The end of timeline speculation?, *SPOILERS!*

My position on the subject is this: the timeline presented here may not make the most sense in some parts, namely the reason for why a third branch exists, Oracles apparently featuring the same Link as ALttP (I don't have a problem with LA following Oracles, I always figured they were going for that) and the placement of FS and FSA as well as that of the backstory of tMC.
However, I have seen much worse timelines than this. MUCH worse. With the above exceptions, which are admittedly of small importance (yes, the reason why the third timeline exists seems to be stupid, but I can easily come up with better explanations for it. I can elaborate if you care for me to do so), this timeline works very well and reflects what the games seem to have been going for consistently enough (with sensible choices like keeping the older games, ALttP, LoZ and AoL in one branch and in that order as well as placing the Sleeping Zelda story between them rather than nonsensically placing it at the start of the timeline like many people do just because of that throwaway line about her being the first Zelda when clearly the story of the Triforce would then not match up).

Given Aonuma's involvement in the book, I would say the timeline is legitimately official, and should be used to put into context upcoming games, or facts concerning the ones that are out. For example, I may not agree with placing FSA after TP instead of before ALttP, but I figure this must mean that Nintendo never intended for the mirrors of those two games to be the same seeing as Midna completely destroys the one in TP.
Or speaking of future games, with my timeline, that has TP and FSA fall between OoT and ALttP, I would have considered additional games placed within that gap problematic (except for side stories like MM). But with this timeline, I'd have no issue with whatever they may choose to have happening after TP.
(On the other hand, LA's position is still questionable because it depends on whether this placement is due to them wanting it after Oracles, as indicated by that game's ending, or if they put it there because they consider it ALttP Link's last adventure).

But again, as made evident by glaring mistakes such as supposing that ALttP and Oracles feature the same Link (though we are still awaiting confirmation of this... if TWW Link could have lived over the passage between two eras, it's possible that two Links lived during just one, even if the timeline chart does nothing to suggest any kind of gap between ALttP and OoX), I wouldn't go so far as to say that this timeline is one hundred percent correct and reliable.

Unless new games come along and provide me with good reasons to go with what is established for them, I'm still going to think FS and FSA both happen before ALttP and with the same Link.
There simply are too many throwbacks FSA has to ALttP, such as the Knights, the Dark World and the origin of the warp portals leading into it.
And unless it's a retcon that would have us ignore both that Zelda introduces herself to Link in Oracles AND that Link got the whole Triforce in ALttP and could probably just wish Twinrova and her flunkies away (which would be a very stupid retcon) for ALttP and Oracles to have the same Link is just flat out impossible.
Similarly, the Minish supposedly first appeared to aid the Hero of Men, and since they're the ones that place stuff under bushes etc. this should have happened before Skyward Sword (but I don't know how well the sealed chest with monsters would conciliate itself with that... I'll have to get back to you on this one)

Heck, I could even change my mind and accept FSA's placement if they did a good job of following up on it (by releasing a game that takes advantage of this positioning, not letting all the hooks dangle uselessly)

Still, on a personal note, for my own self I'm going to stick to the timeline I have on the site for the time being, with the "ALttP branch" following after Twilight Princess. Why? Because in TP Ganondorf says that nothing is over and the history of light and dark shall be written in blood.
And damn it, something has to come of it, but I'm not willing to sever FSA's connection from ALttP because of this. Though it should be noted that in the part of Ganondorf's dying speech that was cut out, he actually says it will be someone of his blood to continue where he left, which would have tied in perfectly with FSA's reborn Ganondorf. So that's a good reason to keep all those games in one timeline branch. In my opinion, TP and FSA do a good job of connecting OoT and ALttP.

Besides, I don't know if anyone here noticed, but if you put FS back before FSA and rather than having a third branch take the ALttP one and stick it after the MM-TP one... you get MY timeline (that and give ALttP and Oracles different Links... and there's the Hero of Men business, but again, I'll get back to you on that one later).
Honestly, this may sound conceited, but I think the only reason the official timeline is not my timeline is because a lot of people have been complaining about interquel games (i.e. the adult part of OoT, TP, FS and FSA) mucking up ALttP's backstory (especially after Miyamoto stopped FSA from properly portraying the backstory of ALttP) and Nintendo (Aonuma?) decided to try and make them happy by giving ALttP its own dedicated timeline branch (the Oracle issue, if true, is probably just due to incompetence).

