (probably the one that made the Games' monsters) that is so unprecedented that all of humanity loses faith in God and the Devil at once, instead opting to pray to three heathen Godesses. So, to get them to believe in Him again and save their souls from the still-powerful Devil, God proposed a competition: Once every 100 years or so, the Devil will release a Demon in human form and God shall release a Saint and/or angel in human form. The devil's soldier varies: wizards (Gannon/Vaati), cursed objects (Majora's Mask), literal demons (Bellum and Cole), or eventually he himself (Under the alias Malladus). God would always send a Pure soul, usually a trusted saint or an archangel, and would sometimes take the form of a great fish (His symbol) to aid him in this quest. Spirit Tracks, the point at which the Devil grew tired of this game and tried to just take over Hyrule by force, was meant to act as the rapture, and that form of Link (Coupled with Zelda, of course) acted as Jesus reborn.

Hyrule is Japan
Look at the Hojo family crest◊—clearly the ancient tales left an impression on somebody.

Redeads are the corpses of insane fangirls who write bad Zelda fanfiction
Resues — the evil creepy canon "rapists" of Zelda!Redead — the evil creepy undead "rapists" of Zelda!

Redeads are infact the corpses of Zelda fangirls who derail Link and others into their lovers and/or friends in fanfiction! It all makes sense! The creepy way they attack, the insane scary as all hell screams, etc. They still cling to the deluded belief that all of Hyrule; nay the world, love them and want them!

The reason Link has so many shipping options
Link is silent because he's meant to be an extension of the player. When you're playing the game, you can react to situations yourself, rather than just watching your character react. So, the developers set up so many non-specific relationships with female characters, so you as the player can decide for yourself who Link ends up with. If you think Link and Malon are clearly interested in each other, then they are. If you prefer to think that Link develops a relationship with Zelda, then he does. If you really want, he moves to Kakariko Village and eventually marries Anju (the cucco lady). Ironically, this pro-shipping stance is what causes massive shipping wars over which one is "canon."
  • Answer: They're all Word of Dante.
  • Canonically, none of the shipping options happen. At the end of the Ocarina of Time, Zelda sends Link back in time to when he was a child, creating two timelines. In the original timeline, the "Adult Timeline", where most of the game takes place, Link permanently disappears. If think about it for a little bit, Fridge Horror sets in. All of the people Link meets and becomes friends with never see Link again after the ending. Link's friends will live out the rest of their lives without ever seeing him again. Sure, the shipping options are still possible in the "Child Timeline" that Link gets sent back in time to, but the versions of the characters in that timeline aren't the versions of the characters that you met during the game.

The reason why items suddenly appear when you have the fitting item (eg. Finding bombs when you have the Bomb Bag)
It isn't shown, but Link is looting the enemies after he kills them. Link takes the item which he can use now, and if he finds arrows or bombs, he thinks that he don't need it (arrows, deku seeds) or can't carry it unlike he wants to blow himself up (bombs), until he finds a item that lets him use these. A little bit of a stretch, but why not?

Miyamoto has Moblins resemble dogs and Ganon resemble a pig because of two traumatic incidents as a child.
  • He was attacked by a dog, then he was attacked by angry male pigs. When he grew up, he created enemies based off of him.
  • More like chickens. It's cuccos that are death incarnate if you mess with them too much.

The 25th (NA) aniversery will include a public reveal of the timeline
Wouldn't it be the most awesome gift? I don't think it will be all of the stuff given (I think it will most likely be a compolation with the timeline under "bonus features").

The events Link goes through have a lot more blood and gore than shown.
Doylist perspective: Link leaves behind a lot more corpses than the games show. Due to the technical limitations of the consoles (a bunch of bodies lying around uses up RAM), as well as the need to keep the rating below M, the games show the bodies of Link’s enemies going poof in a way fitting for the art style. In-universe, there is a trail of corpses.

The exceptions to this are certain bosses, some spirit-type enemies like Poe, and the Garo. When they die, the Garo say that they will leave no corpse, implying that this is different than the other enemies. Some bosses do burn up in magic fire as the dark magic that created them dissolves. This is not universal among bosses (see King Dongongo). Spirits do not have bodies necessary to leave corpses.

I will admit that I like this theory mostly because it allows for the badass mental image of Wolf Link, while carrying Injured!Midna, muzzle soaked in the blood of the monsters that stood in his way while their corpses lay on the ground with their throats torn out. The Hero of the Twilight does have some serious Papa Wolf tendencies.

  • I must object to this. The Garo are nought but spirits now, for one. "Badass" said image may be (to you), Twilight Princess would've had the power to show this, and in fact just watch Zant's invasion to see that the dead soldiers didn't poof out of existence. Rusl, if you should visit him after c learing Faron of Twilight, is visibly bloody, so by all means there shouldn't be an issue with showing monsters bleed or leave their bodies behind rather than poofing instantly. Not to mention how NOBODY would be okay with that. (In-universe, I mean. Nobody would be mentally sound after that)

    Races and Cultures 

Humans (Hylians, Sheikah, Gerudo, Lokomo)

Hylians are on the extreme end of a spectrum and not a distinct species from humans.
In Hyrule, there are two subspecies of upright, tool-and-magic-using apes: short-eared Humans and long-eared Hylians. Interbreeding causes variations in ear length. As time goes on, more interbreeding takes place; it used to be that most Hyruleans were full-blooded Hylians, but by the time Twilight Princess or Wind Waker rolls around, there's been quite a lot of mixed marriages. This could also be why "human" and "Hylian" seem to be more interchangeable terms in games set later in the timeline.

The Hylians are Space Amish
Well, not literally from space, but they have knowledge of Magitek that probably approaches cyberpunk levels, and conventional technology at least on par with our world in the late 19th or early 20th century; they simply choose not to integrate it into their lives. Think about it: the most advanced (human) technology is consistently in the hands of eccentrics, entertainers, and criminals: the Lake Scientist's lab, the windmill guy's grinder organ, the Bamboo Technology mini-games, and the shady guys who sell you the bombchus in Ocarina of Time; Lenzo with his picto-boxes in The Wind Waker; one of the resistance guys using a bazooka-type thing in Twilight Princess, etc.

This becomes even more apparent in Skyward Sword: Skyloft (home of the Hylians' ancestors) is a sort of impressionist Arcadia, with no visible technology more advanced than a windmill, but at least one of the people there knows enough about the ancient robots to repair one to working order, Beedle's managed to rig up an airship, a pedal-powered propulsion system, and what appears to be a television(!) out of Bamboo Technology, and Groose has no trouble throwing a makeshift railway together in a matter of days. It even hints at a possible reason for their resistance to technology: the industrialized magitek civilization in Lanayru, which was implied to have caused the desertification that led to their demise.

The Lokomo are not a separate species.
Many people seem to be getting the impression that they are. But I don't believe that is explicit in the dialogue. The game says they are a separate tribe, but tribes are social constructs, not racial ones. As such, it is possible for an outsider to join a tribe. And yes, I am putting this forward to help support the "Anjean is Tetra" theory, as far too many people seem to be throwing it out based on the "separate race" idea.

Hyrule from the original Legend of Zelda and the Adventures of Link is a communist state.

In Zelda 2, there is no currency. Designated individuals in town will refill your life and magic meter. To get any other item or service, you have to run all over doing favors for people, in an underground bartering system. Scarcity is a real problem, as Link had to climb up and through Death Mountain just to get a hammer! Clearly, while the absolute necessities are provided, anything beyond keeping people alive is hard to find.

Also consider that all the merchants are hiding in caves, some behind walls you have to blow up, in the first LoZ game. Rupees are valuable gems in nations outside of Hyrule, but the government hoards these gems and forbids their use as a form of currency. So all the merchants hide in the most inhospitable portion of Death Mountain, running their black market from behind rock walls, protected by the wild monsters that roam the lands. They pack up shop once Link becomes a hero of the Crown, afraid that he'll rat them out.

"Lokomo" is just another word for "sage".
There's seven Lokomo, just like the sages in Ocarina of Time, and their respective colors match. Like the sages in Wind Waker, all of them have a respective instrument (except Byrne, but God knows if he had one). They come in handy on the final battle. They have the Lokomo Sword, and the Master Sword is connected to the sages, plus the swords even look alike. There's also the theory that the sages in OoT die before they awaken, which is basically ascending to a higher plane of existence, and the Lokomo did exactly this.

The Shadow Temple was used to train Sheikah Warriors
What better place for them to be trained than in Nightmare Fuel Central?
  • Because there is literally nothing scarier in all of Hyrule, QED they become fearless warriors... genius! So what's the Bottom of The Well for, easing them in?
    • The well is below the area the old man claimed the rich family that could "see the truth" lived on. Obviously, the place now referred to as the Bottom of the Well used to be their own private torture dungeon. Any relation to the Shadow Temple is coincidental, or perhaps the dungeon was based on the temple.

Redeads' masks are because of Hyrule's burial rituals
The mask is meant to scare away evil spirits that might lead the soul astray on their trip to the afterlife (which turns the soul into a Poe). The Sheikah also mummify the body, which is why Gibdos are just Redeads in gauze. The Gerudo, not being of Hyrule, don't do this and just mummify their dead, which is why Redead Knights don't have masks.

The Hylian language
While the Translation Convention means that whatever language is spoken in Hyrule is always rendered as English, a few hints can be sussed out about its vocabulary from thing and creature names:
  • Firstly, there's a tendency for humanoid enemies to have names ending in -fos — stalfos, lizalfos, chillfos, wolfos. The latter three used it as a modifier for something describing what they are — humanoid lizards, humanoid ice, humanoid wolves — suggesting that the same applies to the stalfos. Further, almost all skeletal enemies have names beginning with the stal- prefix — staltroops, Stallord, staldras, stalchildren, stalkoblins, etc. The most basic member of these undeas are hopping, animated skulls simply called stals — thus, "fos" can be presumed to mean "man" or "person" and "stal" to mean skull. This would make "stalfos" mean something like "skull-man" or "skull-person".
  • Items, enemies and characters related to plant life and the Lost Woods often incorporate the word "deku" in their names — deku scrubs, deku babas, deku nuts, the deku leaf, the Great Deku Tree. "Plant" and "forest" both seem possible translations, but the use of this term for animals with little connection to plant life beyond living in forested areas — such as the Deku Toad — suggests that "forest" or maybe "nature" is the most appropriate term.

Gerudo

The Gerudo are victims of genocide.
After the events of Ocarina of Time, the Royal Family was a bit more vengeful than Zelda let on and exterminated the desert people for Ganondorf's crimes. In Twilight Princess, the presence of the Mirror of Twilight, which was stated as used to sentence criminals to their apparent death, in the heart of Gerudo ruins supports this. It also explains Midna's dislike of Zelda early in the game. Combine this with Ganon using Zant to attack the royal family as the first target and the vagueness in the history of the Great War referenced to in Ocarina of Time (who DID attack first?), and we have a real "Chicken or the Egg" scenario on our hands.
  • Not to mention that the entire Arbiter's Grounds is a horrifying suggestion of what might have happened. Examine the architecture, and you will see many areas that appear to be the remains of older Gerudo architecture (Spirit Temple as an example) but are covered over with slightly 'newer' Hylian-like architecture, like the theatricals/execution ring at the top of the whole thing. Even Gerudo idols have been re-purposed. When you take into account that the Arbiter's Grounds was a PRISON, and that for some reason they were keeping a DRAGON there chained in a pit... all of those bones lying around there had to come from somebody, and it's more than a bit disturbing to realize that if your fridge logic's right, the Gerudo weren't just slaughtered: they were taken and punished for their 'crimes' in a death prison built over their own holy Spirit Temple... The Mirror of Twilight was probably only there to get it away from Hyrule major, it being a remote place for unpleasant things in Hylian eyes.
    • This would also explain why the Gerudo Desert is inaccessible by normal means of travel: the Hylian royal family tried to block it off so nobody would discover the truth.
    • Isn't this the same crap that led to the Sheikah building... oh no. Sweet Nayru no. If we go with this, that would mean that... that... that the Arbiter's Grounds are the Shadow Temple of the Twilight Princess world?
      • Imprisoning all the Gerudo in the Arbiter's Grounds seems both unfair (not all Gerudo sided with Ganondorf. Nabooru and her allies would have sided with Hyrule) and overkill (I think a grand total of three Gerudo know magic — Koume, Kotake, and Ganondorf. The Arbiter's Grounds seem to have been designed to imprison various magical monsters. Unless Ganondorf had a large army, the castle dungeons could have dealt with the rest of the Gerudo).
  • The pre-battle dialogue with Zant positively reeks of this theory. Watch here. And in the cutscene after you defeat him, Midna says "... a lust for power burning in your pupils... Did you think we'd forget our ancestors lost their king to such greed?" Now think back to Ganondorf...
    • Actually, no, it doesn't. The Twili were already in existence long before Ganondorf's execution... and said execution didn't even go through as planned; the sages ultimately had to banish him to the Twilight Realm. So how would that be seen as the Twili "losing their king?" He was subjected to the same fate as the rest of them. (If this is true.) Even if we ignore all that, though, Four Swords Adventures features the Gerudo populating Hyrule again, so they clearly weren't killed off.

