As an avid Zelda fan, I do have to say that the community has always been sparced for quality content (ie: good audio, interesting theories, educated takes), with only a handful of individuals (like Zeltik) who really dish out great pieces of work. It’s difficult for sure, and it’s not everyday you see someone new on the Zelda theory/lore scene. With that said, you did a great job explaining everything (tbh I feel that you did it better than most others), and without breaking the 15 minute mark. The Zelda community definitely needs more individuals who focus on the overarching narrative, rather than moment by moment plot that many of the novice tubers do
Great post. Only thing I would disagree with usually is I like longer TH-cam videos that get more in depth. Quick videos to me are usually less impressive. But since this was supposed to appeal to new people, it works.
He’s also good at injecting skepticism and caution into the theory crafting business. Some of the theories out there are wild and baseless; fan fiction basically
I consider myself to be pretty well-versed in Zelda lore and I think this is a really good video explaining the mythos of the Zelda universe. I wish you'd expand a bit more on the properties of the Triforce since it is a pretty crucial object for understanding how the Zelda world operates, so I'll do it here if anyone is interested. As stated in the video, the Triforce is a relic formed by the Golden Goddesses embodying the virtues of Power, Wisdom and Courage. It is a manifestation of their nigh-infinite divine essence/Force in physical form. When the Triforce assembles, it will grant any wish (whether that be 'good' or 'wicked') that the user desires. The stronger your will for the wish, the stronger the wish shall be fulfilled. If it is weak, then so shall the expression of that wish be weak. Basically in mythos terms, when you touch the Triforce or have one of the pieces, you have access to the Golden Goddesses' divine power to conduct powerful magic or rewrite aspects of reality. Think of it essentially as tapping into the omnipotent powers of the Golden Goddesses and the Laws of the Creation. This is one of the reasons why the Triforce is so incredibly important in the Zelda universe, whoever has it can basically use its divine power to shape everything to their desire. In order to wield the Triforce, one must temper their heart and soul in balance of the virtues of Power, Wisdom and Courage. This is an exceptionally difficult task to do, and the multiple games we do see it (Skyward Sword, A Link to the Past, A Link Between Worlds, Adventure of Link) the users usually go on entire quests overcoming challenges to hone their character and determination for this task. If an individual is not sufficiently balanced in these virtues, the Triforce rejects their wish and houses its pieces in the individuals who best embody each respective virtue presumably for protection. This is why Link is commonly identified with the Triforce of Courage, Zelda with the Triforce of Wisdom and Ganon the Triforce of Power. We see this in Ocarina of Time - Ganondorf lays his hands on the Triforce, wherein it split and gave him the Triforce of Power since he embodied that virtue most excellently. If the Triforce breaks apart, it may be reassembled by retrieving the pieces either forcefully or voluntarily from its holders. The important thing to note that if the Triforce breaks apart but then is reassembled, it will grant the wish regardless of an imbalance. We see this in Ocarina of Time for the Downfall Timeline, and arguably King Daphnes in Wind Waker (although this can be debated). So we have established the laws and properties that govern the Triforce, and also why there can be so much conflict around it. The obvious question is - why? Why would the Golden Goddesses create a relic *so powerful* that the wrong person wielding it could doom the world, and there have been countless conflicts in Zelda mythos around its possession? Surely it would be better to NOT have it, so no-one can fight over it? Well, the Triforce isn't just a powerful wish-granting relic - it is the *basis* of the entire world's providence. When the Golden Goddesses descended upon the void where the Demon Tribe resided, the Triforce guaranteed the Creation of the Goddesses will persist through the constant omnipotence of the Golden Goddesses' powers. It is the ultimate expression of order in a void of chaos, and its destruction would allow this chaos to erode and eventually destroy all of their creation. Without its existence upholding the Laws of Creation, the world would revert to this previous state of being and existence as it would be known in the Zelda universe would cease. We can see this in A Link Between Worlds (ALBW), where Lorule (a parallel world to Hyrule) used a wish to destroy their Triforce. In that game, Lorule is physically crumbling and reverting to this state of formlessness, and monsters/demons run rampant across the surface. It is only after the restoration of Lorule's Triforce that their world can continue to exist and this process can be stopped. It's one of the reasons why ALBW is such an important game for the lore of series, since it clearly depicts why the Triforce is necessary and how it should not be destroyed. Zelda lore is a favourite little nerd hobby of mine, since I love the series so much. I'm happy to answer more questions around the lore of the series if anyone is interested!
