A very special thanks to Patrick Thorpe from Dark Horse Comics for joining me in this endeavour! More videos are on the way . Have a great week everyone!
Jeez, what a ride this video was. Your quality with edits and scripting is of course unrivaled as always, but the interview was just icing on the cake. If that doesn’t reassure fans, I don’t know what will. As a fellow lore dude, this entire concept resonates so deeply with me because it’s like debating whether or not you can use a really useful tool for a job - the books have always been such bountiful wells of knowledge that unfortunately got scrutinized like no other, to the point of (in some cases) refraining from even using them at all for lore or theory crafting. From now on, this will be the video that I hold as the standard for the argument of whether or not the Zelda Books are Canon. Thank you for this. Seriously.
Heyooo it's my favourite collab partner! Thanks a lot for dropping by sir ^^ The books are indeed great tools, and I hope people continue to appreciate them. WHo knows, we might even get a new lore book after Breath of the Wild 2 releases in 2042 👀
The way I've always viewed these books is that they're supplementary support for in-game lore and should be considered canon so long as they don't contradict in-game information. Where any contradictions occur, game lore takes precedent. I'm glad you made this video. Now perhaps some of the community bickering over this subject will finally settle down.
31:01 As an author and, more prolifically, a DM I have to say that the 'real timeline' will include like twice as many details as have been published and every detail that hasn't been published is liable to be moved around at any given moment. They could have details on another 20 games worth of plot lines, of which only three would get made, but they're all still there. That the authors don't share everything they know about the setting should be expected.
As an author, Pixel artest and game dev yep very true and I'm a very open one compaired to secrtive Nintedo... There is just to little time mostly pages/dev time to fit everything into a single peice of media or even explain it all.
As a writer & author, I join in on the confirmations. The WIP notebook on which a story is based is triple or quadruple the size of the final product, and often contains details, scenes, plotlines or even characters who never make an appearance from the consumer's point of view. Which, however, doesn't make any of it less crucial as a story's backbone. This expanded, often self-contradictory behind the scenes lore is what forges the bond and the understanding between the author and their creation, and it allows for peppering the story with small details that sometimes have enormous background, basing any and all sequels/prequels/spin-offs on, and much, much more.
Mood on the DM bit. Infinitely glad I'm not a big company like Nintendo when I have to worry about millions of fans noticing the one hint I had of a character secretly being one type of dragon before I changed my mind and had them be a different kind, because my players didn't catch on which meant it didn't really matter if it was inconsistent. Same with character backstories, as long as it hasn't come up in the campaign, it's not canon. Even if that's my intention, it hasn't happened, and is subject to change if a more interesting idea weasels its way in.
As a writer and artist myself, I wholeheartedly agree. I have a huge world building project I made since I was younger and even today everything is still changing - the main characters are completely different from when they were originally and even I forgot some stuff I made by kid me. The mega secret document timeline Mr. Aonuma has probably involves some work in progress stuff that will come out somewhere down the line.
I stand by that every version is simultaneously cannon, including pseudo cannon content like the comics/manga. It is quite literally the legend of Zelda, a story of the ancient days of the kingdom. Every time you play through your favorite LoZ game is a new telling of the story, oral story telling loses detail and is full of little tweaks. Can a desert really exist that close to a lush forest, large lake, and active volcano? probably not, that is the storyteller not including the boring journey time between the important parts.
Have always viewed the games through that lens. Seeing as the games change style and depictions of characters quite often I'd say that it is encouraged to do so.
Zelda canon is like doctor who canon where simultaneously all of it and none of it is canon at different times and you just need to figure it out yourself
I've always been impressed with your videos. This one however, is beyond good. It's a-MAZE-ing and shows a level of research & dedication any Zelda fan will appreciate. Thank you for the time you spent on this, I hope it was as fun for you to research as it was for us to watch! Also, I am positive your video will increase sales of the four main books you went over and at least one of the copies sold will be to me. Top notch work here Monster Maze, thank you!!!
Wow, thank you so much Deidra! Sorry for the late reply. I've been spending some time with the family after this project wrapped up. It was a lot of fun doing the research, and I myself learned a LOT! Prior to this video I knew absolutelt nothing about book publishing, authorship, and all that kind of stuff. I definitely hope the sales of the books will continue to rise. It will give Nintendo a positive message and so hopefully they will publish more of these books! Perhaps for Breath of the Wild 2? Thanks again, and have a great day!
The timeline makes the most sense to me if it is Aonuma's personal timeline and a kind of psychological portrait of his handling of the series. The nexus point is Ocarina of Time, the first game he worked on in the series. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess split off as separate attempts to succeed Ocarina of Time while most other projects he oversaw but didn't direct got thrown before Ocarina of Time. Every game before his tenure is just thrown into the fallen hero branch (plus a Link Between Worlds) as if they were categorized as "other." It's really the map of a man reckoning with his place in Zelda's legacy. As always, a great video. Thanks for looking into this. It of course makes sense the staff would be significantly invested in this. I think Zelda fans just have to come to terms with the kind of lore Zelda really is.
Yup RETCON is the word that pretty much sums it up but the timeline for the most part still makes sense Ill be honest I didn’t even need a book to tell me what went where playing the games and seeing there end story aside from Wind waker and skyward sword and major mask which from the getco tell you where there set in stone locked I guess it goes to show how closely I looked at the story and character in game talking. Anyway I leave with this ADULT 🏰 🌊 blue wisdom Zelda Child 🏰 🌳 green courage link Downfall 🏰 🔥 red destruction ganon Oh and what do you know will you look at that Adult nayru blue 🌊 Child farore green 🌳 Downfall din red 🔥 Nintendo how just how even with retcon HOW THE FFFFFFF?!!!!!!!
@@neypaz8054 I don't hate his tenure, I don't know how you got that from my comment. The timeline being personal to him doesn't devalue it for me, it makes it more valuable to be honest.
Miyamoto wanted people to talk, speculate and share hidden secrets about Zelda since day one. I think with the books and now a huge community on TH-cam... he definitely got people talking about his game. Awesome video as always Monster Maze. See ya Dude.
But he also has a notorious derision for game lore mattering at all. He’s so dismissive of it. It seems to me a big reason why he doesn’t have as strong a voice in product development that he once had.
This is a truly essential look into the nature of 'The Legend of Zelda' lore. It relates to everything Zelda that you and other creators do, as well as to what our fan relationship with the material is. There was a place waiting for this video. I appreciate it, and congrats.
It could be a possibility that when the original lore (that Nintendo created) was unguided and not really considered but after twilight Princess and after the Poor reception of Wind Waker they had to start to consider the fans and got involved with the fan owned time line.. Messed it up immediately and released Skyward Sword (almost F-Zero 'ed the franchise) they panicked released the art book to no reaction. Panicking they retconed the books and lore again (they still have no idea what the time line is) then luckily released Breath of the wild so they are due a dodgy moment (breath of the wild 2 has been delayed twice) so I think they're SH! T the bed with the next game... Ill even guarantee it lads. Boom OOT LTTP TP MM TOP 4 ZELDA GAMES
The evolving lore of the series is why I adore Zelda so much. It feels so alive. I own Historia, Encyclopedia, and Creating a Champion. They are wonderful sources of insight and the passion that went into creating them is something I see whenever I open them! I don't agree with everything in them, but most fans of any fandom are always debating what is and what isn't canon. I love theorizing and watching theory videos. Even if I disagree with a theory because I have my own, I appreciate the effort the person spent creating it and the points they made. If we had all of the knowledge, there would be no more debates and theories. That would be a very sad day. Thank you so much for this video! You've summed up a lot of my personal thoughts.
Same here! It feels like one giant archeological puzzle! The fact we are still crafting theories about games that came out decades ago is so amazing to me!
I've been theorizing about the Legend of Zelda timeline for a long time and this is a perfect video. As a content creator, I come across a lot of timeline inconsistencies in my Horror History series. I don't think any series is immune to it. I always do my best to explain the inconsistencies in universe, but sometimes I just have to throw up my hands and say the creator made a mistake. I love the idea that the content itself is like a history book, it can be skewed by the boas the those writing the books. So next time I find a mortuary tag in a background detail of Saw 4 that doesn't have the correct date on it, I'm gonna remember this video.
Oh definitely! It's very rare for a series to stay to consistent. Big horror fan right here btw, so I am going to be checking out your content as well ^^
Eh, I strongly dislike this argument. Yes, every series has *some* amount of inconsistency, but often, it is extremely minor and nearly imperceptible. Meanwhile, many other series have glaring, major inconsistencies, some more than others. These comments I am reading act as if all inconsistencies are created equal. They are not, and people who are well-versed in literature can recognize the problem when certain series have blatant, impossible-to-ignore holes in them. To me it, sounds unreasonably defensive when criticisms of Nintendo's suboptimal writing get dismissed with this "every story has inconsistencies" nonsense that ignores the importance of size. Look, as much as I love the Legend of Zelda franchise, most of the stories I have ever read are as haphazardly structured as this franchise is. There are many plot holes that, if intentional, would be completely unacceptable. Of course, I forgive Nintendo, because at the end of the day, many of these games were never made with the intent of fitting into a coherent storyline. Nintendo makes games putting gameplay as the priority, and the story is almost always an afterthought. Yes, there are exceptions to this, and in recent years, Nintendo has started to care a lot more about storytelling in games, but let's face it: the vast majority of people in the world who buy Nintendo games only care about the gameplay, not the story, and Nintendo knows this. And that is perfectly okay! So, look, I am not saying it is a bad thing that the Legend of Zelda has major problems with how its chronology has been structured. But Zelda fans need to stop pretending that having this many problems in storytelling is the norm or an acceptable standard in other circumstances.
Whoever claims that the books can't be canon because they include mistakes that contradict the games.... Sorry, with this argument NONE of the games can be called canon, because all of them include stuff that somehow contradicts other games in the series.
I've always considered them to be canon at the time of publication, just like any ongoing story things change as things are added, or things are connected after the story teller has an idea further along.
From a scholarly perspective: - I think we should treat things as they present themselves. Encyclopedia, for example, is clearly meant to be a secondary source, so as a rule I don't think it can be the sole premise to strong conclusions. On the other hand, Creating a Champion has some exclusive details from the Zelda team, and since those details are all we have on the subject, I see no reason to eliminate it from our list of valid sources for now. - I think canon can be defined as how an author or creative team considers past works in relationship to works in production. Does the Zelda team consider the information in the books when making a new game? Yes, but probably not the books themselves and clearly not all the information. From a creative perspective: - All the things are canon. Go ahead and write some in-depth fan retellings that strongly deviate from player experience and state weak speculations as though they are fact in universe. It makes things interesting and fresh. An Ocarina of Time fanfiction retelling does this very well. th-cam.com/play/PLGlXqD1jfzlDA5sjsvG9KM5hnOsdnABRC.html
I definitely try to set certain priorities myself. If something in the books flat out contradicts facts from the games, I will usually give priority to the games ^^
Thank you so much for the shout out, I'm so glad you finally got them ok! and that you liked them and were able to assist :) I hope you enjoy having them in your physical cases :D You do some awesome videos, keep going strong and all the best! Thank you so much again!
