Legend of Zelda TIMELINE

[Ino-Chan]

We all know that an "Official" timeline has come about.

BUT:

Do you think it was a last minute decision? DO you believe that it is real? Your thoughts are needed!

 

[Glitchipedia]

While the Downfall timeline does seem a bit "tacked on", given the scenario required to bring it about, I'm willing to accept this take on things. It makes sense if you think about it, though it does leave a couple of rather egregious continuity errors, both having to do with the Oracle games—namely, Zelda doesn't seem to recognize Link even though they met in A Link to the Past, and Koume and Kotake shouldn't be there because they were previously killed in Ocarina of Time. No, the Hero of Time wasn't defeated before that point—he had to have been killed by Ganondorf/Ganon in the final battle, or else the overlord in question would not have been able to locate Zelda and, thus, the Triforce of Wisdom.

Interesting to note is that Ganon, the franchise's central antagonist, does not appear until the fourth installment, going by the official timeline. Just how soon was Demise's curse supposed to kick in? Is Ganon actually the second reincarnation of Demise's eternal hatred, after Vaati? Or is Vaati just a random guy who appeared in the interim?

Perhaps the bigger question is, when the next Zelda game comes out, are they going to explicitly tell us where it fits in the established timeline, or will they once again leave us guessing?

 

[Dewgong Reign]

I think Nintendo just rushed something together to hush up the fans.

There's no way there ever was an "official" timeline, like the dev team all sat down and had a meeting where they discussed what the timeline would be, and exactly each and every hint they would drop in the upcoming games for the next 25+ years. It's ridiculous. They drop the hints at random so we had something big to theorize about, they never bothered to be consistent about it.

 

[Xenidal]

Parts of it are definitely real... like the fact that Majora's Mask comes after Ocarina of Time and Windwaker comes after Ocarina of Time and all the DS games come after Windwaker. But the rest was completely made up... like, they made a timeline that fit the games. There was no indication in the games that they came anywhere near that point on the timeline... as a matter of fact, when the original NES Zelda was made there were probably no plans at all for Windwaker and when Windwaker was made they probably weren't at all thinking "this game will come after (or is it before?) the original in the series". Obviously they were all their own separate games and then Nintndo threw together a timeline to make sense of things because fans are always like "what's the timeline?". And I'm not liking the "split timeline" aspect of it.

 

[Baron Dante]

I do fully believe this is the true timetime, and wasn't just pulled up from nowhere.

There has been interviews where it was mentioned the timeline existed, only to be accessed to make sure the new games fit in. Sure, some things may have changed upon years, but...

Zelda doesn't seem to recognize Link even though they met in A Link to the Past, and Koume and Kotake shouldn't be there because they were previously killed in Ocarina of Time.

I'm sure I could make up some explanation for this, but... Well, not for the whole Zelda thing, but Koume and Kotake. For example, these could be descendants of some sorts like everyone else in the series.

I believe Vaati is not one of the incarnations, however the shamrock elf, I mean Malladus would be. There's a fair amount of similarities, and it's also a time after Ganondorf was gone.

One thing that bugged me was there somewhere (aLttP I think), but I can't exactly recall.

Also, a friend of mine and I spent hours upon hours working on a timeline just before the official one was released. It was REALLY close, ignoring the third split. So, I suppose it does make nigh perfect sense.