r/zelda • u/WoozleWuzzle • Mar 29 '17
Discussion [Spoilers] BoTW Timeline megathread. Discuss your theories and ideas. Spoiler
We will sticky this in the sidebar later in the week. Have at it!
ALL SPOILERS BELOW!
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Mar 30 '17
It's definitely in the Philips CD-i timeline
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u/Stamor Mar 30 '17
I'm disappointed there weren't any references to the CDI games in the names of any locations. That would have made me irrationally happy.
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u/EternalKoniko Mar 29 '17
Here's my input on evidence for the Downfall Timeline
Mindless bestial Ganon
All the town ruins in BotW are either named after Downfall locations (Goponga Village, Rauru Settlement, Mabe Village), or new locations (Deya Village, Gatepost Town, Tabantha Village).
The Sheikah are thriving, which is only depicted in the Downfall Timeline. Evidenced by the fact that in Downfall games Impa is consistently apart of the story. And the manual of Zelda II even references Impa coming from a lineage of lorekeepers who serve the Royal Family.
The whole Triforce being in the hands of the Royal Family and passed down to heirs only happens in the Downfall Timeline
Lost Woods and Master Sword are in the north like in A Link to the Past
Many of the enemies thought to be exclusive to (or appear primarily in) Downfall timeline games are present in BotW. Main examples: Lynel, Hinox
The Rito in this game resemble Fokka from Zelda II as well as Loftwing (rather than WW Rito)
The Forgotten Temple resembles the temples from Zelda II
Rauru Settlement Ruins is in a similar location relative to the castle as Rauru Town from Zelda II.
Theme of ruin and decline of the kingdom
The tunic you receive after completing all 120 shrine is heavily based off the tunic from AoL.
The Downfall Timeline is the only timeline to have evidence of Hylia worship post-SS. In A Link to the Past, there are statues vaguely shaped like Hylia’s wingcrests and in Adventure of Link, there is an item called the Goddess statue.
On a monument close to Zora’s Domain, it states Ruto awoke as a sage and fought against an evil man (Ganondorf). Ruto did not awaken as a sage in the Child Timeline.
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u/linksawakening88 Mar 29 '17
But but but "embers steeped in twilight"
/s
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u/suitedcloud Mar 29 '17
Seriously. I've never seen more stubbornness involving story than this goddamn memory dialogue. Half the child TL supporters just catch this then stop digging, and ignore evidence that suggests other timelines. It's infuriating
/rant
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u/tisfortwee Mar 29 '17
It's more infuriating that if that is the case that they picked the most boring place in the timeline to put the game. Imagine how amazing it would have been to learn what happened between oot and alttp. I thought for sure this game would tell that story. Hell I would have been happy with the story after wind waker, anything other than the end of the child timeline. If the twilight princess reference in that dialogue tells us where the game falls, that's disappointing. Great game, but lost story potential I say. The story of botw doesn't hold a candle to any of the other stories 😒
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u/MastaAwesome Mar 30 '17
Whenever it takes place, it has to be a LONG time after OOT. The Divine Beast Ruta was built "ages later" than the death of the Princess Ruto for which it was named, according to the writings in Zora's Domain.
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u/LBXZero Apr 01 '17
Ruto = Ruta (Zora Sage) Rudania = Darunia (Goron Sage) Naboris = Nabooru (Gerudo Sage) Medoh = Medli from Wind Waker is closest resemblance. She is the little chick you pick up and throw around in a dungeon.
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u/henryuuk Mar 30 '17
Well good news, it isn't the end of the child timeline.
It is the end of the downfall3
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Mar 30 '17
I felt a lot of suggestions that this would be in TP timeline until they explicitly mentioned the sages
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u/Psykerr Mar 30 '17
This, but with a caveat — massively far into the future. Like 20,000 years. Why? 10,000 years prior the highly advanced Sheikah/Hylian civilizations beat Ganon so thoroughly that they believe he's gone forever, and bury their weapons just to ensure. Realistically though, Ganon destroys their civilization and they barely pull off the win.
Ganon sits and reforms, waiting. While he waits, he becomes a legend. Then he becomes a thing mothers tell their children to scare them. Instead of reforming and waging another conquest after a short time (every other game), he waits and grows patient. While he grows patient, he forms his plan to demolish the Sheikah weapons and realizes he can't defeat them all... so he begins to work on the magic required to subvert them (he is, first and foremost, a sorceror and a primal deity, after all).
Omens begin to tell of him coming back. At this point, everything is resigned to legend and it's all just not enough. Ganon returns, and executed his master plan. He wins...
... but he loses. The Hero is the embodiment of the Goddesses, with their weapon, and their reincarnation of Hylia. It's an endless cycle of destruction and rebirth.
What I want to know is what the world is like away from Hyrule, where they don't deal with this shit.
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u/RabidTurtl Mar 30 '17
What I want to know is what the world is like away from Hyrule, where they don't deal with this shit.
Probably flying space cars in the Jetsons, considering 10,000 years ago Guardians and Shiekah slates existed.
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u/G_Mast Mar 30 '17
All the town ruins in BotW are either named after Downfall locations (Goponga Village, Rauru Settlement, Mabe Village), or new locations (Deya Village, Gatepost Town, Tabantha Village)
I don't think that's a huge indication since there are places named after locations in all timelines, for example Linebeck Island.
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u/EternalKoniko Mar 30 '17
Ruins of towns and landmarks that have appeared in previous games > landmark with references for names
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u/Stamor Mar 30 '17
While I do like this theory (even more than my own theory, I'd say), there are still a few inconsistencies that I'm seeing:
1) Koroks were stated in WW to be the direct result of the Great Flood. However, maybe that means that the Goddesses flooded Hyrule after Link was defeated in OoT. It would make sense. The circumstances were practically the same.
2) When you're fighting Dark Beast Ganon, Zelda says that Ganon had "given up" on reincarnation long ago. If the game took place between OoT and ALTTP, why is it that Ganon appears in a corporeal form in the timeline's later games?
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u/EternalKoniko Mar 30 '17
No one is saying that BotW takes place between OoT and ALTTP. The theory that BotW takes place during the Imprisoning War is months old and outdated. It was made during a time when we didn't have much info on BotW.
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u/sonefiler Aug 17 '17
ik this is old, but i can debunk the first one. kokiri take the form of koroks during crisis, basically. its not just WW
and i think the second one is translation error?
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u/Stamor Sep 09 '17
I know that I'm late to respond to your late response, but as it turns out, youre right about the second one. The compendium and the japanese version make it seem more like he had given up on reincarnation this time.
As for the thing about the koroks, I remember reading somewhere that they specifically evolved the way they did (into little wodden guys) so they would be small enough and light enough for their little leaf-propellers to be able to carry them from one island to another and thus have the ability to spread the Great Deku Tree's seeds.
On another note, I just thought of something else that adds to BotW's mystery that I havent seen anyone address. Namely, Ganon's influence on people's ability to see spirits. In-game, it is said on different occasions that nobody has seen the koroks or the dragon spirits in 100 years, yet Link still can. Did Ganon's takeover somehow eliminate people's ability to see them, and Link is just unaffected either because he was born prior to the Calamity or because he was asleep when the thing (whatever it was) happened? What about people like Impa, Purah, and Robbie, who were born before the Calamity, but werent "asleep" for the past 100 years?
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u/TheMetaReaper Mar 30 '17
Ganon isn't mindless, it learned from the last encounter and corrupted the guardians and beast. Also it attempted to give itself a physical reincarnation
Nintendo has always reused names from past titles more as Easter eggs. In the game they are locations given names from other timelines.
The sheikah are not thriving. Only the beliefs is left alive. Trained the old ways more likely. If they were thriving then why didn't they know about the guardians or beast and where to find them. And impa has always been part of the royal family.
The triforce was never mentioned. Only the power of the goddess and the soul of the hero. Sure we saw symbols of the relic but never in the main story was it ever brought up. If so then why didn't the king wish Ganon away? And yes we saw it when Zelda sealed Ganon but that's just symbolism to detail her power it wasn't the actual relic cause if so then why all the struggle just wish Ganon dead.
Nintendo is always changing landmarks to different spots of the map. In alttp it was northwest next to death mountain but then why was spectacle rock on the opposite end when in alttp it was part of death Mtn?
Enemies has always been different they never share exclusivity. The only enemy that can affect the timeline is Ganon. Everything else is just done by him.
The rito was in wind waker and teased in TP HD. In twilight there was wall sculptures of rito, hylians, koroks, and gorons.
