399 replies to this topic

[Fyxe]

I'm hazarding a guess and saying the biggest problem that doesn't let the split timeline "work in a sensible fashion" is that TWW refers to both MM and the OOT Adult ending?

Yes, that is, but you could argue that the Legend of the Fairy is more of an inter-game reference rather than a timeline reference. Like the pictures of Mario and friends in Hyrule Castle. But yes, it's a fairly big issue. My bigger problem is actually coming up with a decent *reason* for the timeline split in the first place, and explaining a split while at the same time not messing up the internal logic for time travel in OoT.

And, that would be the key to making an 'Almost Perfect Timeline,' since making splits work would simultaneously fix the problem of TWW and ALTTP existing in the same existence- for example, how is Hyrule destroyed when the Hyrule that has the same distinct landmarks (i.e. Spectacle Rock and Lake Hylia) as OOT Hyrule takes place after TWW, and if TWW takes place last... well, that doesn't make much sense, with Ganon's implications and the closeness to OOT, as well as some stuff TP implies as far as we can see.

I'm not *that* bothered about similar landmarks, as this is again more of an inter-game issue than a storyline issue. But the fact that Hyrule as we know it is flooded and gone forever, and that presumably all the entrances to the Sacred Realm are now underwater, and the fact that Ganon is DEAD and the Triforce is no longer with him anyway, and he also seemingly broke the seal well before TWW happened, so how can it still exist in ALttP... Yes, these are all big issues. Fitting ALttP after TWW seems impossible.

One of my solutions is this...

Gaiden timeline. No split, because I can't explain that, but an 'alternate reality'. A 'what if'. What if Ganon escaped and no hero was there to stop him? TWW is the answer to that 'what if'.

That's just a possible idea, anyway, doesn't really work with what Aonuma said though. Well, maybe, actually. Ah, who knows.

The rest of your post has confused me again. >.>

[Rogue Cucco]

The rest of your post has confused me again. >.>

Alls I was saying was that all OOT Adult ending references in TWW were from Link's stories told to the Royal Family (like at the end of OOT, when he went back to see Zelda) and those events didn't actually 'happen.' In the same way that, the Royal Family didn't actually see what happened in Termina in MM, but somehow took it as fact even though it didn't happen in their own universe.

As for why there was a split, it can be simply because the endings were different.

The Adult ending had Ganon being sealed in the Evil Realm and Link going to the past. The Young ending had Link close the Door of Time, keeping the ToC, and talking to Zelda. We don't exactly know where Ganondorf is in that situation, though probably in the SR, either ready to get out or locked in by the MS, though there are good arguments against the latter. TP will probably shed some light with that if it takes place after OOT and before TWW. I hope...

As for why the Adult ending isn't erased if the past changes, think about it this way- if the Adult ending is erased, then how would Link be sent back in time to change the past? The Adult ending still must exist, and the Young ending exists too, making a split.

And so, in the Young ending, Link journeys away, and Ganon comes back and attacks, leading to the Flood and TWW. How Ganondorf was sealed in the Young ending, that is bad for my theory, but I point to Link locking him in by putting the MS in the Pedastal of Time, and then closing the Door of Time. However, Ganondorf could've just broke the MS barrier with the ToP, and then climbed out the back window...

[Doopliss]

The gaiden timeline is the neatest one, but we have no reasons at all to believe it is true...

[MikePetersSucks]

You could say that a new timeline was made every time Link Time Traveled, but the changes were so insignificant they might as well be the same timeline as the Young Link timeline.

[SOAP]

Actually my belief is that there are three timelines. Actually more than that, possibly hundreds but they're all so simmilar they can be considered the same third timeline. This timeline catually being the original timeline that both the adult timeline nad child timelines spring from. But I'll go into that more later.

[Fyxe]

Tons of timelines seems silly to me. Speaks to me of 'cheap sci-fi excuse', and also leads to tons of timelines that just don't make any sense. Link travels back in time in one timeline and in effect ceases to exist in that timeline. Which totally negates the point of travelling back in time in the first place.

It's just unnecessary and it's just... Bad logic/science/plot device. Two timelines is bad enough (DEUS EX MACHINA) but hundreds? Nasty.

...Stiiiill doesn't explain the item thing either.

[MikePetersSucks]

Myeh. I tried. I always thought that the timeline split at that moment to avoid the temporal paradox that would be created in the Young Link Timeline where Link puts the Master Sword down immediately after lifting it, preventing the seven year sealing and all that jazz.