The Gerudo are semi-nomadic.
The reason no Gerudo appear in Twilight Princess is because they have moved on to greener... well, less utterly inhospitable pastures. They have a system of forts dotted throughout the desert which they move between to rest their foraging areas and farm plots, and they happened to not be in the area closest to Hyrule during the course of Twilight Princess. It's entirely possible the Arbiters' Grounds were once one of these checkpoints now abandoned by the Gerudo, probably because of a lack of food sources nearby.
  • Supported by FSA, in which the Gerudo settlement is made of vaguely teepee-like buildings.

Some of the Gerudo are eunuchs.
It's not that only one male is born every hundred years, but that only one male is allowed to be born every hundred years, the rest castrated at birth. The evidence against it is clear, but while male Gerudo certainly won't be sneaking off to Hyrule to find boyfriends, it's not inconceivable that similar physiques could develop. The most obvious evidence comes from the game's usual Hurricane of Puns — say "Gerudo" very quickly and you'll see.

Forest People/Nature Spirits (Kokiri, Koroks, Kikwi, Minish)

Kokiri society is more advanced and worldly than it appears.
First, we know that the Kokiri have pretty much no contact with the rest of Hyrule. They aren't familiar with this thing called a "castle" Link says he's going to, and they believe that if they ever leave the forest, they'll die. There are also consequences if outsiders come in, meaning that there's probably no contact/trade going on.

Now look in some of the Kokiri's homes. We have what looks like well-made glass and glazed pottery. In Saria's house, you see very finely-woven fabric, not rough knitted-looking things like you'd expect. The fence around the training ground seems to be made of cut metal.

In link's house, there's a big, steel axe. There's also a pile of hay and a pitchfork in there. And across from that? A meat cleaver.

Kokiri that leave the forest begin to age, and that's why the GDT told them they would die
As a continuation of the above WMG, this troper adds that he speculated several years ago when playing OoT on the Zelda Collector's Disk for GCN that the actual reason the Kokiri will die if they leave the forest is that whatever magic keeps them young ceases functioning once they leave, meaning that eventually they will grow old and die.
  • Perhaps when Link's mother brought him to the Great Deku Tree, she convinced him to extend the magic to Link, so that while he would age to match the Kokiri, he would only "grow up" if he left the forest.
    • Or maybe anyone inside the forest stops aging naturally, and over time becomes a Kokiri and the reason no Kokiri ever points out the oddity of Link growing up, unlike the rest of them, is because all Kokiri are formerly Hylian children who escaped from the war. The Deku Tree blessed the forest so that no one in the forest would grow up.
      • Due to something hinted at in TWW regarding the spring water, that being The Great Deku Tree explaining that the water was not normal, and that it also expired if taken away from the forest, it's possible that the water within reach of any Great Deku Tree is akin to a Fountain of Youth. Anyone drinking this water with the blessings of the Great Deku Tree will not be permitted to age, or if so, ages at an extremely gradual rate. As for those who drink the water without GDT's blessing... Well, how do you think Stalfos and Skullchildren came to be? I think that the blessing has a cursed effect based on how impure the drinker is. Children become reclusive and twisted, whilst adults are turned into mindless monsters. It's explicitly pointed out than any adults who wander into the forest become Stalfos. Link is an exception to this, as he not only has the blessing of the late GDT, but then immediately is given this same blessing by his successor. Consider further that before the sprout took over guarding the forest, every monster that came to plague the village was either Plant or Water based. Once these monsters found the water was blessed again, they had to retreat or die.

The Kokiri/Koroks are forest spirits.
They're not a mortal race like the Zoras, Gerudo, etc. — they're embodiments of the forest and as such live as long as trees. They really will die if they leave the forest for too long — a spirit of fire wouldn't survive long in the snow, after all. As spirits, they/the Deku Tree can change their form as suits the era. And since the Deku Tree is the great spirit of the forest, they really are his children.

The humanoid Kokiri forms may have come about because Link needed to be adopted by the forest. That's why they're all broadly similar-looking to him and the same physical age. The Korok forms take less forest-magic to maintain, so they can stay out of the woods longer, and are sustained on their yearly journeys by the saplings they're planting across the Great Sea.

The Kokiri could leave the forest at any time
Being told that they would die referred to the sanctity and protection of the forest as a whole. When Hyrule is at peace again, with no more civil wars and Ganondorf out of the picture, they can party it up at Lon Lon Ranch in the game's end credits.

The reason Kokiri are forbidden from leaving the forest is that the exit leads to Hyrule Field
...which is filled with Peahats by day and Stalchildren at night. The promise of death by the sign isn't talking about either instantaneous magical death or aging — it's referring to being torn apart horribly.

The Kokiri are plant people
The Kokiri live in the forest and never age beyond adulthood. The reason they look to the Great Deku Tree for protection is that he created them. Also they evolve into the Korok in Wind Waker, and you can't just go from human to plant.
  • I just assumed it was canon.

The Oocca are an alternate form of the Kokiri.
After the Great Deku Tree died, they were incapable of preventing part or all of the forest from being clear-cut to create Ordon Village. They then abandoned the forest in shame and took on new forms to hide their failure.

The fairies, Ooccoo, and Minish originated from the same realm.
Fairies are often described as being celestial and a "Fairy" realm is often mentioned and it is heavily hinted that the Great Fairy springs (especially that of the Queen(s)) are actually portals to their own realm, which only they can use. The Minish are mentioned in their backstory to have ascended from the "Heavens" and same is true for the Ooccoo, we even see a celestial town of them. Conclusion: There's a giant realm somewhere in the skies of Hyrule, which is ruled by Fairies, Minish and Ooccoo.

The Picori and Fairies are the same species, just sexually dimorphic
We never see a male fairy aside from Tael (who comes from a parallel universe) or a female Picori. The logical conclusion is that these similar-sized creatures are the same species. To paraphrase The Dark Crystal, "I don't have wings!" "Of course not, you're a boy!"

Gorons

The Gorons are not native to Hyrule.
It’s shown in Skyward Sword that despite being one of the Surface Tribes that defended the land against Demise’s forces, the Gorons are really just mere wanderers exploring and excavating the areas Link comes to in-game. They are also conspicuously absent at Eldin Volcano, which later becomes Death Mountain later in the series, and at that point is the homeland of the Mogmas. In Wind Waker, despite the land of Hyrule being completely flooded and having wiped out most of its population, there are still Gorons present in the Adult timeline, which in this case are stated to have come from a “far away and distant” land. Quite possibly, they could have originally hailed from either New Hyrule or Holodrum.

Gorons are the pinnacle of evolution.
This is why, unlike the other races, they've never been shown to change or evolve in any of the numerous time periods seen throughout the series. They've already reached perfection.

Female Gorons exist.

They are never seen because the Gorons don't want you to bang them; they're that attractive, and the Gorons have a really bad case of Bizarre Sexual Dimorphism.

  • I've always thought we did see them, but both sexes appear the same.

Goron civilization survived the flood
When the Great Flood came, the Gorons were mostly unaffected. They're lithovores, so a food supply isn't an issue, and Twilight Princess showed that they don't require air to survive. Between their lack of reliance on others' goods and the difficulty in trading, they have very little contact with the races that survived on the mountain peaks. The Goron merchants we see in The Wind Waker are either adventurers or exiles trying to make a living in the lands above.
  • Confirmed in Phantom Hourglass. They inhabit an island farther out in the Great Sea.
    • Actually, the events of Phantom Hourglass take place in a separate world from the Great Sea.
  • Confirmed in The Wind Waker. Goron merchants can be found on various islands.

Gorons mate with humans and other tribes.
It's probably the only explanation available at this point, considering the evidence... across all of the games they've appeared in, all Gorons we've seen have belly buttons, and some of them (Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild) even go as far as to wear loincloths. If they had females, we would've seen one by now. What reason would they have for keeping them hidden? Or if both sexes look alike and the Gorons call each other "Brothers", then how is anyone going to tell males and females apart when it comes to mating?

A Link Between Worlds and Breath of the Wild provide further evidence of this — Rosso, one of the sages in ALBW, shares traits with both Gorons (his rotund stature, beady eyes, great strength, and proximity to Death Mountain) and Hylians (mainly his pointed ears), and a few of the Gerudo in BotW express an interest in accepting Gorons as their husbands.

  • This, however, only strictly requires them to gestate their children — all live-bearing mammals have bellybuttons, and taken by itself, their presence only requires Gorons to be placentals. Consequently, it's also theoretically possible that Gorons are a) hermaphrodites or b) reproduce asexually, and simply happen to give live birth and adopt masculine personas for whichever reason. Gorons are also permitted to enter Gerudo Town if they so wish, which in turn implies that they are at least not male in the way that the Gerudo use and understand the term.

Zora and Rito

Zora/Rito are, as a race, dependent on their physical god for their form.
In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the Zora revere their lord Jabu-Jabu, a giant fish. Also, the Zora possess scales, which they can give away. These scales can allow a non-Zora to gain impressive diving skills.In TWW, the Rito revere their lord Valoo, a dragon. Also, the Rito must receive a scale from the dragon, in order to grow the wings which allow them to fly across the great sea.Perhaps the Zora/Rito race are in-fact a very malleable, adaptable race of beings, able to take on the physical traits of other creatures by borrowing their scales. In this context, children are born bearing similar traits to their parents, but are not fully formed until they gain a scale from their physical god. Perhaps generations of these creatures taking on different scales could change the physiology of the race as a whole, or perhaps it can happen in a single generation.Now, what if a young Zora took on a leaf from the Deku Tree instead? Or a scale from the Great Dodongo? I'm not sure if a lava-swimming, bombflower-eating zora would be awesome or terrifying!

The rito were always a separate species from the zora.
The Wind Waker introduces the rito as descendants of the zora who left the seas and developed birdlike traits. Breath of the Wild later uses rito who besides coexisting with a population of zora, are much more outwardly birdlike — while the Great Sea rito could plausibly be very divergent offshoots of the game's ancient zora, the Breath of the Wild ones are too physically divergent for it to seem likely that they originated that way.

