The way Ganon exists in this interpretation of the timeline is way more thematically consistent, too. In the Wish timeline, Ganondorf appears almost exclusively as a human and only transforms into a bestial demon under dire circumstances (TotK, OoT, TP, WW). And in the Murder timeline, Ganondorf the Thief immediately turns himself into a pig demon the moment he seizes the magical trident and never once appears as a human after that. It's logical, it's narratively satisfying, and it's easy to understand. I'm unironically going to headcanon this version of the timeline from now on.
@@samuelcerullo9913 I think it stands to reason that Demise's curse applied both to the people he was cursing (the trio) and the world he was in (the past). The curse can exist in both timelines because the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero went back to the present, and the curse was made in the past.
@@Dudeman23rddon’t even need that logic to work. We know from wind waker that knew hero spirt’s can be forged. So when the hero of man comes around it activates the cures.
I think ganon and the calamity in the botw and totk timeframe is just ganondorf trying to weaken raurus seal, even if it's using a lot of power so he can only do it a few times. (Also, I think the calamity would have had to happen at LEAST 3 times, one to happen initially to make the shiekah have the need to create the guardians and beasts, the second where the ancient hero, Princess, and shiekah tech defeat it, and third in botw) so the "10000" years is not literal and just means an extremely long time ago, so there's many many millennia between the zonai and the events of even botw or hell, even the calamity from the tapestry. So, raurus seal gradually broke, occasionally accelerated when ganondorf used his secret stone power to use his malice and create ganon, weakening his seal bit by bit, until it eventually breaks. But, if ganondorf has been sealed all this time it means there has not been a male gerudo this whole time, meaning no other game is able to take place for a LONG LONG time before botw, meaning it has to take place at the end of at least one timeline, or just nothing happened between ganondorf being sealed, until his first calamity where he was (likely after much death and a long time) defeated, where then the sheikah built the guardians and divine beasts, planning out how to defeat him after his inevitable return, leading to the tapestry calamity, then the sheikah being shunned out of fear by the King at the time, leading to the hidden tech, and eventually after an era of peace, the events of botw we see, then leading to the events of totk with ganondorf being freed from his seal and eventually being free. So either the zonai time, initial calamity, tapestry calamity, botw calamity, and totk all happen at the end of a (perhaps unseen) timeline, or they happen before everything else and ganondorf is reborn afterwards since he is actually defeated, leading to some other game happening. Personally I think it happens at the end of an unseen timeline
@@auraFireblood I had always interpreted the calamity’s not as ganondorf attacking the seal put on him but rather using the malice that leaked out over ten thousand years to make another play at destroying hyrule
This made me realize the Skyward Sword time split is not being used by Nintendo at all. It was a great chance to create a whole separate universe without worrying too much about the already existing timeline
Technically there could also be a timeline split in Link to the past, as Link made a wish on the triforce to everything to go back to the way it was but Ganon stays dead (similar to ocarina of time split where there is a timeline where Link disappears alongside the canon one where Link goes back to the timeline where the king and Link's uncle are still alive)
This could mean the games could have a more compressed timeline that still fits everything and may even allow no merging to shunt off spinoffs heavily.
problem being there is no split in skyward... this is just a wild fan theory not backed by actual facts or evidence. nothing changed when they time traveled back to the future, impa was still old an on her death bed, and demise ceased to exist because he had already been slain and vanquished in the present before they had leaped to the past and skyloft was still floating in the skys.. the only reason that ocarina of time created separate timelines was because ganon had claimed all three pieces of the triforce and he used the doors of time this set a chain of events into motion and divided him into three entities with each one possessing a piece of triforce. the Ganon that we defeated in ocarina of time was sealed within the sacred grove its there that he poisoned it an created the world of darkness in a world which had no hero. the then hero of time we fought as goes off on a journey of his own an arrives in Termina where he confronts Majora's Mask an defeats the evil it carried within before returning to hyrule to see it ravaged by Ganon's war an he eventually decided to enlist in the royal guard and helps hyrule to defeat Ganondorf who is then imprisoned an sentenced to death but the sages greatly miscalculated and the Ganon of the other timeline had spirited the triforce of power to his other self in that moment which allowed Ganondorf to escape death but the remaining sages spirited him off to the twilight realm and then destroyed the mirror of twilight after his departure in the hopes he would never return an thus we get Twilight Princess
@@peksioart6706 I don't think he actually did time reversal, I think he just revived anyone who died and brought back everyone Trapped in the Sacred Realm.
@@Chris-gx1ei I think it would make more sense if he turned back time because Zelda doesn't remember Link (if we take Oracle or ages and seasons as continuation of this Link's story)
There are definitely elements of this timeline I'm not so sure about, but I LOVE the idea of the Goddess Sword and Picori Blade being the same sword, and the Master Sword and Four Sword being two different forms of that original blade based on how it was powered up. The Four Sword trilogy never really had any solid ties to the rest of the games, especially with them having their own version of Ganondorf, so putting them after the Skyward Sword timeline split works really well!
Thank you! I actually stumbled on that idea accidentally while I was explaining what I thought about the timeline to my brother. I was like "wait a second" and then pissed myself with excitement over the possibility.
@SwaggMasta000 I'll be honest, I'm not sold on the Master and Four swords being one and the same. Why would the Palace of the Four Sword be in LttP? Why is it already referred to as the Master Sword by Sahasrahla? Other than that, this is a fantastic timeline. Waaaay better than the official one. I'd have never thought to stick BotW and TotK at the beginning of the timeline, that solved way more than I expected!
@@Draezeth well, the palace of the four sword is only a bonus dungeon in the gba version of LttP as far as I know, so it's more of an easter egg than a canonical place. Or maybe it has some mirror effect to the master sword since the actual master sword was in the light world so the dark world version is distorted. Idk. I can make it make sense to me so I like it.
We've seen character reincarnate and do the same stuff all the time throughout the timeline. Is it so weird to think that a there were more than one Princess Rutos throughout the timeline who became sages? If Tingle can do it, so can she.
Right?! Most ZeldaTubers are jumping over immensely huge hurdles in mental gymnastics in order to try to explain how this Skyward Sword timeline split doesn't even exist
It's an interesting topic, although I personally don't agree with it. Oracle of Ages shows us that time works recursively, wherein changes to the past directly affect the present. Logically, the same should apply to Skyward Sword, and this is even confirmed by Impa having Zelda's bracelet at the end of the game. The reason OOT creates a timeline split is because instead of going to the past, Link goes to the future, and the future of course can't catch up to the present. The future timeline and the present timeline continue each on their own, preventing the present from eventually catching up to and replacing the alternate future.
@@firestarex3544 The way time travel works in Zelda has always been inconsistent. Ocarina of time by itself includes 2 contradictory ways of time travel working in the song of storms quest and the magic beans. In the song of storms quest, time travel has to be destined to happen in order for you to learn the song from the music box guy and then go back in time to teach it to him first. With the magic beans, on the other hand, time travel can't be destined to happen as the magic beans will only be grown in the future after youve gone the past to plant them first. You can't really use the idea that time travel works a certain way in one game that it can't work a different way in another, because there is no one way that time travel in zelda works.
@@firestarex3544 this timeline isn't perfect but the original canon one is utter garbage compared to it. Why don't you write massive paragraphs about how the totk memories retcon the entire goddamn timeline?
@@CinderedSilveror instead we can talk about how even the creator dosent make the games with an intended timeline in mind, the fans can do whatever of course, but the team wouldent beable to pull off a lot of the stories THEY want to make, as aposed to the ones that would be consistent with a theory the fans came up with a long time ago
This definitely makes much more sense! Having to squeeze botw and totk into the timeline placement and just saying in the distant future it goes here is lazy writing.
@@ItsMeBarnabynot in any direct way though. They talk about the sword being adrift in time (which can just as easily be SS as OOT) and mention ancient sages sealing Ganondorf away (which could also just be a reference to TOTK)
This is a RADICAL concept, however TOTK kind of pisses on the parade with Sidon's monuments. In one of them he directly references ruto's journey in Ocarina of time. You see because the Zora live such long lives, they have an EXCELLENT written historical record, and therefore have their history recorded in tremendous detail, and Sidon references ruto being eaten by a great fish god, and the domain being frozen over, and refers how it's similar to his own struggles as the prince of the Zora in modern times. Though I'd be willing to write this off as "ohh it's just events repeating" if it meant a more coherent glue between these games
This is a REAL smart take on the timeline. The only flaw I can think of is that both Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess are referenced in Breath of the Wild, but honestly that can be handwaved away as either being prophetic or just some fun "foreshadowing" by the writers
It's a good take and compelling for the key events, but it starts to rip through its seams on some details. The most blatant one is the Darmani the III statue in Goron City. The statue is clearly Darmani, yet Majora's mask would've taken place centuries after in only one of the hypothetical timelines. It's not one of the TOTKsage either since, according to the theory, it would be named "Darunia" because of the Divine Beasts. There's others too, such as the Rito being mysteriously absent in OOT, Lon Lon Ranch ruins, but this seems to be the most damning one; especially since the statues are culturally relevant to the Gorons in BOTW.
I mean, there are thousands of years stretched between most games, it's really not farfetched to say that theyre referencing other stories. Also, there are localization differences
@@chillagerr the lon lon ranch ruins are just a reference, in any timeline its been centuries minimum between oot and botw, theres no way that wood wouldnt rot over that amount of time no matter what
@@firelasto Also Lon Lon Ranch is way smaller for some reason in AoC (which to me took over the timeline, as BotW makes more sense as a dead end to me). It would make more sense that they'd expand on it in OOT, than leave it in a dishevelled state that's somehow smaller than the one in OOT.
Yep immediately BotW had to take place after OOT. I think the best explanation for it is that what we see in TotK is just OOT. The game is a legend so some details are wrong. Like link could be added afterwards because there has always been a hero.
I have to admit, when I first clicked on this I wasn’t really expecting it to be this good. All the other “my Zelda timeline” videos I’ve seen were all not very well put together and didn’t really make sense. But yours actually makes a ton of sense, it isn’t perfect, but neither is the official one. I love the idea of the goddess sword being the picori blade and using skyward swords time travel to fix the whole fallen timeline thing. When totk came out I wasn’t super happy with how the story didn’t really fit with the established lore, but you fixed those problems. Very well done!
Just imagining the shenanigans in your SS Murder timeline - from the viewpoint of everyone else there (divine or not) some random demon shows up, resurrects the big bad by ritually sacrificing their goddess, then some random dude from the future follows him, proceeds to single-handedly destroy his entire army, the demon, then 1v1 demise. Then he just leaves. Hylia is reborn 1000-odd years later as per plan and has absolutely nothing to do (lol).
In this timeline, Girahim has been turned into a sword (his true form) and is destroyed in the final battle (or at least sealed in the master sword with the remains of Demise). I don't know exactly when Hylia's plan takes shape compared to the final battle but supposing the goddess sword has already been forged (so that it can become the Picori blade) and Hylia is still a goddess, there is still a mortal incarnation of Hylia present in this timeline, that being the one sealed in the temple. She awakens after Link and the other Zelda return to the Wish timeline and can help found the first kingdom in the Murder timeline, gifting the next Zeldas with the blood of the goddess even though in this timeline there is still a goddess Hylia.
Princess Ruto is literally mentioned in Breath of the Wild. You can read about her on the stone carvings in Zoras Domain. Ruto canonically an ancestor to Mifa and Sidon.
The problem with botw and ttok is that all it's references to previous games are just fanservice. None of them go beyond being just flavor text and design reuse. They don't affect the world and events in any way. You could remove all of them and they still keep their internal story structure because they were conceived as isolated stories that don't really care about making sense with the others, as we saw with the whole Rauru shit. If we just accept the references as the fanservice they are, the general structure fits better with both games taking place in the past instead of after everything.
@gamongames Theorizing is built upon curiosity and problem-solving. We use the information that is given to us and try to connect the dots. Even if it's flavortext and eastereggs. It is in the game and was placed there purposely by devs. Who cares if it's fan service? If you reject/ ignore given material, it's not a theory. It's a conspiracy. The whole Dark Souls lore, for instance, is built upon flavortexts from random item descriptions.
heres something though, ruto, is the name of the zora princess in ocarina of time right? so whats stopping her from being named after a different zora princess from way before. names can be used more than once, right? i mean look at zelda. if this zora princess mentioned on the stone tablets was really that great, why wouldn't the king want to name his daughter after such a hero?
@DanielWahlquist That is just dodging the given information at this point. Of course, people can have the same name in the real world. however, in fiction, it is a no-no because you want your characters distinct from each other. That makes it easier to remember them. Yeah, you can break this rule on purpose if it's part of the story. (King & Sage Rauru, for example, both are shown and are different enough+have different titles attached to the same name) They wouldn't simply do that with Ruto in this case. Introducing another unshown greate princess Rutos would be just confusing, and it would take away the OG Rutos glory away. When you start with this mindset, it's over. The theory will never be as canon as possible, that just invalidates every given info.
I have to say, I like your version of the timeline better than the official one. There's some lore in the games that doesn't really fit yours, but the larger elements certainly do. It just makes more sense to me.
Thank you! There's definitely many little things wrong with it. This was my swing for the fences theory. Maybe someday I will go through and do a more thorough job
@@marsshhman pretty much there is this prince who gets angry or something and ends up getting Zelda cursed or something, so the prince makes like a law that all Hyrulian princess need to be named Zelda or something so the Zelda from Zelda 1 and 2 are two different people, that's my take on it anyway
@@marsshhman Specifically, it's lore that comes from Zelda 2 but takes place chronologically before Zelda 1. It's in-game a little bit and in the instruction booklet.
I love this, genuinely. The only thing I'd note is that it can't be the same twinrova because we know their age. Other than that very small detail, this makes a ton of sense!
Yeah, they may not have perceived any passage of time during the time they were sealed away, so neither their physical or mental age would have changed during the sealed away time.
Maybe im missing something but theres now been two comments mentioning Twinrova being sealed away, and i genuienly have no idea what you all mean? was Koume and Kotake sealed away? when? how?
I've been a Zelda fan for about 23 years now... I started thinking about all this Botw is a sequel from skyward sword thing about a year ago but didn't put the time and dedication to justify it the way you did. This has to be one of the most important Zelda Videos ever uploaded to youtube. This fixes everything and also explains why Impa in OoT and TP is always the Last of the Sheikah and some other lore stuff.... daaaang... nice video dude!
YES I was always kind of bugged by how Impa is the ONLY sheikah for AGES and then suddenly there are a ton in BotW! Like, where did they even come from?!!