[SOAP]

Tons of timelines seems silly to me. Speaks to me of 'cheap sci-fi excuse', and also leads to tons of timelines that just don't make any sense. Link travels back in time in one timeline and in effect ceases to exist in that timeline. Which totally negates the point of travelling back in time in the first place.

It's just unnecessary and it's just... Bad logic/science/plot device. Two timelines is bad enough (DEUS EX MACHINA) but hundreds? Nasty.

...Stiiiill doesn't explain the item thing either.

Okay first off I'm a single timeliner myself. Doesn't mean I have to close my mind to the possibility of other timeline much less make my own theories. Yes hundreds of timelines is messy but time travel itself is messy. There's no such thing as a simple way to explain time travel because time itself is not simple. We'd like to believe time goes in one straight line but that's a totally man-made conception of time. Time in nature works much differently. As for the hundred extra timelines, it's not that many, only the amount of times Link goes back in time and craetes a new timeline. You can say these all cease to exist beacuse they're all to simmilar to one another but they're still can't be considered the same as the adult timeline because Link leaves those timelines to go into the past. Minor differences aside I'd consider these extra fringe timelines synonymous with the ORIGINAL timeline. Not the Adult Timeline we're used to where Ganon is sealed and Link goes back to his childhood but the timeline as it was before all this time travel nonesense up until the point Link goes back in time for the first time. A third timeline that's actually the first timeline. It is my belief ALttP takes place in this timeline.

[Fyxe]

Okay first off I'm a single timeliner myself. Doesn't mean I have to close my mind to the possibility of other timeline much less make my own theories.

Hey hey hey hey heeeey. Hold up, if you read my recent posts you'll see I'm trying to be open to the possibility of multiple timelines. But I figure there needs to be a reason behind it, I don't believe it just happens when time travel occurs, because that isn't time travel. That's dimension travel. The multiple timelines idea was devised *because* humans have trouble comprehending time being in anything other than a straight line. It's a very simple concept - much easier to get your head around than the idea that everything you do in the past has already happened. The only reason the idea was thought up in the first place is because we don't like the idea of paradoxes - but paradoxes are no less confusing than time travel itself.

The multiple reality theory of time travel always strikes me as basically going 'oh, I can't explain what's going to happen to that timeline, so lets pretend it no longer really exists'. But a timeline can't just cease to exit, but at the same time, a person can't just suddenly cease to exist in a timeline. If you sent someone back in time you wouldn't expect them to no longer exist in your reality. That doesn't make any sense from the original timeline's point of view.

Minor differences aside I'd consider these extra fringe timelines synonymous with the ORIGINAL timeline.

The problem with that is that Link has essentially doomed hundreds of other realities simply to save one future. Kinda... Negates the whole 'we saved the world' schtick.

I figure it's possible that Zelda sending Link back did something different, but I don't believe every time Link goes back in time that he creates a whole new reality.

[Hero of Slime]

You know we could take the Gaiden Timeline a little further and say that ALttP never happened. If the game creators were willing to just sprout off a "what if" with TWW, who is to say that TWW was not a timeline fix. Nintendo could have abandoned the old timeline then made TWW to show the new direction that they were going. With ALttP gone, it removes so many pot-holes and leaves a single perfect timeline.

Or, does that cross the line into Mike-Petersism?

[MikePetersSucks]

It definately does. When you leave out a canon game, it's a Mike Peters-ism

"TWW never happened because OOT Link changed the future."

"All games except OOT are part of Link's dream at the beginning to warn him of his destiny."

[Rogue Cucco]

Or, does that cross the line into Mike-Petersism?

JUST what I was thinking...

Well, if you think about it, ALTTP not existing is the whole point of split timelines- there is one reality that Link sees when he is sent back in time and closes the DoT (with Ganondorf locked inside... perhaps?) and another reality where Zelda just sent Link back in time in the first place. To Zelda, MM never happened, and to Link, the big Party at the end of OOT never happened cause he was sent back before that happened.

[Hero of Slime]

It definately does. When you leave out a canon game, it's a Mike Peters-ism

But isn't that similar to what the Gaiden Timeline does? The Game Creators are making a second timeline, which is un-related to the first and has the games on the first timeline not exist.

The only difference is that in my theory the older games are no longer accepted by the game creators as part of the Zelda timeline while the Gaiden Timeline says that both timelines are still used.