One potential solution is to assume that a distinct, fully avian rito species has always existed. Some support for this comes from the various games' maps of Hyrule. Most tend to show major landmarks in the same places (Death Mountain in the northeast, a large lake due south or in the southeast, a desert surrounded by highlands west or southwest, etc.), but which sometimes change in relative position between games; this can be explained by both increasing or decreasing cartographic accuracy in-universe and by Hyrule itself expanding and shrinking, so that something on its very edges may become more centrally located or vice versa. With that in mind, note that the snow mountain region of Snowpeak/Hebra only features in the far northwest corner of two games, Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild — other games put the Lost Woods there if anything in particular, which BotW has further east. This can be taken to mean that only those two games' Hyrules had expanded enough to cover it.

Now, in Breath of the Wild, Rito Village — presumably their traditional homeland, same as the other races' settlements — is smack in the middle of that same area that by the above logic most games simply wouldn't reach; note that its geography in Breath of the Wild also favors isolation, with the high massif of Hebra to the north, the deep rift of Tanagar Canyon south and east, and generally rocky and difficult terrain filling the area between these barriers. Between that and its geographical remoteness, it can be seen how only a Hyrule at its greatest extend could expand to cover this area and, consequently, an entire society could exist in isolation from the rest of the setting.

This would explain why "true" rito never appear anywhere else, but leaves the question of how the Great Sea rito got their name. This can be explained by assuming that stories of the original rito did reach Hyrule and survive into the Great Sea era, but the Future Imperfect prevalent there would have obscured any reliable history of the ancient rito tribe, perhaps until even the term "rito" became little beyond a synonym for "bird people" — one that the former zora, having come to terms with no longer being the same people as their forebears and casting about for a new identity, might very well have latched onto for themselves.

    Ganondorf 

Ganondorf's mother intentionally raised him to cheat the Gerudo prophecy for her own ends.
It is stated that the Gerudo only have a male child once in a century, and he becomes their king. However, Ganondorf's biological mother is Twinrova (Navi describes Koume and Kotake as "Ganon's surrogate mother," and he's got the same skin tone); thus, he doesn't actually have any Gerudo blood in him at all. You'd think the Gerudo would have enough basic biology knowledge to know that Ganon has the same fifty-fifty shot of being a man as any other non-Gerudo, and such an event really shouldn't be that rare. Thus, I believe the Gerudo didn't know about the arrangement.

I think it worked out something like this: A Gerudo woman and her concubine are exiled from the tribe and sent into the desert. They wander around until they find the Spirit Temple, where Koume and Kotake approach them. The woman makes some sort of deal to have them merge into Twinrova form and get impregnated by the concubine (poor bastard). Nine months later, the exile returns with a Gerudo son. To the Gerudo's knowledge, no non-Gerudo could have possibly survived out there long enough to carry a child to term. Besides, the boy doesn't look Hylian at all. Indeed, he's marked as special by his green skin, and even demonstrates magical abilities. They take him to be the prophecied son of the Gerudo, and thus Ganon is born.

  • Look up the definition of "surrogate" some time. By the very definition, Twinrova is/are NOT Ganondorf's biological mother. And this editor was under the impression that Koume and Kotake were Gerudo (with magic powers) the whole time anyway. In fact, I don't even understand this theory at all, even supposing you didn't know any of that. Just sayin'.
  • For that matter, go replay Ocarina of Time. Green skin?
    • Some people see Ganon's skin as a dark green. Though I never really saw it.

Twinrova brainwashed Ganondorf before the events of Ocarina of Time
Warning: Huge amount of text, even when I broke it up into smaller chunks.

This originates from an old theory of mine that Twinrova brainwashed Ganondorf into plotting to rule Hyrule. You'll have to bear with me on this, as it will take some explaining. And there are alternate versions I have developed based on uncertainties I have about various points of time. And just to clear things up, when I say Twinrova, I am referring to Kotake and Koume at the same time. Their unified form is a spell, or so I believe.

Ganondorf was born, but after x amount of years (or even during childbirth), his mother died. His father's whereabouts I really don't know, as I have yet to focus on the subject of what Gerudo do with the guys they abduct (or if any actually come along willingly; for all we know, the Hylian men who claim they were prisoners or taken by force could be lying their arses off to avoid persecution from their own people... moreso if they were already engaged or married). But in any case, sooner or later (typically while he's young and thus easier to mislead), Twinrova meet him. Now, being that they claimed to be over seven-hundred years old in Ocarina of Time (but we must remember that one or both could be senile, but they ARE old hags at any rate), they must had planned out a portion of the events. In one version of the events, they were responsible for Ganondorf's mother's death.

Anyway, Twinrova are kind to him and console him on his loss. In fact, as he starts to warm up to them, they begin teaching him magic. Minor stuff, of course. They intend to teach him the GOOD stuff when they have him firmly in their clutches. Later, within a few years before he's old enough to properly lead his people, Twinrova have Ganondorf come to their home (location unknown, but I believe that they have made an actual livable home beneath the sands of the Gerudo Desert) where they'll teach him a powerful spell as a gift for his oncoming rule or alternatively his birthday. They first give him a drink that weakens his mental resistance and then unleash the mind-controlling spell. Over the next decade or two (or three; I forget if he had a certain age at the time), they train him and mould him into the fierce, power-hungry warlock that we all know and love. He believes that he's the one in command, but he's just a puppet king.

Of course, you might be wondering about how come he's not free from their magic as he's reincarnated a lot of time. He is. However, he was under their spell for so long that his real personality is almost indistinguishable from the one he had when he stole the Triforce. However, there are moments when a psuedo-softer side of him is shown, such as in Wind Waker where he looks back and remembers the horrible desert winds and thinks that all he had done was for his people (note I said "thinks", as speech is a completely different thing).

Now that all that "exposition" is out of the way, I'll show you what led me to my initial thought that Twinrova had brainwashed Ganondorf.

First of all, remember that huge gem on his forehead? Yeah, the one that looked about as big as his fist. Very pretty, I know. Keep that in mind and remember Nabooru. When she was freed from being brainwashed by Twinrova into a loyal Iron Knuckle when the armor was broken off. I believe that Twinrova uses items to focus the mind-altering enchantment, which serves to keep the spell active even if the casters themselves died. The huge forehead-gem on Ganondorf is just such an item, although it is generally ignored by the Gerudo because everyone else has forehead gems (but not as huge as his).

  • Also supported in the Ocarina Of Time manga. Ingo and Nabooru are brainwashed in this way.

That initial connection led me to wondering about Ganondorf's past and if he was really the villain or if he was just another victim.

  • Twinrova was Ganondorf's surrogate mother. This would give him greater affection for her.

Ganondorf is not the same Ganondorf every time.
He is, in fact, the only male of the Gerudos, a race that only makes an in-game appearance once, in OoT, and then never again. However, unlike Link and Zelda, who only retain a small degree of memory from their past lives, Ganondorf remembers EVERY life he's gone through.
  • Given that the Gerudo seem to have died out by the time of most of the games, where is his mother coming from?
  • The Gerudo have been featured in four games. OoT, Majora's Mask (the pirates are obviously Gerudo, and if Termina's Gorons and Zoras are the same as Hyrule's, why wouldn't the Gerudo be?), the Oracle games (Koume and Kotake), and Four Swords Adventures (which can pretty much be slotted into the timeline anywhere, so Hyrule's Gerudo could very well have appeared a second time).

Ganondorf has the power of the Cucoos
That's why he's so powerful. But unlike the cucoos he can't call upon his brethren.
  • Jossed. The Master Sword, Light Arrows, and/or Silver Arrows can pierce Ganondorf's ultimate defenses. Not so for cuccos, who are 100% invincible and can only be made angrier.

Gannon does exist, and is a separate being from Ganondorf.
Gannon is a godlike being that sent its will into Ganondorf, and the spark of divinity is what makes him so resurrectable. Ganondorf is the Gerudo, Gannon is the god-being, and Ganon is Ganondorf-as-Gannon's-avatar. Either there was some confusion when Ganon took over prior to the first game, Ganon got full of himself, or Gannon for some reason didn't want to wait for the next time Ganon would be resurrected and just made a pig-demon body to use as his puppet.

Ganon is an immortal demon, Ganondorf is his seal.
Ganon seems to be the same beast in every game, but FSA and OoT have different Ganondorfs. This may be due to OoT Ganondorf being killed in TP. Ganon reincarnated as Ganondorf in FSA and was defeated, only to return in ALttP. Ganondorf may mean something equivalent to "demon's seal" in Hylian.
  • Confirmed in Skyward Sword. Ganondorf is the reincarnation of Demise's hatred.

Every game since OoT involving Ganondorf has been his punishment for defiling the Sacred Realm.
What worse a punishment for someone with endless ambition, someone perfectly suited to the Triforce of Power than an unending, never-ceasing existence being defeated by the same person (people, if you count Zelda)? Even worse, they don't remember beating him all the time, which would just burn you up, that sort of ignorance about you from people you had fought over countless lives. Ganondorf has likely realised this, but can't stop since his arrogance won't let him admit defeat, even to the makers of the world.

When Link fights other villains, it's just him being reincarnated to do some other jobs for the Goddesses.

Ganondorf will have a Heel–Face Turn in the "flooded" timeline
Someone on the Twilight Princess WMG page pointed out that, in The Wind Waker, Ganondorf indicates he has been giving thought to his ambitions during his imprisonment (while in the other one, he was plotting to once again Take Over the World!).

Ganondorf was Killed Off for Real at the end of The Wind Waker.
With the two split timelines, this Ganondorf's only other rise to power was during Ocarina of Time. The end of the game is both symbolic and literal in that the old Hyrule, the Master Sword, and Ganondorf are washed away forever. It is over. The Hero of Winds accomplished something that the various Links in the other time-line have never done, to this day. Sure, there are new threats in the subsequent games that are placed in this time-line, but the biggest to ever have hit Hyrule is ended. Meanwhile, in the other supposedly better time-line, you have the events of games upon games with Ganon getting progressively more insane and powerful, and being defeated only sets him back for a while until he is brought back again, just like Dracula in the Castlevania series.
  • Granted, the killing of Ganondorf is still rather troubling in this timeline in that in doing so, Hyrule was destroyed forever, the Master Sword can never be used to battle evil again, and Demise's curse will remain on the line of heroes so long as the bloodline/reincarnation continues, so sooner or later something will replace Ganondorf in this timeline, and the Wind Waker timeline swords that are used as replacements for the Master Sword don't seem to have its staying power...
  • Most likely true; however, there's still two other timelines to contend with, one of which lets you kill him twice (TP and FSA) and another that sees his end THREE TIMES (ALttP, OOS/A, and LoZ). Sure your timeline is safe?

Ganon(dorf) is more evil than Demise.
As You Know, Ganondorf is an incarnation of Demise's hatred. Now, this may sound like it makes Demise the entire series' evilest villain, but think about it. Normally, even if a person is powered by The Power of Hate, they still have something tempering it; even the most spiteful person has at least a tiny shred of goodness inside. Ganon doesn't. He's pure hatred, with no redeeming qualities or inherent goodness whatsoever. This makes him more evil than Demise was, and more evil than Demise could ever be, as Demise would be tempered by his own shred of goodness. Since Ganon is an incarnation of his hatred, though, and not a straight reincarnation, this means he doesn't have said shred.

While The Wind Waker may seem to disprove this, it actually shows Character Development. After being alive for so long, Ganon began to develop his own soul, gradually becoming less an entity of pure hatred and more a complete person. Perhaps the Triforce, seeing how it's a balance weighing the forces of Power, Wisdom, and Courage, is responsible for this in some fashion; maybe bearing one part of it causes properties from the other two to begin to rub off onto an individual to slowly make them more balanced, and Ganon was the only one who went long enough between reincarnations to show any signs of it. While this process doesn't seem to have been completed, no one can deny that it did begin.

Ganondorf and the giant blue pig man version of Ganon are from separate timelines
In one timeline Ganondorf is trapped in the sacred realm, and in the other he is free to go about his business but unable to act on his previous plans. This version of Ganondorf sought new ways to become powerful and ended up coming into possession of his signature trident (which happened in Four Swords Adventure, and was stated to be what turned him into his pig man form).