One thing to remember is that this is the Legend of Zelda, and legends are evolving stories. Even in history of our own world we make discoveries and consider them “true stories” of our past, until we learn a bit more that contradicts our understanding and we have to adjust. A similar process could be said about the Zelda lore, that as we get more games and books we are “discovering” more truth about the history of Hyrule, Zelda, etc. and our understanding needs to be corrected. The lore is alive and evolving.
In your fantasy world maybe. In reality, Nintendo makes each game without thinking about a timeline, and includes references to other games just for fun.
@@sjajsjsja4523 oh wow, almost like Zelda IS a fantasy world and debating about its timeline and canonicity is entirely dependent on having a mindset within that fictional framework! Way to go, kiddo. Gold star for you.
@@sjajsjsja4523 exactly. Idk why OP has to rationalize it, especially when it's so messy as is lol I wish they never made that timeline. It really ruins the finesse and has such a half-baked way of pretending to be coherent.
@@GeeMannn OP is not trying to rationalize anything. Do you have reading comprehension skills? Because their comment explicitly is contrary to the notion of a chronology.
Oh, my goodness, dude! In terms of authors forgetting their own material, I'm currently editing old episodes of my own comics, and I'm having to meticulously go through and reread everything to make sure I don't misinterpret what I meant in certain episodes. "Uuuuh, did I really just make that typo." Only to realize four pages later, "Wait; I put that in there on purpose to be a joke on this page. Good thing I checked first."
I’ve always considered the books to be completely canon until they are either a) officially retconned, or b) conflict with lore from the game. But even in case B I still try to imagine a way that they may not conflict if possible even if I have to imagine pretend scenarios. If it’s just impossible and contradicts the games entirely, then I consider it just a mistake and assume the game’s lore as official.
I agree. My stance when I encounter a potential inconsistency is to first try and figure out how both scenarios could technically be true. I think that's the more logical way of approaching fiction. For example, we know the Master Sword was forged from the Goddess Sword, and that the Goddess Sword was created by Hylia. But as you know, in Twilight Princess, Zelda claims it was created by ancient sages. Rather than just saying "Oh, Zelda was wrong", I think it's more reasonable to assume that it was created by Hylia, along with some sages (perhaps the characters depicted standing next to her in Skyward Swords intro cutscene). After all, the sage's symbols are found in Skyward Sword's architecture, so they were most likely around pre-Skyloft.
@@ninjagamer1359 there ARE some contradictions, but you’re right that there aren’t any major lore contradictions. But still, that’s how I resolve those conflicts, however minor.
@@SirPonnd I always took it as word of Fi, aswell as the SS-versions of Zelda and Link being passed down in legend as sages. Because they are technically the ones who created the thing. It is not unusual for events to not be recounted correctly after such a large amount of time, just look at what happened to the legend of the triforce-shards in Windwaker...and that was only 500 years between games.
I like the perspective you present that Zelda lore is what the creators, contributors, and fans together make it. It will never be finished, but is constantly being formed, expanded, and reshaped. This video itself shapes Zelda lore as we watch it. It’s so well done, awesome video!
Actually theoretically there is an end but devs wouldn't do it, the big 3 are locked in a cycle of reincarnation, incarnation and some possession but not always. If hylia never returned as Zelda and link never returned and all 3 were obliterated at least malice curse is broken but I'm not sure what's strong enough to obliterate them. I mean hylia could decide not to come back right? But it wouldn't need her dead dead as none the goddesses actually die, they just leave hyrule
This video was so fascinating! I have all of these books and have always loved them but was aware of the fandom's discrediting them at times. Eventually, I came to equate them more to just fun collectibles, like the mangas and was dismissive about the lore they introduced. But this really showed they weren't just pieces of fanfiction slapped together. There was literal years of effort and collaboration put in between Dark Horse and Nintendo to bring them to life. I find that to be really cool. These books have always felt like something special and this video just confirmed that for me. Thanks for everything that went into making this!
I have been craving Zelda content lately and you always deliver. Wonderful video as always and I love how you do longer videos, I can put them on and listen while I get work done. Awesome channel!
I love Zelda not only for the game, but for a huge part of the amazing community content. I will watch your video with concentration and admiration ! Congratulations for you BIG work 👏🏻🤩🎉
I hope that when BOTW2 releases it had it's own book (Zonai Collection maybe?), showing the concepts and ideas that may or may not caused the delays. If it indeed came out, that'd be my very first Zelda book, so looking foward to the future!
I'm mostly just glad that the books exist because they validate all the time I spent as a kid arguing online about timeline theories. I remember arguing vehemently for there being two timelines and not just one (of course none of us imagined there could be three!). You mention some of those forums no longer existing and parts of Zelda theory history being lost and... I'm kind of glad, because it means maybe some of my more embarrassing posts may never be seen by anyone...!
The level of profession with which you approached this piece is really really beautiful to see. So happy you decided to join the Zelda tuber community when you did. What an essential addition to the fan community- I’m sure this video will be referenced and pointed to by people over and over again. Thank you!
From one fellow Zelda fan to another: I have been watching your videos since the beginning and your channel quickly became my favourite, though I haven’t been compelled to write a comment until now. This was fascinating to watch! The work you put into these videos is astounding and well worth the wait always. Thank you for your time and effort.
I really love this video! I recently bought the last part of the godess collection and I really like the books. I noticed a few mistakes but it was never an issue and I found it kind of annoying that some people made such a big deal about it. This video explains really well that these books are made with passion and not with carelessness.
I absolutely adore hyrule historia! It's the only one I own 😅 I don't mind the mistakes but I love the concept art and tiny nitbits of info abt what goes on behind the scenes when making a game. I don't really care whatever the official lore is, my own experience with the games is what mattered the most 😸 but I love hearing everyone's takes on the lore, even zelda team's own takes. I loved this video! It's cool to know bg info like this on any project! Good job👏🏾
I like that Zelda lore is flexible. It’s all a legend after all, it makes the mythology feel alive. I’d rather they change the lore a bit to make a better game than keep everything extremely rigid. Fantastic video as always, your level of research is always admirable
@@wrendina9996 That's my take, too! Is a "once upon a time in a faraway land" tale that plays with the recursivity of the Hero's Journey motives, lacks cohesion in favor of story like any good old legend, and is always changing between different and highly stylized representations (not to mention the purely fictional, videogame logic). So yeah: we're not playing the events but some telling of the events. I think is an uncomplicated, "ockham razor" kind of way of seeing things that aligns with the beautiful simplicity of the Zelda premise. Also, solves some fandom dilemmas: you like that related Zelda book? Is canon. You don't? Isn't. Things are contradictory? Don't worry and enjoy, because that's how legends work
Yes and no. I would still like a well structured timeline. I don’t care if there’s 20 timelines I just want clear continuity on where games follow previous games. They can give whatever flexibility they want with a Zelda universe. I’m honestly a bit tired of Nintendo just saying “it’s up to you where the game fits” to me that’s lazy writing.
I don't get why fans use words like retcons or rigid with Zelda, as it never was, everything's just another timeline, all they need is an excuse for a timeline to appear and literally everything is true simultaniously
Wow this was super insightful! I hadn't really known that the books were so controversial. My understanding was always "Yeah it's loosely tied together like OOT and the split time lines." But yeah simply I just played the games and I assumed any art style cohesion was just the style of the time like Toon Link having his own little series of games (Some were direct sequels but also that style carried into games like Four Swords). Absolutely great work on this one! It's nice to see some more different Zelda videos that tbh can get a bit repetitive.
30:33 Maybe the "real zelda timline" document refers to future entries in the series as well. Like certain events that are/aren't mentioned in the games and can be turned into game later down the line.
I've always viewed them as supplementary canon. Some things in them can help expand the ideas of the series, but other ideas I ignore because they directly contradict the games (like what they did to Majora's Mask). If the books contradict each other I go with the newest one, unless there is evidence to suggest otherwise. Contradictions don't automatically equal non canon, but it's not 100% canon either. One gripe I do have that isn't Majora related is some timeline placements like FSA for example (or just that game in general) Also, while most people have been too harsh on the books, I've seen (and met) a few people who do the exact opposite end by treating everything the books say as 100% correct. It's weirdly almost always tied to the Majora's mask incident. Usually it's comments under videos related to Majora's Mask, usually saying something along the lines of "This theory doesn't even matter because the books say it was all a dream". I seriously can't recall them doing it with anything else in the books. Also also, here's an interesting idea the books opened up because of the fallen hero timeline: what if there is a fallen hero timeline spun off of every single Zelda game. Minish cap even has it's own secret bad ending that I'm surprised never became it's own thing
This was fantastic, the effort really shows! The canonicity of this stuff is always in question and that's what keeps it interesting! It was always sad to see blind hatred where would people brush the writers/editors work aside like it was nothing. Whether you agree or disagree with content in the books, there's zero doubt these people absolutely poured their passion for Zelda into them.
Agreed Ditta! Especially after talking to someone who worked on the books, and seeing how passionate they are about the series, it felt even more painfull to see some of the reasoning and arguments against the books... Hopefully this video will at least clarify some misconceptions about them ^^
I always hold these books close to my heart as info books about the lore and the concept arts of Zelda. I also have the Encyclopedia, and read Breath of the Wild books for concept art, which made me appreciate the series even more, as well as creating my AUs and fan characters. They’re gold mines for theories and AUs. I do wish that the books were smaller because they’re pretty big and heavy to me. So many concept art characters were kept out that I wish was kept. There was even a potentially trans character (albeit drawn funny and may not slide in today’s climate due to design and being referred to as male pronouns regardless) long before the Hylian that dressed as a Gerudo. The existence of the Twili village made me wish Nintendo added it in the game because the Twili culture always fascinated me since I was a kid, even more so thanks to fan artists 😭💕 Thank you for mentioning the guides and manuals!
Anyone who studied any amount of Mythology knows "canonicity" doesn't really exist. Legends contradict and change and there are dozens of versions of each tale, and that's not considering all the other versions that got lost to time. Perfect consistency is a modern day neurosis.