Wow thats really interesting, I was wondering why they would leave the Triforce, and Omnipotent relic in the hands of people, but iyou explained it well, thanks!
I really like how you position your comment with enough context to be able to choose to "Read more" or not. In this case, I didn't read more, but I thumbs up your comment and am writing to say THANK YOU!
Very good video 👍 I'll say this about BotW's timeline placement though. If I understand correctly, it's not the the timelines eventually converge. Rather, the game is so far in the future that SOME version of each game eventually happened. At some point Link could've actually lost; at some point Hyrule could've flooded; at some point, the Twili invade. Those events don't actually have to have taken place in the correct order or in the same way that we've seen. I think this opens a few doors. Now they can, if they choose, basically only continue the timeline from botw, reducing confusion. OR they can just have a few games that are tied together ( like WW,PH, AND ST are) without worrying too much about how those games fit in with the rest of the timeline. This is due to the apparently cyclical nature of the time line
I’ve binged a billion Zelda lore vids after playing botw, and this was the most comprehensive summary and contextualised a lot of things that are usually assumed knowledge.
Great video man. Short and simple. I’m not even a newcomer at all to the series and this video even cleared things up to me lol. The lore gets convoluted and this video was like a quick refresher.
The best way to think of the Zelda timeline as a new fan is to imagine a world history book that’s missing most of it’s pages. We know earlier events happened and are distantly connected to latter events, but we’re not sure what happened in between or how far apart in time they are. In essence each Zelda game is so far apart in time that they are merely legends to each other.
A note on your pronunciation of Farore: it's probably still wrong, according to the Japanese. In Japan she's called "Furoru," which theoretically could be transliterated as Farore ("Fuh-roar"). There is no way to end words on a consonant in Japanese (except for -n), so foreign words that end on consonants are replaced with the nearest sound available in the Japanese language. In this case, that's "-ru." A very similar case: "biiru" is the Japanese version of "beer." So much of the time, you can assume that "-ru" at the end of a word is meant to stand in for the final "-r" in Western languages. Tbh though, whoever originally translated it did make it ambiguous, because Fa-ro-re looks like it could be directly transliterated from the Japanese, but it's not. But it's also a difficult thing to translate because of the R sounds, which could be equivalent to R or L in English. And F sounds in Japanese can sometimes be translated as an H sound. Equally reasonable transliterations would be "Flor," or "Fror" or even "Hulor," etc.
As someone who has never played any zelda besides botw, but knows the name of the older games, I could've sworn you would say "a link to the past" in 7:53, it just made so much sense 🤣🤣
You are really missing these are some of the greatest action adventure games of all time. I think you should try playing the other five 3D Zeldas starting with Ocarina Of Time followed by Majora's Mask,Wind Waker, Twilight Princess,and then Skyward Sword. The top down games are good to they are usually more challenging puzzle wise then the 3D games.
@@Ghost-ul8eu More challenging in general I’d say. The combat is always more difficult for me because it feels clunky top down, and even just exploring the map and figuring out where you’re supposed to go next is way less intuitive then in 3D
I've always been interested in the lore of the Zelda games ever since BotW and was always confused about the timeline stuff. This video finally helped me better understand how the separate timelines work. Great vid
Hey Ratatoskr, there is a logical way to explain the downfall timeline, if you disregard the official explanation. The game (OoT) centers around the mechanic of transporting link back and forth seven years through time by pulling out and putting back the master sword. However (and you said this yourself) at the end of the game, adult zelda uses the ocarina to transport link back through time to a point before link pulls the sword for the first time - thus "abandoning" both the original timeline where link grew up (creating the downfall timeline) as well as the adult timeline, setting up the backstory to windwaker. Zeldas intervention created the new child timeline and caused both of the other ones to be abandoned. In one, ganondorf is defeated, in the other, ganondorf is unopposed as link never returned. Side note: i think this explains why ganondorf has his triforce piece in twilight princess, even though he never accuired it from the sacred realm. Link had it in his adult form when zelda sent him back through time at the end of oot, i think he retained his piece thus splitting up the triforce again. Side note 2: there are actually depictions of both rito and zora (among other races) on some mural in twilight princess. Kinda confirming the existence of rito even though no great flood occured in tp. Also my head canon regarding koroks is that they assumed the kokiri form in oot, possibly when oot link arrived there as a baby. Both kokiri and koroks have the role as "children of the forest" and tightly connected to the deku tree, so it makes sense to me.
