151 replies to this topic

[Hana-Nezumi]

Yes, and it fit the moral. What's the moral, kids?

Sacrifice of the past. Living for the future. The King goes down with what he has preserved and forced upon Link and Zelda, and finally realizes that they can only save the world by living in the future, not in the past, giving up his lifelong dream of bringing back his kingdom for the kids. Everything about the game is young and fresh. there's your moral.

yeah, i didn't get that the first time i played the game.

[MK.]

I still 100% disagree... listen to the words:

The people anxiously waited for the legendary hero to appear once more, but since he traveled the stream of time and left the country behind

Think of the people as the people from the adult timeline part at Lon Lon Ranch... as far as they are concerned, a hero (as an adult) appeared from no where, came, destroied Ganon, and disapeared (because he went back to the past to be a kid again)

Just cause they say "left the country" can be interpreted as just "left" not necessarily left and went to Terminia. Plus, Mr. Ayuwhatever said WW takes place after the adult ending of OOT, hundreds of years later...

[MikePetersSucks]

Yea, that can also be taken that both endings of OOT are circular, so that either way the Child timeline leads into the Future Timeline, but now Link will have his childhood.

[Kairu Hakubi]

i always figured they meant that he traveled down the stream of time just like everyone else, and since we're all on the stream together.. nobody can go meet anyone further downstream, cuz the speed is constant.. in other words, he's dead because it's been too long, even though the people probably thought of him as a time-traveler who could come back at any time and save them, he stepped back into the river of time without a paddle and thus was lost to the people of the future...
... that's how i saw it..

[Husse]

Yes, I always thought, after returning from Termina, he either lived his life alone, or dies before Ganon ever returned.

[MikePetersSucks]

I like to think that time was circular, like, when he opened the Door of Time and OOT happened, he came back after the Triforce was split and Ganondorf left, and closed it, and OOT happened all over again, since either way he can't weild the Master Sword until he's an adult. He seals Ganondorf, and then is sent back in time again so Zelda can once more try again to set things right. Now, only Link ever goes back, and time goes on as normal. multi timelines is irrevelent, since they all have the same events.

[Beno]

Though it's interesting and seems to be a crucial point, I don't think that debating over the exact type of time-travel or whatever Link experienced is too important. I don't think that is of as great an importance as some other larger scale issues, such as split-timeline versus mulitimeline.

I believe with this evidence in the Hylian text and the Aunoma quote about it taking place 100 years after the adult part of OoT confirms that they meant for their to be a split timeline.

Though it may be a little "radical", a split-timeline makes so much more sense. With a split timeline, you don't have to come up with ideas of a new Hyrule afterwards and how it was created or that the waters just lowered. (which I will never be comfortable with doing)

It just doesn't seem like a very Zelda-ish thing to do have the whole world completely destroyed and then have the impact of that being pointless and having the waters recede.

I just can't see how there can be such strong connections between both OoT and WW and OoT and LttP and not have the later tell the in their backstory the story of both. I don't think the story of OoT could be remembered in the time of LttP, but no mention of the events of WW.

[Husse]

No, split timeline is a wimpy way of explaining things that contradict themselves constantly. Single timeline is a pain of the butt and always has to be reexamined, but, all in all, eventually makes sense, because, there is one line of time in the world we know and love, AND in Zelda. Adult Link in OoT, in effect, never happened to anyone but the hero.

[coinilius]

Except, Alternate Universes have been a staple of fiction for a long time - look at Star Trek, Dr Who, DC Comics, those Turtledove WW2 alternate universe novels, Marvel comics 'What If..' series(s), Sliders, Donnie Darko, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the works of Murray Leinster, Isaac Assimov and Robert Heinlein... the list goes on People love examining what might happen if time was to 'split' and branch off in different directions.

The way I see it, if the split timeline was indeed what they intended, it wasn't as a 'wimpy explanation' of anything but rather as a way of exploring an alternate storyline path in the Zelda series, while retaining the old one as well - think about how the Wind Waker ends, with the presumption that Link and Tetra are going to find a new land, and the King's insistance that it 'will not be Hyrule.' Perhaps they intend (or intended, depending on what the case may be) to follow the ending of tWW with games that diverge substantially (storyline wise) from the rest of the Zelda series?

[MikePetersSucks]

Yea, 'tis exactly why I put TWW, and TWW only, in a seperate timeline. If any other games take place in the sea or in another not Hyrule land, I'll consider placing it in this theory, but try and place it in the main timeline.

[Beno]

Yeah, I agree, I only put TWW in the split timeline. Just wanted to clarify that, if that wasn't apparent in my post.

Though... maybe I could possibly place the Four Swords series in the "New Hyrule", but I'm not really too worried about that right now.

Quick question: Where exactly was Ganon throughout the Four Swords Adventures game? Was he sealed in the Sacred Realm or what?

[coinilius]

Well, there is another game that is definately in the same timeline as tWW - Navi Trackers But whether or not that's considered canonical is up to the individual, it seems

Personally, I would avoid placing the FS series in the same timeline as tWW if I was constructing a split timeline, as the ending of tWW makes it very clear that the intention is for them NOT to just go out and name their new land 'Hyrule 2' or anything like that.

[Beno]

Yeah, that's exactly my problem with there being anything about Hyrule after it.

It would be so anti-dramatic and so pointless if all that happened was a new Hyrule and even more if Hyrule just "unflooded" or the whole Deku Tree thing. It would ruin it, it my opinion.