[SOAP]

The problem with that is that Link has essentially doomed hundreds of other realities simply to save one future. Kinda... Negates the whole 'we saved the world' schtick.

Okay this might be a bad example, but did people cry over the Trunks was only able to save one version of DBZ timeline that wasn't even his own? If Link knew the moment he first went back in time for the first time it'd craete a new timeline and he wouldn't be able to return to his own timeline, I think he'd still take the chance if he was able to at least save one version of Hyrule. If that still sucks to you look at this way: In TWW, Link doesn't even same any version of Hyrule. Even if sacrificing Hyrule meant saving the world Link still didn't save it, King Daphnes did. Link only saved his sister. With help from others.

[Fyxe]

But isn't that similar to what the Gaiden Timeline does? The Game Creators are making a second timeline, which is un-related to the first and has the games on the first timeline not exist.

Which, as Rouge Cucco said, is essentially what happens with a split timeline anyway.

The only difference is that in my theory the older games are no longer accepted by the game creators as part of the Zelda timeline while the Gaiden Timeline says that both timelines are still used.

I think *whatever* the issue, the game creators still accept the older games as canon. Otherwise they would never re-release them for newer generations like they have done without changing the plot or making it clear the games don't happen, or something.

Okay this might be a bad example, but did people cry over the Trunks was only able to save one version of DBZ timeline that wasn't even his own?

...

...*Gets a stick*

*Hits you with it*

Very bad example. It's also irrelevant, because in DBZ it's explicitly stated that the timelines split, if my memory of the lame-ass plot is correct, while in OoT there is absolutely no clear indication of any split at all.

If Link knew the moment he first went back in time for the first time it'd craete a new timeline and he wouldn't be able to return to his own timeline, I think he'd still take the chance if he was able to at least save one version of Hyrule.

And if this were the case, you'd think someone would mention it. Rather major plot element, you'd think, dooming a whole reality in order to go back in time to sell some masks or something. Also, technically Link only ever goes back in time for fairly minor things that he presumably could still find as an adult if he tried *really really hard* (although for gameplay purposes, obviously he cannot). Also, he wouldn't have to go back at ALL if it wasn't for the fact that his younger self had already collected the items he needs, because otherwise he would presumably be able to find the items somewhere in Hyrule.

If that still sucks to you look at this way: In TWW, Link doesn't even same any version of Hyrule. Even if sacrificing Hyrule meant saving the world Link still didn't save it, King Daphnes did. Link only saved his sister. With help from others.

This is nothing to do with whether Link saves the world on his own or not, though, it's simply to do with saving the world. Link never saves the world without help in any of the games.

[SOAP]

...

...*Gets a stick*

*Hits you with it*

Very bad example. It's also irrelevant, because in DBZ it's explicitly stated that the timelines split, if my memory of the lame-ass plot is correct, while in OoT there is absolutely no clear indication of any split at all.

Which is why I don't believe there's a split to begin with. But if you're going to believe in multiple timeline there's at least three distinctive enough timelines to work with.

[Hero of Slime]

Now I don't really think that the game creators have excluded a game from the timeline. But I certainly think they could. The Timeline and the canon are not set in stone and can be altered by the game creators. If Nintendo really wanted to make a clear Zelda timeline all they would need to do is remove ALttP. Now if one believes that Nintendo is trying to make a clear timeline, the fact that they have not done anything to connect AlttP to TWW might be takes as evidence that the game has already been taken out of the Timeline.

You can't really say that a game being re-released means that game will be forever in the canon. A good game is still a good game even if it has no place in the story line. You can not deny that zelda is a game first and a story second. A game might be remade just to be a good game.

Now, I think that the perfect timeline should be single. Its much easier to say that Hyrule is renewed after the flood and say that ALttP BS is not OoT than to bother with all this Time Travel physics stuff.

[Fyxe]

You forget that TWW doesn't connect well with ANY of the old Zelda games, other than ALttP. It's connection with MM is flimsy and confusing. The lack of connection with ALttP means that Link's Awakening doesn't connect either, and neither does the original TLoZ (y'know, where it all started) and AoL.

And to be honest, any timeline where you remove the four original games in the series isn't worth bothering with, if you ask me.

Anyway...

OoT was intended to be the Imprisoning War. Interviews cover this, and simple logic covers this. In ALttP they go into the whole backstory about how Ganon was sealed in the Sacred Realm/Dark World. And what is the story of OoT? For once Zelda.com has a use in it's brief description of the plot...

Gather the Power of the Seven Sages and Seal Ganondorf in the Dark World Forever.