The way you explained how history of the master sword is actually amazing. I would've never found the details you used to explain how the goddess sword, picori sword, and master sword are all the same. Great work
@@SwaggMasta0 Its even better the fact that the pedestal of the master sword in a link to the past has these 4 marks. And a forest around it. In four swords adventures we see that whole area turning into a grove of some kind. So later on it becomes a whole forest. And likely the four swords adventures and four swords made it difficult to see but the og area had 4 pedestals. Lets say most of the stoney and shit dissappeared because of decay but only the actual pedestal remained with those marks of the 4 pedestals that that once stood there. Even zelda's reference of the hero in botw :"Whether adrift in time,skyward bound or in the embers of twilight -> Link travels through time in skyward sword, he flies in the sky in that game. And the embers of twilight never mention a dimension or anything so we could assume she means the phenomenon twilight figurativly speaking as dark times in hyrule.
Thank you for fixing 2 major problems that I always had with the official timeline: 1) The Fallen Hero Timeline- I don't like it. Why base an entire timeline on a non-official What-if? If so, why don't we get more what-ifs based timeline? 2)TotK's Ganondorf was such a disapoitment as a character, simply being evil for being evil, when I expected a deeper villain. Putting him after SS and making him evil because he grew up with the legend of demise is way better than what we got Good job man
The Fallen Hero Timeline is a scrapped together patch job to try and repair the mess the timeline became. OoT was meant to be the direct prequel to ALttP, but Wind Waker came along as a sequel which contradicted the events due to the flooding. But that's fine, ALttP could have been in the child timeline while Wind Waker was in the adult timeline. Then Twilight Princess came in as a sequel in the child timeline and killed off Ganondorf, making the events of ALttP impossible. Nintendo didn't want to shift ALttP away from being the sequel to OoT, but WW and TP already filled the spots, so the only option was to make it a what if scenario. That way it''s still the sequel and doesn't contradict the other two games. It's not good, but it was the only way to keep that order they wanted. Plus it meant there was one timeline split in the most arguably pivotal moment in the series, rather than two separate splits throughout. As for why don't they make more what ifs? Because that was a one off quick fix and would make everything more bloated and convoluted than it already is. Yes, we can infer a new timeline for each death due to multiverse, but we don't need to see it for every single outcome.
@@ShadowVincent3wind waker didn’t contradict anything it actually became a 100% more in tune continuity with ocarina of times story STRIGHT UP unlike ALTTP where it’s intro story had barely anything to do with OOT adult ending if you want to start blaming you should blame in truth Ocarina of time for that Ocarina is the RETCON CAUSE Wind waker was only the after effect trying to make sense of OOT RETCONNED END Enough said
1) You could also simply put it as a consequence of Link's time looping in Majora's Mask, and have it branch off from one of the loop where the moon crashes and Link doesn't come back to Hyrule to fight the war to arrest Ganondorf (the one where he presumably dies and become the Hero's Spirit in TP). But Nintendo prefers to have OoT as a central game to everything for their official timeline 2) Poor writing also exists. That's not a "Timeline problem", that's a "Tears of the Kingdom" problem
@@gallalameblook9911 1) Link travels back in time multiple times in OoT. The "fallen hero" timeline is actually just an "abandoned" timeline because Link left it the first time he went back to the past. I don't know how Nintendo didn't see that much better explanation, or if they did, why they decided not to go with it.
I seriously enjoy the idea that the "fallen" timeline is replaced by a timeline created by Skyward Sword. Makes a lot of sense. My only issues (which I'm more posing as a question of did you consider it) revolve around BotW and TotK, as in BotW we have Zelda speaking directly about events in OoT TP SS and presumably other games. Furthermore, the location of TotK and BotW doesn't really satisfy an explanation of the Zonai or the Hylians as SS establishes the initial "Hylians" (although probably not called that), but TotK seems to imply that the Zonai CREATED Hyrule the nation (stated in that Rauru says he founded Hyrule with people on the land) and by extension the name Hylian. By this placement, we would have two races of people descending from the sky, one of which we know of (Groose, link the other ppl from Skyloft), but The Zonai? We have nothing on another race descending from the sky. Any thoughts you have on these questions would be appreciated. Also, all your other game placements are improvements and well-connected (compared to many in the original timeline). I have some other issues surrounding BotW's placement, but the above is my bigger issue for now. Interested to hear your thoughts, and sorry if my spitballing isn't very clear.
Good questions. 1. The game references I think these can be written off in a couple of different ways. The idea of the master sword traveling through the skies and through time can both be covered by the events of skyward sword. For "adrift in twilight" I think it's fair to assume that the twilight realm has already been created. We have to remember that between the events of TOTK past and the beginning of BOTW there were thousands of years of history. This history can be used to explain away a lot of those questions. 2. The Zonai. I'm not going to lie, the Zonai really bug me. They feel like they were just shoved into the games with very little thought put into them. As far as your question is concerned, I think it's reasonable to assume that the Zonai and the Hylians both defend from the sky around the same time and progress together. There are many different races that came from the sky (picori, oocca, Zonai, sky tribe) we don't see any of them even mentioned in skyward sword. This leads me to believe that the heavens are broken into sections where certain races live seperate from each other. OR they are all the same race that just project different appearances using magic. IDK just some of my thoughts.
Should be noted that even Sidon confirms that he descends from OoT Ruto. There's also the Gerudo problem. Ancient Gerudo are referred as the Gerudo who had round ears during the days of OoT. Basically confirming that they were pure Gerudo. After several generations of having children they eventually had pointed ears. By the time of TotK Ganondorf's time, he's the only one who retained these ancient traits while the rest of his people didn't carry these traits, even down to the color of their eyes. In OoT we see all the Gerudo, Ganondorf included still had these ancient traits. It's one of the few reasons I believe in the refounding theory which the head director said was a possibility.
Something that is head-canon for me is that when Link wished for the death of demise with the triforce, he also wished for the people of the sky to be blessed. This allows them to gain access to their secret stones and adapt to better fit the climate of the sky.
The point where you said something like "because the four sword lost it's magic over time" is actually pretty canon cuz in Four Sword Adventures you had to boost the four sword with force gems to be able to seal the evil at the end of every level.
The pedestal in ALttP might as well be the same shrine of the 4 sword, degraded over time, and like some other comment said, its "mirror counterpart" in the dark world remains as a four sword So ALttP Link is doing the same as SS Link did with the amulets to a now only goddess sword
I don't fully agree with the video and how they handled BotW/TotK, but now I'm 1000% on the track that four swords splits from SS and follows with the former "downfall timeline"
Pretty decent attempt, but there several flaws are present here. 1) The Timeline Merger is a fan-made theory. Nintendo never stated that the timeline merged before Breath of the Wild. 2) Breath of the Wild can't be second. There are SEVERAL moments in Breath of the Wild that calls back to previous games. You would have to ignore/decanonize them all in order to make it all make sense. There are legit dozens of references, from items, to armor, to locations, to the Ancient Ceremony, to the smoke ring above Death Mountain in TOTKs past, to the Goron Mountains which depict Darunia's likeness, to more... 3) ...Namely, the Zora Stone Monuments say that Princess Ruto was the attendant of the Zora Patron deity, and a meandering, fair and lively girl who cried when Zora's Domain was attacked. This perfectly describes Ruto in OOT. However, the Zora sage in TOTK was not a princess....she was a warrior of the Zora race, and thus skilled in combat and disciplined, NOT meandering. It's a completely different description which, once again, we would have to ignore. 4) Just like TOTKs time travel, Skyward Sword timeline is a closed loop. What happened in the past affected the future. Destroying Demise in the past technically overwrote his presence in the future. A split requires us to explain how the Master Sword and Zelda's Bracelet were present in the future. 5) Even if Skyward Sword did cause a split, the eradication of Demise would've happened in both timelines. And thus, there should be little difference between the two splits. Why did the Zonai appear in one timeline, but not in the other? Why did the Picori appear in one, but not the other? The drastic differences you presented between the two timelines doesn't have a real catalyst. 6) One reason why the Fallen/Defeated Hero Timeline was created is because OOT established that Ganondorf does not have all three forces in balance. Thus, he cannot obtain the complete Triforce, unless he defeats "those chosen by destiny". In your ALTTP, he obtains the Triforce just by touching it? That wouldnt be possible given the lore introduced in OOT. 7) The towns in Zelda 2: TAOL are named after the sages that fought Ganondorf in the Adult and Downfall Timeline versions of OOT. In your timeline, both the TOTK sages and the OOT sages are in a different timeline, and thus, the TAOL towns are named after...a THIRD set of sages with those names? A minor issue, but magnified in the grand scheme. There's more issues but they can be explained fairly easily. Still, it requires A LOT of explanation to not contradict the lore. You would have to introduce TONS of new information not present in the games. So while you solved the "alternate reality" issue, you presented other, more crippling issues. In the end, there is a much simpler way to avoid the Fallen Hero Timeline, and that's by placing the all games in your "Murder timeline" after Twilight Princess. No need for SS split. FSA Ganondorf would be a new Ganondorf, similar to what you did to OOT Ganondorf.
I love this theory and I like it more than the original. The official timeline has the 2d games awkwardly squared off from the 3d games. But this format makes them so much more important. It’s an entire MAIN timeline on its own. I was planning to play the Zelda in the official timeline format, now I’m gonna be playing it in this format I think. It also fixes how much I hated the totk lore that had no triforce, weird secret stones, the Zonai sky connection etc. Another thing I’d like to add onto this theory is that the Zonai and the oocca are related and the oocca are a long evolution of the Zonai. Both were said to have been a tribe that originated alongside Hyrule that came from the sky.
If I recall correctly, The Wind Waker reveals that the Kokiri evolved into the Koroks. Plus, the Kokiri evolved from a group of Hylians. This means that putting Breath of the Wild that early in the timeline doesn't make much sense.
While I think the Goddess Sword being the Picori Blade caused by timeline shenanigans would be awesome, and the Twinrova surviving the events of BOTW+TOTK to raise Ganondorf from OoT, I think there are a lot of discrepancies in the theory of BotW and TotK being placed second in the timeline While some naming schemes maintain some suspension of disbelief, and you can technically hand-waive the existence of the Rito (because even in the "canon" timeline the existence of Rito and Zora don't make sense), there are too many references to older Zelda titles established as canon that make the placement contradictory at best. For example, the statues of the Goron heroes in Goron Village. While it doesn't explain the existence of Darmani, there still exists Darunia, which would require Darunia to be born in order for his likeness to be engraved there in the first place. And even smaller details like Koroks evolving from the Kokiri, or even Linebeck island (do note, Linebeck originates from the World of the Ocean King, which means Link would have had to have defeated Bellum in order for his legacy [and yes, it exists. Linebeck III is proof of this] to pass down for an island to be named after him). There are also heavy references to pre-existing establishments, such as Lon-Lon Ranch, which could've been a family owned establishment that was passed down, and its existence wouldn't make sense the other way around. However, even with BotW+TotK's odd placement, I think branching off the timeline using Demise and the Four Sword is a massive break in the timeline that makes a lot of sense. All mention of Vaati, the Four Sword, and many other major characters like the Picori are noticeably absent from BotW's narrative, even in small references, there isn't a peep signalling this game's existence. I feel like with this knowledge in mind, a timeline that can properly connect these games can arise without the use of the downfall timeline at all
I hear what you are saying, when it comes to a statue of Darunia being in Goron Village, but you should know that the names of the sages in OOT were used long before that game even came out. If you look at the names of each of the towns in Zelda two, almost all of them are names of the OOT sages. This could mean that these particular names are not necessarily unique to the OOT sage Darunia, but could be an alternate Darunia, possibly a different hero, or founder of Goron village that the OOT sage was named after when OOT came around to its turn on the timeline. And as for the statue looking like that Darunia, certain Gorons, born along the sage's bloodline, end up having the same mane of hair. Also, most gorons look alike, or at least, look like their ancestors, as it has been canonically confirmed that their are no female gorons, so the genetics get passed on along the bloodlines. And as we don't actually know how baby gorons are made, they would most likely posess the same genetics as their "fathers".
@@crashking4207 Well there a few issues here Firstly, there is the placement here, which states that TotK happens *before* OoT, which makes the heroes being descended from Darunia but not being Darunia himself don't work Nextly, the name is never stated in game, it's the statue that references him, which is purely visual in its medium
honestly, yeah, i can see your arguments here, however, for the goron statue, many ancestors look alike, so it could be a statue of a different goron, who went unmentioned in name, who is an ancestor of Darunia, or it could be a prophecy of a future to come of other heroes, and going along with this, if that is a deciding factor in not really accepting this new version of a timeline, then i would take a gander at the current timeline, which has so many fatal flaws already, and linebeck could just be a more important name, or it could have been like smith or jones in our world, where it is much more common to see. it is sad to think that really we may never know, because its all story and lore, but i do agree with you on some of your points, where there are discrepancies. we must take what is given with a grain of salt, but i'd also wager that there may be fewer discrepancies in this timeline than in the current.
There’s also the Zora stone monuments which pretty clearly reference Ocarina of Time, referencing a sage named Ruto who awoke as a sage to stop an evil man
I would honestly ignore all the nods to past games in BOTW as just noncanon fanservice, save for the zora records, specially when some stuff never made sense like the lon lon ranch ruins, which would be impossible to exist by the time BOTW takes place
Yeah same, especially as the depths in totk look very “bottom of the sea” and could be the remains of the great sea that have evaporated/drained over thousands of years
@@drawnstorm6912 not really, the thing that creates most of the problem is that ganon wasn't killed in the memories of totk so unless totk takes place before all the other games, ganon could not have been reborn
Good video! Zelda timeline theories are honestly really fun to discuss and think about. They're like a little puzzle (okay, maybe a really really big puzzle) that everyone can have their own interpretation of. Sitting down and deciding an order and explaining it requires both logical thinking and a good bit of artistic license, as a zelda timeline theorization is you writing your own history of Hyrule. It's such a shame that Hyrule Historia basically put death sentence to the topic and the internet at large just treats the topic as a joke these days.
Thank you for Compiling this improved timeline(s) I have known about the holes in the standard timeline for years but didn't know how to fix it. I am impressed, you have managed to fill ALL of the holes that I have been thinking about for years, and It all makes sense now. Thank you!
pay attention to that but not the errors in the official timeline? Plus, Hestu and Bolson dont even remember you from botw, thus showing the fact that some things are just worthless and not canon at all
6:59 One Gerudo male not dying doesn't mean that the next one can't be born. One male gerudo is born every 100 years, that's it. Makes no difference if the previous one is still alive or not.
I really enjoy the SS timeline split. Much better than the Downfall Timeline for sure But there's still way too much evidence baked into BotW/TotK to suggest an end of the timeline placement, and you didn't quite convince me on that front. I still think a timeline merge and BotW and TotK at the end fits a lot cleaner, even if the merge is pretty contrived. Great video though
I mainly like the downfall timeline split because it keeps the lore point of some of the OoT sages being remembered by having their names as the towns in Hyrule. This is something that Aonuma actually confirmed was an intentional thing when making OoT shortly after its release.