[MikePetersSucks]

indeed, y'all. Also, Ganondorf is free in FSA. It implies that this is his first evil conquest (although no matter where you place it it makes no sense.) And he obtained all his power from a stolen Trident of Darkness, so he has no Triforce peices. At the end of the game, however, he is sealed within the Four Sword like Vaati used to be. (Who's now dead)

[Kairu Hakubi]

It just seems like the entire driving force of OoT is to save hyrule and undo what ganondorf has done.. if the timeline splits, then he -kinda- accomplished his goal..
if it splits, one future is still-dark but ganonless and the other timeline still has ganon who has to get taken care of some other way, then that didnt accomplish his goal at all!
i realize sometimes things happen that nobody planned on *cough*TWW*cough* but still, I want Link to be satisfied that he sealed ganon away for all time, erasing everything he'd done, and able to start over and create a better tomorrow. perhaps that isn't the most likely explanation, but it's the nicest.

[coinilius]

Darkseid: True but did you know that at one time DC Comics destroyed all of their multiple timelines and universes by a saga called "Crisis On Infinite Earths" which involved a being known as the Anti-Monitor who wiped out all universes except for one universe which led to the Post Crisis era. Now true they have went back with the multiple timelines and universes, but at one time they got rid of it, because it was supposed to have been to confusing for the fans of that era.

Coinilius: Of topic, but did you know that most fans felt that by getting ridding of the alternate earths, DC made things more confusing and messy than they were before the crisis? Or that they did another event called 'the Kingdom' which reintroduced the concept of alternate universes to the DC universe? The only point I was making was that alternate universes aren't such a strange concept in the world of fiction

[Zythe]

Just the other day, I researched Smallville on Wikipedia (and through the links, all of Superman) and I must say I'm shocked that I've actually seen references to "Crisis". Small world. Or net. Whatever.

[SOAP]

I wish I knew where the quote was, but Aonuma has stated that he wanted to have a new era for Zelda, and taking out something old such as Hyrule, would bring in a new era for the series the Legend of Zelda. If anyone knows what I am talking about please help, because I know I am not losing my mind.  

Which is totally pointless in itself because in the very next game what did we have.... OMIGOSH! Hyrule. And not just a new one. The ALttP one mixed with the OoT one. And the game after that, we had Hyrule again. And the one coming out for gamecube who knows when looks like it's going to be another Hyrule-orientated game again. If they were intending a new era sans-Hyrule looks like they put in the back burner and forgot about it.XP

And no, I no idea what you're talking about.

[Zythe]

And not just a new one. The ALttP one mixed with the OoT one.

Are you talking about HA?

[Husse]

It would make sense. WW became half hated and half blow-er-out-of-the-water popular because of its radical newness. Why keep the old? Miyamoto has shown he's not afraid to throw a monkey wrench in the story to support a new one, which I don't mind, but tight-fisted timeline theorists do, heheh.

[SOAP]

I'd be more for the whole split-timeline thingie if the actually stuck with the "new" timeline they were supposively were trying to make with the TWW and see where that takes things instead of rehashing on stories from old 2d Zelda games and putting TWW Link's face on everything that has nothing to do with the TWW's story at all! Why say that Hyrule is dead, time for something totally new but then take us back to Hyrule and tell us the same boring story and pump up the cuteness? And just when you think we can go foward again, no, they take us even further back into Hyrulean history but TWW Link's face where it doesn't belong, again. What the hell are they afraid of? Why make such a drastic change but then turn around and keep working backwards from there? Who cares were Vaati came from or how the Four Sword came to be!? I wanna know what happens next after Link and Tetra sailed off in search of a new land. But so far, it seems they're pretending TWW's ending never happened.

But like everyone else, I just blame Capcom for all of this. Shigeru is infallible.

[coinilius]

I thought Kingdom Come happened in the 1970's and the Crisis on Infinite Earths happened in the 1980's. Regardless of how it was though your point was that multiple fiction stories contain multiple timelines, so your point is a valid one. Still I am going to stay a single timeline guy unless something official claims otherwise.

Just to clarify...

* the Crisis happened in the mid 1980's

* Kingdom Come was an Elseworlds special in the 1990's (a 'what if' futurestory)

*The Kingdom was a mini-series type thing that came out later in the 90's, in which they introduced 'Hypertime' which basically ment that the multiple earths were reintroduced.

Also, Mario JR - I think part of the reason why we haven't seen anything even remotely to do with the ending of the Wind Waker in the games since it's release is simply that they haven't been 'big name' games, but rather smaller side entry type deals - one was a multi-player game, and the other was a prequel to that multi-player game. Yes, I suppose tMC could have played off events in tWW and not been related to the FS series, but perhaps Nintendo didn't want Capcom continueing that particular aspect of the story.

It remains to be seen what LoZ05 has to say on the subject...

And those points apply to any kind of timeline - whether it be split or single.

[Husse]

I think they're trying to make all the 3D games make sense with eachother. I'm a 3d game lover pretty much, played the 2ds once (except FSA and Minish Cap and Oracles) and left them on the shelf. Zelda2005 will probably be related to WW or (please!) OoT.

[SOAP]

Well by the looks of things ZGC2005 might just be another Hyrule-based prequel.

[monique]

I think Nintendo self lost count. They just all think "HEY it's just a game go on and play it!" While we are stuck here with all these timelines >_<