I can't for the life of me find it now but from what I recall a lot of those twilight princess murals were altered in the hd remake and it's questionable how much those reflect the intent of the original version of the game.
@@driptopher7222 the artist who drew that mural basically just took a texture from the original game that was extremely hard to interpret and added something from his own imagination. He himself admitted that it wasnt hinting at anything lore wise in the series, it was just based on his own personal idea for a Zelda story. Edit: Zeltik has a video on the subject, titled "Twilight Princess's Strangest Mystery Solved?"
N…no. Zelda games are heavily story driven games. If you dont play zelda hames for the story then youre not playing zelda games. Breath of the wild is different, but not only does that make you seem like, excuse my slurs here, a *fake fan*, but also shows that youve only played breath of the wild, which is a game known for trying to be different from all other zelda games. Sorry if i come across as argumentative, but eh. Im not going to change this opinion, by the way. Very stubborn about it, im not going to lie 😅
@@OlExtraRegularBass the first five zelda games dont have nearly as in depth lore as the later ones, and theyre classics when it comes to gameplay. I understand that,, yes.
@@zenith7128 Theres a difference between lore and plot. Each game has its own self contained narative that usually fits in to the larger timeline, but the former (plot) always takes priorty, along with the gameplay and the other overarching themes of the series (adventure, discovey, heroism, silliness, etc.).
Great stuff! This could easily have taken hours to explain without even trying to drag it out, but you kept it concise and focused on the big picture - for anyone interested this should be great Primer as you called it. Also the Farore pronounciation bit had me seriously cracking up :D
Pointed out to me by a friend: Ganondorf appears in A Link To The Past as a thief who stumbles across the Triforce in the Golden Land and transformed into the pig form Ganon.
Great video. One thing that I think will also be important to know in Tears of the Kingdom is the lore of the Master Sword. The Master Sword is Link’s iconic blade with a purple hilt that almost all games have him use. The Goddess Hylia created it for the first Link, and it is (usually) the only weapon capable of killing Ganon. It’s also called the sword that seals the darkness. The Master Sword is more than a weapon though, it’s kind of a sentient person in a way. The Goddess created a companion to the hero called Fi, who IS the Master Sword. Breath of the Wild was the only game to mention her existence besides Skyward Sword, and they were very vague about it. I suspect Fi will become more important in Tears of the Kingdom. Finally, at the end of Skyward Sword, Link defeats Demise, and he is actually sucked into the Master Sword. Meaning there are actually two entities in the Master Sword itself, Fi and Demise. I don’t know if these things will matter for Tears of the Kingdom but I think they probably will.
Very good video, but a bit wrong on some points : 5:19 Small precision : There actually are 3 Ganondorfs. The OoT one, that appears a lot of time, the FSA one, that has a different backstory and only appears there, and the ToTK one, whose design is so different from the others that he probably is someone else. Especially since the OoT Ganon dies, in all timelines ( in Twilight Princess, WindWaker and Zelda I ( as Ganon ), with a resurrection attempt thwarted in Zelda II ) 8:12 The implication here is, I think, not that if Ganon has it in one TL, he has it in all of them, but that there was a problem with Link going back in time while having the Triforce of Courage. We see, just before, when he speaks with Zelda as a child, that he has it. But at this point, the Triforce shouldn't be split. This means that when he came back, the Triforce immediately split itself, the pieces going to Ganondorf, Link and Zelda. In the adult timeline, this problem of a Triforce leaving to never return was solved by it shattering but not following Link. 9:13 another small precision, but it's not Ganondorf that wins, it's Ganon. Otherwise, we would be fighting the human, not the pig, in the defeat TL
i think for your point at 5:19 there’s an argument to be made for the ganondorf we see in TOTK to be the one in Twilight Princess. We see him die in Twilight Princess, yes, with a sword through his chest and zant snapping his neck. However, the castle in both games is incredibly similar in its design, and the mummified ganondorf we see in TOTK looks to have the same wounds that were present in Twilight Princess (the hand’s grabbing point seems to be where the malice is coming from, namely his chest). if calamity ganon is a manifestation of pure hatred, having it emanate from the corpse of TP ganondorf is very fitting i think.
Four swords is ganon not dorf. It would be more accurate to say that they summon a manifestation of ganon. And do we even have confirmation that the mummy in totk is dorf yet?
@@eliar6122 Demise is sealed into the sword and Fi sleeps in the sword. Demise's hatred is reincarnated to follow the hero and the goddess. Actually deally with the origin of the curse of hatred would be a good way to bring the timeline full circle.