@firionkaiser8291 as clunky as the downfall timeline is, it does have its purpose for that reason. The way that wind waker and twilight princess were written and placed in the timeline kinda of unintentionally wrote link to the past out of canon, and made it so OOT couldn't be a direct prequel to it anymore. I get why they might have thought adding a third timline was the only option as a result.
Honestly this is amazing, I think this is going to be my new headcanon from now on. Hearing your explanation of the Skyward Split leaves me dumbstruck as to how Nintendo didn't think of it when they were constructing the timeline. Of course, the next Zelda game is inevitably going to create more problems, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
Love this! While of course not everything will perfectly agree here (as is the nature of Zelda lore), I'm impressed at your attempt to rationalize the timeline in a completely new fashion. You're doing exactly what Nintendo wanted when they published the Hyrule Historia.
The Rito in BOTW/TOTK seem to be descendants of the Loftwings of Skyward Sword, I genuinely don’t believe they have anything to do with the Rito of the “Adult timeline”
FINALLY, someone on TH-cam acknowledging the Skyward Sword timeline split instead of jumping over hurdles in mental gymnastics to try to explain how this timeline split DOESN'T actually exist.
I gotta say, I love having the four sword series of games pop up in a separate timeline where the master sword was never created because link went back in time, killed demise, and then dipped back to his original timeline. It makes a lot of sense as to why a new sword was needed in the first place.
I've always seen the "fallen hero" timeline as the timeline that you abandon in oot when you go from the adult back to the child era before you defeat Ganondorf. Every single time you go back, the result is the same for that timeline, Ganondorf is allowed to rule over Hyrule uninhibited
9:19 More specifically, so that this is easy to understand, Demise is defeated 100 years before the events of Skyward sword, before Link was even born let alone pulled the sword. That's why the Goddess sword is still there.
Only main problem with the skyward sword split is link leaves the sword in the past and impa watches over it the whole time and it is seen again in the future he goes back to so it can't be a full split
Working on my own timeline theory, I have to say this is incredibly well thought out. I agree with Minish Cap and the 4 swords games being in the timeline where Demise was sealed away and the Triforce was never used.
You forgot the 4th timeline! It split again when Link grew the Tree of Life in Skyward Sword. In that cursed timeline, the Thunder Dragon Lanayru stays dead. Demise isn't stopped, leaving behind him only destruction, misery and mediocrity. This is where the events of the games _Link: The Faces of Evil, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon_ and _Zelda's Aventure_ take place.
To me, BOTW was never a 'merging' but more an inevitability. Like Carzination, or however it's spelled, the phenomenon where multiple, unrelated water dwelling species all evolved to become crabs. Similarly, every Zelda timeline eventually becomes BOTW/TOTK
So for the salt item in botw the great sea it refers to is the flooded world of hyrule before skyloft descended which makes sense. The Zora also looking diverse as dolphins, stingrays and the like also make sense as they eventually evolve into the future blue and green incarnations. The guardians and advanced technology being unearthed is related to the ancient technology seen in skyward sword.
I've believed in the Skyward Sword split for years, but your further elaboration with the goddess sword becoming the four sword really strengthened the idea for me. Still wrapping my head around BotW and TotK not being at the end, but a lot of the reasons why I think it doesn't fit could be explained fairly simply...
nice theory, but there's a few issues i have. 1. there can't be a timeline split in skyward sword. the ending of the game with link relinquishing the master sword in the past and the old lady's bracelet being revealed to be zelda's bracelet she gave to impa in the ending heavily imply it's a closed loop. the former point also means that there'd be three master swords in the kill timeline. 2. if botw and totk are in between ss and oot, then that'd mean they take place tens of thousands of years apart, which is very hard to believe. also, ss and oot are the only games we know as a fact happened in botw/totk. (even if you say the totk sages are named ruto/darunia/etc, there's still the zora monuments) 3. while fsa was meant to be the alttp imprisoning war at one point, it can't be now without some major retcons. ganon became the demon king not long before the imprisoning war, while if fsa was canon he would've become the demon king decades or centuries prior. 4. it was never said that the timelines merge resulting in botw/totk, just that they take place far in the future in at least one timeline, to the point where a timeline placement would be irrelevant. 5. if skyward sword is first in the timeline because it was specifically meant to be the first game in the chronology, then why aren't botw/totk last here? 6. for the argument about botw/totk having a weaker master sword, that argument doesn't work because it's just as powerful as it is in the older games in ss. 7. the point about the rito is commonly accepted but (don't quote me on this) i remember hearing in a japanese source that the ww rito and botw rito are the same. my current headcanon is that botw rito are "full-blooded" rito, while ww rito are hybrids between the botw rito and the zora. 8. why is demise remembered in the wish timeline but not the triforce or master sword? isn't it only link, zelda, and groose that know about demise? 9. the explanation about the triforce only being known recently before ocarina of time and being fought over in the civil war goes against twilight princess. twilight princess mentions a war over the triforce that happened in times that were already ancient by the time period oot happens in. 10. twinrova say they're 400 in ocarina of time.
I think there is too much make up from the fallen "timeline" for BOTW and TOTK to be completely separate from it but I love everything else about it, I've always felt that the time travel in skyward should be responsible for one of these timelines, and I love how you unified the trident Ganon's under one umbrella allowing all versions to have a "final" death without a random incarnation sealed away somewhere. Also the Pocori Sword and Goddess Sword being the same sword is great as well, as the four sword always felt a bit underwhelming in the scheme of metaplot compaired to the master sword despite being a multi title weapon. There are still alot of issues from your head lore if you dive deeper into the plots of the individual games but the overall work is wonderful and I hope works like this drive the fandom to abandon Nintendo's official timeline for community ones, considering that appears to be what Nintendo's doing anyway.
The problem with adding “Breath of the Wild” to the beginning of the timeline are the other anachronisms you didn’t mention. Like the Temple of Time and the remains of the older Castle Town square being in ruins before “Ocarina of Time”, or Zelda mentioning the exploits of the previous Links in past tense during one of the flashbacks. But you are right with adding “Tears of the Kingdom” (or at least the past events Zelda partakes in) as taking place after “Skyward Sword”.
The issue with putting BotW at the end of the timeline and flashback TotK at the beginning is the issue of Ganondorf. Namely, that there are 2 of them for most of the story, one trapped under the castle and one doing evil shit in oot/tp/ww
@@springerengineering6697 To be fair, this wouldn’t be the only time we’ve gotten different incarnations of Ganondorf. While everyone remembers the one in OoT/WW/TP, most seem to forget about the one featured in “Four Swords Adventures” - which takes place after “Twilight Princess”. So it’s really not unheard of.
The producers of the series’s have now said that the kingdom of hyrule fell or was destroyed and the new hyrule has rauru as its king after he re-founded it. I think that the time convergence doesn’t matter it’s so far In the future that all else is now legend effectively rebooting the series without actually rebooting it.
i think that putting totk and botw right after tp in this version of the timeline fix a lot of inconsistencies like the abandoned temple of time and darmanies statue in goron city as well as making the refounding part still valid
Okay, now that I've watched your video in full, I must say, I really like your take. A lot of things you said about why BotW/TotK taking place after SS makes sense (weaker Master Sword, locations from SS still being around like the springs/Forgotten Temple), and it's weird that they'd use Ocarina's time travel to split the timeline but not Skyward Sword's. This is much better. Also, it's fun to think about earlier games in the timeline being so close to all of this advanced magitech and by the time of Zelda 1, everything's regressed to pure medieval and magic, or TP and ST where they had to reinvent cannons and locomotives. All that magitech is SO far in the past at that point that it has been lost or decayed to a degree that the world has completely forgotten about it. Great video, dude.
The Picori blade being an alternate Master Sword has already been mentioned in enough in comments so I'll say I love how you changed the origin of the Ganon from aLttP to be the one from four swords adventures. It gives this incarnation (the one from FSA) more weight in the series. (I haven't played FSA so I don't know how well it fits but it's probably not that bad considering you couldn't set OoT as this Ganon's origin thanks to the rules you set at the start)
A few minor details that may impact your theory: -In TP murals exist which depict rito-like bird people. This lends credence to the idea that a separate rito species existed before WW's rito. -in AlttP/FS GBA, the extra mini dungeon shows a shattered sword (presumably the foursword) in the room where you fight the shadow links. This works with your timeline placement, because it supports the idea that Ganon was sealed within the foursword and broke out before the events of ALttP. It also works with Aonuma's initial vision of FSA as a depiction the imprisoning war. Unfortunately, it does make your FS=MS theory less likely. Skyward Sword's time travel is a bit weird. Like TotK, it's implied to be a stable timeloop, since old Impa has the bracelet at the beginning of the game before Zelda goes into the past to give it to her. That said, there are other aspects of the time travel which do seem to alter the timeline -- specifically the seed that you bring into the past in order to grow the fruit for the Thunder Dragon. So while it seems the writers didn't intend to make a split timeline with SS's time travel, they weren't very consistent.
You probably won't see this, vut thank you so much for creating this timeline. I have hated the fallen timeline for so long and im glad that im not alone in this. Thank you again you deserve big subscribes and likes
Skyward sword uses a different time travel logic. The present is affected by time travel that will happen in the future. This is shown by impa having the bracelet in the start of the game. This couldn't be an oversight, as they made a big show of it. Thus there cannot be a split.
Oot has the same time travel logic. If you plant a seed in the past it grows in the future. All this shows is that the devs don't understand time travel
@@darkdagger5237 if one more person says the word timeline, img going to time travel to before your parents were born and tell them that they have a bright future with their children and they should be proud of them.
@@SwaggMasta0 thanks for the complement and i suggest you look in to how every time traveler in skyward sword effected the story the results would be interesting
I don’t think they merge because the official Nintendo website has BOTW-TOTK separate from the main timeline. Also princess ruto is mentioned on a giant stone so some version of ocarina happens before botw
I had considered before that TotK would indeed fit in right after Skyward Sword and that was the founding of the kingdom. You fleshed out the theory in a way that makes it make so much more sense, great job!
Mostly works… though I’d consider putting BOTW on the murder side. BOTW and TOTK don’t mention the triforce at all, which makes sense since it would have never been used or shown to the world as it would still be in skyloft with the goddess sword. I would envision the rediscovery or the goddess sword as the picori blade would have the triforce discovered shortly afterwards. On the wish side, the first game after would be Ocarina. The ancient past of TOTK was basically a reimagining of Ocarina of time, so both sides have their own version of the original Ganondorf, and technically that would make TOTK Ganondorf the same person as the Ocarina Ganondorf…. That would mean the 4-sword Ganondorf would still be a new Ganondorf though, but whatever. You get the two “ocarina” type of games…but the only problem would be the master sword being known as the master sword in BOTW, yet somehow being the picori blade as well…. I’ve gotta find a way to square this off.
The best part about this over Nintendo’s own, is that unlike that version, the games are properly sorted by art style and gameplay, instead of arbitrary lore that was never intended when the games themselves were created.
@@Tasorius it’s sorting the games. It’s a lot more stupid to say for example: arbitrarily put Four Swords Adventures between Majora’s Mask and Twilight Princess, when the game itself has nothing to do with those and should go with Minish Cap and A Link To The Past.
@@VaniRoyal Sorting games into a timeline by art style and gameplay is like sorting books by the color of the cover. The real way to figure out a timeline is to compare the story and lore in the games. If one game refers to an event in another game, you can start placing them in the timeline. The art style does matter when it's the exact same art, as in the style of OoT vs MM, but the gameplay has no relevance to the timeline, or as I like to call it, the time tree with all its branching paths.
@@Tasorius now *that’s* just stupid. Sorting games by arbitrary *mostly retroactive* superficial elements is really dumb, and it’s the reason nobody really trusts the official timeline. Going back to my example, Four Swords Adventures was not in any way a sequel to Ocarina or Majora, it was created both in story *and* gameplay (two things that Nintendo always does together) as a sequel to Four Swords and sequel or seemingly a prequel to A Link To The Past. Likewise, Twilight Princess and Wind Waker were both created as direct gameplay *and* story sequels to Ocarina of Time, that’s the entire reason this timeline even exists. They wouldn’t have made them story sequels if they weren’t game sequels, it’s just that simple. Nintendo makes games, they care about games, they don’t really care about an imaginary timeline. they think of mechanics, design and gameplay first and foremost and usually think of the story as a bit of an afterthought. and an example of how vague and meaningless this all is: when I first played Minish Cap, I interpreted the hero of legend we see in the opening as the hero of time, and even though that was indeed wrong, it didn’t contradict anything in either game. That’s how the official timeline is built, mostly disregarding original intention and game order in favor of the most superficial of things. The very suggestion that sorting the timeline of a game series by using the games themselves “making no sense” is just ridiculous. That’s like saying “it makes no sense to sort books by author or story, you need to sort them by which characters appear in them” not to mention that video games and books are not very comparable in this manner to begin with, and rules that apply to one don’t necessarily apply to the other.
@@VaniRoyal I never suggested that "sorting the timeline of a game series by using the games themselves makes no sense". I said that the events described in the games are more relevant to a timeline than the gameplay and the art style...
Nice timeline! definitely one worth consideration. I've been working off the Zelda Lore/Lore Historian one myself, since it uses the two possible endings to Minish Cap for its Defeat split, but this one has nice clear rules and makes a lot of sense. And all the references to other games made in BotW could just be the adventures of other events in their own lore, while being clear refrences to the other games for us.
FSA leading to ALTTP used to be a headcanon of mine before the official timeline came out, glad i wasn't the only one !! To much aesthetic similarities
While I don't agree with this timeline placement, I still thought this was pretty fun! I kind of love that this series history is so confusing that something as simple as order of events is still a rich ground for speculation and theory crafting! (although that one bit about the Four Swords Trilogy being a prequel to ALttP is right on the money in my opinion)
With all the respect I can muster. That's not a real argument. That's just saying that something has to be a certain way. Even in the official timeline the "imprisoning war" is argued about. Did it take place at the end of oot OR did it take place well after the events of oot? It's never explicitly stated at any point, which gives us the wiggle room we need to adjust the timeline into a better shape.