I see the Zelda canon as a living document, always open to interpretation and change as long as it best suits the flow of the overall Zelda narrative. Likewise, I disagree with Nintendo's timeline not because I don't find it credible, but because there seems to be too many inconsistencies between the games that make up the timeline order (my biggest gripe being Four Swords Adventures following Twilight Princess). The closing arguments of this video puts everything in a good perspective, and as long and Nintendo intends to keep the story vague and up to the player/audience it will spawn healthy discussion and theories for years to come.
Thabk you so much Edward! It is greatly appreciated You can get the books delivered to your doorstep fairly cheap nowadays. I specifically bought Arts & Artifacts for this video, because it was the one book I didn't own yet. It was about 30 bucks with shipping costs included ^^
I read the title as "Are the Zelda Books GANON" and was like OMG so much has happened in this franchise while I was away. Anyways, great video as always!
There is a reason why the series is called "The LEGEND of Zelda", we may be playing thru it as it was meant to happen but at the end of the day we are being told off it by our History teacher and it's our job to piece it all together bc overtime stories change, deviate from their original source. At least that's how i see it.
This has also always been my view. Especially since games like Wind Waker have a literal legend as the intro, depicting OoT. With this the completely different art style and depiction of people and locations also make sense, as they aren't one and the same, but rather a story from Hyrule we view through a certain lense. Hyrule Castle might look different between Wind Waker and OoT, but it is meant to be the same castle, there is no doubt about that. Granted there is often a lot of time between these 'stories', so some of the discrepancies can be attributed to information getting warped throughout time, such as what the Sages looked like, or how the Master Sword came to be.
Wonderful video! I've always concerned myself with the lore and inconsistencies - probably because of my background as a Star Wars fan (and a big real-life history freak too) but now I can say I trust most information in these books - especially if it lines up with the games. Any inconsistences are either oversights, mistakes or are up for revision the next time around (I know the big kicker is "Majora's Mask is a dream" but another one I found is "It is said that the wish will hold true until the user of the Triforce dies" - I came across it while researching for a theory if it is possible to end the curse of Demise by wishing it away with the Triforce - this came from the Wiki which claims the Encyclopedia as the source for this statement). The one I care the most is the timeline since everything else can be chalked up to how mythology and legends aren't the best record keeping devices in the world. On the next book supply run I'll be sure to pick up the rest of the Goddess Trilogy (I have Arts and Artefacts and Creating a Champion but skipped out on the Encyclopedia on my last book run because of weight and partly of those "dreaded inconsistencies" folks keep on telling me while I couldn't find Hyrule Historia at all) to help me craft my next theories without Wiki diving and triple fact checking to see if those sources are accurate/official or help make the little AUs I tend to write up while waiting for a next Zelda entry. Once again, thank you for making this video, it really puts me at ease and excellent work as always!
@@Shotnthdark It only says it grants the wish as long as the person is alive, not that it undo the wishes of said person upon its death, it only stops granting it. ALTTP emphasizes on the fact that Ganon's wish isn't fully fulfilled yet and that he needs to invade the world of Light in order to be so. The Spirit of the Triforce itself told us as much. It does seem to be contradicted by TWW since the King is clearly a spirit but one could argue that he is in fact still alive as a boat, if you consider a boat as a legitimate body which the gods seem to.
As someone who has worked as an editor in the publishing space, and worked a lot on different projects, fans need to stop treating canon like a rigid thing. Canon is so much more fluid than you realize.
this video really threw me back into those days as a kid hitting up Zelda forums & sites every day, my first real internet experience & i miss them so ;_; thank you for the great discussion!
From the video title I did not expect this to be such a deep delve into the very process of creating/updating/changing works and entire companies working together to produce the most correct thing at the time they can. Damn dude, masterpiece video right here. Extra grateful for such a big focus on the changing nature of canonicity itself that so many people overlook without a thought when starting any lore discussion. Truly refreshing :)
Brilliant video, thanks to you and Patrick! I'm really glad that you included the brief section on localization. As someone whose gradually been striving towards doing some (unprofessional) JP>ENG translation work, any and all insight is very useful. To hear that even a company like Dark Horse starts with a machine translation before taking a more thorough look to be as accurate as possible makes me feel a lot better for throwing everything I look at in DeepL before translating myself!
Im happy to hear that the localisation part was of use! I ALMOST didn't include it into the video, because it wasn't the main focus. But now I'm happy I kept it ^^
Thanks for bringing up the 'Zelda Books.' I think this topic often gets avoided because it brings up a lot of heated arguments and your open-minded approach which is very apparent in this video is so necessary for the fan community in general, whether that be fandom for 'Lord of the Rings' or 'Star Wars' etc it's really relevant! I've always had an issue with The World of Termina as to me and a lot of fans - it's a parallel world to Hyrule NOT a dream world. The book that mentions this specifically - Zelda Encylopedia highlights this glaring mistake but everyone of course makes mistakes. Perhaps if The World of Termina was explored again in another later Zelda Game, it could elaborate in more detail that it is a Parallel World and maybe it could EXPLAIN WHY it is a parallel world. 'Lorule' for example has already been mentioned as a 'Parallel World to Hyrule' so it does imply that Hyrule has other Parallel Worlds...
I always viewed these books as texted books. Not so much as like I have to study this word by word but history is still up to interpretation because we weren’t always there. We have to imagine and study how people reacted with others in society. We might know dates and locations but do we always know the full story of why things happen? And not everything in a text book is 100% accurate or not written in a certain way. I find it very interesting to hear about how the book was written and how they worked together to bring out the most accurate book possible. Awesome video!
I really love this video. The dedication you put into searching for the background of the books' creation and even interviewing someone from Dark Horse Comics to verify or dismiss theories and information was done really professionally. Inconsistency or contradicting facts can be found anywhere, besides Zelda I am a huge fan of Star Wars and Resident Evil. In Star Wars there are so many people getting angry about inconsistencies and damning authors of books / comics / whatever for apparently not doing their homework. The franchise is just too big, to be considering everything. I don't have such troubles, I enjoy The Legend of Zelda, Star Wars, Resident Evil and many more franchises just by consuming their contents and if I see an inconsistency I either come up with my own explaination or search the internet. Especially for Star Wars there is a huge chance that someone asked himself the same question before and started a discussion on a social media platform about it. As long as we are having fun, I don't care about minor details not matching up and I am glad that I can spend the time with stuff I love and care about.
Thankyou for compiling this! I have more or less had thought of this. But WOW you were able to pull it all together properly and educate people. I learned a lot from this !!!
What a GREAT video this was, MM you outdid yourself. Thank YOU, to everyone in the comments spread this video around to all the zelda fans and youtubers.
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30:57 The second scenario for sure. Nintendo loves their IP so much and there is more than enough evidence of them overprotecting their content. they wouldn't allow, publish or even sell something that is fake and that could damage their project.
I am JUST getting into Zelda it's one series I missed and I now have access to EVERY single Zelda game made and own them all, I wanted them before starting.. Now, what game should I play first my new Zelda Family!! Thank You So Much For Letting Me In AT 32 Still Without Much Hassle About Why I Always Missed This series!! Everyone I've talked to so far has been extremely helpful
I recall reading an interview (probably an article online somewhere either in high school or middle school...which for me was like 15-20 years ago lmaooo) where miyamoto stated that the legend of zelda was created so they can push the boundaries of gaming (of its time and moving forward), and so they could try new mechanics and technology (basically a proxy game). I don't think it was ever meant to have lore. But the fact that the series is so amazing and popular and therefore will continue to test the boundaries of what nintendo can do with gaming mechanics and new consoles...the fact that they decided "we'll give the fans a story" is pretty great. I have always seen the legend of zelda timeline as flexible, because while the base story is simple: a hero (THE hero), a princess, and an evil to be triumphed is such a trope, and they decided to put it in in one of the most common type of trope to: a knight and princess fairytale - the simplicity allows for flexibility, creativity, and experimentation (which I think is key).
Very well made video! It definitely helped understanding the lore and the canonicity of encyclopedias and "official" source material more. Im a bit shocked this vid has only 34k views. You put a lot of care and hours into this.
I have the Spanish editions of Encyclopedia and Art And Artifacts, and Encyclopedia has a bunch of mistakes, so I doubt it. I like thinking about them as behind-the-scenes trivia, with unused designs, a few interviews, and the reasons that made the developers create certain elements. But not as a source of canon.
Encyclopedia features very little mistakes, especially considering how huge it is. Mistakes also does not equal non-canon. As I stated in my video, these projects have to wrap up at some point, and having no mistakes at all in them is practically an impossibility.
@@MonsterMaze True, it's just that the mistakes really stood out to me for some reason. Plus I made the comment before watching the video. I stand cotrected
What about the Japanese version, basing your opinion off of a Spanish translation isn’t the most concrete evidence. Usually Nintendo translation works like this from what I know: Japanese > English > European Languages > Rest of the world
Oh geez this video comes out as I'm writing lore for a Zelda group roleplay experience that takes place in a downfall offshoot timeline during Ocarina of Time. What I feel like I can say about these books is that referring to interviews closest to when the media was released probably has more accurately given answers than ones given in interviews years down the road. Though some revisions do clean up some smudging inconsistences or gaps. While the timeline may not be perfect it does a great job of telling how the Legends are strung together. As far as the canon-icity of these books, I would say they make for excellent reference material that does give us insightful information that wasn't able to be given in the game releases.
I do think the best answer is "its canon, but vague; the whole point is to interpret it yourself", it makes the series so much more real! Also sick to know another Muse fan
Great video as always dude, love hearing your perspective on stuff like this. And great interviews, added a lot to the context of the topic! Thanks man 👏
Wow great video! I really like that you tool examples from outside the Zelda universe to clarify your statement. Also, you have a great taste for music😄
I always love your videos! Especially as someone with the personal belief that although canon can be taken seriously, it shouldn't be taken too seriously, and we should just have fun with it. That's what the Zelda series is for, right?
It's definitely the best way to approach the series. It's all about having fun! And the Zelda community also happens to be one of the best, and most welcoming ones out there ^^
Nice I got the LttP players guide free with NP subscription and it had great sociological stuff on hyrule. It was along with the Links Awakening guide and NP's long series on Secret of Mana partially illustrated by Katsuya Terada who has a very VERY different style than what is used now or in the manuals and its surprising how much the art effected my perception of how "dark" he games were. Especially Mana series since it's so cutesy but Zelda series too.