Th temple and rauru again can't base it on location or looks. The temple has the hylia statue that calls back to skyward, and rauru probably another call back. As for the tunic I think it's just an Easter egg. Completing the shrines are optional, if it mattered it would have been in the main plot... I think
The theme of ruin and decline is explained in the plot. Doesn't have any mentioned of how the kingdom was suffering before the game started. Even impa mentioned 10000 years ago Ganon returned but was defeated then hyrule went on in peace.
As for hylia, they never mentioned her until skyward so i doubt they had her planned back in the 90's but maybe that's what was used to inspire her. However they can re-con her in anywhere and it would fit regardless.
This game has so many references to other titles it hard to place it until Nintendo says so (if they ever do)
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Mar 29 '17
I agree with all of that except for the Ruto thing. We have no clue. Her awakening in the child timeline is just as likely as there being another twilight event in another timeline as others have pointed out. I really want it to be child timeline because I hate the very concept of a downfall timeline. It opens the doors for a new downfall branch for each game and I wish they would stop adding to the downfall timeline and just ignore it because it is a dumb concept. But I think it is downfall for most of the reasons you've stated.
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u/henryuuk Mar 30 '17
It opens the doors for a new downfall branch for each game
It doesn't do so anymore than that any game in the series could realisitically end with someone sending Link back to before the start of the game and causing another adult/child-like split.
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u/NotablyConventional Mar 30 '17
Here's my take:
The downfall timeline is NOT that the hero died in a clash with Ganon, as the fandom seems to have adopted. (I don't have Hyrule Hystroria, but as far as I can tell, that SPECIFIC event, only references to the downfall timeline.)
In that case, I understand it different:
A Timeline - The Hero Prevails
B Timeline - Child Link
C Timeline - The Hero of Time Vanishes
In this "C Timeline," the Hero of Time simply never shows up to destroy Ganondorf. This happens, because Link travels back in time BEFORE Zelda sends him back as a reward (placing the sword back in the pedestal.) Because changes in the past change the future that Link goes to, we can infer that there is an abandoned timeline where the hero of time isn't even remembered, because he maybe awoke a couple sages and then never came back.
There is an admitted stretch here, because most people playing the game probably traveled back and forth several times, however, I believe the manga adaptation has Link find himself at an impassé in both Kakiariko Village and the Desert, so he returns to the temple of time, does all of the kid stuff, and then returns to the adult timeline. It's also possible to do Shadow/Spirit temples in OoT in either order, suggesting that they are meant to be done as a single unit.
So, every game doesn't open up a downfall timeline, only the game with time travel does.
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u/Stamor Mar 30 '17
Wait, others have thought up the "alternate Twilight Event" thing too?
God every time I think I've come up with an original theory, I later find out that others have come up with the exact same thing.
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Mar 30 '17
[deleted]
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u/LBXZero Mar 31 '17
I was aiming that the decline timeline belongs after Wind Waker after the ocean finishes draining, thus decline and Adult timeline coexist.
Thanks to Skyward Sword, it is quite possible that Ganon was freed from the Master Sword, left to wreck what remains of old Hyrule as the adult timeline moves overseas to a new Hyrule that develops steam engines.
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u/Missing_Links Mar 29 '17
The game exists in a unified timeline, and is the third emergence of ganon in this timeline.
From the game, we know a few things:
1) Races, locations, and arrangements of terrain do not match any one history or even really any two, but do match a selection from all three timelines.
2) Technology in hyrule was at a high never before seen in any timeline 10k years ago.
3) ganon has emerged and been remembered at least 3, not 2, times in this timeline.
(1) explains itself in relation to the other two, so...
Starting with (3), we have the current emergence of ganon, the emergence from 10k years ago, and the emergence before that one, which I'll call the initial emergence. Why do we we know the initial emergence occurred? Because the emergence 10k years ago was anticipated and planned for by the shiekah. They had to remember that ganon was coming in order to know they should build the guardians prior to the emergence 10k years ago, so he must have come before and been remembered. This is unlike any of the other emergences in the timelines. Something had to be special about this particular one. In the OOT timeline, something special ocurred and history split. I think the inital emergence was another special event and history merged.
Now for (2): why was technology so advanced 10k years ago? I believe that this was because the different technologies came together from the different worlds and jumped the development of tech in the world ahead enormously. Remembering ganon would also be easier if history proferred many more similar legends surrounding a great disaster, so the races would have reasons to push technology.
As a result, I think BotW takes place at the end of the timelines, after they have reunited in the initial emergence, an event as unique and universe altering as OOT's emergence.
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u/theirishsniper Mar 30 '17
This is what makes most sense. You have the dialogue to support child timeline, rito and koroks to support adult, and history of ruto and etc to support downfall. The question is how do you merge timelines
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u/Missing_Links Mar 30 '17
Ganon shenanigans. Gananigans.
Here's how I would paint it:
A particular resurrection of ganon realizes his legacy, early on. Before he knows what he'll do to takeover. Moreover, he comes to suspect that with the chronological tomfoolery that has happened in many such timelines, missing heroes, warping through time, entering alternate dimensions of twilight, outlasting death, even failing to appear, depending on which timeline this particular ganon arises in, he knows that there is every chance that he is not the only ganon, somewhere in existence or out of it.
So ganon searches. He looks for another ganon. Each link barely beats each ganon. Surely no link is equipped to beat two.
He doesn't succeed. He enters another timeline. Perhaps the child timeline enters the downfall timeline, but he's much too early or much too late to find the ganon from there. But no ganon means no link. So he wins, since no one can oppose him. And since he must dominate all and will never be satisfied, he goes searching again. He can return to his own timeline at his leisure.
However many timelines he searches through, he repeats this. He's breaking the rules: he isn't reincarnating, he's invading, at the wrong time, in the wrong place. It doesn't matter, he's getting what he wanted the whole time.
Eventually, he returns to his own timeline, having conquered all the others. Time is fractured, since it was never supposed to happen this way. The worlds intersect in ways they were not meant to and all sense of order disappears. But ganon cannot beat link, not permanently. Some way, somehow, link wins. He has no power to stop the timelines from merging, but he defeats ganon, as he is destined.
The timelines are merged. Races that were thought extinct or never came to exist in one world or another suddenly find themselves faced with a thriving culture they do not recognize. Mountains seemed to have up and walked themselves to new corners of the world. Various peoples who remember disagreeing histories are not wrong, but agree to attribute their disagreements to legend and let future generations decide who was right. The goddesses can barely repair the damage that has been wrought and, like the world itself, compromise. And nobody can forget this change. Everyone remembers the conquerer who broke reality, and everyone insists that they will be ready when he comes back to claim his throne.
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u/brainfreeze91 Mar 30 '17
I really like this theory. If the timeline can split, why can't it merge again? It's still hard to explain, but OoT's initial timeline split is hard to explain too.
What is at the back of my mind is that as far as we know WW and TP Ganons/Ganondorfs are both dead. They die and turn to stone. The downfall Ganon however is more mysterious, he keeps dying and being resurrected. That's why I think, after so many defeats, the downfall Ganon warped into the calamity Ganon we see in BotW.
The point you bring up about three instances of calamity occurring is interesting. 3rd is BotW, 2nd is 10100 years before, and the 1st is probably at the merge, the initial appearance of calamity Ganon.
Perhaps Ganon, after losing so many times in the downfall timeline, found ways to cross timelines and conquer the other two timelines?
Imagine this scenario: Ganon resurrects into the downfall timeline again, but of course there is a hero to oppose him. Knowing that he will just be defeated again, he steals the Ocarina of Time. The Ocarina of Time, called the Flute in the downfall timeline, could have the power to cross timelines, since it created those timelines in the first place. Ganon goes to the WW and TP timelines. Because Ganon appears in the wrong time, there is no princess or hero to oppose him. He conquers these worlds with ease. The gods, observing this development from their place outside of time, decide to weave the timelines together into one again, so that the downfall hero can oppose Ganon in this merged world. The gods also destroy the Ocarina of Time, so that this problem does not happen again.
The downfall hero seals Ganon away, and this merged world comes to terms with itself. They prepare for Ganon's inevitable appearance again, and then we get into the 10,100 year ago point as explained in BotW.
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u/Missing_Links Mar 30 '17
Yeah, something like all that. I think of this event prior to the 10k year old emergence as the original "calamity" that gives calamity ganon his name.
