Zelda Timeline/Conspiracy Theories, Part 1
So one morning I woke up to find I was in an empty room. When I came to I noticed there was writing on the wall that looked suspiciously like mine. True story! The writings discussed the long and winding timelines that connected all the Zelda games. I couldn’t believe my eyes, so I decided to share with you all the mystical teachings I learned on that day.
I do believe there is a timeline. However, I don’t like the official and widely accepted timeline, which states that Ocarina of Time splits the world into two separate universes, one where Link goes back in time to be a child and Ganondorf is arrested, and one where Ganondorf takes control of the Dark Realm while Link is off frolicking in Termina. This is dumb and stupid. Unfortunately for me, this is the way that Eiji Aonuma and Shigeru Miyamoto have established with Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. For posterity’s sake, I’ll include it.
So I believe that The Minish Cap starts off the entire timeline; no Triforce is mentioned, there is no Master Sword, and Link starts off hatless. Throughout the course of his adventure, he meets Ezlo, transformed into the shape of a green cap, and finds the Picori Sword. He uses this sword to defeat the ultimate villain, Vaati, who is sealed inside the newly christened Four Sword (as Link powers it up with the elements). At the end, Ezlo gives Link his trademark hat in the presence of his childhood friend Zelda. In between this game and Four Swords, Vaati apparently escapes and steals some maidens or something, but that’s not in any of the games, so I don’t really care. Many many generations later, a different Zelda senses trouble with the Four Sword and asks her trusted childhood friend, (a different) Link to investigate. Vaati is freed from his swordly shackles and kidnaps Princess Zelda. Link rescues Zelda and traps Vaati once again in the Four Sword. In Four Swords Adventures, yet another Zelda is captured by the newly-released-yet-again Vaati, as well as seven shrine maidens, and her childhood friend Link goes to rescue her. It is revealed that the true villain was Ganondorf, who uses the Trident to transform into Ganon and create a Dark Realm, where he was secretly controlling Vaati all along. Vaati is killed once and for all, while Ganon is sealed inside the Four Sword.
Somehow along the way, Ganondorf is freed and begins to wreck havok on the people of Hyrule. This is not explained in any game. Perhaps Skyward Sword will reconcile the differences between the Four Swords saga and the OoT saga, as Link is from a tribe of sky people and the Skyward Sword somehow becomes the Master Sword.
Now we get to the fun part. During the course of Ocarina of Time, a new Link travels seven years into the future, where Ganondorf has seized control of Hyrule. Link seals Ganondorf in the Sacred Realm with the Master Sword in its first appearance on the timeline. A new Zelda, whom Link has never met before, magically transports Link back to the past so he can relive his childhood. It is here that the official continuity suffers some sort of dramatic break due to tampering with the timestream, where Link (whose last name is finally revealed to be McFly) stops his parents from meeting and…no wait, that didn’t happen. In one continuity, after Adult Link seals Ganondorf in the Sacred Realm, he escapes, and with no hero to stop him, Daphnes, the King of Hyrule, calls upon the gods to cast Hyrule into the briny depths in a great flood, and the gods are like, “‘kay, sure.” Thousands of years pass, legends are formed, and Ganondorf eventually breaks free of his seal yet again, who channels his inner pirate and begins to terrorize the seven seas (arrr). A new Link and a new Zelda eventually kill Ganondorf once and for all. About a year later, a lame villain named Bellum (it’s Latin for war, hurr hurr) rises to threaten the Great Sea, so the same Link goes to defeat Bellum and rescue Zelda, who’s been kidnapped again. Spoilers: he dies. Spirit Tracks takes place about a hundred years after Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass, where Link and Tetra/Zelda have found a new landmass which they call New Hyrule, as explained in the beginning by now verrrrrry old man Niko, the lovable swabbie of Tetra’s pirate crew. A new Link and a new Zelda team up for once (kind of) to stop the world from evil once again, yadda yadda, from a new lame villain, Malladus, a Demon King or something. Let’s just say he’s no Ganon. Link and Zelda kill him too in the end, ending this chronology.
Cleanup as well as more to come later, when I’m less lazy.