@@devastatheseeker9967 Demise is permanently defeated via a Triforce wish in Skyward Sword. The seal of the Master Sword happens in the PAST, and is the very seal Link fights to maintain throughout the whole game. It is why Link gets nightmares of the Imprisoned at the start and why the seal reacts only to him throughout the game. The Triforce obliterated Demise fully in the present, and thus, he could only return born anew as Ganon.
Not having played Wind Waker or Twilight Princess yet, the claim that it's always the same Ganondorf had puzzled me. Your explanation cleared that confusion up nicely!
This was a great explanation of the zelda lore at large. The only thing I would mention is that the Links in the adult timeline (the one with wind waker) are actually not reincarnations at all. This would explain why Ganondorf is able to randomly have the triforce of power in twilight princess, but Link has to hunt down the pieces of the triforce of courage in wind waker. At the end of ocarina of time, zelda sends Link back to the past, leaving the adult timeline without a Link to be reincarnated entirely. As a side note, I do want to mention that I feel like BotW is so far removed from the other games that I really don't feel like you need to know anything about the other games besides BotW for tears of the kingdom. It makes sense for Nintendo from a business perspective since they aren't alienating new fans behind required knowledge of the previous games (especially since they want to make access to them so damn inconvenient). At best, you'll get some references, but you should be able to follow the story of the game without any prior knowledge.
9:12 Why does it offend you?? The third timeline is such a cool concept, usually in Nintendo games the good guy always wins so I think it's a really interesting twist on a usually stagnant formula
Great job!! ole buddy. This had me interested all the way thru. That’s quite impressive, considering all of the previous Zelda content I’ve watched and played LOZ since ‘87. Damn I’m old.
I thought this wouldn't be that useful for me to watch since I've played and beaten damn near every single Zelda game multiple times but nope. I learned a lot, or rather, _Remembered_ a lot of stuff I had forgotten. Thanks for this. It's a nice more bite-sized informative Zelda lore/recurring themes breakdown. I'd recommend this one over a lot of the other more long winded tedious Zelda lore vids I've seen on TH-cam, which is a lot, in fact way too many even.
Regarding the third timeline. One thing I hope you mention in the next video is how it's basically borne out of a big continuity error. A Link to the Past was created as a prequel to the original Legend of Zelda that shows the origins of Ganon. But in that game, the actual origin of Ganon is relegated to the game's backstory. Ocarina of Time was created as a prequel to A Link to the Past that actually shows the origins of Ganon. It shows the events that ALttP describes as "The Imprisoning War". Of course, the events of Ocarina are not 100% faithful to those described in ALttP, but that's not the big continuity error. The continuity error is that afterwards, Ocarina of Time got sequels of its own, and those sequels outright contradicted ALttP. Majora's Mask is one such sequel but that one doesn't really conflict, it's a self-contained story. But later on we get Wind Waker on the adult timeline and Twilight Princess on the child timeline, and the events of those two games are completely inconsistent with those of Ocarina (notably, Ganondorf permanently dies in human form in both games, unlike in the downfall timeline where he becomes this evil piglike force of nature). So that's why the downfall timeline has to exist. Ocarina was a prequel to ALttP, but t then it got two sequels that conflict with it. My headcanon is that the downfall timeline is one of the timelines that Link abandoned in Ocarina when he returned to being a child.
That's mostly true, although Wind Waker nor Twilight Princess contradict Ocarina of Time. Nothing ever states that Ganondorf can't die in human form. However, there was already a contradiction to A Link to the Past after Ocarina of Time came out. At the end of the game, he's sealed away in the Dark World with only the Triforce of Power piece. Whereas, he has the entire Triforce with him sealed in the Dark World in A Link to the Past. So there was already a contention there that needed explaining before all the sequels Ocarina of Time got which made it a lot more complex. The 3rd split allowed for all the games to coexist without the continuity errors.
The "downfall" timeline is so goofy. You can see how the other two timelines fall out of OoT because of the time travel shenanigans and what happens at the end. But the third timeline has nothing to do with time travel and has a completely separate explanation. It's a counterfactual. ALttP and its respective "timeline" are relegated to a "what if" scenario.
