The Legend Of Zelda - General Thread

While I'm completely fine with its existence and have less problems with it than most fans seem to, the Downfall Timeline does 100% feel like the Zelda team going "...what the hell are we supposed to do with these?" when stitching together the timeline and remembering they had the pre-OOT and Game Boy Color games left to slot in.

Yeah.

Which is amusing because ALLTP to the Oracle games, to Link's awakening is a pretty solid idea.

Yep, the problem is that despite working as a nice little timeline on their own, they can't really slot cleanly anywhere else. I'm pretty sure that's why the debates over the timeline were such a headache even before we got an official one. You had a solid groupings of games that worked perfectly on their own (TWW-PH-ST, OOT-MM-TP, ALTTP-LA-OOA/OOS, etc.), but failed to gel all that well when stitched together, regardless of whether you were a proponent of a single or split timeline. I can't blame Nintendo for throwing their hands-up at the mess they created and going "screw it, there's a third timeline."

Speaking of, it's been so long that I've forgotten what the arguments even were in the fandom for single timeline and what those proposed timelines looked like.

Edited by RacattackForce on May 23rd 2022 at 10:18:49 AM

I think the problem with the decline years was trying to fit in the intro to A Ltt P into the overall story which discussed the Imprisoning War. Link failing so they needed to do this more costly alternative makes sense, but not as a third timeline. They could have done that war with Wind Waker's intro and just say they did it because Link wasn't there, not that he failed. Instead, they decided to give Hyrule a permanent beach day.

The third timeline just seems so arbitrary. Despite any game can end with Link failing, this ONE time managed to cause a timeline split all in its own, which didn't make sense. The other two timelines are because time was actually involved. This failed timeline could happen if originally Link didn't go back in time in order to do the Shadow and Spirit Temple to free those sages which is why he fell to Ganondorf.

Because if a random Link losing caused a split, then why isn't there a 4th timeline back in Skyward Sword when Link killed Demise in its present and past?

Basically, Zelda team, enough with time!

Edited by ObligatorySarcasm on May 23rd 2022 at 10:54:45 AM

Was that single timeline ever a major train of thought? I remember the split timeline concept going back to Wind Waker, which kind of made it impossible for anything else. WW basically treated itself as a direct continuation of the story Ocarina of Time left off... but because OOT was meant to be the beginning of the whole series at the time, the flooded Hyrule wouldn't fit with the other games, unless there were multiple timelines.

Edited by diddyknux on May 23rd 2022 at 9:59:21 AM

Most of the fandom recognized the two-way timeline split that OOT caused and built their ideas around that. I remember that there was still a decent amount of people who tried to fit things into a single, linear timeline though, for whatever reason. Speaking of, here's a timeline that was on the official American website pre-Wind Waker. And why, yes, it does label all those games as starring the same Link. Though it's not like anyone had a reason not to believe that before Wind Waker came in with its backstory.

Edited by RacattackForce on May 23rd 2022 at 11:27:49 AM

Well I do think it's believable that all three timelines diverge from OOT.

I recall someone theorizing the downfall timeline happening because Link wasn't able to get back the Master Sword when Ganon disarmed him.

Ocarina of Time makes the most sense for the third divergence point, if only because it keeps things simple. The game already diverges into Majora's Mask and The Wind Waker, which are direct consequences from the events of OOT, so why not have that third branch be a divergent point from OOT's final battle as well?

the thing is that the timeline split for the other two timelines aren't an arbitrary "this is what could've happened". it's a direct result of Link and Zelda's actions at the end of OOT. The child timeline continues to MM and TP because that timeline had child link back and continued to have the hero spirit of Link. the adult timeline continues to WW because OOT Link got sent back to the child timeline, meaning that the adult timeline no longer had Link and no one to stop Ganondorf. Two timelines result from an explicit action in OOT.

meanwhile, the downfall timeline exists because of a what-if scenario that's never shown in game and actually only ever mentioned on the timeline itself.

i'd honestly be a fan if BOTW-onwards they just did a re-retcon and dumped the idea of a timeline completely. small handfuls of games being linked (get it?) together without necessarily being attached to every other game is fine with me.

like seriously, ALTTP thru ALBW, the first two games, and the four swords games all stick out like really sore thumbs in the timeline because they fit so horribly in the grander scheme.

I fear that Bot W 2 will also have time travel shenanigans because the series seems devoted to it. Skyward Sword had time travel at the end, and despite playing out as the prequel we all thought, Age of Calamity inexplicably uses time travel to completely change Bot W's story, just like Oo T did in the grand scheme of things.