Happy Birthday! I turned 36 two weeks ago myself! Yeah, I think the criticism for these books is a bit excessive. Yes, there are some mistakes, and yes, there is a bit of interpretation. But for the majority of all 4, they're based directly on notes and documents provided by Nintendo. I personally only have one major criticism about any of them, and it's the Majora's Mask section you mentioned. I've read in a number of places that one of Nintendo Dream's editors came up with a very similar story as a fan theory back when Majora's Mask was new. And that's literally the only thing I think is worth any greater scrutiny. It's entirely possible that it was simply overlooked, since there was a lot of information in the book already, or that someone at Nintendo had heard the theory before, thought it sounded familiar, and went with it. Or, heck, maybe someone on the Zelda team thought it was an interesting enough interpretation to be worth including. Given the poor reception of that one tiny blurb, enough to make some people overreact and call the legitimacy of the entire book series into question, it's probably not going to stick if they do a revised edition or a new publication.
I greatly looked forward to this video for a while now, and I was not disappointed in the slightest. I'll likely buy all the books too because of how well you validated them as officially made books and not some fanfiction, something I was kinda worried about before watching this video. Of course they're not 100% correct, but that honestly adds to the mysterious charm of Zelda lore. I love to challenge certain details and add my own interpretations into the lore, regardless if I'm actually correct or not. Absolutely love this channel and the efforts you put into it, keep up the great work!!
GREAT content as always MM! You’re content is always top notch! Keep up the high quality content! I’ve been slowly collecting all the smaller books but will say I have the Goddess collection plus the Cresting a champion. Will say just looking at all 4 books give me such a warm feeling. Love it!
I intend to collect more Zelda literature too! In fact I specificly bought Arts & Artifacts for this video. It was the one book of the trilogy I didn't own yet prior to starting this project ^^
We should all consider ourself lucky that we happened to stumble across such an underrated, high quality, passionate TH-camr that you’ll never find many of on TH-cam! Easter < Monster Maze upload Halloween < Monster Maze upload Christmas < Monster Maze upload
Hey man, I really appreciate that you were so dilligent with the research you did. I think that those books have been under fire too often and discredited too harshly. I think that that happens because we are short of empathy in this world, it is easy to criticize when being sheltered by the anonymousity of the internet and you did a fine work to show the creators side and that they truly did justice to the material, working from the bottom of their hearts. Often fans seem to think they care more about Zelda than Nintendo themselves. With that said I really want to hear what you have to say about the lore inconsistencies that originated the problem in the first place. I really like the idea that it's going to be a well thought out discussion on the matter instead of the angry rants we usually get these days. I'm subbing by the way!
I fully agree! I myself was a lot more indifferent about the books prior to this project. But after talking to an actual human being who worked on these books I gained so much more appreciation for the hard work they do, and the lengths they went through to present the information as good as they possibily could ^^
"Zelda canon is flexible. It always has been." That's the thing about the canonicity, and the timeline. The timeline is real and canon, and it always has been, but at the same time it isn't really. It changes all the time. Aonuma explained multiple times the reason why they were reluctant to release a timeline before, but I feel like his meaning was either misunderstood, or lost. They had a timeline, but they didn't have a SET timeline. They were constantly moving games around whenever a new one came out, and when they made the games they didn't try to fit it into the timeline until the end. The games and stories were made, and then the devs themselves speculated and theorized with each other about where it should fit. In other words none of the games were made to go into a specific spot in the timeline, and the devs have been having the same kind of discussions about the timeline we have. Now that fans know the timeline it's harder for them to be as flexible as they were before. They'd been moving the placement of games, slotting new games in, etc. etc. for years, but now that it's out for the fans to see if they decide they want to do that its going to get a bunch of scrutiny from the fans. The truth is that the timeline in Hyrule Historia or Encyclopedia is not the true and canon timeline, it's just the timeline that they had in their heads at the time they made the book. Most other pieces of lore are the same way, and if you look at the games they're typically self contained stories that don't necessarily fit in with each other. People assumed that the hero from the Wind Waker's opening was the Hero of Time, but imagine if there was no Ocarina of Time. If there wasn't we'd just assume that hero was from a story that didn't have a game associated with it, and that hero who disappeared would be seen in the same way as the hero from the tapestry in Breath of the Wild. In fact that would be a much simpler explanation than trying to connect them to the Hero of Time since doing so requires way more assumptions like: -There's an adult and child timeline that split off. -There was no hero because he went to the past. -Ganondorf immediately broke his seal, and so there was no time for a hero to be born -For some reason a hero could not be reincarnated with the spirit of the hero until the time of the Wind Waker -The Hero of the Winds is not born with the spirit of the hero, but rather became recognized as a hero after taking his journey Or any number of other assumptive explanations to try and force the connection to work. It's way simpler to just imagine the Wind Waker as a self-contained story, and the writers probably originally wrote it as such, and then afterwards they got together and decided where it fit in the timeline. You pretty much mentioned all of this in your video already, but I'll repeat you and myself again. This is the reason why they were so reluctant to release the timeline in the first place, and why they add notes like that to the end of it. They never saw the timeline or other lore facets as being rigid and set in stone, and they don't want us to see them that way either. There is a true Zelda Canon, but at the same time not really. That goes for the books and the games.
Agreed! And a great take. It's also one reson why Aonuma didn't want to reveal Breath of the Wild's timeline placement just yet. He feels it's best for people to discuss, theorize and find clues. Which is great! They might reveal it some day, but right now I am happy that we have the freedom to come up with our own ideas first.
7:04 Ahah my thread ! There used to be images on it but I guess the website I used to upload them have since stopped their service. Things are more complicated than they seem, Nintendo is not one person and the developers shouldn't be threated like one author. It is clear from all the informations that these books were a mish mash of developer insight and the writers filling up the holes and I'm afraid those "official timelines" were more of the latter. Nintendo doesn't seem to be willing to fix this issue, if they even see it as one. The developers that built the scenaristic fondations of the world of Zelda such as Yoshiaki Koizumi left the Zelda team overtime. And Miyamoto never was a story driven person, all the lore was built up despite him rather than through him as can be read about the development of A Link to the Past or The Wind Waker, he "ruined" the potential what Four Swords Adventures was going to be(Just my opinion but it become quite a forgettable game when it could have been the next ALTTP) all through his infamous "table flips". I will never accept the "official" timeline, it is full of gross contradictions from the games themselves(like Four Swords Adventures being a direct sequel of Four Swords and being stated as such upon release and in-game). I know it doesn't matter much for "casual" players and I now avoid to try to inform them on the contradictions having seen how defensive they are of the "official" material. I provide an alternative explanation to those that seek them.
You are part of Zelda theory history! Your thread was extremely helpful to get a better understanding of the gripes people has against the books, since I myself wasn't around when these first discussions took place. You were very thorough in your documentation. I also have my gripes with the timeline btw, and I sincirely hope they will make revisions in the future ^^
It's truly incedible to see a person/channel being so passionate and extremely dedicated about a lore/franchise without the intent or at least main intent of monetization. I can tell you're working your ass off with these researches and i appreciate you and i see you providing top tier quality zelda content for a group that is rather specific. Greetings and love from Germany🙌🐴
The simple way to determine canonicity is to follow the same rules and processes that are done by translators and archeologists when dealing with written works. Let's take the existence of Nebuchadnezzar who was long thought to be a fictional character from the Bible due to the remarkable events surrounding him and the fact that Babylonian cutiform tablets from 594 - 557 BC were incredibly rare. However, archeologists did eventually find records proving his existence which made the tablets the primary source of canonicity and the Bible a secondary source. Therefore, Zelda games are the primary source of canon and the books are a second source. When a secondary source contradicts a primary source then whatever was stated n the secondary source is non-canonical. But if there is no clear contradiction then what the secondary source says is considered canonical. Simple. We also have a third source of canon which are comments from the developers themselves in interviews. Therefore the order of canonicity is games > developer comments > official third party materials.
![The Evolution of Hyrule [Part 1] - Zelda Theory](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/P9shOnebEaQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Evolution of Hyrule [Part 1] - Zelda Theory](/img/tr.png)
A very special thanks to Patrick Thorpe from Dark Horse Comics for joining me in this endeavour!
More videos are on the way . Have a great week everyone!
Can’t wait!
Awesome video
@@Ghalrost_ EWWWWWWW POOR MY CONTENT IS WAY BETTER THEN YOUR
K
K
@@Ghalrost_ U CAN'T WAIT UNTIL YOU GET POPLAR LOL THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN TO U
Jeez, what a ride this video was. Your quality with edits and scripting is of course unrivaled as always, but the interview was just icing on the cake. If that doesn’t reassure fans, I don’t know what will.
As a fellow lore dude, this entire concept resonates so deeply with me because it’s like debating whether or not you can use a really useful tool for a job - the books have always been such bountiful wells of knowledge that unfortunately got scrutinized like no other, to the point of (in some cases) refraining from even using them at all for lore or theory crafting. From now on, this will be the video that I hold as the standard for the argument of whether or not the Zelda Books are Canon.
Thank you for this. Seriously.
Heyooo it's my favourite collab partner! Thanks a lot for dropping by sir ^^
The books are indeed great tools, and I hope people continue to appreciate them. WHo knows, we might even get a new lore book after Breath of the Wild 2 releases in 2042 👀
Well friggin' said Bandit.
Too true.
Now, don't forget this feeling of objectivity, Bandit: BotW has no confirmed timeline setting, as much as you want it to be the DT. ;)
*2024
I could not agree with you more, Bandit! This is the proof I will use when people argue with me about this.
The way I've always viewed these books is that they're supplementary support for in-game lore and should be considered canon so long as they don't contradict in-game information. Where any contradictions occur, game lore takes precedent. I'm glad you made this video. Now perhaps some of the community bickering over this subject will finally settle down.
The MLP community called that 'soft canon', and I've always loved it.
31:01 As an author and, more prolifically, a DM I have to say that the 'real timeline' will include like twice as many details as have been published and every detail that hasn't been published is liable to be moved around at any given moment. They could have details on another 20 games worth of plot lines, of which only three would get made, but they're all still there.
That the authors don't share everything they know about the setting should be expected.
As an author, Pixel artest and game dev yep very true and I'm a very open one compaired to secrtive Nintedo... There is just to little time mostly pages/dev time to fit everything into a single peice of media or even explain it all.
As a writer & author, I join in on the confirmations. The WIP notebook on which a story is based is triple or quadruple the size of the final product, and often contains details, scenes, plotlines or even characters who never make an appearance from the consumer's point of view. Which, however, doesn't make any of it less crucial as a story's backbone. This expanded, often self-contradictory behind the scenes lore is what forges the bond and the understanding between the author and their creation, and it allows for peppering the story with small details that sometimes have enormous background, basing any and all sequels/prequels/spin-offs on, and much, much more.