So in conclusion and to summarize: yes, I do consider the timeline official, yet not infallible. I'm going to accept it as such, minus for FSA's placement (FS isn't really important) and Oracles featuring the same Link as ALttP (again, not sure about the Hero of Men), and I'm going to use it when thinking about timeline and storyline matters.
But in my heart, the timeline that is currently on the site is still the true and correct one.

This post has been edited by Duke Serkol on Dec 27 2011, 07:01 PM

You do that, & I'll stick to my theories, whether related to the timeline, or otherwise...

Like a half-Kokiri , as well as others...

& in just like yourself, in my heart, my timeline is the correct 1, although I aknowledge that there are other timelines, but I'll do my best to IGNORE the 1's that aggravate me...

Hey guys! Check out that video 15 minutes in: it's the artworks for BS Zelda's intro and end sequences!

Nice noticing it! So they were concept art for the original LoZ. Pretty cool!

Wow. I did not see this coming. An official timeline? Perhaps it's fitting for a 25th year anniversary. I like Nintendo's strategy, by the way. I'm pretty sure they had no overarching timeline in mind when they first started the series. Basically they put out a bunch of games and then waited until the fanbase made a timeline for them. Brilliant.


...so anybody make any progress on deciphering the text above the picture of the Satellaview?
I can make a fair bit of it through the blur but I'm sure someone more experience could make it out with less effort. I'd love to know how they discuss BS Zelda.

Ok gang, I've got some steam to blow about Skyward Sword and I've got a reason to do it here.

So fair warning: here there be massive spoilers from the final dungeon up to the last boss battle. And some swearing.

[spoiler]Remember when I said Oracle Link couldn't be ALttP Link because he has the Triforce and could just wish his trouble away? Well I guess Skyward Sword proves me wrong! In a manner of speaking.
So I get to the last dungeon and I've got to say up to that point I almost literally loved every minute of this game. Boy, oh boy did I ever let my guard down.
The last dungeon is where the Triforce is kept, so naturally I was expecting something epic like the Great Temple of AoL. Instead, I got a best of with stuff from all previous dungeons in the game and the difficulty? Easiest final dungeon in the series. Period.
But I was willing to accept that. I was worried about the Triforce though. What was going to happen when I got it? Certainly I wouldn't go around fighting with it sitting in my inventory, right? Well, that didn't happen. The moment I got the Triforce I was taken to the top of the Goddess Statue (where Zelda pushes you down at the end of the ceremony from the start) to make my wish. The Triforce didn't speak to me. We know from AlttP that it should have. But who cares, Link wishes from the main antagonist to die (what the King in TWW should have done!) and it happens... though in a rather lame way: the Triforce drops a building on its head. It didn't even have to lift it up in the first place, it was conveniently already floating right above the spot. So yeah, how does the Triforce get rid of the source of all evil in the world? Dispelling the magic that keeps a building afloat so it falls on its head. Super Mario would be fucking proud.
Now you'd think they'd come up with something clever to continue the game, right? Instead that's where the entire plot takes it up the ass: Link JUST LEAPS DOWN LEAVING THE TRIFORCE THERE. So the secondary villain nabs it right? WRONG. The secondary villain nabs Zelda and takes her into the past to unseal his master when its still alive. So then Link has the Triforce, he can easily fix this can't he? Or maybe there's a clever excuse for him not to be able to do so, like say, the Triforce can't be taken to the past... NOPE! It's just left there shining prettily on the statue and though it is in plain sight and has proven its effectiveness, everybody in the game seems to forget it even fucking exists!! (And of course you can't get back up there in any way...)
What's more, Zelda has been taken into the past... but she was already into the past, using her powers to keep the villain sealed while in an enchanted sleep. So now that her future counterpart has been taken into the past and used to unseal the villain, the past Zelda surely wakes up seeing as her sleeping she serves no purpose anymore and helps you in the final battle, right? Do you even have to ask that by now? NO.
No one even brings this plot hole up, obviously!
And it's not like time travel made sense up to this point! We see Zelda in her cocoon before she goes back in time, so it's predetermined, right? But then Link goes back, plants a tree and magically it's there in the present. And now we've got the villain breaking free in the past after he was killed in the present. Stellar job with continuity there.
Finally I prepare myself for the final fight and Fi is like "Whatever happens know that I'll be by your side" and what useful information does she provide about the final boss? Absolutely fucking nothing! In fact, all she tells me is that I can't use my Skyward Strike... leading me to believe that bothering to point my sword up would be a complete waste of time, right? Well it just so happens to be pretty much the only way to defeat the second phase of the final boss fight!