So my timeline would look something more like SS - OoT - ALTTP - WW - Zelda 1 - BOTW . . . . . . . . . \ TP . . . . . . . . / I'm of the opinion that over the years, the flood in WW's backstory would have receeded, as it was no longer needed to keep Ganon sealed. Essentially, SS is the origin. The creation of the Master Sword. In OoT the power of the triforce causes the first true strife in Hyrule, weakening the Kingdom and resulting in the royal family sealing the Triforce within the Sacred Realm. Ganondorf, seeking to ply this power from a broken kingdom and use it for himself, seeks to ally with the king of Hyrule as a ruse. Heeding the warnings of their dreams, Link and Zelda inadvertently give Ganondorf access to the Sacred Realm, and the end result is a split. Link is sent back in time by Zelda, she then founds the Knights of Hyrule in his honor to defend the kingdom. In the past, Link tells all of his adventures in the future and Ganon's evil deeds to Zelda, warning of his plan to enter the sacred realm. Ganon is executed by the mirror of twilight, leading to TP In the future, Ganon grows his power from within his seal inside the sacred realm, eventually gathering the triforce. His defeat, however, was not complete, and when our hero left to explore the great sea, Hyrule was defenseless against Ganon's return. Seeking the salvation of their hero, the last hope of the royal family against ganon is to wish their hero, long away at sea, would return to them, inadvertently drowning hyrule beneath that sea. Later, a new Hyrule is founded in a distant land, by the descendants of this royal family, becoming the Hyrule of Zelda 1 & 2. BOTW is the tailend of Demise's curse, when both sides have raised the stakes so high that destruction is the only outcome. How does the hyrule of TP, strongly implied to be the same Hyrule as OoT become the Hyrule of Zelda 1? Fucken magic. Somehow, ganon returned. Also I don't really care about putting the four sword/minish games in they feel more like spinoffs and alternate timelines than ALTTP does. ALTTP feels like the natural next step from having Ganondorf sealed in the sacred realm forever lmao.
@@SwaggMasta0 I'm just sharing my opinion, man. ALTTP feels very natural right after OoT. In the adult timeline, Ganondorf is literally sealed within the sacred realm, which is how it becomes the dark world in ALTTP. It makes sense that after the events of OoT Zelda would found the Knights of Hyrule, and the sages have already sealed ganon in the sacred realm... it just rings so true about what we know of the imprisoning war the way it is described in ALTTP.
@@FlareBinar it's totally fine to put the games wherever you want. That's kind of the point of the Zelda series is 100% creativity. I would simply encourage you to present your opinions with notable evidence to back it up. You can personally believe something, but you'll never convince other people unless you have good reasons for what you offer.
My god! My man actually did it. My man made the timeline look like an actual timeline and not a really bad acid trip. Great job this is one of my favorite Zelda videos on the platform and my new personal head cannon
I take exactly one issue with this. Which, I feel like the Murder and Wish timelines should be reversed. When you murder Demise, he curses the future for future Links and Zeldas to be haunted by Ganondorf. And yet, in the timeline envisioned here, Ganon plays a much more minor part compared to the Wish timeline. I feel like it would make more sense if they were reversed. There's very little causation that would differentiate one from the other anyway, and it would make sense that in the timeline where the triforce's power was used, it's a much longer time before it is ever rediscovered. There is also the conundrum of the triforce splitting. In the Wish timeline, the triforce gets used. Ocarina of Time shows us that if somebody uses the triforce who does not fully embody all three of the main characteristics, it will shatter and seek out those who embody those qualities. And yet, in Ocarina of Time, the Triforce is found intact, having never been used. This would make more sense if it had not been used, and instead was still waiting to be found. Therefore, Murder proceeds into Breath of the Wild while wish proceeds forward into the handheld titles. I also feel like, given how mysterious the Murder timeline is, that could give enough leeway for where the Zonai come in. Civilization flourishes on Skyloft, and as soon as it comes down, it makes sense that Hyrule would be founded then and there. But, in the Murder timeline, it's just the temple of hylia. There is no real civilization yet. It would make sense that the zonai would come along, find the fledgling followers of Hylia, and found a kingdom with them.
I really like the effort you put into this. Its obviously not perfect but I don't think its humanly possible to make a completely logical zelda timeline at this point lmfao. It's just a consequence of years of story telling without ever thinking about a proper order oof... I am actually suprised with how well your timeline fits together. its like you bought a puzzle but the pieces didn't fit in their respective places so you just kinda put the fitting pieces together and somehow got an actual picture but not the one advertised on the box xD
You lost me immediately by placing BotW and TotK so early in the timeline, there is just far too much evidence that points to them being the latest games in the timeline as multiple events from previous games are referenced in them. The events of OoT f.e. are referred to multiple times as historic events, most notably the Zora of BotW/TotK documenting Ruto’s involvement in the main plot. I also feel like the Twinrova bit of them sealing themselves away for over at least 10,000 years to raise a second Ganondorf to be a very flimsy theory based on nothing, and falls into the camp of fanfiction.
The only problem with the witches from totk being the same ones as OoT is that the ones in OoT are only around 200 (they gave us multiple answers in OoT cuz they don't quite remember so I just chose one answer) meanwhile the others from TotK would have to be at least over 10,100 years old
About a decade ago, I wrote out a theory that you could actually track the true timeline by following the Master Sword versus the White/Magic/Four Sword. That included a split immediately after Skyward Sword but I reconverged for OoT because I was sticking to Nintendo’s canon. But it always annoyed the piss out of me that they didn’t seem to care about it. Constantly just throwing the canon out the window in the name of creating the story they wanted. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy they did. At the end of the day, lore-wise, every game is a legend possibly being told millennia in the future. Details get lost and shuffled around. But when you have things that are direct contradictions to each other, it kind of sucks. I’m writing this at 12:36 in the video so I’m not sure if you address this, but one other amazing factor in this theory is that the Yiga can become the Twili from TP. They’re interlopers, an offshoot of a clan that served the royal family and were loyal to the darkness.
This timeline feels clean, and I like that you covered your bases on details like the Rito. BTW, it's implied that Yuga is in Zelda 1! That is, if both Ganon and Yuga were somehow revived together.
...wait wait wait oh my gOD DOES THAT MEAN YUGA IS THE EVIL WIZARD THAT CURSES ZELDA THE FIRST INTO ETERNAL SLUMBER THE OFFICIAL ART EVEN SHOWS HIM COMING OUT OF A SHADOW LIKE A TWO-DIMENSIONAL P A I N T I N G oh my god
One thing I’ve never seen anyone mention is how the skyward sword map lines up perfectly with the map in BoTW. Faron bottom right, lanayru/gerudo desert bottom left, eldin/death mountain top middle, and skyloft and the great plateau! Super interesting!
I agree with everything other than botw and totk placement. Especially since both games heavily mention all other timelines, like how the previous owners of the master sword have threaded through skies time and twilight. Not only that, princess ruto gets mentioned by name. It could just be a zora with a similair name though that would seem a bit far fetched. Last theres the fact that the rock salt kinda mentioned the events of wind waker which imo supports the timeline merge a lot. Though with how much time is between the flashbacks in totk and the actual game it could make sense that they actually happened at the beginning of the timeline. There would still be a need for a timeline merge at the end though. I really think that turning the fallen hero timeline into one that continues from demises defeat makes a lot of sense though and makes the whole timeline a lot better already.
At the beginning I thought BotW being at the beginning is bullcrap because... Idk. But now it makes complete sense. And this rock salt easter egg in BotW could just be from the Lanayru Sand sea. Even the "Murder Timeline" makes sense. It would also make sense why Ganon even knew about the 7 maiden in ALttP. He was once sealed away by them.
Just to iron out more your theory about how timelines are created in the zelda universe: - You went to the past and stayed there? No new timeline is created, because of self-sustaining loop. - You went to the past and came back? New timeline created! - You went to the future and stayed there? No new timeline is created because it's just like waiting a really long time. - You went to the future and came back? New timeline created!
Thank you for this. I always wondered why no one talked about the timeline split in skyward sword, and just went about their way without any regard for anything. This certainly fits a lot of things a lot better, even if I disagree with some things. There is a LOT of technological advancement in botw and totk seem to have been lost -not to mention the sheer vastness of the Skiekah technology, and what LITTLE remains of it by the time Ocarina and Twilight roll around (I doubt Purah or Robbie would let it die in the annals of history just like that). WInd waker's sea salt, and the mention to twilight princess (two ways) in botw is something that feels like its more significant than just an easter egg - but I do agree that the notion of the "merged" timeline is... korok seed. I always felt like Botw and Totk happened in the Skyward Sword split timeline - in the "murder" timeline. Since a version of Demise needs to be dead for the "next" incarnation to be born, it felt better for this purpose.
impas bracelet proves a perfect loop but if you fail to stop the emprisend the gate of time is destroyed breaking the loop which would cause a chaos timeline because links world came from the complete loop and breaking the loop would prevent links world from ever existing which would prevent the time travel prevention as impa says all is lost
This actually makes so much sense, however I still wonder about the OoT and Twilight Princess outfits being in the depths, as it could be canon lore or just an easter egg. Also, where did the depths go? You would assume that eventually a civilization would discover them (maybe). Not to mention that there was already an entrance to the depths in Botw, so who knows if another one ever pops up?
@@PenguinPoo4246 I agree. I think the existence of the goddess sword as a collectable does it for me. There's just no world where the goddess sword and the master sword co-exist.
Something I've learned from The Legend of Zelda is that it is indeed a Legend! For the same reason, it is difficult to even connect games that are not explicitly related to another, such as the "Hero of Time Trilogy" (Ocarina/Majora/Twilight Princess), Zelda 1/2, Oracle of Ages/Seasons, the "3D Toon Link Trilogy" (Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks), the "Four Swords Duology", the "Link" Duology (A Link to the Past/A Link Between Worlds), and so on. Between each set there is a clearer relationship, but between others, not anymore.
I love how despite there being a "canon" timeline, according to the Big N, that's just NINTENDO's canon timeline. Your timeline is canon too, but only to you. That's super cool imo.
I think the main problem with this is moving BoW and ToK because its clear the civilization is FAR more advanced than anything ever seen in zelda before. The shieka treat "magic" more like science. Even the races seem more intelligent and noble than ever before. So putting them at the beginning rather than the end makes everything look like they advanced extremely quickly and then immediately revert back and decline then advanced again much slower this time little by little.
I love this! I'm sure there are some little things that contradict or seem confusing with BotW and TotK referencing so many of the previous games, but this is pretty fantastic and sounds great to me! Now I'd love to see someone take a look at the map of Hyrule and see if changes in the land and locations could work with some this timeline.
I love the fact that, because the games are all legends, you can come up with your own timeline and claim it is canon, even if there is lore that doesn't fit in it. This version of the timeline you created gotta be my favorite.
this feels much more satisfying for a timeline because I always felt like four swords adventure, one of the 2d pixel games, being after a set of the 3d games majoras mask and twilight princess seemed so out of place and scrapped together.
I had the idea years ago that the Picori blade and the goddess sword should be the same sword and the four swords games should all be on a different timeline starting from skyward sword. I’ve shared this on innumerable youTuber threads when they talk about the timeline. I appreciate someone else coming up with the same idea and running with it.
I've had this headcanon since TOTK came out that the Minnish and Zonai are related species. Both descended from the heavens and have long tails/animalistic features. Basically, the Minnish are to the Zonai what round-eared sengis are to elephants. This timeline (which is amazing, btw) makes me wonder what the hell hapened to their common ancestors in each timeline for the Zonai and Minnish to be so different.
One timeline anamoly that I don't see mentioned enough is the OoT spirit temple split. Child link sleeps 7years, adult link visits forest, fire, water temples, gets to spirit and there are locked doors. You go back in time. Solve some spirit puzzles, go to the future and adult finds a spirit temple with puzzles solved. What happened to that future spirit temple with the unsolved puzzles? It is the only way I can reconcile the "here is defeated" timeline, since he'd just dissappear after visiting the spirit temple and the gerudo would suspect he died.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 88 | คู่เอก "ป้อมเพชร vs อัสลามจอน"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ZqTVVbMgbo/mqdefault.jpg)
![I Solved the Map of EVERY Zelda Game! [Legend of Zelda Theory]](/img/n.gif)
The way Ganon exists in this interpretation of the timeline is way more thematically consistent, too. In the Wish timeline, Ganondorf appears almost exclusively as a human and only transforms into a bestial demon under dire circumstances (TotK, OoT, TP, WW). And in the Murder timeline, Ganondorf the Thief immediately turns himself into a pig demon the moment he seizes the magical trident and never once appears as a human after that. It's logical, it's narratively satisfying, and it's easy to understand. I'm unironically going to headcanon this version of the timeline from now on.
(Never played skyward sword ) but how does he exist in both timelines since demise curses link Zelda and himself at the end of their fight
@@samuelcerullo9913 I think it stands to reason that Demise's curse applied both to the people he was cursing (the trio) and the world he was in (the past). The curse can exist in both timelines because the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero went back to the present, and the curse was made in the past.
@@Dudeman23rddon’t even need that logic to work. We know from wind waker that knew hero spirt’s can be forged. So when the hero of man comes around it activates the cures.
I think ganon and the calamity in the botw and totk timeframe is just ganondorf trying to weaken raurus seal, even if it's using a lot of power so he can only do it a few times. (Also, I think the calamity would have had to happen at LEAST 3 times, one to happen initially to make the shiekah have the need to create the guardians and beasts, the second where the ancient hero, Princess, and shiekah tech defeat it, and third in botw) so the "10000" years is not literal and just means an extremely long time ago, so there's many many millennia between the zonai and the events of even botw or hell, even the calamity from the tapestry. So, raurus seal gradually broke, occasionally accelerated when ganondorf used his secret stone power to use his malice and create ganon, weakening his seal bit by bit, until it eventually breaks. But, if ganondorf has been sealed all this time it means there has not been a male gerudo this whole time, meaning no other game is able to take place for a LONG LONG time before botw, meaning it has to take place at the end of at least one timeline, or just nothing happened between ganondorf being sealed, until his first calamity where he was (likely after much death and a long time) defeated, where then the sheikah built the guardians and divine beasts, planning out how to defeat him after his inevitable return, leading to the tapestry calamity, then the sheikah being shunned out of fear by the King at the time, leading to the hidden tech, and eventually after an era of peace, the events of botw we see, then leading to the events of totk with ganondorf being freed from his seal and eventually being free. So either the zonai time, initial calamity, tapestry calamity, botw calamity, and totk all happen at the end of a (perhaps unseen) timeline, or they happen before everything else and ganondorf is reborn afterwards since he is actually defeated, leading to some other game happening. Personally I think it happens at the end of an unseen timeline
@@auraFireblood I had always interpreted the calamity’s not as ganondorf attacking the seal put on him but rather using the malice that leaked out over ten thousand years to make another play at destroying hyrule
This made me realize the Skyward Sword time split is not being used by Nintendo at all. It was a great chance to create a whole separate universe without worrying too much about the already existing timeline
Technically there could also be a timeline split in Link to the past, as Link made a wish on the triforce to everything to go back to the way it was but Ganon stays dead (similar to ocarina of time split where there is a timeline where Link disappears alongside the canon one where Link goes back to the timeline where the king and Link's uncle are still alive)
This could mean the games could have a more compressed timeline that still fits everything and may even allow no merging to shunt off spinoffs heavily.
problem being there is no split in skyward... this is just a wild fan theory not backed by actual facts or evidence.
nothing changed when they time traveled back to the future, impa was still old an on her death bed, and demise ceased to exist because he had already been slain and vanquished in the present before they had leaped to the past and skyloft was still floating in the skys..
the only reason that ocarina of time created separate timelines was because ganon had claimed all three pieces of the triforce and he used the doors of time this set a chain of events into motion and divided him into three entities with each one possessing a piece of triforce.
the Ganon that we defeated in ocarina of time was sealed within the sacred grove its there that he poisoned it an created the world of darkness in a world which had no hero.
the then hero of time we fought as goes off on a journey of his own an arrives in Termina where he confronts Majora's Mask an defeats the evil it carried within before returning to hyrule to see it ravaged by Ganon's war an he eventually decided to enlist in the royal guard and helps hyrule to defeat Ganondorf who is then imprisoned an sentenced to death but the sages greatly miscalculated and the Ganon of the other timeline had spirited the triforce of power to his other self in that moment which allowed Ganondorf to escape death but the remaining sages spirited him off to the twilight realm and then destroyed the mirror of twilight after his departure in the hopes he would never return an thus we get Twilight Princess
@@peksioart6706
I don't think he actually did time reversal, I think he just revived anyone who died and brought back everyone Trapped in the Sacred Realm.