Mood on the DM bit. Infinitely glad I'm not a big company like Nintendo when I have to worry about millions of fans noticing the one hint I had of a character secretly being one type of dragon before I changed my mind and had them be a different kind, because my players didn't catch on which meant it didn't really matter if it was inconsistent. Same with character backstories, as long as it hasn't come up in the campaign, it's not canon. Even if that's my intention, it hasn't happened, and is subject to change if a more interesting idea weasels its way in.
As a writer and artist myself, I wholeheartedly agree. I have a huge world building project I made since I was younger and even today everything is still changing - the main characters are completely different from when they were originally and even I forgot some stuff I made by kid me. The mega secret document timeline Mr. Aonuma has probably involves some work in progress stuff that will come out somewhere down the line.
The full timeline is looped ;)
I stand by that every version is simultaneously cannon, including pseudo cannon content like the comics/manga. It is quite literally the legend of Zelda, a story of the ancient days of the kingdom. Every time you play through your favorite LoZ game is a new telling of the story, oral story telling loses detail and is full of little tweaks. Can a desert really exist that close to a lush forest, large lake, and active volcano? probably not, that is the storyteller not including the boring journey time between the important parts.
Have always viewed the games through that lens. Seeing as the games change style and depictions of characters quite often I'd say that it is encouraged to do so.
Zelda canon is like doctor who canon where simultaneously all of it and none of it is canon at different times and you just need to figure it out yourself
And the fact that Hyrule map changes from game to game, means that the story is never 100% accurate to reality.
I love this statement. I have applied the same reasoning for art style changes.
@@harrylane4 Zelda and Doctor Who even share the 'Fixed Point' philosophy.
I've always been impressed with your videos. This one however, is beyond good. It's a-MAZE-ing and shows a level of research & dedication any Zelda fan will appreciate. Thank you for the time you spent on this, I hope it was as fun for you to research as it was for us to watch! Also, I am positive your video will increase sales of the four main books you went over and at least one of the copies sold will be to me. Top notch work here Monster Maze, thank you!!!
Wow, thank you so much Deidra! Sorry for the late reply. I've been spending some time with the family after this project wrapped up.
It was a lot of fun doing the research, and I myself learned a LOT! Prior to this video I knew absolutelt nothing about book publishing, authorship, and all that kind of stuff.
I definitely hope the sales of the books will continue to rise. It will give Nintendo a positive message and so hopefully they will publish more of these books! Perhaps for Breath of the Wild 2?
Thanks again, and have a great day!
@@MonsterMaze I got creating a champion and the legend of Zelda encyclopedia book because of ur great vid. Love the vid
I just went and ordered all the books and some of the Zelda manga while watching this video.
Never seen this type of comment can someone explain why it's pink and have $50.00 thing
@@KingYoshiGoD superchat
The timeline makes the most sense to me if it is Aonuma's personal timeline and a kind of psychological portrait of his handling of the series. The nexus point is Ocarina of Time, the first game he worked on in the series. Wind Waker and Twilight Princess split off as separate attempts to succeed Ocarina of Time while most other projects he oversaw but didn't direct got thrown before Ocarina of Time. Every game before his tenure is just thrown into the fallen hero branch (plus a Link Between Worlds) as if they were categorized as "other." It's really the map of a man reckoning with his place in Zelda's legacy.
As always, a great video. Thanks for looking into this. It of course makes sense the staff would be significantly invested in this. I think Zelda fans just have to come to terms with the kind of lore Zelda really is.
Yup RETCON is the word that pretty much sums it up but the timeline for the most part still makes sense Ill be honest I didn’t even need a book to tell me what went where playing the games and seeing there end story aside from Wind waker and skyward sword and major mask which from the getco tell you where there set in stone locked I guess it goes to show how closely I looked at the story and character in game talking.
Anyway I leave with this
ADULT 🏰 🌊 blue wisdom Zelda
Child 🏰 🌳 green courage link
Downfall 🏰 🔥 red destruction ganon
Oh and what do you know will you look at that
Adult nayru blue 🌊
Child farore green 🌳
Downfall din red 🔥
Nintendo how just how even with retcon HOW THE FFFFFFF?!!!!!!!
makes sense
Looks like you hate Aonuma's tenure. Why is that?
@@neypaz8054 I don't hate his tenure, I don't know how you got that from my comment. The timeline being personal to him doesn't devalue it for me, it makes it more valuable to be honest.
@@coolguychecker7329 Ah, OK, sorry
Miyamoto wanted people to talk, speculate and share hidden secrets about Zelda since day one. I think with the books and now a huge community on TH-cam... he definitely got people talking about his game. Awesome video as always Monster Maze. See ya Dude.
Thanks Stuart! Let's continue to share and speculate for many more years! ^^
But he also has a notorious derision for game lore mattering at all. He’s so dismissive of it. It seems to me a big reason why he doesn’t have as strong a voice in product development that he once had.
This is a truly essential look into the nature of 'The Legend of Zelda' lore. It relates to everything Zelda that you and other creators do, as well as to what our fan relationship with the material is. There was a place waiting for this video. I appreciate it, and congrats.
Thanks Wavari, cheers!
Hi
It could be a possibility that when the original lore (that Nintendo created) was unguided and not really considered but after twilight Princess and after the Poor reception of Wind Waker they had to start to consider the fans and got involved with the fan owned time line.. Messed it up immediately and released Skyward Sword (almost F-Zero 'ed the franchise) they panicked released the art book to no reaction. Panicking they retconed the books and lore again (they still have no idea what the time line is) then luckily released Breath of the wild so they are due a dodgy moment (breath of the wild 2 has been delayed twice) so I think they're SH! T the bed with the next game... Ill even guarantee it lads.
Boom
OOT
LTTP
TP
MM
TOP 4 ZELDA GAMES
th-cam.com/video/E-Jh-DCBvjM/w-d-xo.html Dark Cloud 2 Legendary Weapons in Chapter 2.
@@MonsterMaze yo how'd you get that emote lol
The evolving lore of the series is why I adore Zelda so much. It feels so alive. I own Historia, Encyclopedia, and Creating a Champion. They are wonderful sources of insight and the passion that went into creating them is something I see whenever I open them! I don't agree with everything in them, but most fans of any fandom are always debating what is and what isn't canon. I love theorizing and watching theory videos. Even if I disagree with a theory because I have my own, I appreciate the effort the person spent creating it and the points they made. If we had all of the knowledge, there would be no more debates and theories. That would be a very sad day.
Thank you so much for this video! You've summed up a lot of my personal thoughts.
Same here! It feels like one giant archeological puzzle! The fact we are still crafting theories about games that came out decades ago is so amazing to me!
I've been theorizing about the Legend of Zelda timeline for a long time and this is a perfect video. As a content creator, I come across a lot of timeline inconsistencies in my Horror History series. I don't think any series is immune to it. I always do my best to explain the inconsistencies in universe, but sometimes I just have to throw up my hands and say the creator made a mistake.
I love the idea that the content itself is like a history book, it can be skewed by the boas the those writing the books.
So next time I find a mortuary tag in a background detail of Saw 4 that doesn't have the correct date on it, I'm gonna remember this video.
Oh definitely! It's very rare for a series to stay to consistent. Big horror fan right here btw, so I am going to be checking out your content as well ^^
Eh, I strongly dislike this argument. Yes, every series has *some* amount of inconsistency, but often, it is extremely minor and nearly imperceptible. Meanwhile, many other series have glaring, major inconsistencies, some more than others. These comments I am reading act as if all inconsistencies are created equal. They are not, and people who are well-versed in literature can recognize the problem when certain series have blatant, impossible-to-ignore holes in them. To me it, sounds unreasonably defensive when criticisms of Nintendo's suboptimal writing get dismissed with this "every story has inconsistencies" nonsense that ignores the importance of size. Look, as much as I love the Legend of Zelda franchise, most of the stories I have ever read are as haphazardly structured as this franchise is. There are many plot holes that, if intentional, would be completely unacceptable. Of course, I forgive Nintendo, because at the end of the day, many of these games were never made with the intent of fitting into a coherent storyline. Nintendo makes games putting gameplay as the priority, and the story is almost always an afterthought. Yes, there are exceptions to this, and in recent years, Nintendo has started to care a lot more about storytelling in games, but let's face it: the vast majority of people in the world who buy Nintendo games only care about the gameplay, not the story, and Nintendo knows this. And that is perfectly okay! So, look, I am not saying it is a bad thing that the Legend of Zelda has major problems with how its chronology has been structured. But Zelda fans need to stop pretending that having this many problems in storytelling is the norm or an acceptable standard in other circumstances.
Whoever claims that the books can't be canon because they include mistakes that contradict the games.... Sorry, with this argument NONE of the games can be called canon, because all of them include stuff that somehow contradicts other games in the series.
I've always considered them to be canon at the time of publication, just like any ongoing story things change as things are added, or things are connected after the story teller has an idea further along.
From a scholarly perspective:
- I think we should treat things as they present themselves. Encyclopedia, for example, is clearly meant to be a secondary source, so as a rule I don't think it can be the sole premise to strong conclusions. On the other hand, Creating a Champion has some exclusive details from the Zelda team, and since those details are all we have on the subject, I see no reason to eliminate it from our list of valid sources for now.
- I think canon can be defined as how an author or creative team considers past works in relationship to works in production. Does the Zelda team consider the information in the books when making a new game? Yes, but probably not the books themselves and clearly not all the information.
From a creative perspective:
- All the things are canon. Go ahead and write some in-depth fan retellings that strongly deviate from player experience and state weak speculations as though they are fact in universe. It makes things interesting and fresh. An Ocarina of Time fanfiction retelling does this very well. th-cam.com/play/PLGlXqD1jfzlDA5sjsvG9KM5hnOsdnABRC.html
I definitely try to set certain priorities myself. If something in the books flat out contradicts facts from the games, I will usually give priority to the games ^^
I see Don upload, I watch.
Excited to sit down and watch this MASSIVE video! 👌
:D
Thanks Adam! It was one heck of a project to put together 😱. Especially the research.
Thank you so much for the shout out, I'm so glad you finally got them ok! and that you liked them and were able to assist :) I hope you enjoy having them in your physical cases :D
You do some awesome videos, keep going strong and all the best!
Thank you so much again!
One thing to remember is that this is the Legend of Zelda, and legends are evolving stories. Even in history of our own world we make discoveries and consider them “true stories” of our past, until we learn a bit more that contradicts our understanding and we have to adjust. A similar process could be said about the Zelda lore, that as we get more games and books we are “discovering” more truth about the history of Hyrule, Zelda, etc. and our understanding needs to be corrected. The lore is alive and evolving.