GAAAAHHH!!!! I'm so pissed can't even type anymore.

So Skyward Sword sucks now. I hope they are really happy with how they handled the final part of the game![/spoiler]

Ahh... I needed that.
If any of you guys cares to reply (would it be that you can make some sense of this mess...) please remember to do so in spoiler brakets.

[spoiler]So you hate Skyward Sword because the game didn't immediately end when you got the Triforce?

Uh.... okay.

In all seriousness, the Zelda games have had worse plotholes. One that takes a logic leap like "Link doesn't use the Triforce even though it'd logically wish his problems away" for good gameplay is -not- something I'd "hate" the game for.

And besides that, "wishing his problems away" is not completely in Link's character - sure, he'll wish away grave tragedies done by great evils, but he's not gonna use the Triforce to complete a fetch quest for him. After all, why did LttP Link leave Hyrule? "To seek out new Adventure". He abandoned the Triforce because he didn't want the easy life - he wanted a challenge.

(That being said, Time Travel plotholes are simply the inevitability of dealing with time travel in a video game. If you hated the game for that, you'd probably throw shitfits at Chrono Trigger, Sonic CD, um, OOT, etc.)l[/spoiler]

This post has been edited by KiddoCabbusses on Dec 29 2011, 11:49 AM

Sounds pretty standard actually Duke:

[spoiler]Dumb use of ultimate wish granting power of the Triforce? See the ending of TWW...

Time travel that plays fast and loose with whether or not things can be changed or are pre-determined? See OoT...

Triforce not talking to its user? See TWW and AoL (though AoL probably doesn't count)...


[/spoiler]

Hey Kiddo, use spoilers tags! I haven't played the game yet!

Apologies, SmashManiac. XP Spoiler'd. Thankfully only one detail slipped out of what I assume is thousands.

I'm really not used to using that feature in this forum.
Perhaps next time it might be a good idea to consciously make "Spoiler Warning" and "Spoiler-free" versions of the thread for a new Zelda.

No, that's not the problem! [spoiler]The problem is the game just forgets that I've got it. You don't leave the power of the gods collecting dust and pigeon droppings on the top of a statue while the Demon King is about to conquer the world!
All I wanted was a LEGITIMATE reason for why Link can't just solve everything by using it. As I said, this would have been simple: I could be told that the Triforce can't leave its current time frame to travel into the past. Or Girahim could have stolen the Triforce so that Link couldn't use it (in theory, Girahim wouldn't have been able to then use it himself because Link would still be its master until he dies, according to ALttP's rules, so this would just effectively remove it from the picture temporarily).
It was an extremely easy fix, but the truth is they just didn't give a shit. They don't even have the decency of addressing the issue, the Triforce that you just went through a whole game to recover and that proved itself more than capable of resolving any Demon King problems is just left behind and forgotten about.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Did you read what happened there? Link did try to use the Triforce to solve all his problems! He wished for the King of Demons to die and it happened. But then when Girahim kidnaps Zelda to sacrifice her so he can resurrect the King of Demons in the past, Link is like "Oh, guess I have no choice but grab my sword and go rescue her myself, derp dee doo!" It's even worse when the emergency is over and all that's left is killing the Demon King: the very same thing he already did once using the Triforce. But nope, can't do that a second time, instead we leave it there to grow moss.
Just give me a reason game! Just give me a reason why Link can't simply wish him dead a second time! Is that too much to ask???[/spoiler]

I realize writing time travel into a story is hard. I'm prepared to give quite a bit of leeway when it comes to that. I never once complained about how the beans in OoT violate the rules of predetermined time travel the game otherwise enforces (by having things like the guy in the windmill already pissed for something you will do when going back in time).
But that was a marginal aspect of the game that didn't really impact on the story. [Spoiler]Here we have two main characters who are shown to have lived through the past, already before going back into it, indicating that this form of time travel is predetermined (like the standard one in OoT, and unlike the different method employed in its ending that deliberately creates a split in the timeline) and then through the same form of time travel the villains are attempting to change the past. That doesn't make any sense and it's a cardinal aspect to the finale of the story. It's even worse considering that the moment I planted the tree (which by the way, unlike the beans in OoT, is a vital plot point, basically the only real reason to open that portal to the past) I could immediately return to the present and it would be there, with the character that requested for me to do so acting like it had always been there... so how come I'm free to move back and forth between past and present and the Demon King is still very dead in the future after he managed to escape the seal in the past? Bullshit![/spoiler]