Note that recently he has been appearing as Ganondorf (i.e. the version sealed in the sacred realm at the end of OoT) in all the games, the blue pig man and his powerful magic trident have been strangely absent. However, despite not being the same, Ganondorf still has a connection to boars stylistically, giving him the illusion of being the Ganon we are familiar with. This means that the original Zelda games are all set after the child Link ending, while most of the new games are set after the adult Link ending.

  • I have to disagree. FSA Zelda calls him "an ancient demon reborn," and the inscription in the desert pyramid pretty much says that an ancient evil (presumably Ganon) had his spirit sealed away in the trident for some reason or another. We know that possessions are possible, so if the spirit was freed from the trident it'd likely take over the host body. Besides, in OoT Link was supposed to close the Door of Time, which coupled with the column of blue light suggest that he still opened the portal to the Sacred Realm in the past. There's no way Ganondorf would just let Link close the portal without claiming the Triforce first. The fact that Link still has Courage when he meets up with Zelda afterward means Ganondorf did actually claim Power, but was then unable to do anything with it because he can't get back to Hyrule.

"Ganon" is his given name.
His given name really is just Ganon, and the -dorf suffix is something you append to the given name of a Gerudo king when he takes power. So, Ganondorf expands out to something like "Ganon, King of the Gerudo". As time has gone on, his given name has been used more often for the beast form since it reflects what he really is, deep in his heart, while Ganondorf is used for his human form because it ties into his original Gerudo heritage, but it's technically correct to call the beast Ganondorf or to call the human Ganon.

Ganon was meant to get the Triforce of power, but he isn't using it the way the Goddesses intended, which was to help Link and Zelda to defeat Majora/Bellum once and for all

The sages in Twilight Princess were right: Ganon was chosen by the Goddesses. He was meant to be the incarnation of power, joining with courage and wisdom to wield to full power of the Goddesses to defeat Majora/Bellum to save all creation. Ganon was corrupted, however, and only uses it to serve his own evil ends.

Phantom Ganon is more important to Ganon's plans than just ego stroking.
Every time Ganon is killed or otherwise incapacitated, his consciousness and full powers are transferred to his Phantom. The Phantom thus becomes his new body and he continues his conquest anew. It's a slow process, though, which is why Ganon doesn't just get cracking immediately.
  • To connect this with the Spirit Tracks WMGs above: The Demon King is actually Phantom Ganon with Ganon's consciousness. Would explain the whole Phantom theme in a game that has no Bellum whatsoever in it... but that would also mean that the Evil Chancellor wants to put Ganon into Zelda's body... UGH.
  • In OoT, Phantom Ganon was "banished to the realm between dimensions." Thing is, Ganon was banished in a similar fashion. When the legends say that Ganon escaped the Sages' seal, they were half right: Ganon escaped by transferring to the banished Phantom and breaking out of that seal.

Gannon is the real Demon King
Unfortunately, like a certain other fellow, merely saying his name gives him power. That's why Nintendo had to "change" his name for the rest of the series. Fandom Enraging Misconceptions are how the foolish are stopped from inadvertently helping this creature of pure evil from getting stronger.

Additionally, this means that TSA is in fact the latest incarnation of Link. Why else do you think he can power through the games so quickly?

    Dark Link 

All the Dark Links aren't evil, they are parallel universe versions of the player and hero, Link.
A Link Between Worlds seems to demonstrate and lean towards this. If there are multiple parallel universes and multiple timelines in the Zelda Omni-verse, then the representation of all these countless Links running around appear as dark shadowy figures. The problem is, both players will see each other as an evil entity, and attack, without considering or understanding the other's true nature.

Dark Link is the Hero's Shade
After losing to Link in the Water Temple, Ganondorf cursed him just like he cursed Phantom Ganon. Before the events of Twilight Princess, Dark Link realises that if Ganondorf dies, he will be free, and then he appears as a wolf to King Bulbin to lure him to Ordon so that Link has a reason to start on the quest to kill Ganondorf. The reason he appears as a wolf is because as the shadow of the Hero of Time, he can transform into the same shape as any of the Links, but with red eyes and a different colour scheme. The first and only necessary technique he teaches Link is the one that is used to kill Ganondorf. Presumably after the defeat of Ganondorf, he escapes the curse. Also note that his final words are "Go forth and do not falter, my child," He calls Link "my child" because as the shadow of Link they are related probably. The go forth and do not falter is just him wanting Ganondorf to be dead as soon as possible so he is telling Link to not do any side-quests until the death of Ganondorf.
  • Another line by that same character josses this:
    Hero's Spirit: "Although I accepted life as the hero, I could not convey the lessons of that life to those that came after. At last, I have eased my regrets."
    • Potentially de-jossed, as Dark Link could be the remnant of an erased timeline where Link became corrupted. The Goddesses decided to screw with time and erase that. However, Link was too strong, and he remained as a shadow. He decided that if he couldn't BE the hero, he would redeem himself by training the Hero of Time to face Ganondorf. Their encounters are Dark's attempts to HELP him, not destroy him. The Hero's Shade trains Link as well, so they could be one and the same...
  • Jossed by Hyrule Historia.

Vaati is Shadow/Dark Link
What do we know about Vaati? We know he is a master swordsman, and that he has worked with Ganon; could it be that Ganon frees Vaati from the Four Sword every so often to help kill Link? It'd also explain why Shadow Link is the final boss of AoL; he's Ganon's most loyal servant.

Dark Link's sword is Ghirahim
.After all, they're both basically a "dark" version of the Master Sword. And I imagine he'd be delighted with any arrangement that means he gets to carry on hurting Link.

    Setting 
Hyrule is a lost colony.
Hyrule is not the primitive society it seems or, in some cases, more advanced. Hyrule is simply a lost colony of a distant earth, the various bits of magic are just advanced science the masses no longer have the capacity to understand, and the supposed "reincarnation" of heroes and villains is just whatever craft they came in executing its programming to preserve the crew.
  • Link = Captain/Leader: who better to lead a new colony too far away to receive aid from earth then a courageous to a fault and charismatic leader?
  • Zelda = Head scientist: known for being extremely intelligent, she would have made an excellent leader for a research team investigating a new planet.
  • Ganon/Ganondorf = Head Mechanic/Technician: a powerfully built man with the strength and cleverness to keep everything working properly.
This would explain an unprecedented amount about the LOZ universe. For example, the Master Sword, the Triforce, fairies, monsters in general, and even the schizo tech we see across the games.

The Triforce is just a set of administrator keys to the systems that control the extremely advanced technology that allows a cloud of nanites in the air to disassemble and reassemble nearly anything, but due to its potential destructive capabilities you need all three department heads or their nearest equivalent to activate the system. The glowing orbs of light referred to as fairies are just clusters of nanites programmed to care for the crew and settlers, as well as ensure that if they die their DNA combination will reappear not long after.

The Master Sword is just a decorative blade from the homeworlds, but since it comes from a much more advanced place its unusual durability and sharpness can't be replicated. The same goes for the various out of place advanced bits of machinery in places like the Lanaru desert in Skyward Sword. For that matter, Skyloft is probably built from the remains of the ship, or at least its engine system.

However, the truly genius part of this theory is monsters — all the strange and terrifying creatures the player/Link slaughters their way through are either alien life upset about the terraforming of their world, or artificial life meant to perform menial labor. For example: Deku scrubs, semi-intelligent, good at digging, and very shrewd merchants. Like-Likes, they confiscate objects made out of wood, working as living biofilters to keep out alien materials. Zora, intelligent and capable of aquatic habitation. Gorons, strong but not too bright. All of this can be explained by bioengineering. This process may even be ongoing as the world changes explaining the disappearance of certain species right as others come into existence, like the swap of Zora for Rito.

There is more than one Hyrule.
In the Adult!Link timeline after Ocarina of Time, Hyrule is eventually flooded, which leads to Wind Waker. WW-Link defeats Ganondorf and sets out with Tetra in search of a land where they can create a new Hyrule to compensate for the original which is now permanently lost under the sea (Phantom Hourglass happens along the way). Spirit Tracks will feature this 'new Hyrule' in which Princess Zelda attempts to rebuild the kingdom, with Link helping by exterminating the monster populations, charting new areas, and setting up a transportation network.
  • This theory has been around for quite some time now. A hint towards it is that Hyrule castle seems to be in two different kinds of terrain in each of the Oracle games' intros (leading some to believe that each of them takes place in one of the two timelines). It would also explain why the geography of Ocarina of Time/Twilight Princess/Wind Waker is so radically different from the geography in the original game/Zelda II/A Link to the Past.
    • The Links in both Oracle games are one and the same, so both games are set in the same timeline. But yes, in many games Hyrule's geography is very different compared to others, which could be explained by this theory.
    • Couldn't it be that the Oracle games simply were the point where the timelines merged again? With very similar people? Wouldn't that explain why the order you play the game in doesn't really matter (since it would happen parallel anyway?)
    • Depending on what timeline would prevail over the other, that would imply that either every game chronologically following Wind Waker never happened (because Hyrule 1 was never flooded and thus everything onwards is erased) or that everything chronologically following Twilight Princess never happened. And if both timelines somehow WERE successfully merged without one deleting the other, we'd have two Princess Zeldas, two Links, two Master Swords, two Triforces of Courage and Wisdom and two Hyrules filled with clones (assuming Hyrule 1 isn't suddenly flooded in the fusion and everyone dies). Not to mention the huge mindfuck historians would face...
  • Be fair, it's possible that since they're the temporal equivalents of each other, the more important characters merged, or fused. The less important characters and resulting landscape, however, was damaged, fused improperly, or straight up obliterated, therefore accounting for the fewer people, and lower level tech and culture, despite the earlier games occurring later chronologically. This is possibly why Ganon is only defeated in the original game; he was using the dual universe mechanic to keep himself alive, as he couldn't be killed unless he was killed in both universes at the same time, having been there when they were split.
  • Confirmed, insofar as Spirit Tracks is set in a second country called New Hyrule.

The Gorons are causing the geography of Hyrule to shift between games
... by eating the veins of delicious rock. This causes land to shift down, and, via excretion, rise in places. Mountains disappear due to Goron overpopulation, and new ones form due to Biggoron death. Death Mountain is not a specific place, but a mistranslation of the word "volcano", or possibly a title for a dangerous mountain, in any case being the name given to whatever mountain the Gorons are in the process of devouring at the point in time of the game, resulting in all the hazards. Geographic features, like forests, the lake, and habitation, all shift around as the rising and falling land causes climate patterns and soil quality to shift (the lake moving due to slope and rising of the lakebed from under-the-bed Gorons).
  • This means that they are the REAL reason that most of the world in The Wind Waker is underwater: The Gorons ate up all the land ;)
    • I would hate to see what happens when those Gorons die... *SPLASH*

Termina is the result of trying to prevent a time paradox, and the Twilight Realm is its future state
When Link was sent back in time in OoT, the flow of time itself was disrupted. In order to preserve the natural flow of time and prevent a split timeline, a second world (Termina) was created retroactively in order to "absorb" the extra timeline by being constantly destroyed over and over, playing out the same scenario with every repetition (perpetual "termination", if you will). However, when Link destroyed the Moon and saved Termina, this cycle was disrupted and the timeline split permanently. The reason why the Twilight Realm has a "dark and gloomy" feel to it is because it was created as a realm that was never meant to last, so it is constantly locked in a state being of just about to descend into oblivion, or "twilight".

Termina, the world of the Ocean King, and Koholint Island are one and the same
The Windfish is the united form of the four Giants from Majora's Mask. Also, the Wind Fish and the Ocean King are one and the same (which is supported by the fact that they are both whale-like gods).