@@Chris-gx1ei I think it would make more sense if he turned back time because Zelda doesn't remember Link (if we take Oracle or ages and seasons as continuation of this Link's story)
There are definitely elements of this timeline I'm not so sure about, but I LOVE the idea of the Goddess Sword and Picori Blade being the same sword, and the Master Sword and Four Sword being two different forms of that original blade based on how it was powered up. The Four Sword trilogy never really had any solid ties to the rest of the games, especially with them having their own version of Ganondorf, so putting them after the Skyward Sword timeline split works really well!
Thank you! I actually stumbled on that idea accidentally while I was explaining what I thought about the timeline to my brother. I was like "wait a second" and then pissed myself with excitement over the possibility.
Hey that's me!!! I claim credit
@SwaggMasta000 I'll be honest, I'm not sold on the Master and Four swords being one and the same. Why would the Palace of the Four Sword be in LttP? Why is it already referred to as the Master Sword by Sahasrahla?
Other than that, this is a fantastic timeline. Waaaay better than the official one. I'd have never thought to stick BotW and TotK at the beginning of the timeline, that solved way more than I expected!
@@Draezeth well, the palace of the four sword is only a bonus dungeon in the gba version of LttP as far as I know, so it's more of an easter egg than a canonical place. Or maybe it has some mirror effect to the master sword since the actual master sword was in the light world so the dark world version is distorted. Idk. I can make it make sense to me so I like it.
We've seen character reincarnate and do the same stuff all the time throughout the timeline. Is it so weird to think that a there were more than one Princess Rutos throughout the timeline who became sages? If Tingle can do it, so can she.
We seriously need more people talking about the skyward split.
Right?!
Most ZeldaTubers are jumping over immensely huge hurdles in mental gymnastics in order to try to explain how this Skyward Sword timeline split doesn't even exist
It's an interesting topic, although I personally don't agree with it. Oracle of Ages shows us that time works recursively, wherein changes to the past directly affect the present. Logically, the same should apply to Skyward Sword, and this is even confirmed by Impa having Zelda's bracelet at the end of the game. The reason OOT creates a timeline split is because instead of going to the past, Link goes to the future, and the future of course can't catch up to the present. The future timeline and the present timeline continue each on their own, preventing the present from eventually catching up to and replacing the alternate future.
@@firestarex3544 The way time travel works in Zelda has always been inconsistent. Ocarina of time by itself includes 2 contradictory ways of time travel working in the song of storms quest and the magic beans. In the song of storms quest, time travel has to be destined to happen in order for you to learn the song from the music box guy and then go back in time to teach it to him first. With the magic beans, on the other hand, time travel can't be destined to happen as the magic beans will only be grown in the future after youve gone the past to plant them first.
You can't really use the idea that time travel works a certain way in one game that it can't work a different way in another, because there is no one way that time travel in zelda works.
@@firestarex3544 this timeline isn't perfect but the original canon one is utter garbage compared to it. Why don't you write massive paragraphs about how the totk memories retcon the entire goddamn timeline?
@@CinderedSilveror instead we can talk about how even the creator dosent make the games with an intended timeline in mind, the fans can do whatever of course, but the team wouldent beable to pull off a lot of the stories THEY want to make, as aposed to the ones that would be consistent with a theory the fans came up with a long time ago
This makes so much more sense, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nintendo updated the timeline tomorrow. Great video
Thank you! Hopefully they do update it soon 😂
Hopefully, if they can take a break from suing child mod-makers and cancer charities
@@bwackbeedows3629 they will never stop
This definitely makes much more sense! Having to squeeze botw and totk into the timeline placement and just saying in the distant future it goes here is lazy writing.
@@ItsMeBarnabynot in any direct way though. They talk about the sword being adrift in time (which can just as easily be SS as OOT) and mention ancient sages sealing Ganondorf away (which could also just be a reference to TOTK)
This is a RADICAL concept, however TOTK kind of pisses on the parade with Sidon's monuments. In one of them he directly references ruto's journey in Ocarina of time. You see because the Zora live such long lives, they have an EXCELLENT written historical record, and therefore have their history recorded in tremendous detail, and Sidon references ruto being eaten by a great fish god, and the domain being frozen over, and refers how it's similar to his own struggles as the prince of the Zora in modern times. Though I'd be willing to write this off as "ohh it's just events repeating" if it meant a more coherent glue between these games
when does Sidon reference those two things?
Not everything in game has to be canon, obviously, because of the fact that hestu and bolson do not remember link in totk
@@doofuscawtnintendo only did that to not alienate newcomers tho
@@the_flipside_world But then that breaks the story
@@doofuscawt nintendo is notorious of making some inconsistencies in the timeline, so I wouldn't worry too much about that
This is a REAL smart take on the timeline. The only flaw I can think of is that both Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess are referenced in Breath of the Wild, but honestly that can be handwaved away as either being prophetic or just some fun "foreshadowing" by the writers
It's a good take and compelling for the key events, but it starts to rip through its seams on some details. The most blatant one is the Darmani the III statue in Goron City. The statue is clearly Darmani, yet Majora's mask would've taken place centuries after in only one of the hypothetical timelines. It's not one of the TOTKsage either since, according to the theory, it would be named "Darunia" because of the Divine Beasts. There's others too, such as the Rito being mysteriously absent in OOT, Lon Lon Ranch ruins, but this seems to be the most damning one; especially since the statues are culturally relevant to the Gorons in BOTW.
I mean, there are thousands of years stretched between most games, it's really not farfetched to say that theyre referencing other stories. Also, there are localization differences
@@chillagerr the lon lon ranch ruins are just a reference, in any timeline its been centuries minimum between oot and botw, theres no way that wood wouldnt rot over that amount of time no matter what
@@firelasto Also Lon Lon Ranch is way smaller for some reason in AoC (which to me took over the timeline, as BotW makes more sense as a dead end to me). It would make more sense that they'd expand on it in OOT, than leave it in a dishevelled state that's somehow smaller than the one in OOT.
Yep immediately BotW had to take place after OOT. I think the best explanation for it is that what we see in TotK is just OOT. The game is a legend so some details are wrong. Like link could be added afterwards because there has always been a hero.
I have to admit, when I first clicked on this I wasn’t really expecting it to be this good. All the other “my Zelda timeline” videos I’ve seen were all not very well put together and didn’t really make sense. But yours actually makes a ton of sense, it isn’t perfect, but neither is the official one. I love the idea of the goddess sword being the picori blade and using skyward swords time travel to fix the whole fallen timeline thing. When totk came out I wasn’t super happy with how the story didn’t really fit with the established lore, but you fixed those problems. Very well done!
Thank you!
same, it was fantastic
Just imagining the shenanigans in your SS Murder timeline - from the viewpoint of everyone else there (divine or not) some random demon shows up, resurrects the big bad by ritually sacrificing their goddess, then some random dude from the future follows him, proceeds to single-handedly destroy his entire army, the demon, then 1v1 demise. Then he just leaves. Hylia is reborn 1000-odd years later as per plan and has absolutely nothing to do (lol).
It would be WILD
no wonder there's a Legend... 'cept for some reason they made it about Zelda instead...
Even worse, there's a past Ghirahim wandering around without a demon lord to try to revive anymore...
@@gideonjones5712 isnt he the sword? and so in this timeline, possibly not even forged bc the sword demise uses is future girahim
In this timeline, Girahim has been turned into a sword (his true form) and is destroyed in the final battle (or at least sealed in the master sword with the remains of Demise).
I don't know exactly when Hylia's plan takes shape compared to the final battle but supposing the goddess sword has already been forged (so that it can become the Picori blade) and Hylia is still a goddess, there is still a mortal incarnation of Hylia present in this timeline, that being the one sealed in the temple.
She awakens after Link and the other Zelda return to the Wish timeline and can help found the first kingdom in the Murder timeline, gifting the next Zeldas with the blood of the goddess even though in this timeline there is still a goddess Hylia.
Princess Ruto is literally mentioned in Breath of the Wild. You can read about her on the stone carvings in Zoras Domain. Ruto canonically an ancestor to Mifa and Sidon.
The problem with botw and ttok is that all it's references to previous games are just fanservice.
None of them go beyond being just flavor text and design reuse. They don't affect the world and events in any way.
You could remove all of them and they still keep their internal story structure because they were conceived as isolated stories that don't really care about making sense with the others, as we saw with the whole Rauru shit.
If we just accept the references as the fanservice they are, the general structure fits better with both games taking place in the past instead of after everything.
@gamongames Theorizing is built upon curiosity and problem-solving. We use the information that is given to us and try to connect the dots.
Even if it's flavortext and eastereggs. It is in the game and was placed there purposely by devs.
Who cares if it's fan service?
If you reject/ ignore given material, it's not a theory. It's a conspiracy.
The whole Dark Souls lore, for instance, is built upon flavortexts from random item descriptions.
heres something though, ruto, is the name of the zora princess in ocarina of time right? so whats stopping her from being named after a different zora princess from way before. names can be used more than once, right? i mean look at zelda. if this zora princess mentioned on the stone tablets was really that great, why wouldn't the king want to name his daughter after such a hero?
@DanielWahlquist That is just dodging the given information at this point. Of course, people can have the same name in the real world. however, in fiction, it is a no-no because you want your characters distinct from each other. That makes it easier to remember them. Yeah, you can break this rule on purpose if it's part of the story. (King & Sage Rauru, for example, both are shown and are different enough+have different titles attached to the same name) They wouldn't simply do that with Ruto in this case. Introducing another unshown greate princess Rutos would be just confusing, and it would take away the OG Rutos glory away. When you start with this mindset, it's over. The theory will never be as canon as possible, that just invalidates every given info.
@RyuuToon this is hilarious, regarding the series famously reusing names.
I have to say, I like your version of the timeline better than the official one. There's some lore in the games that doesn't really fit yours, but the larger elements certainly do. It just makes more sense to me.
Thank you! There's definitely many little things wrong with it. This was my swing for the fences theory. Maybe someday I will go through and do a more thorough job
can you explain the lore in zelda 1 where zelda has a brother? i don't even know if its cannon lol@@SwaggMasta0
@@marsshhman it's in Hyrule historia. It's a long story, so I won't bore you with the details here, but you can look it up on a fan wiki or something.
@@marsshhman pretty much there is this prince who gets angry or something
and ends up getting Zelda cursed or something, so the prince makes like a law that all Hyrulian princess need to be named Zelda or something so the Zelda from Zelda 1 and 2 are two different people, that's my take on it anyway
@@marsshhman Specifically, it's lore that comes from Zelda 2 but takes place chronologically before Zelda 1. It's in-game a little bit and in the instruction booklet.
At first I was skeptical about this video, but by the end I really enjoyed your take on the timeline. It's creative, wacky, and logical. Well done.
I love this, genuinely. The only thing I'd note is that it can't be the same twinrova because we know their age. Other than that very small detail, this makes a ton of sense!
Thank you! I thought about that for sure. I think you're right. It is just a detail from 25 years ago that is impossible to work around.
I mean if you're "sealed away" are you technically "aging"? I'd argue you're just set aside from the flow of time affecting your age.🤷
Yeah, they may not have perceived any passage of time during the time they were sealed away, so neither their physical or mental age would have changed during the sealed away time.
Maybe im missing something but theres now been two comments mentioning Twinrova being sealed away, and i genuienly have no idea what you all mean? was Koume and Kotake sealed away? when? how?
@@link2744 it was part of my theory
I've been a Zelda fan for about 23 years now... I started thinking about all this Botw is a sequel from skyward sword thing about a year ago but didn't put the time and dedication to justify it the way you did. This has to be one of the most important Zelda Videos ever uploaded to youtube. This fixes everything and also explains why Impa in OoT and TP is always the Last of the Sheikah and some other lore stuff.... daaaang... nice video dude!
YES I was always kind of bugged by how Impa is the ONLY sheikah for AGES and then suddenly there are a ton in BotW! Like, where did they even come from?!!
The way you explained how history of the master sword is actually amazing. I would've never found the details you used to explain how the goddess sword, picori sword, and master sword are all the same. Great work
Thank you! It was definitely a eureka moment for me.
@@SwaggMasta0 Its even better the fact that the pedestal of the master sword in a link to the past has these 4 marks. And a forest around it. In four swords adventures we see that whole area turning into a grove of some kind. So later on it becomes a whole forest. And likely the four swords adventures and four swords made it difficult to see but the og area had 4 pedestals. Lets say most of the stoney and shit dissappeared because of decay but only the actual pedestal remained with those marks of the 4 pedestals that that once stood there. Even zelda's reference of the hero in botw :"Whether adrift in time,skyward bound or in the embers of twilight -> Link travels through time in skyward sword, he flies in the sky in that game. And the embers of twilight never mention a dimension or anything so we could assume she means the phenomenon twilight figurativly speaking as dark times in hyrule.
@@Feniksds nah she didn't know about any other game's events, it's just the game devs referencing the other games as a nod to the fans
Thank you for fixing 2 major problems that I always had with the official timeline:
1) The Fallen Hero Timeline- I don't like it. Why base an entire timeline on a non-official What-if? If so, why don't we get more what-ifs based timeline?