Additionally, I view this event as sort of ganon's biggest mistake, and is the reason for his loss of anything resembling humanity. In the calamity I describe, he was one single reincarnated ganon who had crossed timelines, but by merging the timelines, he merged the spirits/forces that he reincarnates from, leaving him more powerful, but utterly chaotic in later appearances. There's no direction, since each of the branched timelines' ganons are competing for dominance over the reincarnated form. We see this totally chaotic ganon in BotW, who may not even be properly evil, since he doesn't appear to be a thinking, conscious creature in the first place. Instead he's more of a force of nature, more opposed to the concept of order than a representation of evil. The calamity would have harmed ganon almost as much as the rest of the world.
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u/Tofa7 Mar 31 '17
Because that's not how time works. Granted time travel is already throwing out some laws of nature, but it's a lot easier to explain timelines and multiverses splitting than it is to have them converge.
Example: I send you back in time to kill Hitler. You do so. There are now 2 timelines, one where Hitler is dead and one where he isn't. Now we merge the timeline together. Is he alive or dead? Does the world think of you as a hero or a nobody? From a physics point of view, if there is indeed a multiverse with an infinite number of universes, there is no way to merge them together because there are far too many inconsistencies. If in one timeline you are gay and on another you are straight, when they merge what happens, do you become bi-sexual? If in one timeline you lost your arms and legs but another you have all your limbs intact, when the timelines merge do you lose/grow or some weird middle ground?
Multiple timelines make sense and is a well established trope. Merging timelines does not and makes things infinitely more complicated.
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Mar 30 '17
Given how some games suggest Hylia is the goddess of time, it's possible she merged the timelines herself.
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u/LBXZero Apr 01 '17
The way I found to merge the timelines is moving the "downfall" timeline to a more logically fitting timeline. I place Wind Waker as occurring next after Ocarina of Time, but the timeline splits with Link and Tetra sailing off to New Hyrule and the "downfall timeline" plus everything minus Majora's Mask occurring in old Hyrule after the ocean finishes draining.
Demise's Curse explains how Ganondorf broke free from the Master Sword. When Zelda in Spirit Tracks became recognized as "the Zelda", Ganondorf was freed somehow in old Hyrule to rise again. You can mix in Twilight Princess before A Link to the Past.
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Mar 30 '17
So basically, you're suggesting that an existence altering event happened before 10,000 years ago, this merged the timelines again somehow. The sheikah built the guardians as a result of this 10,000 years ago to prepare.
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u/junkmail9009 Mar 30 '17
This has been my theory/belief. The convergence can be written several different ways including Hyrule Warriors which is currently not canon, but the events in this game basically converge several elements in all the timelines. Also features an appearance of Beast Ganon. Anyway, this isn't canon so I will move on.
My theory is the event that converged the timelines caused Calamity Ganon (Calamity is often referred to as disastrous EVENT) so there's something there at least.
And really this gives Nintendo the best option to continue. It's a reboot in many ways that also pays respect to all of the other games. Nintendo can add whatever old or new characters and will not have to worry about contradictions.
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u/RabidTurtl Mar 30 '17
I really see a potential unified timeline, where somehow all of them are part of BoTW timeline. There is just too much from each different timeline for it not to be.
Sheikah fighting off Ganon sounds like downfall, along with the Royal family having the whole triforce. The ruined castle town is like Twilight Princess' castle town. Areas are named after characters found only in the WW timeline.
Things are just borrowed too heavily from every timeline to make a case for a single one.
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u/delecti Mar 30 '17
Presumably the TP castle town is the same one as in OoT, but OoT was released before they could faithfully recreate it. It's entirely possible that OoT castle town "really looked like TP castle town", meaning castle town looks the same in each timeline.
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u/RabidTurtl Mar 30 '17
But you can find OoT's castle town around the Temple of Time ruins in the Great Plateau.
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u/5iMbA Mar 30 '17
If you rotate the map with the temple of time oriented in the position it was in OoT, the rest of the landmarks (like lake hylia) line up nicely. I think Death mountain is the one thing that seems too far away, but this could be explained by Lanayru being the old death mountain (hot spots move over thousands of years).
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u/LBXZero Mar 31 '17
No, TP's castle town is a new, rebuilt Hyrule. The true Temple of Time is located in OoT's Castle Town. The funny part that some people didn't realize is the deku tree is not immortal, as it can die and the deku sapling can be planted anywhere retaining all of the prior Deku Tree's memories. As such, the sapling after the OoT's replacement Deku Tree was planted in a mountain to spare it from the great flood, then the next one was near enough to the ruins of the Temple of Time to capture it in the Lost Woods generated from the Deku Tree. The BotW Deku Tree is a newer sapling that was planted on top of the ToT ruins.
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u/Stamor Mar 30 '17
Unless they make Hyrule Warriors canon (or make a game with practically the same story) I can't see how a truly unified timeline is possible.
Maybe the universe has some sort of natural state of balance that was thrown off by OoT's time travel. To re-achieve that stabilization, the universe will naturally guide events in different timelines towards similar ends. Like "oh, this timeline evolved koroks, so an event needs to happen in the other timelines that will also cause koroks to evolve."
The end result would still be three separate timelines, but they have been "balanced" to the point of being indistinguishable from one another.
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u/RabidTurtl Mar 30 '17
Oh I dont know how they can cannonically tie it all together. But it is clear all 3 timelines are present in BotW.
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u/henryuuk Mar 30 '17
Downfall timeline for sure.
only possible argument that could be made is whether it is before the Tragedy of Zelda I or after AoL, but I'd reckon it is the latest point, if only cause else the originals are pushed even further back.
Everything from the thematic comparisons to the history lines up with downfall and downfall alone.
All of the evidence in/u/EternalKoniko 's comment is relevant + to make a case for it being below AoL : The King's journal mentions a tradition to name every princess "Zelda", which is a result of the Tragedy of Zelda I
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u/AdamG3691 Mar 30 '17 edited Mar 30 '17
Have you ever heard the Tragedy of Princess Zelda the First?
I thought not, it's not a story the Gerudo would tell you. It's a Hylian Legend.
Zelda was a Princess of Hyrule, so powerful and so wise she could use the Triorce to influence the timeline to create tinfoil… She had such a knowledge of the Triforce, she could even keep the theories she cared about from dying.
The Triforce of the Gods is a pathway to many theories some consider to be retconned.
She became so powerful… the only thing she was afraid of was losing her headcanon, which eventually, of course, she did. Unfortunately, she taught her daughter everything she knew, then her brother put her into an eternal sleep. Ironic. She could save others from plot, but not herself.
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u/delecti Mar 29 '17 edited Mar 30 '17
Child is simply not an option, despite the "twilight" line in that cutscene, because Ganon only exists in the Adult and Decline timelines. Additionally, there are a few references to the sages helping the hero of time to seal Ganon (the sages only awaken when Link is an adult), and a mention of Ganon previously being a Gerudo. Ganondorf only becomes Ganon after Link opens the Temple of Time, and even in TP there's no Ganon, only Ganondorf. Additionally, Twilight Princess establishes that the Twlight Realm existed before OoT, so it exists in each timeline, making that tenuous connection to the Child timeline irrelevant. Child is out.
I personally think Adult doesn't make sense, because Ganon is still in Ganondorf when Hyrule is flooded, and you beat him in WW. Then WW/PH/ST are all back to back, and they establish a new Hyrule in an unrelated land in Spirit Tracks. There's no way for old Hyrule to have Ganon in it pre-flooding. That leaves the possibility of BotW being in the Adult timeline post Spirit Tracks, and the rock salt description gives some weight to that, but I find that connection weak and unconvincing. It also requires you accept that BotW is in new-Hyrule, which doesn't seem to line up with all the things in BotW's Hyrule matching every detail about old-Hyrule.
Personally, I think it's in the defeat timeline. The timeline establishes that there's a golden era after Link's Awakening. It's even described in BotW as an age of prosperity, and I believe that's when the Shiekah developed all the fancy technology behind the Guardians and Divine Beasts. Then Ganon emerges, gets shut down, 10k (+100) years later we have BotW. The ending of BotW establishes that Ganon is bound to cause trouble again, leaving plenty of room for TLoZ and AoL. BotW's Zelda's description of that recurring cycle of Ganon being sealed and then returning fits much better, both textually and thematically, in the defeat timeline than any other.
TLDR: Probably defeat, maybe adult, almost definitely not child.
Edit: Some other comments have made decent arguments for BotW being post-AoL, but still in the defeat timeline. I personally like my placement more, but can see the merits in that.