Originally, the Wind Fish / Giants / Ocean King was supposed to stay asleep to keep the dream world of Termina existing, but after the Majora-incident, this dream world was, after all, infested by Majora's Mask's evil, and it would later manifest as Bellum from Phantom Hourglass, aka The Nightmare from Link's Awakening. Note how Bellum's full title in Japanese is "Dream Demon Bellum". Also: Bellum's eyes look a lot like Majora's Mask's eyes. So—> Majora's Mask—> destroyed—> essence becomes Bellum: Dream Demon = Nightmare.

First, the Ocean King / Wind Fish was able to hold everything pretty well together, so the evil power was "only" resulting in the flooding of Termina (similar to the flooding of Hyrule, only that it happened in both timelines here), but as time passed, the evil grew stronger and stronger and (in Timeline Number 1) consumed most of the dream world, until only Koholint Island was left and it wasn't possible to stop the evil anymore without giving up on what was left of that world. Because of the split-timeline, however, a sooner Link (aka Wind Waker Link) arrived in the dream world in Phantom Hourglass (Timeline Number 2) and could stop the process, before it was as advanced as in the other timeline in ''Links Awakening".

So, to sum it all up: The giants are becoming the Ocean King, who is later known as the Wind Fish, and Phantom Hourglass is basically Link stopping the Ocean King's dream world from becoming Koholint Island in the second timeline as well.

Supporting this Theory: All three of this world have many characters who are considered Expies of characters from the corresponding predecessor game, even in-game. It is common for dream-dimensions in fiction to have their population based upon people from "the real world". Then there's the way Link is shown entering those worlds in all of the three games: In Majora's Mask, he gets a short sequence that looks like childish-doodles on Speed; in Link's Awakening, he, well, awakens on the shore of Koholint Island. Phantom Hourglass unites aspects of both of this instances, by having Link wake up on a shore, after having a pretty acid-like vision of Tetra's light being swallowed by darkness. Another thing that is supporting this theory: The way the wind fish and the Ocean King tend to reward Link's helpers: Marin was wishing for wings, Linebeck was wishing for being able to travel the seas in his S.S. Linebeck. Neighter of them was wishing to see the "Real World". Yet, both of them suddenly turn up and get their wishes granted in Link's world, after the quests is completed: Marin flies away as angel/seagull and Linebeck's ship is spotted on the horizon by Link, after he and Tetra returned. The Wind Fish/Ocean King probably intentionally rewarded them both with "freedom from the boundaries of the dream world", in addition to granting their wishes.

Termina/the sea from Link's Awakening are a dream world alternate universe to Hyrule
There's no way to get from one to the other in the four-dimensional universe. They connect across a sort of "dream bridge" where in someone from Hyrule must go into a dream/coma/trance to visit the other realm, and even then only with Oshus's help. That's not to say it's all just a dream, even if it appears so to observers. It's real, because sometimes things can cross over. One other thing: this realm does not suffer from the "split timeline" that Hyrule does.

The brother God, Oshus, created Termina/the great sea/the dream realm to trap evil away from Hyrule
As such, Oshus set himself as the great guardian of creation. He's appeared as Oshus, the Wind Fish and the four giants. And as for the world he calls home?

Oshus is losing ground
Every time Majora/Bellum gains power, it affects more and more of Oshus's realm. In Phantom Hourglass, the ghost ship (an extension of Bellum) even reached into the realm of Hyrule. Time itself may be coming to a close, signalling a final confrontation with Majora/Bellum and the Goddesses, who will use their incarnations, Link, Zelda, and Ganon, to battle the monster once and for all. So it remains to be seen: will Ganon team with the good guys and stop Majora from destroying all creation, or will he join it and destroy all reality?
  • BEST. FANFIC IDEA. EVER. Seriously, this would be a perfect way to get loads of different concepts from the Hyrulean mythology and dump them all together into this one epic story.

The Lost Woods was cursed in a war between the Kingdom of Ikana and the Garo warriors.
The Kingdom of Ikana was at war. The noble Garo warriors from Stone Tower Temple challenged the the rule of the king, Igos du Ikana. The Garo Masters saw Ikana as an unfit ruler, and chose to remove him. Ikana's most trusted general, Keeta, led his army of Stalfos Knights into battle against the Garo. The war continued for years, and it eventually became clear that Ikana was losing the war.

Keeta was running out of soldiers. With no other options, he turned to the children of the Kingdom. Child soldiers known as Stalchildren were used in the war, but they were not enough. Ikana sent Stalfos Knights and Stalchildren to travel through the forest to the south to Hyrule to ask for assistance. However, while they were in the forest, the Stalfos Knights were ambushed by Garo and completely wiped out. Some Stalchildren managed to escape, but they were quickly cut down in the fields on the way to the castle town. The Garo cursed the forest, which was the only road between Ikana and Hyrule, and made it so that anyone who tried to travel through the forest would lose their way and die. The forest would later be known as the Lost Woods.

The war in the Kingdom of Ikana never ended, and the entire kingdom was cursed so that the dead would rise from their graves and haunt the land. The Garo remained in the Kingdom, waiting at their posts ready to fight should the Stalfos return.

The fallen Stalfos Knights refused to give up, even in death. Although the woods were now cursed, they were originally part of the holy Kokiri Forest, and the Knights were reborn as fairies. The fairies went to the Kokiri people and made a pact. The fairies would protect the Kokiri from the Garo's curse, and the Kokiri would promise to one day free Ikana Canyon from the curse that now plagued it.

Eventually, Link, a Hylian boy raised by the Kokiri, would travel to Ikana Canyon and defeat the Garo Master at Stone Tower Temple. He would destroy Twinmold, the temple's guardian, and break the curse on the Kingdom of Ikana once and for all.

  • This would, of course, discount the earlier theory that Termina is an Alternate Universe from the main "Hyrule-verse". Or it's perhaps a case of one discounting the other. If this one is true, then Termina CAN'T be an AU. But then, if Termina IS an AU, this theory isn't possible.
    • There is at least one passage between the two AUs. That's how the game was possible in the first place.

Every parallel universe to Hyrule, no matter if dreamt or real (they are possibly all the same anyway according to another WMG) is ahead of Hyrule's time by at least a century.
  • Let's take Link's Awakening first: We don't know how technologically advanced Hyrule was in A Link to the Past, due to the shallow story, but we know for sure that it didn't have any phones or crane-games, like Link's Awakening does.
  • Next, Majora's Mask: Termina seems to be reeeeaaally ahead of Hyrule as well, featuring a working clock-tower, fireworks, and the complete set-up for a Pop-concert.
  • OK, now let's take a look at Phantom Hourglass: While The Wind Waker had a few technological advancements from Ocarina of Time, like the actual invention of the aforementioned Picto Box and the perfection of cannon technology (which, about the same time, came also up in the other timeline), it had no electricity or steam-technology yet. This would only come up after the great spirits' imprisonment of the Demon King in the Spirit Tower (giving them the spirit tracks and thus the base for even coming up with the idea of inventing trains in the first place) — enter Linebeck and his Steamboat Willie.
  • Next, Twilight Princess: The Twili are stuck in a parallel dimension. They somehow have mastered the ability to warp, which seems to be lost at this point in Hyrule. Their architecture seems to be highly advanced as well. As well as the City in the Sky, which is just above Hyrule. They made a city that hangs in the sky with no means to support it and advanced architecture.

The Shadow Temple is the Royal Family's Tomb
The title says it all.
  • And furthermore, it's the real Royal Family's Tomb. The one right below the entrance, where Flat and Sharp's ghosts live? That's just for tourists...
  • That actually makes some kind of sick, twisted sense, if we look at everything:
1) The Sheikah are the guardians of the Royal family, and there would have had to have been a lot more dead royals than would fit in the "official" royal family's tomb.2) The Shadow Temple is booby-trapped like freaking crazy, just as ancient cultures (i.e., Egyptians) would place traps in royal tombs to prevent grave-robbers from getting in there.3) The talking walls allude to a great tragedy of the Sheikah at the hands of the Royal Family, and how the Shadow Temple is built from their bones (paraphrasing). Given the number of skulls in there, that would work, but let's take it one step further. The Sheikah built the tomb of the Royal family from the bodies of deceased Sheikah as a sort of proxy guard for the afterlife. Many ancient cultures would kill off the king's attendants so that they could serve him in the next world. Hell, with the Shadow Temple, it's more of a Choose Your Own Death. But, after the betrayal during the Great War, they set up the talking walls so that any Royal who went to pay tribute to the deceased would be reminded of exactly what the ancestors had done.4) Ganon corrupted the Temples, so that would explain why the Shadow Temple turned from a royal tomb into the skull-lined killer sewer of evil we all know and fear.

Of course, if we go with this logic, then that would suggest that all those ReDeads in there are the revived corpses of the Royal family. Meaning you're being face-raped by Zeldas of yore.

The Dark World/Twilight Realm/Light Realm and possibly Termina are the same place
It begins as The Light Realm from Ocarina of Time. Ganondorf corrupts it other than the Light Temple, turning it into the Twilight Realm. After his defeat, the Gerudo are banished to the Twilight Realm, but not before the Happy Mask Salesman is able to buy Majora's Mask off of them. The Twili are the descendants of the Gerudo, shaped and twisted by the twilight realm, which is why both are matriarchal and tend to have red hair. It would also explain why the Twilight Realm is accessible from the Gerudos' former home in the desert.

The series takes place on Earth After the End.
This idea comes mostly from the "ancient robots" in Skyward Sword. Supposedly, an ancient civilization had much more advanced technology than exists in the current times before being destroyed.

Earth is in a possibly alternate timeline of post flooded Hyrule on the Wind Waker split. Old Hyrule is at the bottom of the seas just south of Japan.
First off, the constellations in Wind Waker are the same as Earth's, such as Orion and Ursa Major. It appears that many of the symbols from Hyrule became town emblems of several southern Japanese cities in the modern day. For instance, the island village of Aogashima has a town flag that looks like the inverted Triforce insignia◊ found on the doors of Outset Island, both of which are on the far south of the area of islands they are grouped with. At the end of Wind Waker, Link, Tetra, the sages, and the pirates embark on an expedition to found a new Hyrule on a large landmass. If they went north, they probably came across mainland Japan, and began colonizing it. Spirit Tracks actually takes place in southern Japan. As for alternate timeline, due to the lack of modern historical or folk Hylian records, it's likely that Ganondorf never managed to free himself from the flooded Hyrule, and Japan was colonized by ordinary citizens who were unaware of the old legends. It might not be alternate, though, if the folk tales and records just faded with time, of if the area was struck with a catastrophe, setting technology back with the rest of the world and destroying the old records.

Hyrule is tectonically unstable
The map and layout of Hyrule tends to change rather dramatically from game to game. Some broad details remain fairly consistent, most notably Death Mountain in the northeast corner, with a river flowing from it and connecting to Lake Hylia in the south, fields and plains in the center, and a desert surrounded by cliffs in the southwest. Their precise sizes, shapes and locations, however, tend to shift from game to game, and other locations have little to no fixed place. The Lost Woods in particular has inhabited the map's northwest, due north, south and extreme east, a snowy mountain region tends to fade in and out of existence in the northwest, Kakariko Village is also well-known for appearing in wildly different locations each game, and the seas in Breath of the Wild are nowhere to be seen in the other games. Even the more stable locations are prone to shifting — Lake Hylia is usually in the southwest corner, but is due south in Ocarina of Time and Breath of the Wild and due west in Twilight Princess.

Some of this can explained by Hyrule as a realm contracting and expanding (as a country's borders stretch, for instance, a location on its borders can become centrally located; similarly, the Hyrule in Breath may simply be the only one to expand far enough to reach the seas). The more extreme changes, however, imply more significant in-universe alterations of the landscape. One way to explain this is to assume that the world of Hyrule is much more tectonically mutable than our own, and that dramatic changes to the landscape are rapid enough that, even if they aren't too much of an issue over a single game's timespan, historic timespans can still see significant changes to the landscape.