2)TotK's Ganondorf was such a disapoitment as a character, simply being evil for being evil, when I expected a deeper villain. Putting him after SS and making him evil because he grew up with the legend of demise is way better than what we got
Good job man
The Fallen Hero Timeline is a scrapped together patch job to try and repair the mess the timeline became. OoT was meant to be the direct prequel to ALttP, but Wind Waker came along as a sequel which contradicted the events due to the flooding. But that's fine, ALttP could have been in the child timeline while Wind Waker was in the adult timeline. Then Twilight Princess came in as a sequel in the child timeline and killed off Ganondorf, making the events of ALttP impossible.
Nintendo didn't want to shift ALttP away from being the sequel to OoT, but WW and TP already filled the spots, so the only option was to make it a what if scenario. That way it''s still the sequel and doesn't contradict the other two games. It's not good, but it was the only way to keep that order they wanted. Plus it meant there was one timeline split in the most arguably pivotal moment in the series, rather than two separate splits throughout.
As for why don't they make more what ifs? Because that was a one off quick fix and would make everything more bloated and convoluted than it already is. Yes, we can infer a new timeline for each death due to multiverse, but we don't need to see it for every single outcome.
@@ShadowVincent3wind waker didn’t contradict anything it actually became a 100% more in tune continuity with ocarina of times story STRIGHT UP unlike ALTTP where it’s intro story had barely anything to do with OOT adult ending
if you want to start blaming you should blame in truth Ocarina of time for that Ocarina is the RETCON CAUSE
Wind waker was only the after effect trying to make sense of OOT RETCONNED END
Enough said
1) You could also simply put it as a consequence of Link's time looping in Majora's Mask, and have it branch off from one of the loop where the moon crashes and Link doesn't come back to Hyrule to fight the war to arrest Ganondorf (the one where he presumably dies and become the Hero's Spirit in TP).
But Nintendo prefers to have OoT as a central game to everything for their official timeline
2) Poor writing also exists. That's not a "Timeline problem", that's a "Tears of the Kingdom" problem
@@gallalameblook9911 1) Link travels back in time multiple times in OoT. The "fallen hero" timeline is actually just an "abandoned" timeline because Link left it the first time he went back to the past. I don't know how Nintendo didn't see that much better explanation, or if they did, why they decided not to go with it.
ToTK Ganondorf was apparently rather lost in translation (much like Revali in BoTW)
I seriously enjoy the idea that the "fallen" timeline is replaced by a timeline created by Skyward Sword. Makes a lot of sense. My only issues (which I'm more posing as a question of did you consider it) revolve around BotW and TotK, as in BotW we have Zelda speaking directly about events in OoT TP SS and presumably other games. Furthermore, the location of TotK and BotW doesn't really satisfy an explanation of the Zonai or the Hylians as SS establishes the initial "Hylians" (although probably not called that), but TotK seems to imply that the Zonai CREATED Hyrule the nation (stated in that Rauru says he founded Hyrule with people on the land) and by extension the name Hylian. By this placement, we would have two races of people descending from the sky, one of which we know of (Groose, link the other ppl from Skyloft), but The Zonai? We have nothing on another race descending from the sky. Any thoughts you have on these questions would be appreciated. Also, all your other game placements are improvements and well-connected (compared to many in the original timeline). I have some other issues surrounding BotW's placement, but the above is my bigger issue for now. Interested to hear your thoughts, and sorry if my spitballing isn't very clear.
Good questions.
1. The game references
I think these can be written off in a couple of different ways. The idea of the master sword traveling through the skies and through time can both be covered by the events of skyward sword. For "adrift in twilight" I think it's fair to assume that the twilight realm has already been created.
We have to remember that between the events of TOTK past and the beginning of BOTW there were thousands of years of history. This history can be used to explain away a lot of those questions.
2. The Zonai.
I'm not going to lie, the Zonai really bug me. They feel like they were just shoved into the games with very little thought put into them.
As far as your question is concerned, I think it's reasonable to assume that the Zonai and the Hylians both defend from the sky around the same time and progress together. There are many different races that came from the sky (picori, oocca, Zonai, sky tribe) we don't see any of them even mentioned in skyward sword.
This leads me to believe that the heavens are broken into sections where certain races live seperate from each other.
OR they are all the same race that just project different appearances using magic.
IDK just some of my thoughts.
@@SwaggMasta0 great thoughts. And I do enjoy the comment on the zonai makes enough sense for me. Thanks!
Should be noted that even Sidon confirms that he descends from OoT Ruto.
There's also the Gerudo problem. Ancient Gerudo are referred as the Gerudo who had round ears during the days of OoT. Basically confirming that they were pure Gerudo. After several generations of having children they eventually had pointed ears.
By the time of TotK Ganondorf's time, he's the only one who retained these ancient traits while the rest of his people didn't carry these traits, even down to the color of their eyes. In OoT we see all the Gerudo, Ganondorf included still had these ancient traits.
It's one of the few reasons I believe in the refounding theory which the head director said was a possibility.
Something that is head-canon for me is that when Link wished for the death of demise with the triforce, he also wished for the people of the sky to be blessed. This allows them to gain access to their secret stones and adapt to better fit the climate of the sky.
@@firionkaiser8291that is until Ganondorf future two splits where in WW his ears got pointy same for TP
With the way you split the timelines, suddenly there being 2 different Imprisoning Wars makes a lot more sense.
The point where you said something like "because the four sword lost it's magic over time" is actually pretty canon cuz in Four Sword Adventures you had to boost the four sword with force gems to be able to seal the evil at the end of every level.
The pedestal in ALttP might as well be the same shrine of the 4 sword, degraded over time, and like some other comment said, its "mirror counterpart" in the dark world remains as a four sword
So ALttP Link is doing the same as SS Link did with the amulets to a now only goddess sword
I don't fully agree with the video and how they handled BotW/TotK, but now I'm 1000% on the track that four swords splits from SS and follows with the former "downfall timeline"
@@estellairon9448 Isn't the Dark World counterpart to the Master Sword pedastel the entrance into the Skull dungeon?
I meant to the sword itself :v
Pretty decent attempt, but there several flaws are present here.
1) The Timeline Merger is a fan-made theory. Nintendo never stated that the timeline merged before Breath of the Wild.
2) Breath of the Wild can't be second. There are SEVERAL moments in Breath of the Wild that calls back to previous games. You would have to ignore/decanonize them all in order to make it all make sense. There are legit dozens of references, from items, to armor, to locations, to the Ancient Ceremony, to the smoke ring above Death Mountain in TOTKs past, to the Goron Mountains which depict Darunia's likeness, to more...
3) ...Namely, the Zora Stone Monuments say that Princess Ruto was the attendant of the Zora Patron deity, and a meandering, fair and lively girl who cried when Zora's Domain was attacked. This perfectly describes Ruto in OOT. However, the Zora sage in TOTK was not a princess....she was a warrior of the Zora race, and thus skilled in combat and disciplined, NOT meandering. It's a completely different description which, once again, we would have to ignore.
4) Just like TOTKs time travel, Skyward Sword timeline is a closed loop. What happened in the past affected the future. Destroying Demise in the past technically overwrote his presence in the future. A split requires us to explain how the Master Sword and Zelda's Bracelet were present in the future.
5) Even if Skyward Sword did cause a split, the eradication of Demise would've happened in both timelines. And thus, there should be little difference between the two splits. Why did the Zonai appear in one timeline, but not in the other? Why did the Picori appear in one, but not the other? The drastic differences you presented between the two timelines doesn't have a real catalyst.
6) One reason why the Fallen/Defeated Hero Timeline was created is because OOT established that Ganondorf does not have all three forces in balance. Thus, he cannot obtain the complete Triforce, unless he defeats "those chosen by destiny". In your ALTTP, he obtains the Triforce just by touching it? That wouldnt be possible given the lore introduced in OOT.
7) The towns in Zelda 2: TAOL are named after the sages that fought Ganondorf in the Adult and Downfall Timeline versions of OOT. In your timeline, both the TOTK sages and the OOT sages are in a different timeline, and thus, the TAOL towns are named after...a THIRD set of sages with those names? A minor issue, but magnified in the grand scheme.
There's more issues but they can be explained fairly easily. Still, it requires A LOT of explanation to not contradict the lore. You would have to introduce TONS of new information not present in the games. So while you solved the "alternate reality" issue, you presented other, more crippling issues. In the end, there is a much simpler way to avoid the Fallen Hero Timeline, and that's by placing the all games in your "Murder timeline" after Twilight Princess. No need for SS split. FSA Ganondorf would be a new Ganondorf, similar to what you did to OOT Ganondorf.
I have so many issues with tears of the kingdom and this video single-handedly made the game better for me, so thanks this makes me happy 😁
Until you actually look at the content of the games, yeah it’s good
I love this theory and I like it more than the original.
The official timeline has the 2d games awkwardly squared off from the 3d games.
But this format makes them so much more important. It’s an entire MAIN timeline on its own.
I was planning to play the Zelda in the official timeline format, now I’m gonna be playing it in this format I think.
It also fixes how much I hated the totk lore that had no triforce, weird secret stones, the Zonai sky connection etc.
Another thing I’d like to add onto this theory is that the Zonai and the oocca are related and the oocca are a long evolution of the Zonai. Both were said to have been a tribe that originated alongside Hyrule that came from the sky.
If I recall correctly, The Wind Waker reveals that the Kokiri evolved into the Koroks. Plus, the Kokiri evolved from a group of Hylians. This means that putting Breath of the Wild that early in the timeline doesn't make much sense.
The Temple of Time is destroyed in BotW. It’s obvious that it takes places AFTER OoT.
While I think the Goddess Sword being the Picori Blade caused by timeline shenanigans would be awesome, and the Twinrova surviving the events of BOTW+TOTK to raise Ganondorf from OoT, I think there are a lot of discrepancies in the theory of BotW and TotK being placed second in the timeline
While some naming schemes maintain some suspension of disbelief, and you can technically hand-waive the existence of the Rito (because even in the "canon" timeline the existence of Rito and Zora don't make sense), there are too many references to older Zelda titles established as canon that make the placement contradictory at best. For example, the statues of the Goron heroes in Goron Village. While it doesn't explain the existence of Darmani, there still exists Darunia, which would require Darunia to be born in order for his likeness to be engraved there in the first place. And even smaller details like Koroks evolving from the Kokiri, or even Linebeck island (do note, Linebeck originates from the World of the Ocean King, which means Link would have had to have defeated Bellum in order for his legacy [and yes, it exists. Linebeck III is proof of this] to pass down for an island to be named after him). There are also heavy references to pre-existing establishments, such as Lon-Lon Ranch, which could've been a family owned establishment that was passed down, and its existence wouldn't make sense the other way around.
However, even with BotW+TotK's odd placement, I think branching off the timeline using Demise and the Four Sword is a massive break in the timeline that makes a lot of sense. All mention of Vaati, the Four Sword, and many other major characters like the Picori are noticeably absent from BotW's narrative, even in small references, there isn't a peep signalling this game's existence. I feel like with this knowledge in mind, a timeline that can properly connect these games can arise without the use of the downfall timeline at all
I hear what you are saying, when it comes to a statue of Darunia being in Goron Village, but you should know that the names of the sages in OOT were used long before that game even came out. If you look at the names of each of the towns in Zelda two, almost all of them are names of the OOT sages. This could mean that these particular names are not necessarily unique to the OOT sage Darunia, but could be an alternate Darunia, possibly a different hero, or founder of Goron village that the OOT sage was named after when OOT came around to its turn on the timeline. And as for the statue looking like that Darunia, certain Gorons, born along the sage's bloodline, end up having the same mane of hair. Also, most gorons look alike, or at least, look like their ancestors, as it has been canonically confirmed that their are no female gorons, so the genetics get passed on along the bloodlines. And as we don't actually know how baby gorons are made, they would most likely posess the same genetics as their "fathers".
@@crashking4207 Well there a few issues here
Firstly, there is the placement here, which states that TotK happens *before* OoT, which makes the heroes being descended from Darunia but not being Darunia himself don't work
Nextly, the name is never stated in game, it's the statue that references him, which is purely visual in its medium
honestly, yeah, i can see your arguments here, however, for the goron statue, many ancestors look alike, so it could be a statue of a different goron, who went unmentioned in name, who is an ancestor of Darunia, or it could be a prophecy of a future to come of other heroes, and going along with this, if that is a deciding factor in not really accepting this new version of a timeline, then i would take a gander at the current timeline, which has so many fatal flaws already, and linebeck could just be a more important name, or it could have been like smith or jones in our world, where it is much more common to see. it is sad to think that really we may never know, because its all story and lore, but i do agree with you on some of your points, where there are discrepancies. we must take what is given with a grain of salt, but i'd also wager that there may be fewer discrepancies in this timeline than in the current.
There’s also the Zora stone monuments which pretty clearly reference Ocarina of Time, referencing a sage named Ruto who awoke as a sage to stop an evil man
I would honestly ignore all the nods to past games in BOTW as just noncanon fanservice, save for the zora records, specially when some stuff never made sense like the lon lon ranch ruins, which would be impossible to exist by the time BOTW takes place
I like the idea but I think botw/totk taking place in a post windwaker flooded/new hyrule makes more sense.
Fair enough
Yeah same, especially as the depths in totk look very “bottom of the sea” and could be the remains of the great sea that have evaporated/drained over thousands of years
i mean the past of totk can still be placed as described in the video and then the rest of totk and botw can come after windwaker?
@@drawnstorm6912 ehh not really,the map of hyrule is like almost 1:1
@@drawnstorm6912 not really, the thing that creates most of the problem is that ganon wasn't killed in the memories of totk so unless totk takes place before all the other games, ganon could not have been reborn
2:34 u mean the ceremony where 3 of the other games get mentioned, feel like that's kind of a massive oversight 💀
This is put together so well! Great video and solid timeline!
Wowza! Thank you very much!
Good video! Zelda timeline theories are honestly really fun to discuss and think about. They're like a little puzzle (okay, maybe a really really big puzzle) that everyone can have their own interpretation of. Sitting down and deciding an order and explaining it requires both logical thinking and a good bit of artistic license, as a zelda timeline theorization is you writing your own history of Hyrule. It's such a shame that Hyrule Historia basically put death sentence to the topic and the internet at large just treats the topic as a joke these days.
Thank you for Compiling this improved timeline(s) I have known about the holes in the standard timeline for years but didn't know how to fix it. I am impressed, you have managed to fill ALL of the holes that I have been thinking about for years, and It all makes sense now. Thank you!
Biggest problem with this idea is the direct reference to the hero of time and the hero of darkness in a cutscene in botw
Because this entire video is nonsense.