In your fantasy world maybe. In reality, Nintendo makes each game without thinking about a timeline, and includes references to other games just for fun.
@@sjajsjsja4523 oh wow, almost like Zelda IS a fantasy world and debating about its timeline and canonicity is entirely dependent on having a mindset within that fictional framework! Way to go, kiddo. Gold star for you.
@@sjajsjsja4523 wow youre so cool
@@sjajsjsja4523 exactly. Idk why OP has to rationalize it, especially when it's so messy as is lol
I wish they never made that timeline. It really ruins the finesse and has such a half-baked way of pretending to be coherent.
@@GeeMannn OP is not trying to rationalize anything. Do you have reading comprehension skills? Because their comment explicitly is contrary to the notion of a chronology.
Oh, my goodness, dude! In terms of authors forgetting their own material, I'm currently editing old episodes of my own comics, and I'm having to meticulously go through and reread everything to make sure I don't misinterpret what I meant in certain episodes. "Uuuuh, did I really just make that typo." Only to realize four pages later, "Wait; I put that in there on purpose to be a joke on this page. Good thing I checked first."
I’ve always considered the books to be completely canon until they are either a) officially retconned, or b) conflict with lore from the game. But even in case B I still try to imagine a way that they may not conflict if possible even if I have to imagine pretend scenarios. If it’s just impossible and contradicts the games entirely, then I consider it just a mistake and assume the game’s lore as official.
I agree. My stance when I encounter a potential inconsistency is to first try and figure out how both scenarios could technically be true. I think that's the more logical way of approaching fiction.
For example, we know the Master Sword was forged from the Goddess Sword, and that the Goddess Sword was created by Hylia. But as you know, in Twilight Princess, Zelda claims it was created by ancient sages. Rather than just saying "Oh, Zelda was wrong", I think it's more reasonable to assume that it was created by Hylia, along with some sages (perhaps the characters depicted standing next to her in Skyward Swords intro cutscene). After all, the sage's symbols are found in Skyward Sword's architecture, so they were most likely around pre-Skyloft.
There aren’t even any major contradictions tbh. The books aren’t any more canon-breaking than the games themselves are.
@@ninjagamer1359 there ARE some contradictions, but you’re right that there aren’t any major lore contradictions. But still, that’s how I resolve those conflicts, however minor.
@@SirPonnd I always took it as word of Fi, aswell as the SS-versions of Zelda and Link being passed down in legend as sages. Because they are technically the ones who created the thing. It is not unusual for events to not be recounted correctly after such a large amount of time, just look at what happened to the legend of the triforce-shards in Windwaker...and that was only 500 years between games.
I think my stance is books are part canon. The general events happened, but the details are not
I like the perspective you present that Zelda lore is what the creators, contributors, and fans together make it. It will never be finished, but is constantly being formed, expanded, and reshaped. This video itself shapes Zelda lore as we watch it. It’s so well done, awesome video!
Actually theoretically there is an end but devs wouldn't do it, the big 3 are locked in a cycle of reincarnation, incarnation and some possession but not always. If hylia never returned as Zelda and link never returned and all 3 were obliterated at least malice curse is broken but I'm not sure what's strong enough to obliterate them. I mean hylia could decide not to come back right? But it wouldn't need her dead dead as none the goddesses actually die, they just leave hyrule
This video was so fascinating! I have all of these books and have always loved them but was aware of the fandom's discrediting them at times. Eventually, I came to equate them more to just fun collectibles, like the mangas and was dismissive about the lore they introduced. But this really showed they weren't just pieces of fanfiction slapped together. There was literal years of effort and collaboration put in between Dark Horse and Nintendo to bring them to life. I find that to be really cool. These books have always felt like something special and this video just confirmed that for me. Thanks for everything that went into making this!
The biggest thing I got from this video is that I've own "Hyrule Historia" for almost a decade now and I still haven't read it.
I have been craving Zelda content lately and you always deliver. Wonderful video as always and I love how you do longer videos, I can put them on and listen while I get work done. Awesome channel!
I love Zelda not only for the game, but for a huge part of the amazing community content. I will watch your video with concentration and admiration ! Congratulations for you BIG work 👏🏻🤩🎉
I hope that when BOTW2 releases it had it's own book (Zonai Collection maybe?), showing the concepts and ideas that may or may not caused the delays. If it indeed came out, that'd be my very first Zelda book, so looking foward to the future!
Yesss! A BotW2 book would be amazing!
I'm mostly just glad that the books exist because they validate all the time I spent as a kid arguing online about timeline theories. I remember arguing vehemently for there being two timelines and not just one (of course none of us imagined there could be three!). You mention some of those forums no longer existing and parts of Zelda theory history being lost and... I'm kind of glad, because it means maybe some of my more embarrassing posts may never be seen by anyone...!
I think many of us are glad that our teenage forum years have been "buried" hahaha
The level of profession with which you approached this piece is really really beautiful to see. So happy you decided to join the Zelda tuber community when you did. What an essential addition to the fan community- I’m sure this video will be referenced and pointed to by people over and over again. Thank you!
As always appreciate the production you put behind these videos!
From one fellow Zelda fan to another: I have been watching your videos since the beginning and your channel quickly became my favourite, though I haven’t been compelled to write a comment until now. This was fascinating to watch! The work you put into these videos is astounding and well worth the wait always. Thank you for your time and effort.
Thank you so much fellow Zelda fan! The effort is more than worth it, considering my amazing viewers
I really love this video! I recently bought the last part of the godess collection and I really like the books. I noticed a few mistakes but it was never an issue and I found it kind of annoying that some people made such a big deal about it. This video explains really well that these books are made with passion and not with carelessness.
38:46 is that the depths??? Where is this visual from???? I'm sorry it's just this video is a year old so this was a little crazy to see lol
I absolutely adore hyrule historia! It's the only one I own 😅 I don't mind the mistakes but I love the concept art and tiny nitbits of info abt what goes on behind the scenes when making a game. I don't really care whatever the official lore is, my own experience with the games is what mattered the most 😸 but I love hearing everyone's takes on the lore, even zelda team's own takes. I loved this video! It's cool to know bg info like this on any project! Good job👏🏾
I like that Zelda lore is flexible. It’s all a legend after all, it makes the mythology feel alive. I’d rather they change the lore a bit to make a better game than keep everything extremely rigid.
Fantastic video as always, your level of research is always admirable
Yeah it's the legend of Zelda, my headcanon is every game is an embellished story of real historical events being told at the end of time
@@wrendina9996 I like that interpretation!
@@wrendina9996 That's my take, too! Is a "once upon a time in a faraway land" tale that plays with the recursivity of the Hero's Journey motives, lacks cohesion in favor of story like any good old legend, and is always changing between different and highly stylized representations (not to mention the purely fictional, videogame logic). So yeah: we're not playing the events but some telling of the events.
I think is an uncomplicated, "ockham razor" kind of way of seeing things that aligns with the beautiful simplicity of the Zelda premise. Also, solves some fandom dilemmas: you like that related Zelda book? Is canon. You don't? Isn't. Things are contradictory? Don't worry and enjoy, because that's how legends work
Yes and no. I would still like a well structured timeline. I don’t care if there’s 20 timelines I just want clear continuity on where games follow previous games. They can give whatever flexibility they want with a Zelda universe. I’m honestly a bit tired of Nintendo just saying “it’s up to you where the game fits” to me that’s lazy writing.
I don't get why fans use words like retcons or rigid with Zelda, as it never was, everything's just another timeline, all they need is an excuse for a timeline to appear and literally everything is true simultaniously
Wow this was super insightful! I hadn't really known that the books were so controversial. My understanding was always "Yeah it's loosely tied together like OOT and the split time lines." But yeah simply I just played the games and I assumed any art style cohesion was just the style of the time like Toon Link having his own little series of games (Some were direct sequels but also that style carried into games like Four Swords). Absolutely great work on this one! It's nice to see some more different Zelda videos that tbh can get a bit repetitive.
30:33 Maybe the "real zelda timline" document refers to future entries in the series as well. Like certain events that are/aren't mentioned in the games and can be turned into game later down the line.
I've always viewed them as supplementary canon. Some things in them can help expand the ideas of the series, but other ideas I ignore because they directly contradict the games (like what they did to Majora's Mask). If the books contradict each other I go with the newest one, unless there is evidence to suggest otherwise. Contradictions don't automatically equal non canon, but it's not 100% canon either.
One gripe I do have that isn't Majora related is some timeline placements like FSA for example (or just that game in general)
Also, while most people have been too harsh on the books, I've seen (and met) a few people who do the exact opposite end by treating everything the books say as 100% correct. It's weirdly almost always tied to the Majora's mask incident. Usually it's comments under videos related to Majora's Mask, usually saying something along the lines of "This theory doesn't even matter because the books say it was all a dream". I seriously can't recall them doing it with anything else in the books.
Also also, here's an interesting idea the books opened up because of the fallen hero timeline: what if there is a fallen hero timeline spun off of every single Zelda game. Minish cap even has it's own secret bad ending that I'm surprised never became it's own thing
This was fantastic, the effort really shows! The canonicity of this stuff is always in question and that's what keeps it interesting! It was always sad to see blind hatred where would people brush the writers/editors work aside like it was nothing. Whether you agree or disagree with content in the books, there's zero doubt these people absolutely poured their passion for Zelda into them.
Haters gonna hate.
Agreed Ditta! Especially after talking to someone who worked on the books, and seeing how passionate they are about the series, it felt even more painfull to see some of the reasoning and arguments against the books...
Hopefully this video will at least clarify some misconceptions about them ^^
I always hold these books close to my heart as info books about the lore and the concept arts of Zelda. I also have the Encyclopedia, and read Breath of the Wild books for concept art, which made me appreciate the series even more, as well as creating my AUs and fan characters. They’re gold mines for theories and AUs. I do wish that the books were smaller because they’re pretty big and heavy to me.
So many concept art characters were kept out that I wish was kept. There was even a potentially trans character (albeit drawn funny and may not slide in today’s climate due to design and being referred to as male pronouns regardless) long before the Hylian that dressed as a Gerudo. The existence of the Twili village made me wish Nintendo added it in the game because the Twili culture always fascinated me since I was a kid, even more so thanks to fan artists 😭💕
Thank you for mentioning the guides and manuals!
Anyone who studied any amount of Mythology knows "canonicity" doesn't really exist. Legends contradict and change and there are dozens of versions of each tale, and that's not considering all the other versions that got lost to time. Perfect consistency is a modern day neurosis.
Yet there are still people trying to say that Norse Mythology is somehow incapable of being changed.