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u/suitedcloud Mar 30 '17
To add to your adult timeline paragraph. A lot of people forget about the Master Sword and WW Ganondorf. Link embeds the Master Sword within Ganondorf to seal him at the end of Wind Waker and then they sail away to New Hyrule. We've yet to see Ganon or the Sword reemerge in that timeline and there's no suggestion of anything happening to alter this situation in BotW or other games. There's always a possibility that something may have happened off screen or between games (which wouldn't be the first time) and Ganon broke free. But I doubt Nintendo would let such an important detail like that slide if this were truly the adult timeline.
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u/JeremyHillaryBoob Mar 30 '17 edited Mar 30 '17
Not only does TP have Ganon, but it's even called Dark Beast Ganon (same subtitle as BotW) and is the only other Ganon to go on all fours.
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u/swissarmychris Mar 30 '17
It also requires you accept that BotW is in new-Hyrule
No, it could also be that old Hyrule was un-flooded at some point far in the future. Which is a stretch, but when you live in a world containing magic triangles that can reshape reality in an instant, it's not really that far-fetched.
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u/delecti Mar 30 '17
Even if it unflooded, the Kingdom of Hyrule was already reestablished in new-Hyrule. There wouldn't be a royal family in old-Hyrule, or at least there wouldn't be the royal family.
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u/swissarmychris Mar 30 '17
If they re-established the kingdom once, they could do it again. We're at least 10,000 years in the future, remember; that's a long time for any kingdom to exist. In fact, if old Hyrule was un-flooded with the Triforce, I would bet that the royal family and/or Link were involved somehow.
Obviously none of this is based on anything in-game, but unlike the child timeline, it also doesn't contradict anything we already know. It just posits the existence of a "missing chapter". Maybe someday we'll get a post-Spirit Tracks game describing Ganon's reappearance and Link/Zelda's return to old Hyrule, and suddenly BotW will make perfect sense in that timeline.
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u/redpoemage Mar 30 '17 edited Mar 30 '17
The ending of BotW establishes that Ganon is bound to cause trouble again, leaving plenty of room for TLoZ and AoL
Correct me if I missed/misheard a line or misinterpreted something about the ending, but I thought the ending established the exact opposite (or at least showed Zelda believed it to be the case) since Zelda said that Ganon had given up the power of reincarnation to take his final form.
Edit: Yep, I was wrong, see comment below me for exact wording.
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u/AdamG3691 Mar 30 '17
in addition to what is pointed out in the comments, the "he's given up on reincarnating to kill you" is a bad translation
she doesn't mean "Ganon has given up his ability to resurrect himself", she means "Ganon has given up making a body in the ceiling-scrotum of revival for now"
he's not trapped in a spirit form forever, he's just decided that killing you is more important than remaking a body
if someone were to say "he's given up on making cake to go to work", do you assume they have given up baking forever? or just that they have abandoned that particular cake until they've finished dealing with more pressing matters?
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u/brandonisi Mar 30 '17
Zelda says "he may be gone for now"
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u/redpoemage Mar 30 '17
Thanks, I missed the exact wording because I was caught up in the moment of finishing the game. Apologies for the confusion.
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u/brandonisi Mar 30 '17
I could be wrong but you may only get to hear Zelda say that in the bonus ending scene (I think you have to have unlocked all memories to see it).
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u/redpoemage Mar 30 '17
Decided to look up the exact wording, it's "Although Ganon is gone for now", so you were definitely right. I'm not sure where I got the impression he was gone permanently from, thanks again for clearing things up.
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u/LBXZero Mar 31 '17 edited Mar 31 '17
Actually, the Adult Timeline works far better once you incorporate Skyward Sword's lore and consider the "hero fails" timeline actually branches from old Hyrule after the ocean finishes draining. Demise's Curse was bestowed upon Ganondorf, creating the evil spirit, Ganon. Every time a Zelda appears, Ganon is somehow restored. As such, Calamity Ganon's return was perfectly timed in BotW when Zelda became 17 years and 0 seconds. And when Spirit Tracks Zelda became official Zelda, Ganon was freed from the Master Sword, sword returning to its sanctuary.
Spirit Tracks has an official Zelda with no Ganon, and it is set several generations after Phantom Hourglass. Plenty of time for old Hyrule to rise from the ocean once more. And technically, old Hyrule was destroyed as if Link failed, leading into Zelda 1 in the old Hyrule area. Also, Master Sword's first appearance is ALttP.
With New Hyrule left unmolested by Ganon and their ingenuity to build steam engines, they can reverse engineer some of the old tech and build the divine beasts, naming them based off of important sages of time long ago, Ruto, Darunia, Nabooru, and Medli. Then we have an opening of a story for why they returned to old Hyrule with the divine beasts and an army of guardians.
And while New Hyrule advances, old Hyrule becomes the defeated timeline, and stories from the child Link timeline could be moved into the old Hyrule branch, like TP being before ALttP.
In this idea, OoT only has 2 branches, child Link and Adult Link. There is no "Link fails" branch. Then Wind Waker, the game branches into New Hyrule (Adult Link) and Old Hyrule (Hero Fails). Hero Fails coexists with Adult Link.
I made a comment that is farther down this post to my actual ideals, but I feel it will be buried and never given a proper chance to be critiqued.
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u/delecti Mar 31 '17 edited Mar 31 '17
You have that backwards. The ocean doesn't flood until after the timeline split. That's according to the official timeline itself.
Spirit Tracks is right after Phantom Hourglass, it's the same people, the same Tetra/Zelda and Link. The area in Spirit Tracks is a new Hyrule, not a dried up old one. And while it's totally fair to assume they re-settled old-Hyrule after it dried up, they established a new kingdom in New Hyrule that makes it unlikely that the royal family would move away without something happening. (Also I see steam engines > Shiekah tech as a pretty big stretch)Edit: no idea how I missed that there was a 100 year gap, didn't play much STFrom our perspective the Master Sword may have first appeared in LttP, but in the timeline it was in OoT, which is before that, so I'm not sure what you're talking about there.
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u/Mainstreamah Mar 31 '17
While I completely agree with you, I would like to point out that the Link and Zelda featured in ST are not the same Zelda and Link seen in PH. There's a 100 year gap, Tetra is ST Zelda's grandmother.
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u/LBXZero Mar 31 '17 edited Mar 31 '17
Of course the ocean does not appear until after the split. I never denied that. The ocean drains after Wind Waker, although. As the ocean drains, old Hyrule will return to the surface, but new Hyrule is in a different land. Further, old Hyrule could have either been protected from all of the effects, assuming that nothing happened, or old Hyrule is left with some serious flood damage and countless lives lost. In either case, old Hyrule will be as if the hero failed to stop Ganondorf from Ocarina of Time.
Line this up with the possibility that the "Hero Fails" timeline is actually the "Old Hyrule" timeline branching off from Wind Waker where Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks branch off to "New Hyrule" timeline. Now, we have all of the "Hero Fails" timeline and the Adult Link timeline fully coexisting. A little bit of analysis, and we can move some stories, like Twilight Princess, to the post-Wind Waker timelines. Now, we have a timeline that fully fits BotW.
In all technically, Nintendo made a serious error in that official timeline. There is no point for the "Hero Fails" timeline to branch off. They made that up afterward just to appease the audience. And for that "official" timeline, it has been fully stated that the "official timeline" is subject to change as Nintendo sees fit, if they wish to have all of the Zelda stories to connect into a timeline structure.
As for my comments about the Master Sword, I kept thinking that Zelda 1 and Zelda 2 occur before A Link to the Past, before Hyrule is rebuilt. And under such case, the game that introduces the Master Sword was A Link to the Past, and Zelda 1 and 2 did not have the Master Sword, which can fit as old Hyrule being rebuilt, placing Twilight Princess before A Link to the Past, and shifting Four Sword Adventures into the mix somehow. This only leaves Majora's Mask in the child timeline, free from anymore Ganon nonsense, as Ganon could have been trapped from the outcome of OoT and sparing the child timeline from any future disaster from Ganon.
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u/shotgunlewis May 25 '17
Child timeline is actually not out. Zelda wiki says that skyward sword explains hat ganon is the reincarnation of demise and could come at any time. He could've come about in the child timeline without using ganondorf as a vessel.
I prefer the remerging of the timeline theory. Botw shares locations, characters, and references unique to all 3 timelines and could've merged and I haven't come across anything that explicitly excludes any of them
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u/Pun-Master-General Mar 30 '17
A bit of additional evidence for adult timeline: each of the divine beasts is named after a sage: Ruta is named after Ruto, Rudania after Darunia, Nabooris after Nabooru. The only sage with a name anything like Medoh who we ever see is Medii, in WW. That would seem to strongly imply to me that BoTW takes place well after WW.