The larger and more stable features, such as Death Mountain and the southern cliffs-and-deserts complex, are the least affected by these changes and remain stable anchors through the ages. The vast, deep Lake Hylia sees its coastlines and islands shift and change but mostly retains its general scope and presence, although shifts in the crust beneath it occasionally cause it to flow into new basins — the mountains to its east in Breath of the Wild, for instance, which aren't seen in other games, may have been a relatively recent uplift that forced the waters west. Purely ecological and cultural features are the most deeply affected by these changes, as people and animals usually just have to pack up and move when the landscape turns against them. Thus, there have been multiple iterations of Kakariko Village, built and left behind over the ages as different locations became or ceased to be suitable living areas, while shifts in climate, temperature and rainfall over time caused different parts of the country to become covered in thick forest or to turn barren.

Notably, however, Hyrule Castle is always in more or less in the same place. This could be attributed to divine favor protecting it from the worst of the changes... or it could just be that its original builders happened to notice an unusually stable spot and decided that that seemed like a smart place to build their capital on.

This is likely true for all other locations in Hyrule's world, which can be seen in the geographical changes seen in Labrynna in its past and present ages in Oracle of Ages. Over a period of four hundred years, a large tract of sea dries up, a new river comes into being, and several islands in the sea move to the west.

    Miscellaneous 
Not all people are strong mages but most can at least some magic.
Link floating items over his head isn't only a simpler way of doing it, or else he would've stopped in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Instead it's a levitation spell. Most people learn it in Hyrule's world at an early age and they do it not only too seem cool but because it's an easy way to stay safe. Preparing food but has a cold you don't wanna pass over to your family? Levitate it and the tools so you won't touch with germy hands. Not sure what's in a chest, levitate it so if it was dangerous like a taratula, snake, poison, etc, you wouldn't have touched it. Something dropped into the toilet? Levitate it out without getting dirty. It's super useful! The reason I don't think Hylians only can do it is that Ilia does it, Link in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time does it and he was raised by Kokiri, sereval does it in Hyrule Warriors, etc.

Demise was responsible for Link being sealed away for seven years in Ocarina of Time.
We know that the Master Sword caused this to happen, and at first one would think to blame it on Fi, as the spirit of the sword. But there is more than one sentient presence within it, as it absorbed Demise's soul when he was defeated. It would make perfect sense for whatever remained of Demise to ensure that Ganondorf obtained the Triforce instead of Link.

Byrne is either...
  • A Face–Heel Turn version of WW/PH Link, or
  • The son of WW/PH Link and Tetra/Zelda.
Either way, but he has to be related to those two. He has those long elvish ears, which WW stated was significant. That fact that his weapon is a hookshot also helps.
  • Not likely, as Byrne is a Lokomo, a separate species.
  • Alternatively, Byrne was so utterly and shamefully defeated in a "nice friendship battle" between him and (adult) TWW Link that he swore to become stronger than a person with the power of gods/spirits/whatever is big and mighty. This would make Byrne's whole motivation a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero. But we should be used to those from Link right now.

Legends aren't accurate.
The issue with the creators' comments is that they disregard the timeline of some of the portable Zelda games. An alternate theory is that the story of Link, Zelda, and Ganon is a literal legend, told around the world of Hyrule by different people at different times—Literary Agent Hypothesis for the win. Every version of the tale has a slightly different plot and window dressing but keeps the same basic elements; like the Arthurian legends of our own world. Playing each game is like listening to a different version of the tale, with the same characters, setting, and overall plot, but a different story in the end. As said above, though, the creators themselves have stated that this is not the case, making this one of the many theories that requires the creators to be flagrant liars.
  • According to one interview, Shigsy stated that this is what he intended for the series. The part about it being a Word of Mouth tale that changes with the telling, allowing the creators to do whatever the hell they wanted, without worrying about continuity, not the part about the creators being flagrant liars.
  • Funny thing is, this makes a pretty good explanation for all the reuse of monsters and items, particularly in the case of Four Swords Adventures (blatantly similar to A Link to the Past) and Oracle of Seasons (reuses a lot of bosses from the first Zelda, and even has the same eyeglass-shaped lake). In both cases, old legends were rewritten to fit into a newer age's mythos.
    • This reader's hypothesis is that OoT, MM, TP, WW, and PH are all part of a single (albeit split) timeline, and that all the rest are part of at least one "another legend" storyline — hence the reused plot elements, characters, etc. Fans have succeeded into stringing most of the rest into a fairly sensible timeline — it's just hooking them into the OoT line that remains highly dubious.
    • Considering that OoT is an adaptation of LttP 's imprisoning war, essentially rewriting it to fit in dungeons and a hero, this reader has always considered LttP and its confirmed sequels (LA, LoZ, and AoL) to exist in an alternate reality to the OoT-related games, in which no hero emerged during OoT 's story. Conversely, WW's backstory is a parallel to LttP, with the return of Ganon after his first defeat, but again no hero shows up, and problems ensue.
    • If no hero showed up, how would there even be any world for the later games to take place in?
      • In A Link to the Past/Triforce of the Gods, the backstory tells of the Imprisoning War/Seal War, where no hero was found to wield the Master Sword but the Knights of Hyrule managed to hold back Ganon long enough for the sages to close the door between the Light World and the Dark World, trapping Ganon in the Dark World. In the game itself he escapes using Agahnim. Ocarina of Time was meant to be the Imprisoning War but didn't really match the details. This is one of the biggest issues with timeline theorists, trying to reconcile the different accounts. Miyamoto gutting the story from Four Swords Adventures didn't help either; supposedly it would have explained a lot but it just ended up adding to the mess. Alternate reality where the Hero of Time didn't exist isn't a bad explanation really.
  • Actually a pretty good explanation. Just think: many many hundreds of years ago, everything in Zelda happened, so many different versions of the story are bound to be told, with many different elements. The first game is the most primitive version of the story, probably why it's given the plain title of The Legend of Zelda. Other games emphasise different elements. The whistle in LOZ could be a corruption of the Ocarina in Zelda 64. And the fact Link uses a raft in a few stages could be the source of the sailing in The Wind Waker. And how Link goes to all the dungeons collecting medallions? This might have been corrupted in the original legend into having Link collect pieces of the actual Triforce itself.
  • While I still hold to the idea that all the games take place in the same continuity (with the alternate timeline of Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess still present), I have considered the possibility of Wind Waker being a "what if" scenario" where Link doesn't appear during ALTTP and Ganon's plan to reenter the Light World via Agahnim's sacrifice of maidens succeeded, resulting in the Flood. The only issue to resolve here would be explaining the relocation of the Master Sword from the Lost Woods to Hyrule Castle.
    • OK, same author here. Forget my previous idea. It's pretty clear despite Never Say "Die" that Agahnim killed the King of Hyrule during his rise to power (we even see the King's skeleton in the opening cutscene). That would not work, as the King has to still be alive for the storyline to lead to The Wind Waker.
  • This all means that the Majora's Mask would have been... the scary bedtime story that grampa tells you after your parents have finished telling you the real legend. "But, Jimmy, you want to know what happened to the Hero of Time after he saved Hyrule? Well, you see, Navi flew away, and he was following her..."
    • Not necessarily. The theory really only applies to the Hyrule legends. The non-Hylian legends may or may not have happened as they have been described. Majora's Mask is in the same mould as Ocarina of Time, and since the latter is a quite reliable source, we can assume that most of what happens in Majora's Mask did happen the way it is portrayed, despite the lack of corroborating evidence. Just to draw on a perfectly sane Biblical comparison, the four accounts of Jesus' life contain numerous incidental variations, while only one of them (Luke's) is followed up by an account of what his disciples did after that. Like The Acts, Majora's Mask is the only version of events we have of the Termina legend, so we have no choice but to accept it as accurate and reliable.

On a similar note, it is possible that the LoZ series is "true", but it has become legend over time.
  • Basically, Ganon has come back and menaced Hyrule many times, and many times he has been defeated by a chosen hero. However, he is not always defeated by a person in a green tunic wielding the Master Sword. However, over time the storytellers have sort of decided to focus on the most famous tale: the image of Link that we know him as, wearing a green tunic and using the Master Sword. This accounts for the (sometimes small, sometimes large) differences in every Link's background: except for in one or two cases, they weren't Link, at least as we know him.

Link is a father and the legends are just bedtime stories for his kids.
Link told his kids the Legend of Zelda, named after his wife. The kids loved it, so the next night, he told them about the adventure of Link. The kids eventually got bored with these stories and insisted that he told them a new story. Unfortunately, that's the only story Link knew, so he rehashed the plot for the rest of the stories while adding new characters, story elements, and plot devices. The story of the Ocarina of Time was the his kids' favorite story, so that's why it has the most stories connected to it.
  • So basically Link is a fantasy!version of Ted.

Bellum from Phantom Hourglass is a mental illness.
Alright, hear me out. Oh, and no spoiler tags, because You Should Know This By Now. In Link's Awakening, a god resembling a giant white whale dreams an entire island, and suffers nightmares which manifest on the island as monsters. Similarly, the Ocean King is a god resembling a giant whale which rules over what is, according to the end of the game, an alternative world. Bellum, a monster who attacks this world, drains the powers and memories of the Ocean King and the world's other inhabitants. My theory is that Bellum is a mental illness or brain disease of some kind, affecting the Ocean King's world in the same way the nightmares affected the Wind Fish's dream. Bellum's name is therefore derived from "cerebellum," and this is why part of its body resembles one evil-looking spinal cord dangling out of it, and why in its first appearance as a paper cut-out it resembles a neural network. The illness limits the Ocean King's power and his memories start to decay. Since the thoughts of a god are reality, so the state of a god's body and mind affects their creation.
  • Keep in mind that "bellum" is also Latin for "war", though.

Ciela is a descendant or reincarnation of Navi.
Yeah, I know, she's a spirit, but why shouldn't she also be the above? I mean, spirits are just fairies too, aren't they?My guess is, that Navi ascended to a higher plane of "Fairyhood" after the events of Ocarina of Time, probably becoming a great fairy, which is why she had to leave Link, without an explanation. (Leading to Link's journey, which ultimately ended in Termina... where he probably met his demise after the end of the game, like a theory above states).So, OoT Link never managed to see Navi again—-Logically, WW Link must make up for that, or the karma of what-I'm-not-smart-enough-to-grasp or so, will be unstable...I mean, if Link's (OoT) journey leaded to another horrible, and Nightmare Fuel filled adventure, and he didn't even reach his goal in the end, what's the best solution to free his poor soul from his "I could never say goodbye" torment? Having his reincarnation visit ANOTHER world, full of NEW horrible, Nightmare Fuel filled adventures, where he finally gets the chance to say goodbye to the fairy! (Or to her reincarnation, whatever.)In other words: The unclear ending of Majora's Mask is the reason, why there's a Phantom Hourglass in the first place! Lesson: "It's all Navi's fault!"
  • Pretty much Jossed by the fact that PH was stated to take place in an alternate universe. Although, this opens up the theory that Ciela is Alternate!Navi.

The bird on the Hyrulean royal crest is not an eagle.
Or a hawk, or a falcon, or an owl, or anything noble like that. It is, in fact, a cucco, paying tribute to the mightiest beast in all of Hyrule. Buck-AAAWK!
  • So if Link blocks enough hits with a Hyrule Shield, a flock of Shields will appear out of nowhere and gank his opponent? Awesome.
    • What if it's a reference to the Oocca?
    • Maybe it's a reference to the birds in Skyward Sword: We've seen that bird symbol without a beak or the Triforce symbol accompanying it in a trailer (Link draws a heart on it with the motion plus and hearts come out of the shrine-thing its on), and a species of very strong birds is also introduced as a game mechanic a la the King of Red Lions.