I see the Zelda canon as a living document, always open to interpretation and change as long as it best suits the flow of the overall Zelda narrative. Likewise, I disagree with Nintendo's timeline not because I don't find it credible, but because there seems to be too many inconsistencies between the games that make up the timeline order (my biggest gripe being Four Swords Adventures following Twilight Princess). The closing arguments of this video puts everything in a good perspective, and as long and Nintendo intends to keep the story vague and up to the player/audience it will spawn healthy discussion and theories for years to come.
Fantastic video! I really hope this changes how people discuss Zelda lore and these books specifically
Great video makes me really want to pick up the goddess trilogy for myself!
Thabk you so much Edward! It is greatly appreciated
You can get the books delivered to your doorstep fairly cheap nowadays. I specifically bought Arts & Artifacts for this video, because it was the one book I didn't own yet. It was about 30 bucks with shipping costs included ^^
I read the title as "Are the Zelda Books GANON" and was like OMG so much has happened in this franchise while I was away. Anyways, great video as always!
The red book is Ganon
This is game changing on so many levels.
I've always had a mixed relationship with those books, just seeing them as very fun but not 100% canon as some do.
Thanks for acknowledging the nuance
There is a reason why the series is called "The LEGEND of Zelda", we may be playing thru it as it was meant to happen but at the end of the day we are being told off it by our History teacher and it's our job to piece it all together bc overtime stories change, deviate from their original source. At least that's how i see it.
That’s always been my take! Legends and myths often get retold in many different ways and sometimes those retellings cause some continuity issues
This has also always been my view. Especially since games like Wind Waker have a literal legend as the intro, depicting OoT. With this the completely different art style and depiction of people and locations also make sense, as they aren't one and the same, but rather a story from Hyrule we view through a certain lense. Hyrule Castle might look different between Wind Waker and OoT, but it is meant to be the same castle, there is no doubt about that. Granted there is often a lot of time between these 'stories', so some of the discrepancies can be attributed to information getting warped throughout time, such as what the Sages looked like, or how the Master Sword came to be.
Amazing video and I appreciate the shoutout to AVGN at 1:11 James & Co are such Legends 👏🏻
Wonderful video! I've always concerned myself with the lore and inconsistencies - probably because of my background as a Star Wars fan (and a big real-life history freak too) but now I can say I trust most information in these books - especially if it lines up with the games. Any inconsistences are either oversights, mistakes or are up for revision the next time around (I know the big kicker is "Majora's Mask is a dream" but another one I found is "It is said that the wish will hold true until the user of the Triforce dies" - I came across it while researching for a theory if it is possible to end the curse of Demise by wishing it away with the Triforce - this came from the Wiki which claims the Encyclopedia as the source for this statement). The one I care the most is the timeline since everything else can be chalked up to how mythology and legends aren't the best record keeping devices in the world. On the next book supply run I'll be sure to pick up the rest of the Goddess Trilogy (I have Arts and Artefacts and Creating a Champion but skipped out on the Encyclopedia on my last book run because of weight and partly of those "dreaded inconsistencies" folks keep on telling me while I couldn't find Hyrule Historia at all) to help me craft my next theories without Wiki diving and triple fact checking to see if those sources are accurate/official or help make the little AUs I tend to write up while waiting for a next Zelda entry. Once again, thank you for making this video, it really puts me at ease and excellent work as always!
Just to clarify, that part of the triforce wish only lasting as long as the user lives comes from ALttP.
@@Shotnthdark Ahh. Gotcha. I've not played ALttP yet. Thank you!
Aaay a fellow Star Wars fan!
@@Shotnthdark It only says it grants the wish as long as the person is alive, not that it undo the wishes of said person upon its death, it only stops granting it.
ALTTP emphasizes on the fact that Ganon's wish isn't fully fulfilled yet and that he needs to invade the world of Light in order to be so. The Spirit of the Triforce itself told us as much.
It does seem to be contradicted by TWW since the King is clearly a spirit but one could argue that he is in fact still alive as a boat, if you consider a boat as a legitimate body which the gods seem to.
As someone who has worked as an editor in the publishing space, and worked a lot on different projects, fans need to stop treating canon like a rigid thing. Canon is so much more fluid than you realize.
Thanks for the great video Mr. Maze
The editing, the material, everything is great
Can't wait for the next contents
this video really threw me back into those days as a kid hitting up Zelda forums & sites every day, my first real internet experience & i miss them so ;_; thank you for the great discussion!
From the video title I did not expect this to be such a deep delve into the very process of creating/updating/changing works and entire companies working together to produce the most correct thing at the time they can. Damn dude, masterpiece video right here.
Extra grateful for such a big focus on the changing nature of canonicity itself that so many people overlook without a thought when starting any lore discussion. Truly refreshing :)
I've watched this video so many times, it's such a damn good watch, for sure a top 5 video on your channel
This is a brilliant video. Very well thought out and researched. I appreciate the hard work.
Brilliant video, thanks to you and Patrick! I'm really glad that you included the brief section on localization. As someone whose gradually been striving towards doing some (unprofessional) JP>ENG translation work, any and all insight is very useful. To hear that even a company like Dark Horse starts with a machine translation before taking a more thorough look to be as accurate as possible makes me feel a lot better for throwing everything I look at in DeepL before translating myself!
Im happy to hear that the localisation part was of use! I ALMOST didn't include it into the video, because it wasn't the main focus. But now I'm happy I kept it ^^
Thanks for bringing up the 'Zelda Books.' I think this topic often gets avoided because it brings up a lot of heated arguments and your open-minded approach which is very apparent in this video is so necessary for the fan community in general, whether that be fandom for 'Lord of the Rings' or 'Star Wars' etc it's really relevant! I've always had an issue with The World of Termina as to me and a lot of fans - it's a parallel world to Hyrule NOT a dream world. The book that mentions this specifically - Zelda Encylopedia highlights this glaring mistake but everyone of course makes mistakes. Perhaps if The World of Termina was explored again in another later Zelda Game, it could elaborate in more detail that it is a Parallel World and maybe it could EXPLAIN WHY it is a parallel world. 'Lorule' for example has already been mentioned as a 'Parallel World to Hyrule' so it does imply that Hyrule has other Parallel Worlds...
I always viewed these books as texted books. Not so much as like I have to study this word by word but history is still up to interpretation because we weren’t always there. We have to imagine and study how people reacted with others in society. We might know dates and locations but do we always know the full story of why things happen? And not everything in a text book is 100% accurate or not written in a certain way.
I find it very interesting to hear about how the book was written and how they worked together to bring out the most accurate book possible. Awesome video!
Dude, thank you for making this. I LOVE your passion for the series, your unbias, your detail, and going to the sources. Great video!
I really love this video. The dedication you put into searching for the background of the books' creation and even interviewing someone from Dark Horse Comics to verify or dismiss theories and information was done really professionally.
Inconsistency or contradicting facts can be found anywhere, besides Zelda I am a huge fan of Star Wars and Resident Evil. In Star Wars there are so many people getting angry about inconsistencies and damning authors of books / comics / whatever for apparently not doing their homework. The franchise is just too big, to be considering everything.
I don't have such troubles, I enjoy The Legend of Zelda, Star Wars, Resident Evil and many more franchises just by consuming their contents and if I see an inconsistency I either come up with my own explaination or search the internet. Especially for Star Wars there is a huge chance that someone asked himself the same question before and started a discussion on a social media platform about it.
As long as we are having fun, I don't care about minor details not matching up and I am glad that I can spend the time with stuff I love and care about.
Thankyou for compiling this! I have more or less had thought of this. But WOW you were able to pull it all together properly and educate people. I learned a lot from this !!!
A 40 minute video talking about Zelda books? I'm here for it! Especially your videos Don, they are always amazing.
What a GREAT video this was, MM you outdid yourself. Thank YOU, to everyone in the comments spread this video around to all the zelda fans and youtubers.
30:57 The second scenario for sure. Nintendo loves their IP so much and there is more than enough evidence of them overprotecting their content. they wouldn't allow, publish or even sell something that is fake and that could damage their project.
I am JUST getting into Zelda it's one series I missed and I now have access to EVERY single Zelda game made and own them all, I wanted them before starting.. Now, what game should I play first my new Zelda Family!! Thank You So Much For Letting Me In AT 32 Still Without Much Hassle About Why I Always Missed This series!! Everyone I've talked to so far has been extremely helpful
I recall reading an interview (probably an article online somewhere either in high school or middle school...which for me was like 15-20 years ago lmaooo) where miyamoto stated that the legend of zelda was created so they can push the boundaries of gaming (of its time and moving forward), and so they could try new mechanics and technology (basically a proxy game). I don't think it was ever meant to have lore. But the fact that the series is so amazing and popular and therefore will continue to test the boundaries of what nintendo can do with gaming mechanics and new consoles...the fact that they decided "we'll give the fans a story" is pretty great. I have always seen the legend of zelda timeline as flexible, because while the base story is simple: a hero (THE hero), a princess, and an evil to be triumphed is such a trope, and they decided to put it in in one of the most common type of trope to: a knight and princess fairytale - the simplicity allows for flexibility, creativity, and experimentation (which I think is key).
WOOOO, time for the new video!!!! I couldn’t wait =D
Such a great video! I like your dedication and production, and a great bonus to include Muse. Keep up the good work!
Yay Muse! keep on rocking
This video came together incredibly well! Gg sir!
Thanks cap! As I said on twitter, I cannot wait for Vah Rudania!
The amount of effort in this video is incredible. You never cease to amaze, Don
Very well made video! It definitely helped understanding the lore and the canonicity of encyclopedias and "official" source material more. Im a bit shocked this vid has only 34k views. You put a lot of care and hours into this.
Full respects for you spending heaps of time on this and great content keep going!!!
that u brought someone who worked on this is amazing. incredible work
Wow. Well done on this video. I 100% agree with ur mindset on Zelda history
I have the Spanish editions of Encyclopedia and Art And Artifacts, and Encyclopedia has a bunch of mistakes, so I doubt it. I like thinking about them as behind-the-scenes trivia, with unused designs, a few interviews, and the reasons that made the developers create certain elements. But not as a source of canon.
Encyclopedia features very little mistakes, especially considering how huge it is. Mistakes also does not equal non-canon. As I stated in my video, these projects have to wrap up at some point, and having no mistakes at all in them is practically an impossibility.
@@MonsterMaze True, it's just that the mistakes really stood out to me for some reason. Plus I made the comment before watching the video. I stand cotrected
What about the Japanese version, basing your opinion off of a Spanish translation isn’t the most concrete evidence.