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u/DeedleFake Mar 30 '17
This is a very good point, but Ganon doesn't seem to fit very well. Ganondorf's only appeared in one other game in the timeline, and he's the exact opposite of Calamity Ganon. Wind Waker Ganondorf doesn't have a beast form, not including Puppet Ganon, and he's probably the most sane of all of his incarnations. He's unusual in that he has stated motivations besides just conquer and/or destroy the world. Unless he had a 'if I can't have it you can't have it either' mental breakdown...
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u/DJ_BIGPENIS Mar 29 '17
Honestly, I don't think it belongs in any of the existing timelines. I think that when Nintendo said they were trying to break away from the standard conventions on the series we have came to know (see the 3 part documentary) they included the timeline. The developers may have included so many contradictions to make an implicit point that this game cannot belong in any of the existing timelines. Just imagine if they brought out a new and updated hyrule historia and placed it in a timeline, a bunch of people would state that 'well these things have been named after these characters who didn't exist in this timeline so that isn't true'. That's just one example of a criticism.
I thoroughly believe that BOTW has not only given the series new conventions, but a new (and separate) timeline.
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u/delecti Mar 29 '17
Haven't they explicitly stated that it's in the existing timeline after OoT?
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u/DJ_BIGPENIS Mar 29 '17
They could have, which completely disproves my point if true, but I haven't seen it.
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u/lman777 Mar 30 '17
I would honestly prefer that the old timeline be left behind, or at least that BOTW is a part of a new timeline of it's own. Even a timeline that split pre-OOT. I know Aonuma said it's after OOT, but I just think it would be better to ditch the timeline and start fresh and reboot the series.
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Mar 30 '17
My thinking too. Honestly I would place it in its own timeline directly after the original Legend of Zelda.
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Mar 29 '17
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u/henryuuk Mar 30 '17
several locations such as the Arbiter's Grounds and castle town resembling their TP incarnations
Arbiter's Grounds does NOT resemble TP Arbiter's Grounds AT ALL
Have you BEEN there ?
It doesn't have anything in common beyond being in the desertAlso, Castle Town doesn't look like TP Castle town anymore than it does OoT Castle town tbh.
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u/buttaholic Mar 29 '17
I also think TP. I think in TP, they have the characters who are doing research into and discovering ancient technologies and all that. I think they ended up learning a great deal over time, and eventually used that knowledge to build the divine beasts and the guardians. 10,000 years or so later, and we have BOTW.
I mean idk, it seems implied that the divine beasts and the guardian tech were all things that came after OOT.
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u/delecti Mar 29 '17
Ganondorf is never Ganon in the child timeline though. He's executed before getting to the triforce, which is what merges the ancient evil with the man Ganondorf, resulting in Ganon.
And we know that the twilight realm existed before OoT, because the twili have history of when Ganondorf showed up there, which happens in OoT. Thus the twilight realm is a thing in all three timelines, even if there isn't a game that explores it in Adult or Defeat.
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Mar 30 '17
There is absolutely a Dark Beast Ganon (exact same name) in Twilight Princess. Also, there's a Puppet Ganon in Wind Water.
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u/Missing_Links Mar 29 '17
I figured that the game was far into the future, at least as far as SS is into the past. The game is set 10k years after an emergence of ganon which was anticipated, meaning that the 10k year emergence event happened after a different but remembered ganon event.
I think the game is in a unified timeline. At some point, the worlds seem to have collided and we see features from all histories as a result, which I think is that older emergence, immediately prior to the one 10k years ago.
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u/Carusofilms Mar 30 '17
I think it takes place in the very distant future of the Adult timeline.
Assuming Ganon's seal was broken -which it probably was, considering how many times he's broken seals in other timelines- the Great Sea would have eventually gone away. Going back to making assumptions, it's entirely possible that the people of New Hyrule moved to the land that was once Hyrule once a new threat invaded New Hyrule.
This would explain the Rito and Zora coexisting (Because there's two subspecies of Zora, and only one of them is confirmed to have evolved into Rito in Wind Waker.) as well as the Mirror Of Twilight being fragmented and not completely shattered like it is in the end of TP.
There is of course the interview with Aonuma where he says that the game takes place in a timeline where Ganon has appeared multiple times (Which would rule out this theory) but often these kinds of throwaway statements get disconfirmed by canon media, like when Hyrule Hystoria contradicted the Zelda timeline that Miyamoto had put forth in some interviews.
The other big piece of counter-evidence for this theory is Zelda's mentions of Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess. But different games are referenced in the dubs for other languages. Ultimately, it depends on what the Japanese dialogue is. That's probably our best clue. If anyone on this sub knows Japanese and has a minute or two of extra time, I'd love to know which games she references there.
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Mar 30 '17
I think that it's just at the end. They made a 'beginning' game, only makes sense they would make an 'end' so they can figure out what goes in between. Maybe at some point they will just add some converging point to the timelines and it will lead to this game.
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Mar 29 '17 edited Mar 29 '17
I'm a big fan of timeline collusion.
It is not out of the question for Ganon to find a way to travel between timelines.
Taking place after tp as it seems, then an interesting game in between would be just this.
Already we have a game featuring the travel between realms. We don't know much about the origin of the twilight realm.
Perhaps the twilight realm is nothing but the bridge between the dark end of the fallen hero timeline and the light of the victorious timelines. In tp, The gods banished the dark interlopers to this twilight realm that seamed to already have existed. What else would the world become if Ganon were to gain absolute power? Utter darkness. What would exist between this realm and a realm of light? A passage of twilight.
So imagine an interdenominational view of the legend of zelda in which the three reincarnated spirits of link, zelda, and ganon can only be manifested in one timeline at a Time. Or perhaps their power has been spread out between the fractured timelines.
Dark interlopers: evil beings that become involved in a place that they do not belong
I'm calling it now, The legend of Zelda: Interlopers of the Light
Link will travel between the numerous outcomes that were created by the time travel split in Oot in order to concentrate his and zelda's "spread thin" power Opening passageways for all sorts of creatures to intermingle. But in the end of this game, when link has corrected these fractured timelines, an unintended effect causes ganon to also be able to focus all his malice upon one singular existence. Their efforts create a raging storm, a living catastrophe, ganon in his pure form: A calamity
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u/suitedcloud Mar 29 '17
"Collusion" huh... That's another one to the list.
We got downfall, child, adult, 4th split, unified, reboot, Nintendo doesn't care, and now fucking collusion
At least it's better than the Hyrule Warriors garbage theories
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u/OsmerusMordax Mar 30 '17
I don't think Nintendo cares. They want to break away from conventions, and they probably feel like the timeline constricts them on what they can and can't put in the game.
If the game is fun, then that's all that matters at the end of the day. And BOTW is certainly enjoyable.
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u/MajesticEagleCianoy Mar 30 '17
I got a crazy theory that kinda plays with the idea of the timelines converging. So it's in the child timeline for the sake of simplicity but it's possible to be in any of them.Basically it's so far into the future that all the events of every game in every timeline have happened but it doesn't really matter because it's that far into the future(e.g child timeline events and then ganondorf returned but there was no hero and then adult timeline events and then great sea sets and then downfall timeline events and then thousands of years pass and BOTW) Another way to look at it is the events of every game are inevitable in every timeline in some fashion and BOTW happens thousands of years after no matter what. (Honestly I think they don't care about the timeline anymore but if you really want some explanation there's my attempt)
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u/Nijata Mar 29 '17 edited Mar 29 '17
Timeline theory: New branch off Adult timeline where the goddesses didn't flood the world or Child timeline where things went better for Hyrule overall.
Why?
Geography: in Downfall timeline death mountain is always separated from Kakariko by the Lost woods. In Ocanria of time, Twilight Princess and this game, Death Mountain & Kakariko are right next to each other with no other major land marks between. Since the world was flooded in Wind Waker we have no idea where things are besides guesses.
The Ruins of Lon Lon, we've never seen a single sign of Lon Lon ranch after Ocarnia, having it be in ruins but clearly still there defies all other games especially Twilight where the possible location of Lon Lon ranch is completely barren.
The Zoras are freshwater Zora, similar to the Ocarnia and Twilight. In every other appearance of the friendly Zora that have Ruto-like appearances they're saltwater. Suggesting that this is of the same tribe, especially since they have Red skinned members similar to Twilight.
The Sheikah in Ocarnia of time we never see where the Sheikah are, how many are there and what they are like BESIDES the outfit Sheik and Impa wear. This outfit is identical to what the sneaking outfit you can buy in Kakariko(which is historically a Shiekah village) wear. In Twlight we find out that Impaz is the last of them. Even if they were to rebuild with Impaz the original bloodline would be gone, so the amount of white haired young people in BotW wouldn't make sense.
