OK, I’m taking a break from packing (well, as I write this!!! I might well be posting this a couple of weeks afterwards, or days or hours, it depends) so I thought that the best way to spend my time was to answer one of life’s biggest questions – what IS the Zelda timeline? This is something I’ve wanted to try and tackle for a while, so I’ve finally decided to give it a go. DISCLAIMER & SPOILER WARNING – EVERYTHING here is subjective, it is how I view it. It may not agree with you and may not be “right” (I put that in speech marks since technically there is no right, at least not officially!) - it is just my views. This blog WILL contain spoilers so if you don’t want to know things, then play the games and then come back!
RELEASE HISTORY
Now that that’s out of the way, lets get to it. The first thing to look at is what games there are and the links that are involved. I’ll start by doing this in release order. First of all there is The Legend Of Zelda on the NES. This was then followed by the Adventure Of Link. This has been confirmed as a true sequel. The next Zelda game that was released was A Link To The Past on the SNES with Link’s Awakening released on the Game Boy a few years later, which again has been confirmed as a sequel to the previous release. The next game that was released was on the N64 – Ocarina Of Time. This was followed again by a “direct” (I’m using that term loosely at the moment and I’ll explain why later) sequel on the N64 which was Majora’s Mask (which currently remains as the only mainstream – assuming that the Oracle games are side-adventures due to their nature – I have yet to complete… Though I am working on it). The next releases were the Oracle Of Ages and Oracle Of Seasons games on the Game Boy Colour. A year later A Link To The Past was re-released on the Game Boy Advance with a new, 4-player adventure – Four Swords. Released at around the same time on the Nintendo Gamecube was The Wind Waker. A couple of years later 2 more games were released, Four Swords Adventures on the Nintendo Gamecube and The Minish Cap on the Game Boy Advance. The last hurrah for the Gamecube, and the first for the Nintendo Wii was released in 2006 –Twilight Princess. Then, with the release of the Nintendo DS, 2 more games were released, which were sequels to the 2002 game Wind Waker – Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. We then come to the current time with the anticipated release of Skyward Sword on the Nintendo Wii, which has been confirmed as a prequel to Ocarina of Time. So then, the games that are seen as direct sequels:-
The Legend Of Zelda/Adventure Of Link
A Link To The Past/Link’s Awakening
Skyward Sword/Ocarina Of Time/Majora’s Mask
The Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks
It is assumed that Minish Cap/Four Swords/Four Swords Adventures make a set too and will for this blog be explained as the Vaati trilogy. We are also left with the Oracles Of Seasons/Ages and Twilight Princess with no direct link to other games.
THE TIMELINE
Right, that took a while. To create this timeline, I’m going to take the same approach as above, go through the games chronologically. So, first of all we have Legend of Zelda and Adventure of Link. Quite simple, AoZ followed LoZ. Nothing wrong there. Then came A Link To The Past and Link’s Awakening. Again, LttP was official declared as a prequel and thus It’s still straight forward:-
LttP -> LA -> LoZ -> AoL.
When Ocarina of Time was released, it too was officially confirmed as coming before the previous games, in fact, it is the story of the imprisoning war mentioned in LttP’s manual. Majora’s mask was also released as a sequel to OoT. So we are now left with:-
OoT -> MM -> LttP -> LA -> LoZ -> AoL.
For now I am going to skip Vaati trilogy, and head straight onto The Wind Waker, and the problems it brings.
THE SPLIT
Now, Wind Waker brings up an interesting point in the timeline. It very clearly points out that it is a different Link to the one that was in OoT and MM, but the same Ganondorf. The beginning of the game recalls the events that happen in OoT, well, errrmmm… The adult portion of the game at least. It talks about the ‘Hero of Time’ defeating Ganon and then just simply disappearing – which fits in since obviously Link (as the hero of time) went back to a child, thus, disappeared! So, we now have a split that will cause an Adult and Child timeline (I’ll explain how later):-
CHILD TIMELINE MM
/
OoT
\
ADULT TIMELINE WW -> PH -> ST
Now, need to try and figure out where the other games come into play… My head is seriously hurting right now (It is now about 4 weeks later since I started doing this, alright I been busy and not doing this, but still!) Actually, I changed my mind, I’m gonna look at Twilight Princess.
TWILIGHT PRINCESS
Aha, now, I think Twilight Princess is quite key in the timeline. It has a lot that it can contribute to both timelines. I’ll go through its key points now. As a starting point, we have to look at the back story. There are some interesting points in it. First of all, - Ganon(dorf)’s “execution”. The 7 sages tried to kill Ganon(dorf) but failed (killing a sage in the process) (I have a feeling that the lead up to this might be another game in the future…) Also, the placement of the Master Sword in TP is strikingly similar to LttP. So, I think that Lttp (and by continuity LA) follow TP. So, the biggest question is where to place Twilight Princess – Adult or child??? Well, I don’t need to think about that, as it has been confirmed that it takes place in the child timeline with WW being parallel.
So, timeline at the moment:-
CHILD TIMELINE MM -> TP -> LttP -> LA -> LoZ -> AoL
/
SS ->OoT
\
ADULT TIMELINE WW -> PH -> ST
I think we can go with the 2 NES games following this, as how their stories are links greatly with Lttp/LA. I’ve also no added Skyward Sword, as there is no debate about this and it leaves me to focus on the last couple of points.
SPIN-OFFS/NON-CANONS
5 games come under this – The Vaati trilogy and the Oracle games. And it is hard to properly place these games… They bear no real significance on the storyline sufficiently to be worried about, however, they are some interesting points to bring up. The first point is about the Vaati trilogy – THERE IS NO MASTER SWORD IN THESE GAMES. I hadn’t realized this until, whilst in my research for this, I found one which actually pointed this out. But, there is another thing I’ve noticed – As mentioned in OoT, a Gerudo male is born every 100 years. That point is mentioned again within FSA. I think that this is an emphasis on the fact that, similar to how there are many generations of Link throughout the series, there are many generations of Ganondorf too. I think that this takes place before SS, and thus, before the ‘main’ timeline.
So, the last games I need to place – the Oracle games. The timeline involves a resurrection of Ganon – which means he must be dead (duh?!) There are only 2 games in which this has properly happened – LttP and AoL. There is one last factor in the storyline, which is going to influence my decision. In the linked ending of the Oracle games, Link leaves on a boat, and, at the beginning of LA (you can probably see where I’m going with this), Link is seen sailing a boat. SO, my final timeline is:-
SPLIT EXPLINATION
Now, the split is interesting, because I’ve heard many ways of explaining it. However, the way that I see it is this – when Link was sent back at the end of OoT, a parallel was created. Not with some weird time bending thing, but that 2 Hyrule’s were set up. Within the adult timeline was one kingdom of Hyrule, whilst the Child timeline had a different kingdom that ended up being set up somewhere else. When the people of Hyrule move to Kakariko in the 7 year gap, I think that more people moved away from the ‘old’ kingdom and created a new one in a new place far away – which – would be called Hyrule and run parallel with the other Hyrule.
Right, that’s me done for now. It's taken me 3 pages in pre-writing on Word. I don't even write that much for essay's for uni half the time!!!!!!!! Sorry this took so long to actually put up, and I’m sorry that the next one will be as well since I’m going away for 3 weeks now. I’m not to shure what I am going to write about next, but I’m shure it might be interesting!!!!!
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