Why would they have that as the plot of the next console Zelda after they've just covered events that are pretty much identical in the backstory of the previous game in the series?

I still just find it hard to believe that Ganon gets sealed in the Dark World by seven sages twice. Also, it seems to rely on Ganon getting the Triforce for the first time twice. Tell you what, if that does happen, he's the unluckiest demon king ever.

Besides, interviews with people who have worked on OoT have stated that it was designed to be a retelling of the Imprisoning War.

This time, the story really wasn't an original. We were dealing with the "The Imprisoning War of the Seven Sages" from the SNES edition Zelda. To give that game a little "secret" recognition, I thought that keeping the "pigness" in Ganon would be the correct course. So we made him a beast "with the feeling of a pig."

In the SNES edition game, the story "Long ago, there was a war called the Imprisoning War" was passed along. A name in the Imprisoning War era is the name of a Town later.

Edited by Fyxe, 15 June 2006 - 08:02 AM.

[spunky-monkey]

You forget that TWW doesn't connect well with ANY of the old Zelda games, other than ALttP. It's connection with MM is flimsy and confusing.

I can't argue with you there. In fact, because of the crappy ending (come on guys Hyrule got destroyed) and vague references to the other games I often ignore Wind Waker from the timeline altogether.

Besides, interviews with people who have worked on OoT have stated that it was designed to be a retelling of the Imprisoning War.

To be honest with you I've never been 100% sure how the Imprisoning War connects with OoT. I've always considered OoT to be a 'graphical update' of ALttP from the developer's point of view because it competely does away with the knights fighting Ganon's armies sent to invade Hyrule from the Dark World.

The only IW connection I can find are the sages presence in both games and a bloody war that happened before OoT. I'm unhappy about how the ALttP manual mentions how the history of events got distorted over time as well.

[Fyxe]

There was no bloody war that occured before the Imprisoning War in ALttP's backstory, but you forget that Hyrule Castle is *destroyed* and the town is a wasteland. True, we never see Ganon's invading army (presumably made up of Moblins, Stalfos, etc.) and we never see the Hylian Knights (if they really existed), but that's because presumably all the *major* fighting has already taken place by the time Link wakes up.

Besides, it's a retelling. It tells the same story as the Imprisoning War but does it differently than the historical account in ALttP. It's partly a retcon and partly 'this is what really happened'. Rather like Metroid Zero Mission when compared with the original Metroid.

OoT is a completely different plot to ALttP. Obviously from a design standpoint it borrows many elements from ALttP, but LOADS of Zelda games do that, that doesn't mean anything when it comes to plot.

What's wrong with events being distorted over time? That's just a simple fact of history. Besides, that was added to the NoA translation of the manual so it doesn't really matter.

I liked the ending of TWW. Very dramatic, and the final fight was brilliant.

[Hero of Slime]

Besides, interviews with people who have worked on OoT have stated that it was designed to be a retelling of the Imprisoning War.

I agree with you that OoT was designed to be a retelling of the events. But what is to say that it still is. TWW makes a connection impossible in a single timeline.

[spunky-monkey]

There was no bloody war that occured before the Imprisoning War in ALttP's backstory, but you forget that Hyrule Castle is *destroyed* and the town is a wasteland.

Oh, I meant how the OoT 'conflict' sounded similar to the Imprisoning War in ALttP prologue, not that it's a very good connection of course, but its all I have to work with. The major difference is that we are dealing with Dark & Light worlds, instead of past & future Hyrule; not to mention Ganondorf/Ganon already killed his own followers and has the whole Triforce when ALttP begins.

What's wrong with events being distorted over time? That's just a simple fact of history. Besides, that was added to the NoA translation of the manual so it doesn't really matter.

Nothing 'wrong' but it doesn't help to serve the storyline in the chronology. Basically, we could make up any story to fit the plothole and no one would be able to agree, or disagree, with that statement.

I liked the ending of TWW. Very dramatic, and the final fight was brilliant.

Obviously my expectations were too high for Nintendo to deliver.

Edited by Ricky, 15 June 2006 - 11:30 AM.

[Hero of Slime]

Basically, we could make up any story to fit the plothole and no one would be able to agree, or disagree, with that statement.

It is easy to disagree with. If something made up is so farfetched it can't possibly be the same thing that the game creators came up with.