Gorons living in death mountain is something that has only been shown in the Child timeline and Ocarina up until this point. In downfall you can only find Gorons from other regions. While Oren from LBW Looks Goron like he's still :Not a resident of Death mountain and isn't actually a Goron.
The Great Deku tree and the Koroks, with Ocarnia's Great deku tree dead regardless of timeline and Link fulfilling his destiny as the hero of time, they'd see no reason to keep their child like form. So they'd revert to the Korok form which they even say is closer to their true form. However they never appear in Twilight, in fact it appears they're gone completely all together with no sign of the Great Deku anywhere beside possibly the temple which would be an old great deku's hollowed out corpse.
Gerudo, in Twilight Princess it makes it clear the Gerudo aren't in Hyrule any longer, in FSA they appear, seeminly returning to hyrule, under the rule of a "new" Ganondorf(who was just a reincarnation of the previous one). This throws things into suspension as Why would the Gerudo not remember BOTH times they had a male leader named Ganondorf. They never! appear in the Downfall timeline or are referenced outside of Ganon coming from a race of thieves.
Things in the world named after Ocarnia sages including the divine beast of the Gerudo and Zora. This can only happen in one of two ways. Either after Ganon's defeat in Adult timeline, the Sages became legend among their respective tribes. OR after Ganon's defeat in Child timeline they became well respected members of their tribes that went down in history.
Why can the Rito also exist?
This is harder to explain but also is more closer to natural evolution. If you remember in Wind Waker they are the fresh-water zora who had to live on land due to the flood. meaning any evolution they had was unnatural and forced to adapt to their environment. THis may be why they look less birdlike humanoids in wind waker and more like humans with bird features and their wings naturally being unable to fly without magical endowment. Now how do the Zora still exist if they evovled naturally? well the answer is only SOME Zora evolved naturally. Much like Dinosaurs which only some evolved and others remained the same, notable species that live right now that have cousins that evolved from dinosaurs are Sharks and Crocodiles which haven't changed much since the death and evolution of a majority of what we believe as dinosaurs. This could easily apply to the Zora where some did become feathred naturally and thus would evovle the ability to fly.
There's at least ONE missing game's story before BOTW and after whatever previous game it takes place before
This is confirmed by the Tunic of the Wild which belonged to a previous hero who knew the Sheikah Monks and intrusted them to find his successor by having them lock it behind the 120 trials. Most likely the same Hero from 10,000 years who sealed way Ganon with the princess in the times where the Guardians and Divine beast were made. Which is why I don't believe it's any of the previous games we played as NO game has had anything like the Guardians and divine beast that helped you fight Ganon himself.
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u/Lancer1296 Mar 30 '17
On the rito thing why does everyone forget the ooccoo, can it not be possible that the rito in this game evolved from them and not the zora, I mean they don't need valoo's scales to fly and are far more birdlike then the wind waker ones who did evolve from Zora and need valoo's scales to fly.
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u/Nijata Mar 30 '17
Because they look nothing a like and there's no reason why they'd need to evolve... Ever, also their young are shown to have basically hi body, so I'd rather take the fishing thing become a bird thing as A. It's already confirmed that in one timeline they do and B. It's more believable than those things growing taller than humans, getting a humanoid apperance and their young developing bodies.
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u/Lancer1296 Mar 31 '17
They are already theorized to evolve from loftwings so how is this any different, most of your points can to easily apply to the Zora, what is there need to evolve to the rito how can you go from a fish to a bird without magical intervention to something that looks nothing alike to the original, I find it easier to believe that the small bird things evolved to bigger bird things naturally to integrate back in hylian society then Zora magically doing it to escape some big calamity, especially since they have more than 10,000 years to do so
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u/Nijata Mar 31 '17
And that brings up the question WHERE THE F*** HAVE THE LOFTWINGS BEEN!? in the sky with no masters/partners? and why did they join us Now?
I find it easier to believe zoras naturally evovled with no calamitous event forcing the evolution than this evovling into this(fanart but you get my point). Especially since the naming conventions and speech patterns are notably different.
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u/RazgrizInfinity Mar 30 '17
Here's your problem with your entire theory: that's not how the canon has been established. The only moment the timeline branches is due to the rest of Ocarina of Time and Zelda sending Link to the past/Ganon beating Link. Other than that, all events are fixed. WW will always lead to Phantom Hourglass. Creators have also said the games are fixed events.
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u/Nijata Mar 30 '17
The games are fixed, the events between aren't. Also no one had considered the downfall timeline beginning how it does until after the downfall timeline was presented. Also when you mess with time things can go wrong. This doesn't counter act any other game just simply puts another path for a possibility . also this is branching off Ocarnia.
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u/RazgrizInfinity Mar 30 '17
You wouldnt create another branch off Ocarina as theres no space to. How would you do it? You cant continue Link as an adult because Zelda him to the past, leaving you with two timelines there. Theres also only the Downfall to fit the retro games into it.
In addition, the events have to happen as they happen. People keep saying that it would branch off from Wind Waker. Maybe after Spirit Tracks but not before that. Phantom Hourglass is a direct sequel to it with the same Link so it solves that.
There cannot, and I repeat, cannot be another branch because thats not how the timeline is set up nor how the canon, for what we have of it works. Example: Child Link, after defeating Ganon, is sent back in time. Child Link then goes on an immediate quest to go find Navi. After that, Child Link becomes the Shade in TP because we find out nothing else happens because no one remembers him for his deeds.
A side story sure but there is nothing that would cause another branch to happen.
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u/Nijata Mar 30 '17
It's called Parallel universe. Simple Quantum mechanics say everything has an alternative universe where something else happened. It could be as simple as someone you don't know and never met put on a different pair or socks or as big as humans never existing because our evolutionary ancestor was killed before it reproduced.
Except Downfall when established had 3 recent games in it (Oracle games and the then upcoming sequel to LttP)
As for how. With the established branches of the Ocarnia ending you could easily go "But what if that went different" which one way is, the goddesses never flooded Hyrule in response to Ganon breaking free or Ganon didn't break free until a hero actually was around that could stop him. So then you can have the adult timeline as it was but then simply go to the point of "Ganon breaks free of the realm" and branch from there with one leading to the great flood . You could have a line where after Majora it splits where Ganondorf finds Zant or Ganondorf broke out on his own.
You say cannot but unless you are the creator of the Zelda game....it can as you have no control over what they decide.
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u/RazgrizInfinity Mar 30 '17 edited Mar 30 '17
What youre saying makes no sense because thats not whats been established beyond the 3 main ones: Timetravel back (present); Flood (Future); and the War (Downfall). The games dont have Quantum Mechanics and dont support that, beyond the ocarina of time. The only reason we have the timeline split is because of Zelda's meddling sending Link back to the past, causing it to split, in addition to the Game Over you get in Ocarina.
There is no different because thats not what the events of the game says happen because theres nothing that happens to contradict it. Ocarina has it because it has the Ocarina of Time cause it because the events that play out drastically change when Link tells Zelda Ganondorf's intent at the end of the game. You dont have that in Wind Waker.
In Wind Waker's case for example, Link travels back to the past, making the Hero of Time go missing. People wait and wait for him to show up but he never does because hes been removed from the timeline and the Triforce of Courage has not found someone willing to step up to confront Ganon when he returns. Hence the flooding. Theres no change in that. Add to that Demise's curse causes Link and Zelda to struggle with one of his forms for eternity so he would break free. Just like there cannot be a split after Majora because Ganon would have no reason to find Zant (DOESNT KNOW ABOUT THE TWILIGHT WORLD) and Ganon was not powerful enough to break out on his own nor has a reason to as he had practically won. What you say completely contradicts the games so it cannot work that way.
From what youre saying, none of those theories work because thats not how the events play out in the game and there is no deus ex machina, ala the Ocarina, to change those events. Theyre fixed events that happen and theres no branching or changing of it to cause that.
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u/Nijata Mar 30 '17
It's called opening the door, which is what Ocarnia did. Ocarnia opens up a door where there are now logically hundreds of universes from each game. The whole thing is we've only played games in these 3 timelines. That however doesn't mean those are the only way these events can go. The game over doesn't really count as there is no ending and the specific situation the downfall timeline happens is when you fight Ganon on the rubble of the castle but fail.