Majora's Mask, the Twili, AND Vaati are all related
While the connections between the former two are discussed above, nobody else mentioned that Majora's mask and Vaati's many forms share a near identical theme and aesthetic (the same purple and gold color scheme, and share that crazy eye of Horus symbol◊), not to mention that Vaati progress through forms in a manner similar to Majora, with his final form being called Vaati's wrath, much like Majora's final form.

Farore, Oracle of Secrets, is a Kokiri
She looks a lot like one in her artwork and the Kokiri are a race often associated with the goddess Farore and her attribute "courage". However, her looking like a Kokiri may have the same reason why Din is looking like a Gerudo and Nayru like a Pre-Ocarina of Time Great Fairy

Every one of the spirits from Phantom Hourglass has a secondary power/attribute, not just Ciela
To be more specific, I think that Leaf (power) can control the seasons and Neri (wisdom) can jump through the ages. Yeah, this is a reference to the Oracle games.There was once a third Oracle game starring Farore planned, but it was cancelled. The game would have had a time-related feature as well. I guess it would have been stopping time, like Ciela can do. I think the three spirits and the Oracles are similar in more than just one way. The oracles are connected to, or may even be the goddesses Din, Nayru, and Farore and the attributes of the spirits also mirror the goddesses, therefore: Farore: Time freezing; Nayru/Neri: Time jumping; Din/Leaf: Season change.The reason why Neri and Leaf didn't use their powers to this extent was probably that it would have taken too much energy and wasn't really necessary.
  • The last Oracle game would have been called "Oracle of Infinity" (Farore was only given the "Secrets" title because of the Password system)

Not all the games are different stories
The ones that broadly follow the structure of Link to the Past are different corruptions of the same story, most likely Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess. Other games may follow suit (Link's Awakening and Majora's Mask have a number of similarities, for instance) or be separate tales of their own.

The names Ganondorf, Link, and Zelda are cursed.
Every time someone named Link, Zelda, or Ganondorf appears, bad things happen. The logical conclusion is that one or all of these names are cursed. There are three possibilities.

Link is Cursed: In ancient history, a hero named Link failed his quest. The goddesses decreed that as punishment, anyone named Link would have to suffer trials. Ganondorf and Zelda are just along for the ride.Zelda is Cursed: Zelda is a descendant of a despotic tyrant who was also named Zelda. Once again, she is punished to suffer. Ganondorf is the executioner, and it's Link's job to make sure she doesn't suffer too much.Ganondorf is Cursed: Ganondorf is the avatar of a fourth Goddess who attempted to conquer the others and failed. He is cursed to relive his failure over and over again. (See the below WMG.)

The "Fierce Deity" is the personification of the future.
The Fierce Deity is shrouded in mystery. Plus, it is the last mask to be found in the game. If this is the OoT Link, then it cannot be a past Link, because apparently he is the first Link. Many future Links wear different tunics, so this one is a combination of those. One of his attacks is to shoot a beam out of his sword. This is attack is commonly used by later Links. His fate might be to become a god-like being, hence his appearance. The Helix sword is an amalgamation of all of his swords to be gotten in the future.

The Zelda from The Adventure of Link is the same Zelda as in The Minish Cap
Placing The Minish Cap in the very beginning of the timeline(s). Evidence towards this: Minish Cap's version of "Zelda's Lullaby" is actually a remixed version, using "Zelda's Awakening" theme from The Adventure Of Link. She's the only other Zelda to use this theme in any way. Since Eiji Aonuma once stated, that there indeed is a firm timeline connecting the games and that they are recently trying to seed hints of it anywhere, this was probably meant to be one of those hint, making us realize that The Minish Cap is the true beginning of Link's and Zelda's story and legacy.
  • Shot down by Word of God. Ocarina happened before the rest of the series.
    • Nope. This statement was made way before Minish Cap was released and even then it just referred to beginning of the fight against Ganon, not to the creation of the Four Sword.
  • Jossed. The timeline in Hyrule Historia sets The Minish Cap as the second game in Hyrule's history, and The Adventure of Link as the very last one in its timeline — there are multiple games, and multiple incarnations of Zelda, between them.

On the same note, the Gorman Brothers are descendants of the Garo.
Here is a quote from the Gorman Brothers.

"Seems some monstrous Garos appeared at Romani Ranch yesterday. And I heard the wagon carrying their milk was attacked. I tell you, that's a dangerous place... Seems like we're the only ones who have any milk left. Hyuh, hyuh."

Interesting. It was clearly aliens (hereon referred to as "Them", as Romani called them) that attacked the ranch, was it not? Why do the Gorman Brothers think it was Garos? They look nothing like Garos. Further case in point: How do the Gorman Brothers know what Garos are?

One must take note of this fact: The Gorman Brothers have the Garo's Mask. Think back to what the Garos say when they appear as you wear the Garo's Mask.

"Master, you called! ...!! What are you!?"

From this we can conclude that the Garo's Mask is used by Garo Masters to call upon their warriors. When the warriors realize, however, that Link is not a Master, they attack him.

Now let's put the facts together. The Gorman Brothers' message implies something. Their message is obviously meant to taunt Romani Ranch, showing that they attacked the milk wagon. However, they also note the invasion by "Them". This implies that the Gorman Brothers were also responsible for "Them" attacking. Another important note? They said that "They" were Garos, likely in disguise.

The Gorman Brothers both own Garo's Masks, as we know from their attack on the milk wagon. This means that they can summon the Garos. But the Garos immediately recognize Link for what he is while wearing the mask, so why not the Gorman Brothers? Why are the Gorman Brothers able to control the Garos?

Could it be perhaps that they truly are the Masters?

Aryll and Ilia are counterparts of each other.
Their roles and personalities are almost the same and they have pretty much the same age difference to Link. Since we don't know who Link's parents are, Ilia could, in theory, even be his little sister (or half-sister), just like Aryll. They are also both associated with animals (Seagulls for Aryll and Horses for Ilia), both have their own Leitmotif and are both blonde. Also, look at the 2 Link's faces, when they "talk" to Aryll or Ilia in cutscenes. They have this special "I'm so happy to see you today" look in their eyes, which differs greatly from their usual, heroic expressions. Both Links only have this look in their faces when they see Ilia or Aryll, on no other occasion.

  • Since there is no word about TP Link's parents at all, the only thing I can see that would allow Link to be Bo's son and Ilia to have round ears is that the mother had pointy ears, which Link inherited, short hair, which both inherited, and a fiery temper, which Ilia inherited. Link could have inherited Bo's fighting spirit.
    • You don't inherit short hair.

Gibdos and ReDeads perpetuate their species via infection.
The scientist in Ikana was subjected to this infection, and was slowly becoming one of them as per their MO. The hot ReDead-on-Link action we see? That's how they infect their victims.
  • Interesting, if true. Explains why they do that, though IDK why the Gibdos/ReDead Knights in TP didn't do that.
    • Now this Troper wants to see a Zelda version of Left 4 Dead.
  • Perhaps the Triforce of Courage protects Link from the transformation, kind of like how it protected him from a complete transformation while travelling in the Twilit Realm.

Actually, all Links and Zeldas look pretty much the same
Explaining the dozen identical looking Toon-Links and Toon-Zeldas standing out between all the other, vastly differently designed Links and Zeldas: Actually, all Link and Zeldas look pretty much the same, apart from a few hair-style differences (and minor-clothing differences, of course). It's just the different Art-styles that make them look different. Toon Link, Young Link, and the Link from the first game would probably look like Triplets if it weren't for the different art-styles of the games.

The Cuccos are gods.
In Twilight Princess, so Ooccaa are said to be the closest race to the gods. They also look and act very similar to Cuccos. This would also explain the Disproportionate Retribution received when attacking Cuccos: it's because you are, in fact, attacking a god.

  • Funny thing about that is that in TP, abusing Cuccos lets you control them for a while.
    • Not for too long, though, and really, was it ever useful?

Spirit Tracks Linebeck is not a Legacy Character. He is the same Linebeck from Phantom Hourglass
Jolene did say that they hadn't met in 100 years. Given he's a Jack Sparrow Expy, he might have gotten cursed with the Zelda equivalent of the Aztec gold curse.
  • I was thinking this too! Awesome! Squee!! OK, now we have at least THREE people in this game (Anjean, Niko, Linebeck), who should notice the clones of ''TWW'' Link and Tetra, who are recently cruising over the world map. I wonder if Link's resemblance to the hero of winds is gonna be Lampshaded, pointed out, or at least Hand Waved by any of them.
  • Actually, there's a tombstone for the PH Linebeck right outside the stop where you can purchase train upgrades from Linebeck III. Pretty sure we can call this Jossed.

All the Zeldas and Links are cousins/siblings except the originals.
They look similar, and it's even lampshaded within a few games, and they're pretty close. They also know things about each others that others don't.
  • Expanding upon this, Demise's phrasing is quite interesting: "all those who share the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero." Not 'or'. 'And'. That implies that Link and Zelda founded the Hyrulean Royal Family after the end of Skyward Sword. It's quite reasonable for the Zeldas to be the direct royal line, with the Hylia connection, and the Links to - for the most part - be part of a cadet bloodline. If nothing else, we know that Twilight Princess Link is explicitly a direct descendant of Ocarina of Time Link, and it's not unreasonable that there's other cases. So, they're mostly close enough to the royal family to have close personal links, but not close enough to have a claim to the throne. Add the odd intermarriage every few generations, in games where the contemporary Link and Zelda have particular chemistry, and both bloodlines would technically carry the 'blood of the goddess' and 'the spirit of the hero.'

The Wind Waker Link founded New Hyrule's Royal Guards.
Once reaching the new land, Link, Tetra, and her pirate crew found what will become new Hyrule (with the help of the Lokomos). Wind Waker Link then personally trains soldiers to guard the castle. He styled the uniforms to look somewhat like his own, hence why new recruits dress like Link's traditional garb.
  • Spirit Tracks is so far the game that best connects with it previous iteration after a generation jump, and shows the developers are becoming more conscious of the fans' timeline building. As such, this point we assume very nearly self evident, even if not stated directly.

Once Tetra and her pirates found the new land that became new Hyrule, there was a mass immigration from the Great Sea, the World of the Ocean King, and other areas.
It would be impossible for just Tetra, her band of pirates, and Link to create and populate New Hyrule on their own. So once word went back to The Great Sea that there was a new land to inhabit, lots of people from The Great Sea and from the World of The Ocean King settled there. This would explain the presence of the Anouki Tribe, Gorons, and Linebeck's descendants in Spirit Tracks.
  • Pretty much a given, as the Anoukis tell Link that just this was the case with their tribe. And the inhabitants of Aboda village partly bear resemblances to the inhabitants of Windfall and Outset.

Niko is actually Spirit Tracks Link's legal guardian.
Because, really, how often do preteen orphans voluntarily become "roommates" with random centenarians? Maybe sometime after this Link's parents died (or however it is that he ended up alone), Niko adopted him, perhaps due to the boy's resemblance to a certain "old friend" of his.
  • For some reason, I can't stop imagining old Niko jumping in cheer and shouting "SWABBY!!" upon baby ST Link being born and shown to the village.

Malladus is the source of the Trident
We know from Four Swords Adventure that Ganon became the Big Blue Pig when he obtained a magical Trident that had been used in rituals by the Evil Tribe, and tapped into demonic power. Now we see an ancient demon, implied by dates to go back to before the First Ganondorf in OoT. The obvious conclusion is that Malladus is the creature worshiped by the Evil Tribe, whose power they tapped into when they created the trident, and who Ganon became the living avatar of once he obtained it. Thus, retroactively, Ganon has been Hijacked By Malladus in almost every appearance using that name.