[Doopliss]

Fyxe, I don't think OoT is the same as the Imrpisoning War. Ganon has the whole Triforce in AlttP, but he loses it in OoT, we are told in ALttP that Ganon couldn't escape from the Sacred Realm between the IW and ALttP, but we need him to escape in TWW, which definitely comes after OoT.

We have been discussing the storyline for a long time, and I think it is time to move for newer and more complex theories, but I completely disagree with ignoring canon games or interpreting the canon so that it fits our timelines. I mean, we must make our theories according to canon, not vice-versa...

TWW makes a connection impossible in a single timeline.

...Why?

[Fyxe]

Nothing 'wrong' but it doesn't help to serve the storyline in the chronology. Basically, we could make up any story to fit the plothole and no one would be able to agree, or disagree, with that statement.

Which is why it's always good to look for the creator's intent rather than what WE think. What we think is irrelevant.

Obviously my expectations were too high for Nintendo to deliver.

Tell me what your expectations work and I'll tell you why they wouldn't work. XP

I agree with you that OoT was designed to be a retelling of the events. But what is to say that it still is.

That's a true point, but unless the creators come out and say 'we've changed the way the games fit together' we should take what they *have* said as (as near as you can get to) fact until they do so.

Fyxe, I don't think OoT is the same as the Imrpisoning War. Ganon has the whole Triforce in AlttP, but he loses it in OoT, we are told in ALttP that Ganon couldn't escape from the Sacred Realm between the IW and ALttP, but we need him to escape in TWW, which definitely comes after OoT.

It's never explained how Ganon escapes in TWW, either when it comes to the Sage's Seal or when it comes to the seal that the gods put on Hyrule. If that's glazed over in a clearly direct sequel, then what does it matter if the Triforce issue is glazed over in the (slightly) more ambiguous sequel? He gets it back somehow, using an Agahnim-like alter-ego or something. It doesn't really matter how it happens as long as it's possible.

[Hero of Slime]

That's a true point, but unless the creators come out and say 'we've changed the way the games fit together' we should take what they *have* said as (as near as you can get to) fact until they do so.

I think they have, by making TWW the game creators have shown that OoT can not be ALttP's backstory. I find it hard to believe that the Ganon Link killed in TWW was not the real Ganon.

Edited by The Zol, 15 June 2006 - 07:23 PM.

[Doopliss]

It's never explained how Ganon escapes in TWW, either when it comes to the Sage's Seal or when it comes to the seal that the gods put on Hyrule. If that's glazed over in a clearly direct sequel, then what does it matter if the Triforce issue is glazed over in the (slightly) more ambiguous sequel? He gets it back somehow, using an Agahnim-like alter-ego or something. It doesn't really matter how it happens as long as it's possible.

Isn't it easier to take OoT and the IW as different things? It would involve less speculation...

[Fyxe]

But then there's two almost identical events in the Zelda timeline. Ganon gets the Triforce for the first time, twice, is sealed by the sages, twice, takes over Hyrule using the Triforce twice, and turns the Sacred Realm into the Dark World twice. I don't buy that. It sticks out like a sore thumb in an otherwise fairly reasonable history.

Besides, the creators say they were doing a retelling of the Imprisoning War, and with no solid reason to defy them, who am I to say otherwise?

I am far more inclined to believe in a split timeline than the idea that the Imprisoning War essentially happens twice. And I don't like the split timeline idea at all, so that shows how much I dislike the idea that OoT is not the Imprisoning War.

Basically, before TWW was released, you were in the minority if you believed that OoT was not the Imprisoning War, and were usually a single Link theorist. But now that TWW has come along, everyone's gone 'ah I don't understand' and so they immediately break away from ideas that were previously accepted by many timeliners as most likely. But as long as the creators said so, I'm not going to chuck it away just yet. Especially when they're hinting at a timeline split (or a 'gaiden' timeline), rather than making any suggestion that they're seperate in any way.

The creator's intentions are paramount.

[Hero of Slime]

We know that there is another Ganon from FSA, it could have been him that did every thing in ALttP's BS. When there are two Ganons it is possible for a Ganon to do one thing for the first time twice.

Creators intentions can be changed, especially when they make a game that condradicts their original intentions.

Edited by The Zol, 16 June 2006 - 07:17 PM.

[Fyxe]

Considering they implied that there may be two timelines, we cannot say if they are contradicting themselves at all. It would be wrong to say that.

And I'm not denying the possibility of two Ganons, but that isn't my problem with almost the exact same things occuring twice. My problem is that essentially the Imprisoning War happens twice in that theory.