All speculation and theory that is not supported by any facts in the games or official documentation.
pay attention to that but not the errors in the official timeline? Plus, Hestu and Bolson dont even remember you from botw, thus showing the fact that some things are just worthless and not canon at all
This is so high quality and entertaining. Really amazing video :)
Thank you! Hopefully I fix the audio for the next one 😂
6:59
One Gerudo male not dying doesn't mean that the next one can't be born. One male gerudo is born every 100 years, that's it. Makes no difference if the previous one is still alive or not.
I really enjoy the SS timeline split. Much better than the Downfall Timeline for sure
But there's still way too much evidence baked into BotW/TotK to suggest an end of the timeline placement, and you didn't quite convince me on that front.
I still think a timeline merge and BotW and TotK at the end fits a lot cleaner, even if the merge is pretty contrived.
Great video though
I agree.
I mainly like the downfall timeline split because it keeps the lore point of some of the OoT sages being remembered by having their names as the towns in Hyrule.
This is something that Aonuma actually confirmed was an intentional thing when making OoT shortly after its release.
@firionkaiser8291 as clunky as the downfall timeline is, it does have its purpose for that reason. The way that wind waker and twilight princess were written and placed in the timeline kinda of unintentionally wrote link to the past out of canon, and made it so OOT couldn't be a direct prequel to it anymore. I get why they might have thought adding a third timline was the only option as a result.
It would actually be a great concept for the next Zelda world/game/series to show how the Timeline Split took place, and play through those events.
Honestly this is amazing, I think this is going to be my new headcanon from now on. Hearing your explanation of the Skyward Split leaves me dumbstruck as to how Nintendo didn't think of it when they were constructing the timeline. Of course, the next Zelda game is inevitably going to create more problems, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
The split timeline existed before they made Skyward Sword, and would have required them to redo the entire thing.
Love this! While of course not everything will perfectly agree here (as is the nature of Zelda lore), I'm impressed at your attempt to rationalize the timeline in a completely new fashion. You're doing exactly what Nintendo wanted when they published the Hyrule Historia.
The Rito in BOTW/TOTK seem to be descendants of the Loftwings of Skyward Sword, I genuinely don’t believe they have anything to do with the Rito of the “Adult timeline”
FINALLY, someone on TH-cam acknowledging the Skyward Sword timeline split instead of jumping over hurdles in mental gymnastics to try to explain how this timeline split DOESN'T actually exist.
I gotta say, I love having the four sword series of games pop up in a separate timeline where the master sword was never created because link went back in time, killed demise, and then dipped back to his original timeline. It makes a lot of sense as to why a new sword was needed in the first place.
I've always seen the "fallen hero" timeline as the timeline that you abandon in oot when you go from the adult back to the child era before you defeat Ganondorf. Every single time you go back, the result is the same for that timeline, Ganondorf is allowed to rule over Hyrule uninhibited
The one during sand temple and bottom of the well right?
That’s technically 2 different times so one unaccounted for timeline.
9:19
More specifically, so that this is easy to understand, Demise is defeated 100 years before the events of Skyward sword, before Link was even born let alone pulled the sword. That's why the Goddess sword is still there.
Only main problem with the skyward sword split is link leaves the sword in the past and impa watches over it the whole time and it is seen again in the future he goes back to so it can't be a full split
Working on my own timeline theory, I have to say this is incredibly well thought out. I agree with Minish Cap and the 4 swords games being in the timeline where Demise was sealed away and the Triforce was never used.
Fixes the timeline by making another convoluted timeline
You forgot the 4th timeline! It split again when Link grew the Tree of Life in Skyward Sword. In that cursed timeline, the Thunder Dragon Lanayru stays dead. Demise isn't stopped, leaving behind him only destruction, misery and mediocrity. This is where the events of the games _Link: The Faces of Evil, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon_ and _Zelda's Aventure_ take place.
To me, BOTW was never a 'merging' but more an inevitability. Like Carzination, or however it's spelled, the phenomenon where multiple, unrelated water dwelling species all evolved to become crabs. Similarly, every Zelda timeline eventually becomes BOTW/TOTK
So for the salt item in botw the great sea it refers to is the flooded world of hyrule before skyloft descended which makes sense. The Zora also looking diverse as dolphins, stingrays and the like also make sense as they eventually evolve into the future blue and green incarnations. The guardians and advanced technology being unearthed is related to the ancient technology seen in skyward sword.
I've believed in the Skyward Sword split for years, but your further elaboration with the goddess sword becoming the four sword really strengthened the idea for me.
Still wrapping my head around BotW and TotK not being at the end, but a lot of the reasons why I think it doesn't fit could be explained fairly simply...
nice theory, but there's a few issues i have.
1. there can't be a timeline split in skyward sword. the ending of the game with link relinquishing the master sword in the past and the old lady's bracelet being revealed to be zelda's bracelet she gave to impa in the ending heavily imply it's a closed loop. the former point also means that there'd be three master swords in the kill timeline.
2. if botw and totk are in between ss and oot, then that'd mean they take place tens of thousands of years apart, which is very hard to believe. also, ss and oot are the only games we know as a fact happened in botw/totk. (even if you say the totk sages are named ruto/darunia/etc, there's still the zora monuments)
3. while fsa was meant to be the alttp imprisoning war at one point, it can't be now without some major retcons. ganon became the demon king not long before the imprisoning war, while if fsa was canon he would've become the demon king decades or centuries prior.
4. it was never said that the timelines merge resulting in botw/totk, just that they take place far in the future in at least one timeline, to the point where a timeline placement would be irrelevant.
5. if skyward sword is first in the timeline because it was specifically meant to be the first game in the chronology, then why aren't botw/totk last here?
6. for the argument about botw/totk having a weaker master sword, that argument doesn't work because it's just as powerful as it is in the older games in ss.
7. the point about the rito is commonly accepted but (don't quote me on this) i remember hearing in a japanese source that the ww rito and botw rito are the same. my current headcanon is that botw rito are "full-blooded" rito, while ww rito are hybrids between the botw rito and the zora.
8. why is demise remembered in the wish timeline but not the triforce or master sword? isn't it only link, zelda, and groose that know about demise?
9. the explanation about the triforce only being known recently before ocarina of time and being fought over in the civil war goes against twilight princess. twilight princess mentions a war over the triforce that happened in times that were already ancient by the time period oot happens in.
10. twinrova say they're 400 in ocarina of time.
great video and solution. you deserve way more attention. like damn this is solid
Thank you!
How to fix the Zelda timeline: Assume every entry is a reboot because the devs obviously do
I think there is too much make up from the fallen "timeline" for BOTW and TOTK to be completely separate from it but I love everything else about it, I've always felt that the time travel in skyward should be responsible for one of these timelines, and I love how you unified the trident Ganon's under one umbrella allowing all versions to have a "final" death without a random incarnation sealed away somewhere.
Also the Pocori Sword and Goddess Sword being the same sword is great as well, as the four sword always felt a bit underwhelming in the scheme of metaplot compaired to the master sword despite being a multi title weapon.
There are still alot of issues from your head lore if you dive deeper into the plots of the individual games but the overall work is wonderful and I hope works like this drive the fandom to abandon Nintendo's official timeline for community ones, considering that appears to be what Nintendo's doing anyway.
The problem with adding “Breath of the Wild” to the beginning of the timeline are the other anachronisms you didn’t mention. Like the Temple of Time and the remains of the older Castle Town square being in ruins before “Ocarina of Time”, or Zelda mentioning the exploits of the previous Links in past tense during one of the flashbacks.
But you are right with adding “Tears of the Kingdom” (or at least the past events Zelda partakes in) as taking place after “Skyward Sword”.
The issue with putting BotW at the end of the timeline and flashback TotK at the beginning is the issue of Ganondorf. Namely, that there are 2 of them for most of the story, one trapped under the castle and one doing evil shit in oot/tp/ww
@@springerengineering6697 To be fair, this wouldn’t be the only time we’ve gotten different incarnations of Ganondorf. While everyone remembers the one in OoT/WW/TP, most seem to forget about the one featured in “Four Swords Adventures” - which takes place after “Twilight Princess”. So it’s really not unheard of.
With this theory theoretically there should be a new timeline created from totk from zelda going back in time
The producers of the series’s have now said that the kingdom of hyrule fell or was destroyed and the new hyrule has rauru as its king after he re-founded it. I think that the time convergence doesn’t matter it’s so far In the future that all else is now legend effectively rebooting the series without actually rebooting it.
i think that putting totk and botw right after tp in this version of the timeline fix a lot of inconsistencies like the abandoned temple of time and darmanies statue in goron city as well as making the refounding part still valid
Okay, now that I've watched your video in full, I must say, I really like your take. A lot of things you said about why BotW/TotK taking place after SS makes sense (weaker Master Sword, locations from SS still being around like the springs/Forgotten Temple), and it's weird that they'd use Ocarina's time travel to split the timeline but not Skyward Sword's. This is much better.
Also, it's fun to think about earlier games in the timeline being so close to all of this advanced magitech and by the time of Zelda 1, everything's regressed to pure medieval and magic, or TP and ST where they had to reinvent cannons and locomotives. All that magitech is SO far in the past at that point that it has been lost or decayed to a degree that the world has completely forgotten about it.
Great video, dude.
Yeah, the magitek slowly dissapearing a la atlantis just makes sense
Yeah that’s pretty sweet honestly!
This has more holes than my socks, and it's just as converluded as the official timeline.
Awesome vid tho.
The Picori blade being an alternate Master Sword has already been mentioned in enough in comments so I'll say I love how you changed the origin of the Ganon from aLttP to be the one from four swords adventures. It gives this incarnation (the one from FSA) more weight in the series. (I haven't played FSA so I don't know how well it fits but it's probably not that bad considering you couldn't set OoT as this Ganon's origin thanks to the rules you set at the start)
A few minor details that may impact your theory:
-In TP murals exist which depict rito-like bird people. This lends credence to the idea that a separate rito species existed before WW's rito.
-in AlttP/FS GBA, the extra mini dungeon shows a shattered sword (presumably the foursword) in the room where you fight the shadow links. This works with your timeline placement, because it supports the idea that Ganon was sealed within the foursword and broke out before the events of ALttP. It also works with Aonuma's initial vision of FSA as a depiction the imprisoning war. Unfortunately, it does make your FS=MS theory less likely.
Skyward Sword's time travel is a bit weird. Like TotK, it's implied to be a stable timeloop, since old Impa has the bracelet at the beginning of the game before Zelda goes into the past to give it to her. That said, there are other aspects of the time travel which do seem to alter the timeline -- specifically the seed that you bring into the past in order to grow the fruit for the Thunder Dragon. So while it seems the writers didn't intend to make a split timeline with SS's time travel, they weren't very consistent.
your murder timeline technically doesn’t have demise’s curse ... so no link/zelda/ganon trio should appear
The Zelda series existed for 25 years without a curse. I think it will be okay.
You probably won't see this, vut thank you so much for creating this timeline. I have hated the fallen timeline for so long and im glad that im not alone in this. Thank you again you deserve big subscribes and likes
Skyward sword uses a different time travel logic. The present is affected by time travel that will happen in the future. This is shown by impa having the bracelet in the start of the game. This couldn't be an oversight, as they made a big show of it. Thus there cannot be a split.
Oot has the same time travel logic. If you plant a seed in the past it grows in the future. All this shows is that the devs don't understand time travel
@@SwaggMasta0 That makes perfect sense though. Every time you go to the future in ocarina you are waiting it out in stasis.
@@SwaggMasta0 you are comparing a 1 time traveler event to a 5 time traveler event things get more complicated than that
@@darkdagger5237 if one more person says the word timeline, img going to time travel to before your parents were born and tell them that they have a bright future with their children and they should be proud of them.
@@SwaggMasta0 thanks for the complement and i suggest you look in to how every time traveler in skyward sword effected the story the results would be interesting
I don’t think they merge because the official Nintendo website has BOTW-TOTK separate from the main timeline.
Also princess ruto is mentioned on a giant stone so some version of ocarina happens before botw
I had considered before that TotK would indeed fit in right after Skyward Sword and that was the founding of the kingdom. You fleshed out the theory in a way that makes it make so much more sense, great job!
Mostly works… though I’d consider putting BOTW on the murder side. BOTW and TOTK don’t mention the triforce at all, which makes sense since it would have never been used or shown to the world as it would still be in skyloft with the goddess sword. I would envision the rediscovery or the goddess sword as the picori blade would have the triforce discovered shortly afterwards.
On the wish side, the first game after would be Ocarina.
The ancient past of TOTK was basically a reimagining of Ocarina of time, so both sides have their own version of the original Ganondorf, and technically that would make TOTK Ganondorf the same person as the Ocarina Ganondorf….
That would mean the 4-sword Ganondorf would still be a new Ganondorf though, but whatever.
You get the two “ocarina” type of games…but the only problem would be the master sword being known as the master sword in BOTW, yet somehow being the picori blade as well….
I’ve gotta find a way to square this off.
The best part about this over Nintendo’s own, is that unlike that version, the games are properly sorted by art style and gameplay, instead of arbitrary lore that was never intended when the games themselves were created.
Sorting a timeline based on art style and gameplay... That makes no sense at all...
@@Tasorius it’s sorting the games. It’s a lot more stupid to say for example: arbitrarily put Four Swords Adventures between Majora’s Mask and Twilight Princess, when the game itself has nothing to do with those and should go with Minish Cap and A Link To The Past.
@@VaniRoyal Sorting games into a timeline by art style and gameplay is like sorting books by the color of the cover.
The real way to figure out a timeline is to compare the story and lore in the games. If one game refers to an event in another game, you can start placing them in the timeline.
The art style does matter when it's the exact same art, as in the style of OoT vs MM, but the gameplay has no relevance to the timeline, or as I like to call it, the time tree with all its branching paths.
@@Tasorius now *that’s* just stupid. Sorting games by arbitrary *mostly retroactive* superficial elements is really dumb, and it’s the reason nobody really trusts the official timeline.
Going back to my example, Four Swords Adventures was not in any way a sequel to Ocarina or Majora, it was created both in story *and* gameplay (two things that Nintendo always does together) as a sequel to Four Swords and sequel or seemingly a prequel to A Link To The Past. Likewise, Twilight Princess and Wind Waker were both created as direct gameplay *and* story sequels to Ocarina of Time, that’s the entire reason this timeline even exists. They wouldn’t have made them story sequels if they weren’t game sequels, it’s just that simple.
Nintendo makes games, they care about games, they don’t really care about an imaginary timeline. they think of mechanics, design and gameplay first and foremost and usually think of the story as a bit of an afterthought.
and an example of how vague and meaningless this all is: when I first played Minish Cap, I interpreted the hero of legend we see in the opening as the hero of time, and even though that was indeed wrong, it didn’t contradict anything in either game. That’s how the official timeline is built, mostly disregarding original intention and game order in favor of the most superficial of things.