  • This... would actually make sense, somewhat. Explains why Malladus looks a lot like him in the final battle of ST. Maybe when Ganon was revived in OoS/OoA, it was actually Malladus himself, confused into thinking he was Ganon from being part of Ganon for so long, that was revived in Ganon's transformed body by Twinrova?

Link and Zelda have shared a psychic connection ever since at least before Ocarina of Time.
In Ocarina of Time, Zelda and Link started having their nightmares of Ganon and each other around the same time and when Link told Zelda his name, she seemed to recognize it for some reason. Then, in Twilight Princess, Zelda stops talking for a short moment when she hears Link's name, in a similar fashion to her reaction in OoT. Same is true for Spirit Tracks, where she finally concludes, that it's a "nice name" after pausing a few seconds. Well, I don't know about you, but either "Link" does sound incredibly stupid in Hylian language, or Zelda somehow always get's the feeling of having heard that name before. Also, Tetra's reaction when she saw the hero's clothes the first time. She never looked at anything as close as this again. Granted, she could have noticed that they look just like the drawing of the Hero of time, but it just fits nicely into the picture. Next, we get Phantom Hourglass, where we get this nightmarish sequence of Tetra screaming for help every time we load the game-file in a story-section involving the Temple of the Ocean King. It's save to assume that those are nightmares that Link is having while "sleeping" (read: while the game is not being played), so this hints at the dream-connection given in OoT again. Tetra latter states, that she was able to see everything Link did while she was petrified. Also, Zelda gave the very same statement in the end of Minish Cap. They were able to see Link's adventure, not anything else, again hinting at a Psychic connection. Then, in Spirit Tracks, what might be the ultimate proof occurs: Link can see Zelda's disembodied spirit, when nobody else can. It's never even remotely explained why, but we can guess the reasons are similar as the ones regarding the boy's name and the dream's they keep having of each other. Maybe their spirits are bound to each other, because of their role as protectors of Hyrule. (Zelda is the vessel of some of the greatest magical energies in Hyrule, namely the Lightforce and the Triforce of Wisdom; and Link, as Hero, is the protector the people of Hyrule and, of course, Princess Zelda) This strongly supports the Reincarnation-theory, even though it still doesn't explain why exactly those two people were chosen to return over and over again. It is, however, very much possible, since Reincarnation is now Canon in the Zelda universe: Anjean stated in the end of Spirit Tracks that strong and enduring spirits will always be reincarnated after some time, but they'll probably lose all of their memories. Link and Zelda fit perfectly in that picture, as the both are often described as incredibly strong people in various ways.
  • Skyward Sword outright has Zelda as a reincarnation of Hylia, and Demise's parting words hint at Link being eternally reincarnated as well.

Bellum and Malladus are related, and there is a third great Demon of Air.
Bellum is a demon of the sea, and could thus be seen as opposition to Nayru. Maladus is a demon of the earth, and could be seen as an evil counterpart to Din. The next New Hyrule/Toon Link game (Spirit Plane?) will reveal the third of the brothers, a wind-based evil counterpart to Faore and detail the relationship between the three demons.
  • *Cough, Cough* ... Vaati... *Cough, Cough*
    • Not seeing it. Vaati just wields generic dark magic.
    • Uhm, I guess you only played Minish Cap, and not The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords: Vaati`s title is Wind-Mage or Wind-Demon in the Four Swords games.
    • But Vaati isn't an actual demon; that term would be more a descriptive term. As a Picori would simply gain great magical power, he wouldn't seem to have any real reason to pick a fight with the goddesses.
    • Vaati is indeed a demon. A demon god, according to the Japanese script. Ganondorf became a demon, why would this be impossible for Vaati?
    • Might be an incarnation of one, hence his desire and why he became evil? Probably died with him in FSA.
    • All that as it may be, given how tied Bellum and Malladus are to the post-The Wind Waker sequence and how tied Vaati is to the Four Sword one, they're too thematically disconnected to make sense as a set of related villains.

Cole is the counterpart or descendant of the Happy Mask Salesman.
They've both got red hair, weird eyes, uncanny dispositions, and their expressions change to murderous WAY too quickly for comfort. As for the horns, it wouldn't surprise me if the Salesman had been a demon or some kind of otherworldly creature in disguise, or maybe messing around with all of those evil masks did something to his bloodline. Or maybe Cole was just power-hungry enough to make a Deal with the Devil, bringing about Malladus's return in exchange for demonic abilities?

Rupees are not gems, but rather, like various other items in the LoZ universe, condensed forms of natural/magical energies.
Think about it for a sec... you cut some grass, a Rupee appears. You break open a pumpkin, a Rupee appears. Kind of odd that it would be so easy to gather up money like that, and somehow the value of the Rupee never suffered from inflation.

This is because they aren't just plain old precious minerals like rubies, diamonds, and gold nuggets. No, Rupees are simply a naturally-forming condensation of energies flowing throughout all things in the world, be it a patch of grass, a pumpkin, or a freshly-slain Moblin. The ancient Hyleans, and by proxy their descendants the Hyruleans, learned numerous ways to utilize these energies, such as crafting goods out of them (hence why merchants never run out of Bombs to sell to you no matter how many times you buy them; they use a part of the profits from the sale to craft new stock and replace it), or powering ancient artifacts (hence why the Magical Armor drains them, while the bow from the first game used them as ammo). This is also why the Rupoor, which is effectively a condensed void of these energies, is able to take money from you; it's effectively draining a battery (which is what your typical Hyrulean wallet would be.)

These energies can also naturally condense into other forms, such as magical energy (the kind you use to cast Din's Fire or light a lantern) or life force (in small doses, capable of easing small amounts of fatigue; in larger amounts, enough to actually increase your vitality). Sufficiently powerful artifacts could also augment these energies into other forms, such as the Four Sword transmuting them to form Force Gems.

Kasuto was the real name of Impa from Ocarina of Time.
Consider: in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Old and New Kasuto are the only towns which do not share their name with a character from Ocarina of Time. Impa and Zelda are the only Sages who do not have towns named for them, Zelda, for what I would think are fairly obvious reasons. We also know that Impa, like Link and Zelda, is a legacy character — this is the name of the nursemaid and/or bodyguard of the princess in the original game, Zelda II, Ocarina of Time, and the Oracle games. It stands to reason, therefore, that "Impa" is not the character's actual name, but rather a title assigned to the princess's chief female attendant. The The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Impa's real name was Kasuto, and so the towns in Zelda II are indeed all named for characters.
  • Alternately, Kasuto is the real name of Ocarina of Time's Zelda- Zelda itself merely being a regal name for the princesses of Hyrule.

The Spirit Tracks restored by collecting Rail Maps, playing Spirit Instruments, and clearing Temples are the only ones that existed just prior to the game. The ones restored by Force Gems vanished much earlier.
The places reached by Force Gem tracks seem to be abandoned stations that haven't seen humans in a long time (Except for the Pirate Hideout, which is usually reached by boat). Also, most of the activation Warp Gates are located on Spirit Tracks, which is why no one's figured out how to use them before. Plus, the tracks to the Sand Realm are activated by Anjean's Force Gem, and apart from Rael, who's been there the whole time, it's deserted too.

Twinrova was behind part of The Adventure of Link's plot.
Now, this is assuming the Oracle games are direct sequels to the original two games (which seems very likely so far). Twinrova, seeing as her plan in the Oracle games was to revive Ganon, and how the plan of Ganon's minions in Adventure of Link was the exact same thing, it seems likely that Twinrova was the unseen leader and organizer of the overworld monsters that hunted Link.
  • The Oracle games are not, in fact, sequels to the original two games — they take place a long time before them.

Byrne might return in a future installment
Because it's entirely possible that Byrne or at least an Expy might show up in a future Zelda game.
  • I was thinking of this too, since at the end Anjean says he'll probably be reincarnated in a few hundred years or so (okay, not that exactly, but something along those lines), which is more or less the time between each Zelda game. If this indeed does happen, the collective screams of fangirls from all over the world will be heard on Japan. Also, unlike Midna's return which is also wanted by fans, this actually has a chance of happening (honestly, considering how Twilight Princess ended, I don't see any way or reason she would be back at all rather than fan-pleasing).

The three girls outside the STAR minigame are Ganon cultists
They sound exactly like the school girls squeeing over literal death incarnate, Ryoji Mochizuki.
  • They are disciples of Twinrova and preparing a ritual to revive Ganon in case Link kills him. After the end of TP, they carried out their evil plan and Hyrule fell to the power of Fangirls.

Tingle isn't a deluded man who thinks he's a fairy.
He's a deluded fairy who thinks he's a man who thinks he's a fairy. Really. How else does he stay alive, hardly having aged at all, from Majora's Mask to The Wind Waker?
  • Given that the only reasonable alternative is that the delusion is hereditary, which in turn implies that they successfully breed for several dozen generations, this is entirely possible. Also explains his supernatural mapmaking skills; he's actually a Map Fairy or something.
    • I always just figured he was a foundling, or otherwise adopted. It's not like the guy at the boat safari shop looked over fifty. But unusually (or preternaturally) long lifespans could account for it.
      • Technically, wasn't he cursed into being a type of supernatural being by Uncle Rupee? "Tingle" apparently pertained to anyone cursed by Uncle Rupee with an insatiable desire for Rupees, eventually imprisoning them as his eternal servants once they'd gotten enough rupees for him?

The original Legend of Zelda takes place in Holodrum.
It's not hard to draw similarities between Oracle of Seasons and the original Legend of Zelda. The old men appear in dungeons and are hidden in caves in the overworld, many of the items obtained are similar, and most of the bosses came from the original Zelda. This coupled with the fact that Hyrule Castle is not present leads me to the conclusion that Holodrum is the setting for the first Zelda game, rather than Hyrule.

The Oracle games take place in an objectively simultaneous period of time.
Simultaneous to an observer standing outside of time that is. In Link's perspective (which we play of course), he completes one, then is sent to the other land for the other. For that period of time, there are Links existing simultaneously in Holodrum and Labrynna. The Link from the first game you played goes back in time to the moment just after he was sent to Holodrum or Labrynna, and is sent to the other land. This way, Veran or Onox aren't left running rampant while you're beating the other one. As for the fact that you lose your hearts and items at the start of a linked game, think Cast from Hit Points.

The reason the bow drains rupees in Zelda 1
They're the perfect shape to make excellent arrowheads, of course!

Demise's curse was broken in the Adult Timeline.
The Link in Windwaker is explicitly not a reincarnation of the Hero of Time. So one member of the 3 people fated to be reincarnated is gone, which means the Curse doesn't have anything to work with. Ganon is also a whole lot more restrained and somber, which would make sense if he's no longer afflicted by the Curse.

"The Legend of Zelda" is more accurately titled "The Legend Written By Zelda".
Why is Zelda's name in the title, as opposed to Link's, even in installments where Zelda never appears? The first two games are more or less accurate (including there being 2 different Zeldas). The rest are Historical Fantasy or Alternate Universe works written by one of the Zeldas about the ancestors and alternate selves of this cute swordsman that rescued her and a relative of hers.

The Legend of Zelda is Luigi's fanfiction
Link and Luigi are quite similar. They're the only two prominent Nintendo humans to wear mainly green, they're both adventurers of their land, and they're both often going off on 'save the princess' quests. Zelda and Ganon are quite similar to Peach and Bowser in appearance and personality. Link may also be an Escapist Character for Luigi and unintentionally a Marty Stu, as along with their similar appearances, almost all of Link's strengths are Luigi's weaknesses (such as bravery and strength).

The Ghinis in Minish Cap are Obliviously Evil.
Considering how they wrap themselves around Link and are licking him, it could be that they just want to make him their new friend and want to give him hugs and kisses. However, they don’t seem to realize that they’re stealing his life force by licking him. That or they’re accidentally hurting him by holding him too tightly.

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