I like the idea of the Zelda story branching off into various timelines. It lets everything remain equally canon. But I really, really dislike the way that three timeline thing goes about it. It crams together games that don't gel with each other, and makes it really difficult to fit in future games. All you need to do is have one game that implies there are branching timelines, and probably suggest there are a fair number of them. You don't even need to spell out how many timelines there are and which games fit where, just let there be as many branching timelines as are needed, without going into detail.

I don't think any theories for a single, linear timeline where ever taken seriously by the time Twilight Princess came out. The generally agreed upon timeline theory for a long time was that all the Downfall Timeline games where at the end of the Child Timeline, after Four Swords Adventures. FSA established a reincarnated Ganondorf with a backstory like ALttP's Ganondorf, and FSA itself kind of looks like the Imprisoning War if you squint at it, so everyone was fine with that. The main arguments people had were usually just where exactly the Oracle games and first Four Swords went on the timeline.

Personally, I just think Zelda games should have been separated into different continuities entirely. Maybe some people would complain about the continuities not being equally "canon" or something, but I would find it simpler than trying to fit together games that obviously don't really go together. Specifically, I just think of the Downfall Timeline games, Ocarina of Time and all the games spinning off of it, and the Four Swords trilogy as three separate continuities, since it's easier that way.

Tbh I don't know why people take it so seriously either way. It really doesn't matter.

Because thanks to that timeline, fans have become zealous on deciding what is canon or not canon, to the point fan wikis have been misinforming casual fans with their rules of canon and timelines. This is most prominent with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity which ironically has the clearest explanation of a split timeline and fits perfectly in BOTW timeline... yet there's a stubborn group of fans who insists it's not canon with the most convoluted explanations possible, often using the official timeline as a defense when someone points the double standard.

To date, Zelda is perhaps the only Nintendo franchise that fans seems to be using a Canon Tier despite being one of the worst continuity-driven franchise.

Edited by Shadao on May 23rd 2022 at 2:09:23 AM

For a lot of people, "Non-canon" is just a fancy way to say "I don't like it".

I'd rather have all Zelda games being in a timeline, however convoluted, if that means they're still canonical. After the 28 times Terminator got stuck with attempt after attempt to do a "true sequel to T2", wasting lots of budget and human resources and failing at every moment (in fact, in my opinion Dark Fate was by far the worst attempt), the franchise was left with only two well-established movies and then four "No, I'm the real third movie" / "NO! Don't listen to it, watch ME!" things that gave it a serious identity crisis. I would have cried if the Zelda series suffered a similar fate.

Even after Twilight Princess was advertised as the "real sequel to Ocarina of Time", Nintendo didn't forget about Majora's Mask or The Wind Waker, and Aonuma and Miyamoto insisted that all games were still canonical, only in different branches of the chronology. People are only upset about the official timeline because of the Downfall branch, but that's beause not many like the concept of the "multiple universes" interpretation. I don't think it should be an issue nowadays, because with BOTW they invoked In Spite of a Nail so any followup would only have to be located in a single, unified timeline.

Here's a little secret: What helped me embrace the Downfall Timeline was the hypothesis that it was the first one to occur. Not as a "what if" scenario, but as the outcome that originally happened. Then, when Link gave his wishb at the end of ALTTP to undo all the curses and corruption Ganon inflicted upon Hyrule and the Golden Land, this included his victory against the Hero of Time in OOT, thus changing the course of events. The Downfall branch continued its own path, while the Adult Timeline detoured into a new one. Zelda transported Link to the past, which would later cause the Child Timeline to be born.

I can't tell if that's how it actually happened, but it would make more sense than a "what if" and still give a plausible reason for all three timeline to exist.

A Ltt P is not canon because they removed the cannon knight enemy.

Ocarina of Time isn’t canon because it supposedly came out 24 years ago but the earth is only 17 years old

The only truly canon game is Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love.

Excuse me princess but the true canon is obviously the cartoon.

If we're making everything canon... There's always that theory about Hyrule Warriors (the first one, not AoC) causing a Time Crash that reunified the timelines.

Mah boy, this canon is what all true warriors strive for.

But how about cannons, with two ns? Like the ones on the platforms in Wind Waker, or the one Link uses to get to the City in the Sky in Twilight Princess?

Oh right, Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love exists.

What the fuck was that game?

Edited by MisterTambourineMan on May 23rd 2022 at 8:15:34 AM

Maybe it's time for the timelines to be Cannon Banned.