[spoiler]I already mentioned that in my post. How does having fucked up in the past justify repeating the same mistake? That's like saying "Oh sure, they could make a horrible quest to fish the power of the gods in the next game, but hey, they already did it once, so it wouldn't be so bad". What kind of reasoning is that?[/spoiler]

[Spoiler]I did see OoT, and it makes much more sense than this game does. OoT makes a big freaking deal about the last trip back in time allowing Link to truly go back to his childhood. Zelda clearly says that she (unlike the regular time travel with the Master Sword) can grant him this as the seventh sage. And this is what creates the split. It's all justified, coherent and not without consequences.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Yeah, wouldn't really expect it from AoL, right? TWW is different, it wasn't Link who'd touched the Triforce, we could always assume it WAS talking to the King and we just couldn't hear it.
This is a really minor complaint, but I was really expecting to hear the words from ALttP's manual that Ganondorf quotes in Twilight Princess. And it adds up to the Triforce being used as a one time plot mcguffin and then being discarded like a used condom.[/spoiler]

[spoiler] The kind of reasoning that assumes Nintendo probably don't think they did anything wrong with the way the Triforce was handled in the past - not if they keep doing similar things. It seems consistent, that's what I was getting at, not that it justifies it. EDIT: To add to Nintendo encouraging dumb Triforce use - the idea that ALttP Link and OoX Link is the same Link also makes the whole Oracles plotline stupid... why didn't Link use the Triforce to wish the problems away instead of being dragged into quests by it, since he was still the Triforces master?[/spoiler]

[spoiler]I wasn't talking about the split, I was just talking about the Magic Beans (time can be changed) vs Song of Storms (predetermined) ou have already covered that one. [/spoiler]

[spoiler]That would have been a nice touch indeed.[/spoiler]

This post has been edited by coinilius on Dec 29 2011, 06:53 PM

Consistently bad? Yes, I can agree to that.

Yeah like I said, I could have taken that, [spoiler]I was slightly annoyed but was willing to put up with it when that tree broke the rules EVEN IF, unlike the OoT beans, it was a fundamental part of the plot, because it was nonetheless a minor detail. But the ending is entirely focused on time travel and it doesn't make any kind of effort to make sense with what's been established thus far.[/spoiler]

I get the feeling I may be coming off as harsh in my replies.
If so, I would like to apologize and assure you I'm not mad with anybody here, only with the last plot twist in the game and whomever wrote it.

I edited this into my last post, but it looks like you responding while I was doing it so I will repost here:

[spoiler]To add to Nintendo encouraging dumb Triforce use - the idea that ALttP Link and OoX Link is the same Link also makes the whole Oracles plotline stupid... why didn't Link use the Triforce to wish the problems away instead of being dragged into quests by it, since he was still the Triforces master?
[/spoiler]

So yes, consistently bad

And no worries about your comments, Duke - I figured you were only getting heated about the twists and turns of the game

Speaking of which, I was wondering what your thoughts on the technology used in SS were?

Yeah, that's why I posted my rant here in the first place:

I was surprisingly okay with it.
[spoiler]Unlike other anachronisms in the series, this time we have legitimate reasons for this technology to not be available to everybody.
It clearly was lost during the war in the backstory, when humankind was spirirted away into the skies (on a side note... why just the humans? Why do we get to be spared the war while the Kikwis are drafted into it? What the heck? Is it so that humans would unwittingly guard the Triforce?).
And the game goes a long way to show us that none of it survived intact into the present time (well minus that annoying sonofabitch scrapper, but I doubt its owner has the know how to make any more).
Plus there's this possibility that all the stuff in Lanayru may not have belonged to humans but instead to Lanayru himself.

The question remains though... why does Lanayru put the hero up against a marathon of his strongest enemies in which he could very much die instead of just giving him not simply an indestructible shield but rather a rocket launcher like those used by the flying drones? Ah well...

Rather what puzzles me is the timeshift stones... why do these timestones, even not refined, activate with any kind of impact? Why do they apparently connect only two very specific times?
How does this work for the people in the past? The Robot Captain was aware that he was only alive thanks to the timeshift stone on his little ship, but everybody else didn't seem to realize they were in a temporal anomaly and were apparently unable to see the future past the edge of the anomaly... ugh.

Yet, I was able to put up with all of this as minor plot contrivances. When the Triforce was thrown into the garbage bin and Girahim started mucking up time, that was the straw that breaks the camel's back... and all the stuff that I was willing to ignore started piling up on it.[/spoiler]