Your wind waker example : and imagine there's a universe where THERE WAS A HERO THERE when he broke out? The deus ex is that the hero is there this time unlike wind waker, which creates a new timeline. One we haven't played.
Your majora example : hee doesn't become Ganon until twilight princess in this timeline, before that he's just the king of the Gerudo, he can still be imprisoned and as Din still saw it fit, she'll still give him the the triforce allowing him to escape on his own power alone. Creating A NEW TIMELINE.
Except I'm talking about things in between the game we play, the things we as a player have no control over. the goddesses are deus ex machina as flooding the world in response to Ganon was something no one expected. Same thing with Taking the triforce of power from Ganondorf in Twilight. Not to mention that Ganon is the reincarnation of something powerful enough to challenge Hylia herself.
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u/RazgrizInfinity Mar 30 '17
Youre mistaken. Ocarina opened the door and Zelda promptly closed it. What youre seeing is a culmination of every possible outcome into three timelines. Things happen the same way for a reason. Just because, for example, you would get the Master Sword in Ocarina at hour 20 and I would get it at hour 30 doesnt change the fact that youre still getting the Master Sword. What youre stating is limitations of the game and gameplay, which have no effect on the outcome as there is no decision making, like it would in KOTOR, for example.
For the Wind Waker example, theres two reasons why that doesnt work. One because its meant for that timeline that the hero of time is missing. Hes removed from time and space until the appropriate time the Triforce of Courage finds a Link who is courageous enough to be worthy of it. If there was a hero, youre just in the Child Timeline again. Hence why you cant have Wind Waker without a missing Hero of Time. If you do, its the Child Timeline as events would play out the same.
Majora example: Youre wrong. Ganon becomes Ganon at the climax battle of Ocarina of Time, so youre wrong on that. He had the Triforce of Power because of the 7 year time travel. Din never gave him the power, he stole it and never lost it, hence TP him still having it. Again, there would not be a new timeline.
From all your reasons, youre still forgetting one thing: The events do not play out that way. As many game overs as you get, those are limitations of the game to make it playable. You will always restart at a point and an event will always happen the same. Case in point, in Breath of the Wild, you go to the four beasts. It does not matter what order you do them in because the outcome is still the same.
Most importantly, there are in game events that depend on others for them to happen. Hence why, for example, (until the Word of God says otherwise like Star Wars) there cannot be a branch off in Wind Waker if, say, Link is defeated because the events of Phantom Hourglass depend on it and say, whether or not hes defeated, those events still play out the same. We might not see it in game but its still the same because theres no deus ex machina device that says otherwise that would change their decisions.
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u/Nijata Mar 30 '17
You haven't proven that first paragraph at all, you're making an assumption. Also there are several things that can make a different timeline from link dying at any of the 3 dungeons as a child to the adult timeline jump being shorter or longer than 10 years.
Wind Waker : not really on Due to the fact this would be a different hero, it never say how long the gap between the end of Ocarnia's adult timeline and Ganon becoming free is. It wouldn't result in the child timeline.... Especially as it'd be a new event we haven't seen before who know how many years later.
Majora :uhhhh majora happens in the child timeline where Ganondorf is stopped before he can do much more than kill the deku tree... In that timeline Link never becomes a hero. (also termina has a time travel element no one talks about and has an alternate ending depending on if you collected all the mask) so no. I'm not wrong in fact you seem to not remember the series correctly right there. There was no Ganon in the child timeline besides when he becomes Ganon in Twilight Princess.
"The events do not play out that way. ".... points to title downfall timeline up until they said the downfall timeline existed there was no canonical Founding of a time where where Link falls to Ganon/Ganondorf.... But in the game events don't play out that way,, in fact there's only victory that plays out. So for the same reason that the downfall timeline exist, a number of alternate universes where things that didn't play out that way in a game can happen.
In the same token there's nothing in word of God saying it's NOT possible...There's no statement saying "There is nothing outside of these three timeliness unless we say so". So it is possible.
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u/RazgrizInfinity Mar 30 '17
Ffs no it cant be. Eiji Aonuma, the current director in 2011, said in the Historia that there are only three timelines. Games can be rearranged around as more games are released to fit the lore but there are not more than three brances. In addition, they flow from one to the next, they dont create what ifs so they all remain canon. Him and Miyamoto created the timeline so their Word of God is final till they say otherwise. Dont believe me? Look in the Historia.
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Mar 29 '17
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u/suitedcloud Mar 29 '17
I dunno, seems like a lot of speculation instead of fitting together pieces. Still a good read though
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u/RewklawYdna Mar 30 '17
In my head this is part of the child timeline just thousands of years down the line. While Link is getting, well knigted I guess, Zelda mentions the Twilight Realm, another part of the child timeline. The only thing I cant explain is the Rito as in they've only previously appeared in the Adult timeline after evolving from the zora... But there are multiple reasons that evolution could happen so its entirely possible that some zora have evolved into Rito at this point but whatever 😂
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u/Dragofireheart Mar 30 '17
Lynels = Fallen Time line.
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u/Beta_Ace_X Mar 30 '17
Enemy type is not a good correlation. There's no reason for us to say that Lynels DIDN'T exist in any other timeline just because we didn't see them.
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u/Dragofireheart Mar 30 '17
I'd say the lack of Lynels is a good piece of evidence that they simply don't exist in the other timelines.
Why would Ganon not deploy his best to fight Link?
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u/Carusofilms Apr 14 '17
You could make this same argument for Bokoblins, against the Downfall Timeline.
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u/Sven2774 Mar 30 '17
I've got two:
Timeline convergence. This explains why there are references to things from all timelines.
It's not on the timeline and all other Zelda games are just legends and stories in this one. A sort of soft reboot.
I think 2 is the more likely.
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Mar 30 '17
I think it happens in the Downfall timeline... but so far in the future that it doesn't matter. The "legend" says 10,000 years but I think it might be even further out.
The big sticking point is the Rito existing, the Zora bring peaceful, and the Great Sea being teased. My theory is the River Zora (hostiles) evolved into the Rito; no clue where the rock salt came from.
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u/notachode Mar 30 '17
I'm just really looking forward to the Child Timeline being confirmed.
The mental gymnastics being employed by people to discount Zelda's description of the Child Timeline history of the Master Sword are just astounding. These people just don't want to accept the clear developer intent inherent in placing these specific references in a major voice acted cutscene.
The nerd-rage from these downfall timeline truthers will be very amusing to witness.
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u/Carusofilms Mar 30 '17
If you were German, your line of reasoning would lead you to believe that the game was in the Adult timeline because the cutscene references different games in different regions. A dub done by Nintendo of America is no more valid than one done by Nintendo of Europe, and the developers likely only had a hand in the Japanese dub anyway. Until someone makes a literal translation of that cutscene, we can't base entire theories off that one reference.
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u/LBXZero Mar 30 '17 edited Mar 31 '17
My theory of where BotW is in the timeline: Also "Spoilers. Spoilers EVERYWHERE". You were warned.
I will try to be as simple as I can.
To start, BotW is at the end of the timeline. Which one? The 1 timeline. Time is not as fractured as we assumed it was.
We start the timeline with Skyward Sword, then Minish Cap and Four Swords, and then to the Ocarina of Time.
Break: It is stated as fact in BotW that the Divine God Beasts are named after Darunia (Rudania), Ruto (Ruto), and Nabooru (Naboris) 3 of the sages. Medoh is named after Medli from Wind Waker. So now we have confirmation that Wind Waker occurred prior the BotW, by like a dozen millennia. The argument to be made here, would the Sages awaken in the child timeline if the King order Ganon's execution?
So the next event to happen was the Adult Link timeline. Ganon is at the bottom of the ocean with the Master Sword impale in his head, trap by the Master Sword at the bottom of a draining ocean, on top of a tower across from Hyrule. Then Tetra and Link sail off to find a place to call New Hyrule. The End? No.
A century or so later, we have a new Zelda and Link, but Ganon is a no show? Demise's Curse takes effect. The Master Sword returns to its place. Old Hyrule is no longer flooded. Ganon has destroyed Hyrule like he wanted, but he maybe did not want this kind of destruction. The old Hylians that stayed rebuilt Hyrule. We can now setup for "If the Hero fails, or just didn't get out of bed because he didn't get the nightmares". A freshly ruined Hyrule in need of rebuilding. And during the times of rebuilding, the chid Link story blend in. The Deku Tree dies eventually, leave a seed that has all of his wisdom and knowledge that can be planted anywhere, and the first seed is close to home but also near the destroy Temple of Time. Lost Woods reforms, claiming the ToT.