The very suggestion that sorting the timeline of a game series by using the games themselves “making no sense” is just ridiculous. That’s like saying “it makes no sense to sort books by author or story, you need to sort them by which characters appear in them” not to mention that video games and books are not very comparable in this manner to begin with, and rules that apply to one don’t necessarily apply to the other.
@@VaniRoyal I never suggested that "sorting the timeline of a game series by using the games themselves makes no sense". I said that the events described in the games are more relevant to a timeline than the gameplay and the art style...
You have earned my subscription
The most perfect timeline
Great video, this man is onto something!
The only thing I'm onto is the next video! Also thank you for all the help!
Nice timeline! definitely one worth consideration. I've been working off the Zelda Lore/Lore Historian one myself, since it uses the two possible endings to Minish Cap for its Defeat split, but this one has nice clear rules and makes a lot of sense. And all the references to other games made in BotW could just be the adventures of other events in their own lore, while being clear refrences to the other games for us.
FSA leading to ALTTP used to be a headcanon of mine before the official timeline came out, glad i wasn't the only one !! To much aesthetic similarities
While I don't agree with this timeline placement, I still thought this was pretty fun! I kind of love that this series history is so confusing that something as simple as order of events is still a rich ground for speculation and theory crafting!
(although that one bit about the Four Swords Trilogy being a prequel to ALttP is right on the money in my opinion)
I disagree, OoT has to come before ALTTP because OoT is literally "The Imprisoning War" mentioned in ALTTP's intro.
With all the respect I can muster. That's not a real argument. That's just saying that something has to be a certain way.
Even in the official timeline the "imprisoning war" is argued about. Did it take place at the end of oot OR did it take place well after the events of oot? It's never explicitly stated at any point, which gives us the wiggle room we need to adjust the timeline into a better shape.
So my timeline would look something more like
SS - OoT - ALTTP - WW - Zelda 1 - BOTW
. . . . . . . . . \ TP . . . . . . . . /
I'm of the opinion that over the years, the flood in WW's backstory would have receeded, as it was no longer needed to keep Ganon sealed.
Essentially, SS is the origin. The creation of the Master Sword.
In OoT the power of the triforce causes the first true strife in Hyrule, weakening the Kingdom and resulting in the royal family sealing the Triforce within the Sacred Realm. Ganondorf, seeking to ply this power from a broken kingdom and use it for himself, seeks to ally with the king of Hyrule as a ruse. Heeding the warnings of their dreams, Link and Zelda inadvertently give Ganondorf access to the Sacred Realm, and the end result is a split.
Link is sent back in time by Zelda, she then founds the Knights of Hyrule in his honor to defend the kingdom. In the past, Link tells all of his adventures in the future and Ganon's evil deeds to Zelda, warning of his plan to enter the sacred realm. Ganon is executed by the mirror of twilight, leading to TP
In the future, Ganon grows his power from within his seal inside the sacred realm, eventually gathering the triforce. His defeat, however, was not complete, and when our hero left to explore the great sea, Hyrule was defenseless against Ganon's return. Seeking the salvation of their hero, the last hope of the royal family against ganon is to wish their hero, long away at sea, would return to them, inadvertently drowning hyrule beneath that sea. Later, a new Hyrule is founded in a distant land, by the descendants of this royal family, becoming the Hyrule of Zelda 1 & 2. BOTW is the tailend of Demise's curse, when both sides have raised the stakes so high that destruction is the only outcome.
How does the hyrule of TP, strongly implied to be the same Hyrule as OoT become the Hyrule of Zelda 1? Fucken magic. Somehow, ganon returned. Also I don't really care about putting the four sword/minish games in they feel more like spinoffs and alternate timelines than ALTTP does. ALTTP feels like the natural next step from having Ganondorf sealed in the sacred realm forever lmao.
@@SwaggMasta0 I'm just sharing my opinion, man. ALTTP feels very natural right after OoT. In the adult timeline, Ganondorf is literally sealed within the sacred realm, which is how it becomes the dark world in ALTTP. It makes sense that after the events of OoT Zelda would found the Knights of Hyrule, and the sages have already sealed ganon in the sacred realm... it just rings so true about what we know of the imprisoning war the way it is described in ALTTP.
@@FlareBinar it's totally fine to put the games wherever you want. That's kind of the point of the Zelda series is 100% creativity. I would simply encourage you to present your opinions with notable evidence to back it up.
You can personally believe something, but you'll never convince other people unless you have good reasons for what you offer.
My god! My man actually did it. My man made the timeline look like an actual timeline and not a really bad acid trip. Great job this is one of my favorite Zelda videos on the platform and my new personal head cannon
Honestly this didn’t need to be that as amazing as it was. I still would take anything you make over the official
I take exactly one issue with this. Which, I feel like the Murder and Wish timelines should be reversed.
When you murder Demise, he curses the future for future Links and Zeldas to be haunted by Ganondorf. And yet, in the timeline envisioned here, Ganon plays a much more minor part compared to the Wish timeline. I feel like it would make more sense if they were reversed. There's very little causation that would differentiate one from the other anyway, and it would make sense that in the timeline where the triforce's power was used, it's a much longer time before it is ever rediscovered.
There is also the conundrum of the triforce splitting. In the Wish timeline, the triforce gets used. Ocarina of Time shows us that if somebody uses the triforce who does not fully embody all three of the main characteristics, it will shatter and seek out those who embody those qualities. And yet, in Ocarina of Time, the Triforce is found intact, having never been used. This would make more sense if it had not been used, and instead was still waiting to be found. Therefore, Murder proceeds into Breath of the Wild while wish proceeds forward into the handheld titles.
I also feel like, given how mysterious the Murder timeline is, that could give enough leeway for where the Zonai come in.
Civilization flourishes on Skyloft, and as soon as it comes down, it makes sense that Hyrule would be founded then and there. But, in the Murder timeline, it's just the temple of hylia. There is no real civilization yet. It would make sense that the zonai would come along, find the fledgling followers of Hylia, and found a kingdom with them.
I really like the effort you put into this. Its obviously not perfect but I don't think its humanly possible to make a completely logical zelda timeline at this point lmfao. It's just a consequence of years of story telling without ever thinking about a proper order oof... I am actually suprised with how well your timeline fits together. its like you bought a puzzle but the pieces didn't fit in their respective places so you just kinda put the fitting pieces together and somehow got an actual picture but not the one advertised on the box xD
challenge exepted
This video is so fucking good. I love this explanation of the timeline and its reorganization into something understandable
You lost me immediately by placing BotW and TotK so early in the timeline, there is just far too much evidence that points to them being the latest games in the timeline as multiple events from previous games are referenced in them. The events of OoT f.e. are referred to multiple times as historic events, most notably the Zora of BotW/TotK documenting Ruto’s involvement in the main plot. I also feel like the Twinrova bit of them sealing themselves away for over at least 10,000 years to raise a second Ganondorf to be a very flimsy theory based on nothing, and falls into the camp of fanfiction.
The only problem with the witches from totk being the same ones as OoT is that the ones in OoT are only around 200 (they gave us multiple answers in OoT cuz they don't quite remember so I just chose one answer) meanwhile the others from TotK would have to be at least over 10,100 years old
It would also be pretty cool if you made a visual map just like Nintendo did, just for easier understanding
About a decade ago, I wrote out a theory that you could actually track the true timeline by following the Master Sword versus the White/Magic/Four Sword. That included a split immediately after Skyward Sword but I reconverged for OoT because I was sticking to Nintendo’s canon. But it always annoyed the piss out of me that they didn’t seem to care about it. Constantly just throwing the canon out the window in the name of creating the story they wanted. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy they did. At the end of the day, lore-wise, every game is a legend possibly being told millennia in the future. Details get lost and shuffled around. But when you have things that are direct contradictions to each other, it kind of sucks.
I’m writing this at 12:36 in the video so I’m not sure if you address this, but one other amazing factor in this theory is that the Yiga can become the Twili from TP. They’re interlopers, an offshoot of a clan that served the royal family and were loyal to the darkness.
This timeline feels clean, and I like that you covered your bases on details like the Rito. BTW, it's implied that Yuga is in Zelda 1! That is, if both Ganon and Yuga were somehow revived together.
...wait wait wait oh my gOD DOES THAT MEAN YUGA IS THE EVIL WIZARD THAT CURSES ZELDA THE FIRST INTO ETERNAL SLUMBER
THE OFFICIAL ART EVEN SHOWS HIM COMING OUT OF A SHADOW LIKE A TWO-DIMENSIONAL P A I N T I N G oh my god
One thing I’ve never seen anyone mention is how the skyward sword map lines up perfectly with the map in BoTW. Faron bottom right, lanayru/gerudo desert bottom left, eldin/death mountain top middle, and skyloft and the great plateau! Super interesting!
Thank you for fixing it 🙏
It ain't much, but it's honest work
I agree with everything other than botw and totk placement. Especially since both games heavily mention all other timelines, like how the previous owners of the master sword have threaded through skies time and twilight. Not only that, princess ruto gets mentioned by name. It could just be a zora with a similair name though that would seem a bit far fetched. Last theres the fact that the rock salt kinda mentioned the events of wind waker which imo supports the timeline merge a lot. Though with how much time is between the flashbacks in totk and the actual game it could make sense that they actually happened at the beginning of the timeline. There would still be a need for a timeline merge at the end though. I really think that turning the fallen hero timeline into one that continues from demises defeat makes a lot of sense though and makes the whole timeline a lot better already.
At the beginning I thought BotW being at the beginning is bullcrap because... Idk. But now it makes complete sense. And this rock salt easter egg in BotW could just be from the Lanayru Sand sea. Even the "Murder Timeline" makes sense.
It would also make sense why Ganon even knew about the 7 maiden in ALttP. He was once sealed away by them.
Just to iron out more your theory about how timelines are created in the zelda universe:
- You went to the past and stayed there?
No new timeline is created, because of self-sustaining loop.
- You went to the past and came back?
New timeline created!
- You went to the future and stayed there?
No new timeline is created because it's just like waiting a really long time.
- You went to the future and came back?
New timeline created!
Thank you for this.
I always wondered why no one talked about the timeline split in skyward sword, and just went about their way without any regard for anything.
This certainly fits a lot of things a lot better, even if I disagree with some things.
There is a LOT of technological advancement in botw and totk seem to have been lost -not to mention the sheer vastness of the Skiekah technology, and what LITTLE remains of it by the time Ocarina and Twilight roll around (I doubt Purah or Robbie would let it die in the annals of history just like that).
WInd waker's sea salt, and the mention to twilight princess (two ways) in botw is something that feels like its more significant than just an easter egg - but I do agree that the notion of the "merged" timeline is... korok seed.
I always felt like Botw and Totk happened in the Skyward Sword split timeline - in the "murder" timeline. Since a version of Demise needs to be dead for the "next" incarnation to be born, it felt better for this purpose.
impas bracelet proves a perfect loop but if you fail to stop the emprisend the gate of time is destroyed breaking the loop which would cause a chaos timeline because links world came from the complete loop and breaking the loop would prevent links world from ever existing which would prevent the time travel prevention as impa says all is lost
The more I watch the more this makes more sense and becomes a full timeline with consistent splits
This actually makes so much sense, however I still wonder about the OoT and Twilight Princess outfits being in the depths, as it could be canon lore or just an easter egg. Also, where did the depths go? You would assume that eventually a civilization would discover them (maybe). Not to mention that there was already an entrance to the depths in Botw, so who knows if another one ever pops up?
I think the depths could still be there. We have the shadow temple in oot and in wind waker ganondorf bursts from a crack in the ground
I always thought the outfits and weapons in botw/ totk are Easter eggs rather than the real things
@@PenguinPoo4246 I agree. I think the existence of the goddess sword as a collectable does it for me. There's just no world where the goddess sword and the master sword co-exist.
I see it more like it's a replica instead of the real one
@@virusklaxsosaur4054 I agree, but I really want to know who made the replica. As far as we know only a couple of people ever saw the goddess sword.
Something I've learned from The Legend of Zelda is that it is indeed a Legend! For the same reason, it is difficult to even connect games that are not explicitly related to another, such as the "Hero of Time Trilogy" (Ocarina/Majora/Twilight Princess), Zelda 1/2, Oracle of Ages/Seasons, the "3D Toon Link Trilogy" (Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks), the "Four Swords Duology", the "Link" Duology (A Link to the Past/A Link Between Worlds), and so on. Between each set there is a clearer relationship, but between others, not anymore.
I love how despite there being a "canon" timeline, according to the Big N, that's just NINTENDO's canon timeline. Your timeline is canon too, but only to you. That's super cool imo.
I mean the books that have the timeline in them say that it's still open to interpretation, so every timeline is canon if you think about it
@@Tbug20then i will say this timeline in this video is the canon one
I think the main problem with this is moving BoW and ToK because its clear the civilization is FAR more advanced than anything ever seen in zelda before. The shieka treat "magic" more like science. Even the races seem more intelligent and noble than ever before. So putting them at the beginning rather than the end makes everything look like they advanced extremely quickly and then immediately revert back and decline then advanced again much slower this time little by little.
Great video, the new timeline makes more sense
Glad you think so!
I love this! I'm sure there are some little things that contradict or seem confusing with BotW and TotK referencing so many of the previous games, but this is pretty fantastic and sounds great to me! Now I'd love to see someone take a look at the map of Hyrule and see if changes in the land and locations could work with some this timeline.
I love the fact that, because the games are all legends, you can come up with your own timeline and claim it is canon, even if there is lore that doesn't fit in it. This version of the timeline you created gotta be my favorite.
this feels much more satisfying for a timeline because I always felt like four swords adventure, one of the 2d pixel games, being after a set of the 3d games majoras mask and twilight princess seemed so out of place and scrapped together.
This zelda timeline make not sense
I had the idea years ago that the Picori blade and the goddess sword should be the same sword and the four swords games should all be on a different timeline starting from skyward sword. I’ve shared this on innumerable youTuber threads when they talk about the timeline. I appreciate someone else coming up with the same idea and running with it.
I've had this headcanon since TOTK came out that the Minnish and Zonai are related species. Both descended from the heavens and have long tails/animalistic features. Basically, the Minnish are to the Zonai what round-eared sengis are to elephants. This timeline (which is amazing, btw) makes me wonder what the hell hapened to their common ancestors in each timeline for the Zonai and Minnish to be so different.
One timeline anamoly that I don't see mentioned enough is the OoT spirit temple split. Child link sleeps 7years, adult link visits forest, fire, water temples, gets to spirit and there are locked doors. You go back in time. Solve some spirit puzzles, go to the future and adult finds a spirit temple with puzzles solved. What happened to that future spirit temple with the unsolved puzzles? It is the only way I can reconcile the "here is defeated" timeline, since he'd just dissappear after visiting the spirit temple and the gerudo would suspect he died.