Usually Nintendo translation works like this from what I know: Japanese > English > European Languages > Rest of the world
Oh geez this video comes out as I'm writing lore for a Zelda group roleplay experience that takes place in a downfall offshoot timeline during Ocarina of Time. What I feel like I can say about these books is that referring to interviews closest to when the media was released probably has more accurately given answers than ones given in interviews years down the road. Though some revisions do clean up some smudging inconsistences or gaps. While the timeline may not be perfect it does a great job of telling how the Legends are strung together.
As far as the canon-icity of these books, I would say they make for excellent reference material that does give us insightful information that wasn't able to be given in the game releases.
I do think the best answer is "its canon, but vague; the whole point is to interpret it yourself", it makes the series so much more real!
Also sick to know another Muse fan
Really enjoy this deep dive into the creation of these books
I love your longer vids. For some reason listening to you talk about Zelda puts to to sleep very quickly. You’ve been helping me sleep for months lol
That is awesome to hear ^^
I too have my own goto channels for the purpose of sleeping more easily haha
Great Video!! Such a detailed look into creation of the Zelda books!
Great video as always dude, love hearing your perspective on stuff like this. And great interviews, added a lot to the context of the topic! Thanks man 👏
God you’re videos are always so so good and well made and thought out. I’m so glad I found your channel thank you for all you do
Wow great video! I really like that you tool examples from outside the Zelda universe to clarify your statement. Also, you have a great taste for music😄
Finally the 40 min vids are back from one of the Zelda Tubers I follow. Ty MM
I always love your videos! Especially as someone with the personal belief that although canon can be taken seriously, it shouldn't be taken too seriously, and we should just have fun with it. That's what the Zelda series is for, right?
It's definitely the best way to approach the series. It's all about having fun! And the Zelda community also happens to be one of the best, and most welcoming ones out there ^^
Amazing content, as usual. I love the way you think about all this, really interesting
Nice I got the LttP players guide free with NP subscription and it had great sociological stuff on hyrule. It was along with the Links Awakening guide and NP's long series on Secret of Mana partially illustrated by Katsuya Terada who has a very VERY different style than what is used now or in the manuals and its surprising how much the art effected my perception of how "dark" he games were. Especially Mana series since it's so cutesy but Zelda series too.
your edits are really good and the video´s always enjoyable
Happy Birthday! I turned 36 two weeks ago myself!
Yeah, I think the criticism for these books is a bit excessive. Yes, there are some mistakes, and yes, there is a bit of interpretation. But for the majority of all 4, they're based directly on notes and documents provided by Nintendo. I personally only have one major criticism about any of them, and it's the Majora's Mask section you mentioned. I've read in a number of places that one of Nintendo Dream's editors came up with a very similar story as a fan theory back when Majora's Mask was new. And that's literally the only thing I think is worth any greater scrutiny. It's entirely possible that it was simply overlooked, since there was a lot of information in the book already, or that someone at Nintendo had heard the theory before, thought it sounded familiar, and went with it. Or, heck, maybe someone on the Zelda team thought it was an interesting enough interpretation to be worth including. Given the poor reception of that one tiny blurb, enough to make some people overreact and call the legitimacy of the entire book series into question, it's probably not going to stick if they do a revised edition or a new publication.
Happy birthday to you too! Still in your prime ^^. 36 is an excellent age!
I greatly looked forward to this video for a while now, and I was not disappointed in the slightest.
I'll likely buy all the books too because of how well you validated them as officially made books and not some fanfiction, something I was kinda worried about before watching this video. Of course they're not 100% correct, but that honestly adds to the mysterious charm of Zelda lore. I love to challenge certain details and add my own interpretations into the lore, regardless if I'm actually correct or not.
Absolutely love this channel and the efforts you put into it, keep up the great work!!
GREAT content as always MM! You’re content is always top notch! Keep up the high quality content!
I’ve been slowly collecting all the smaller books but will say I have the Goddess collection plus the Cresting a champion. Will say just looking at all 4 books give me such a warm feeling. Love it!
I intend to collect more Zelda literature too! In fact I specificly bought Arts & Artifacts for this video. It was the one book of the trilogy I didn't own yet prior to starting this project ^^
I have been debating this for years now. Amazing work, thanks for proving this point in such a convincing way.
We should all consider ourself lucky that we happened to stumble across such an underrated, high quality, passionate TH-camr that you’ll never find many of on TH-cam!
Easter < Monster Maze upload
Halloween < Monster Maze upload
Christmas < Monster Maze upload
Yay!
Do you you're background music is kind of legit, Really dig it today
Awesome video as always! :D
You always put so much effort into your videos
Hey man, I really appreciate that you were so dilligent with the research you did. I think that those books have been under fire too often and discredited too harshly. I think that that happens because we are short of empathy in this world, it is easy to criticize when being sheltered by the anonymousity of the internet and you did a fine work to show the creators side and that they truly did justice to the material, working from the bottom of their hearts. Often fans seem to think they care more about Zelda than Nintendo themselves. With that said I really want to hear what you have to say about the lore inconsistencies that originated the problem in the first place. I really like the idea that it's going to be a well thought out discussion on the matter instead of the angry rants we usually get these days. I'm subbing by the way!
I fully agree! I myself was a lot more indifferent about the books prior to this project. But after talking to an actual human being who worked on these books I gained so much more appreciation for the hard work they do, and the lengths they went through to present the information as good as they possibily could ^^
"Zelda canon is flexible. It always has been."
That's the thing about the canonicity, and the timeline. The timeline is real and canon, and it always has been, but at the same time it isn't really. It changes all the time. Aonuma explained multiple times the reason why they were reluctant to release a timeline before, but I feel like his meaning was either misunderstood, or lost. They had a timeline, but they didn't have a SET timeline. They were constantly moving games around whenever a new one came out, and when they made the games they didn't try to fit it into the timeline until the end. The games and stories were made, and then the devs themselves speculated and theorized with each other about where it should fit. In other words none of the games were made to go into a specific spot in the timeline, and the devs have been having the same kind of discussions about the timeline we have.
Now that fans know the timeline it's harder for them to be as flexible as they were before. They'd been moving the placement of games, slotting new games in, etc. etc. for years, but now that it's out for the fans to see if they decide they want to do that its going to get a bunch of scrutiny from the fans. The truth is that the timeline in Hyrule Historia or Encyclopedia is not the true and canon timeline, it's just the timeline that they had in their heads at the time they made the book. Most other pieces of lore are the same way, and if you look at the games they're typically self contained stories that don't necessarily fit in with each other. People assumed that the hero from the Wind Waker's opening was the Hero of Time, but imagine if there was no Ocarina of Time. If there wasn't we'd just assume that hero was from a story that didn't have a game associated with it, and that hero who disappeared would be seen in the same way as the hero from the tapestry in Breath of the Wild. In fact that would be a much simpler explanation than trying to connect them to the Hero of Time since doing so requires way more assumptions like:
-There's an adult and child timeline that split off.
-There was no hero because he went to the past.
-Ganondorf immediately broke his seal, and so there was no time for a hero to be born
-For some reason a hero could not be reincarnated with the spirit of the hero until the time of the Wind Waker
-The Hero of the Winds is not born with the spirit of the hero, but rather became recognized as a hero after taking his journey
Or any number of other assumptive explanations to try and force the connection to work. It's way simpler to just imagine the Wind Waker as a self-contained story, and the writers probably originally wrote it as such, and then afterwards they got together and decided where it fit in the timeline. You pretty much mentioned all of this in your video already, but I'll repeat you and myself again. This is the reason why they were so reluctant to release the timeline in the first place, and why they add notes like that to the end of it. They never saw the timeline or other lore facets as being rigid and set in stone, and they don't want us to see them that way either. There is a true Zelda Canon, but at the same time not really. That goes for the books and the games.
Agreed! And a great take. It's also one reson why Aonuma didn't want to reveal Breath of the Wild's timeline placement just yet. He feels it's best for people to discuss, theorize and find clues. Which is great! They might reveal it some day, but right now I am happy that we have the freedom to come up with our own ideas first.
7:04 Ahah my thread ! There used to be images on it but I guess the website I used to upload them have since stopped their service.
Things are more complicated than they seem, Nintendo is not one person and the developers shouldn't be threated like one author.
It is clear from all the informations that these books were a mish mash of developer insight and the writers filling up the holes and I'm afraid those "official timelines" were more of the latter.
Nintendo doesn't seem to be willing to fix this issue, if they even see it as one.
The developers that built the scenaristic fondations of the world of Zelda such as Yoshiaki Koizumi left the Zelda team overtime. And Miyamoto never was a story driven person, all the lore was built up despite him rather than through him as can be read about the development of A Link to the Past or The Wind Waker, he "ruined" the potential what Four Swords Adventures was going to be(Just my opinion but it become quite a forgettable game when it could have been the next ALTTP) all through his infamous "table flips".
I will never accept the "official" timeline, it is full of gross contradictions from the games themselves(like Four Swords Adventures being a direct sequel of Four Swords and being stated as such upon release and in-game). I know it doesn't matter much for "casual" players and I now avoid to try to inform them on the contradictions having seen how defensive they are of the "official" material. I provide an alternative explanation to those that seek them.
You are part of Zelda theory history! Your thread was extremely helpful to get a better understanding of the gripes people has against the books, since I myself wasn't around when these first discussions took place. You were very thorough in your documentation.
I also have my gripes with the timeline btw, and I sincirely hope they will make revisions in the future ^^
This is such a wonderfully crafted video! It was an absolute treat to watch, Don!
Thanks a lot Aaron! I can't wait to see your future projects ^^
It's truly incedible to see a person/channel being so passionate and extremely dedicated about a lore/franchise without the intent or at least main intent of monetization. I can tell you're working your ass off with these researches and i appreciate you and i see you providing top tier quality zelda content for a group that is rather specific. Greetings and love from Germany🙌🐴
Btw i didn't want to convey that you have to not want to make money from it to be "noble".
The simple way to determine canonicity is to follow the same rules and processes that are done by translators and archeologists when dealing with written works.
Let's take the existence of Nebuchadnezzar who was long thought to be a fictional character from the Bible due to the remarkable events surrounding him and the fact that Babylonian cutiform tablets from 594 - 557 BC were incredibly rare. However, archeologists did eventually find records proving his existence which made the tablets the primary source of canonicity and the Bible a secondary source.
Therefore, Zelda games are the primary source of canon and the books are a second source. When a secondary source contradicts a primary source then whatever was stated n the secondary source is non-canonical. But if there is no clear contradiction then what the secondary source says is considered canonical. Simple. We also have a third source of canon which are comments from the developers themselves in interviews. Therefore the order of canonicity is games > developer comments > official third party materials.
Brilliantly done. I'm really enjoying your work. 🤘💚