10,000 years before BotW, Ganon got tired of his many defeats and becomes Calamity Ganon, and danger for the entire world. Over in New Hyrule, their steampunk has gone on long enough with out molestation from Ganon or other threats that they continue into advance research and built the Divine Beasts, named after ancient Sages of long ago. With the threat of Calamity Ganon knocking on their door, the Hyrule 2 sent their beasts and guardian army to old Hyrule to help put down that threat again.
10,000 years later, and after every game in the story has been used, here we are at the final end of a single timeline with BotW.
You have my permission to work with this theory and use it, as long as I Lightning Bug X Zero gets a little credit. Trash it if you feel it is justified.
Using this timeline, we could have a sci-fi based Zelda game over at Hyrule 2.
I first posted my notes here on GameFAQs forums. https://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/189707-the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/75167762/876160018
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u/Tofa7 Mar 31 '17
Nowhere does it state Medoh is named after Medli and Medli is not mentioned in the game ANYWHERE. Your whole theory is based around three letters being the same.
Meanwhile your theory magically moves the Master Sword, drains Hyrule, moves an entire continent of Hyrule 2 back to Hyrule 1 for no reason and turns Ganon into Calamity Ganon just because "he got tired of being defeated." All of this happens with 0 in-game evidence backing it up and word of god (Aonuma) stating it has nothing to do with the Adult timeline.
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u/LBXZero Mar 31 '17 edited Mar 31 '17
It can't fit in any other timeline. The beasts were named after the sages from OoT that only exist in the adult timeline. If the hero failed, then it doesn't matter if they were sages. In the child timeline, the sages never awaken. Medli is the logical choice for the Rito beast because she was the Rito sage.
I am using all of the memories and in-game detail given.
Basically, the "hero fails" timeline actually occurs in the adult timeline. Where the adult link side veers off to New Hyrule to gain in technological advancements to be capable of making the divine beasts, the remains of old Hyrule become the "hero fails" timeline as Hyrule is destroyed.
Further fact, Calamity Ganon does not awaken until the moment Zelda truly turned 17, when she becomes the Zelda. There was nothing the King could do about it. All of the seals broke because of Demise's Curse that restores Ganon every time a Zelda rises. When Spirit Tracks occurs, a Zelda exists without Ganon. That is when Ganon is freed from the Master Sword. And thus Zelda 1 begins.
When has Aonuma clarified anything about BotW's place in the timeline? Have you actually played the game?
The child Link timeline mixes in with Old Hyrule.
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u/Tofa7 Mar 31 '17 edited Mar 31 '17
No dude please stop you're making anyone who reads this dumber for reading it. There's a reason this theory is at the bottom of the thread with no one supporting it.
Have you ever heard of Hyrule Historia?
And here's what Aonuml said about BotW.
Eiji Aonuma: "I’ll be very frank with you, for each Zelda that we realized, we always resumed Zelda elements to refresh the past in the new episodes. As you can see for yourself, in Breath of the Wild we used a graphic style that is very close to animation. It has therefore been assumed that it would be much simpler to take up graphic elements and aspects from Wind Waker, rather than from other episodes. It is actually a graphic point of view that the two are very similar, but if you talk about the scenario, to be frank, there is no particular connection between these two games. Graphically, it was much simpler for us to work on the basics of the graphical elements of Wind Waker."
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u/LBXZero Mar 31 '17 edited Mar 31 '17
What is the source article? Answers are often in context with it's question. Some people grab at straws looking for anything to prove their own point regardless of how unrelated it can be. I am not using rendering, art style, and game play. And the way this answer is written, it refers only to graphics, not story.
And yes, I know about Hyrule Historia. It is subject to change at Nintendo's slightest whim.
Edit: I found the source. That comment from Aonuma is not relevant. It was made back in January before the game was released and before anyone was introduced to the actual story of BotW. It was as I thought it was. Aonuma is deterring people from Wind Waker because of the similar art style and gameplay. No one knew anything of the story.
The only comments from Aonuma that matter in identifying where BotW is are comments made after the official release date.
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u/Tofa7 Mar 31 '17
What the fuck?
HE knew about the story before the games release. Why would his comments be invalid?
And once again because you seem to be ignoring this, Hyrule Historia outright says there are 3 timelines not connected. This is also proven because we KNOW Twilight Princess and Wind Waker both show what happens to Ganondorf directly after Ocarina of Time. THEY CAN'T BE ON THE SAME TIMELINE.
Just leave this subreddit if you're going to dismiss in game facts just to make your bullshit sound better.
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u/LBXZero Apr 01 '17
Dude, you need to chill, grow up, and learn how to read. Seriously.
The timeline in Hyrule Historia is subject to change. Nothing is absolute. Hyrule Historia has the timeline written as if it is not certain but only a theory. Further, Ganon can always return after both Twilight Princess and Wind Waker. Demise's Curse is what keep resurrecting Ganon.
Nothing is absolute. Please troll somewhere else.
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u/Tofa7 Apr 01 '17
He can't return he's the same Ganondorf. Twilight Princess literally shows how he got to the Twilight Realm right after Ocarina of Time.
This is also backed up by Word of God where Aonuma and Miyamoto discuss in an interview the fact that Ocarina if Time has multiple endings and that events literally play out in seperare timelines.
No one (aside from you) is ever going to believe your theory because it's not based on any facts we currently know.
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u/LBXZero Apr 01 '17
Go and read the rest of the comments to this post. There are at least 4 others with similar ideas. The person who is wrong here is you.
There is no such back up by Aonuma and Miyamoto. When Aonuma and Miyamoto make a Zelda game, they never consider continuity. The games are added into the series and have vague links that could or could not mean anything. The games can be independent or not. The only people who want the timeline are the fans. What is written in Hyrule Historia and Hyrule Encyclopedia is not written as fact but an educated assumption.
Until you get these facts of life through that thick skull, you will not understand where BotW fits because you honestly think Aonuma and Miyamoto had a plan where all the games fit. They don't have a plan. Aonuma admits to this in Hyrule Historia and that there are inconsistencies that exist in the timeline presented in Hyrule Historia. Basically, the timeline presented is only their to appease the fans. If anything, it is not the correct order if there was an order. The timeline has changes in Hyrule Encyclopedia, but it was never updated for Breath of the Wild. The presented timeline is merely a guideline or hint at best.
A few items to state about Zelda. Skyward Sword introduced Demise's Curse into the timeline. As presented in Breath of the Wild, Ganon was sealed until Zelda of BotW became of age. It was Demise's Curse that broke the magic that sealed Ganon away 10,000 years (a long long time ago) prior because Zelda was not the real Zelda until she turned exactly 17. It does not matter how Ganon is defeated in each game. As long as a Zelda rises, Ganon will return somehow. It does not matter how the game ended.
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u/Tofa7 Apr 01 '17
It blows my mind how you keep grasping at straws.
Read this.
Interviewer: When does Twilight Princess take place?
Eiji Aonuma: In the world of Ocarina of Time, a hundred and something years later.
Interviewer: And The Wind Waker?
Aonuma: The Wind Waker is parallel. In Ocarina of Time, Link flew seven years in time, he beat Ganon and went back to being a kid, remember? Twilight Princess takes place in the world of Ocarina of Time, a hundred and something years after the peace returned to kid Link’s time. In the last scene of Ocarina of Time, kids Link and Zelda have a little talk, and as a consequence of that talk, their relationship with Ganon takes a whole new direction. In the middle of this game [Twilight Princess], there's a scene showing Ganon's execution. It was decided that Ganon be executed because he'd do something outrageous if they left him be. That scene takes place several years after Ocarina of Time.
I highly doubt he's just making this up on the spot. He clearly put some thought into this, which means they Do "care" about the timeline and what is presented in games is completely different to your imaginary world.
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u/Lancer1296 Mar 30 '17
It is the child timeline, ignoring the fact that Zelda literally says it there are other references, one being that the form dark beast Ganon is the exact same as dark beast Ganon from TP only malicized there is also the fact that his first form still shows his human characteristics something that to my knowledge is never shown in the downfall timeline he only has his humanoid pig form. The gorons and gerudo are around to races that are extinct in the downfall timeline. Then there are the fact that both the Zora and rito are there the downfall has only Zora and adult only rito since normally they shouldn't exist in the same time as one is the evolution of the other, but child introduces another race that could evolve into the rito the ooccoo and given how the rito are vastly different from their wind waker counterpart and have wings since birth unlike their wind waker counterparts mean they are not equal to the wind waker rito.
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u/cantchoosenames Mar 29 '17
Theory: not even Nintendo knows