@@WindMageMaster The reason I put so much stock on Ganondorf dying in human form is that when that happens, both in Twilight Princess and Wind Waker, he actually does stay dead. Games after Wind Waker feature completely different villains, and while technically there is a Ganondorf in Four Swords Adventures and Nintendo placed that one after Twilight Princess (for what I would argue are thematic reasons), that Ganondorf is actually a different guy with a different backstory. The point here is that Ganon, the Gerudo man who obtained a piece of the triforce and became a pig, is not actually this recurring, eternal force of nature in most of the timelines. That is only the case in the downfall timeline
@@NotaWalrus1 He stays dead after Wind Waker because Hyrule itself is gone along with the Triforce. The cycle/curse may be continued with Malladus or other demon kings in the new land, but Ganon has always been bound to Hyrule and the Triforce, hence it makes sense he stays dead. For Twilight Princess, he doesn’t stay dead, because while Four Swords Adventures Ganondorf is a new man, he’s stated to have the spirit and malice of the one who was defeated. He also dies in A Link to the Past and needs to be brought back from the dead in the Oracles, so him dying in Twilight Princess is no different. And it *might* be possible the Ganon corpse we see in TotK is the body of Twilight Princess Ganondorf, meaning, his original body would not be staying dead either. Perhaps Four Swords Ganon was the first and ‘early calamity’, with each time it returns, the calamity grows larger and more powerful to the point of BotW’s, as it seems to be Ganon’s spirit/malice. So, basically, he’s definitely not at all gone in the CT.
@@WindMageMaster That's fair enough, but I have one counterargument based entirely on feelings. It's Urbosa's dialogue in Breath of the Wild, where she explains that Calamity Ganon was once a Gerudo man. Now, I'll grant, this is completely consistent with Ganondorf II from FSA. That guy is also a Gerudo Man. However, I refuse to believe that Calamity Ganon, the endless, cyclical, malignant force of nature, is some random Gerudo man who found a magic trident in a pyramid, instead of the mythical figure of returning hatred who obtained the full triforce, created the Dark Realm, and that we fight over and over in the Downfall timeline. I refuse to believe Calamity Ganon is the two bit villain from a co-op only spinoff, or worse, some third Ganon from somewhere down the line.
"My channel has a big history with the Monster Hunter and Elden Ring fanbases, and there are lot of those people who have followed me into Zelda content, even though their experience with Zelda games is minimal." - Hey that's me! Thanks, I've been looking for a video like this.
If you want to get into the details of the Zelda timeline, Polygon has an old video going into that that is very good and also reveals how seriously it should be taken.
To throw even more fuel on the Wind Waker references, Lurelin Village has a strikingly similar layout to Outset Island, although the geography makes little sense.
I always imagined the convergent timeline explanation for botw not exactly being that they all "fused" somehow, but that it’s so far into the future that the events of the two alternate timelines eventually happened in all 3 like an example would be if after TP the next reincarnation of link lost to ganondorf, then the exact events of the fallen timeline happen, and then after for whatever reason an incarnation of link fails to appear for ganondorfs next return and the events of the child timeline happen, then way later botw takes place
aw yeah, a video catching me up on the thing i have already been obsessing over since i was little. it's gamer time. edit: i've always had my own headcanon for BotW's timeline placement, and an explanation for the timeline convergence. it would be that in the context of BotW, all the other games are stories (ie folklore, literal legends) with events based on reality, all of which have been gradually altered as they are passed down through generations. maybe some schools of belief disagreed on what the real history of the world was, and so we end up with splitting timelines, only for it all to have been true in some way, just maybe not exactly the way it's told to us. maybe some of the entries are retellings of the same events, but with details altered by that age's events, or some stories are mixing up different events and explaining them in some way, which would give way for things like the Oracle games. i dunno, i think the idea of these stories all being literally legends - honoring their title - could be a cool concept, that plays into their mentality of not restricting themselves into one timeline.
i personally kindof like that there are multiple timelines, i just dont necessarily care about rigidly sticking to them or focusing on the details of them, i like that zelda games can reimagine their whole setting and if timelines are how people conceptualize that then thats great, whether or not they actually consider them when creating a zelda game. now just to go through the mario timelines.
I saw a video that made the argument that the fallen timeline actually splits not from Ocarina of Time but from the Minish Cap which is the only Zelda game I know of that has an alternate ending if you don't save Zelda quick enough in the final dungeon. The split from the Minish Cap leads to the Fallen Timeline where Vatii was sealed rather than destroyed. Honestly it's the version of the Zelda Timeline that makes the most sense
One mistake here: Zelda DOES reincarnate as well. The idea that she doesn't is a misconception born out of the English localization toning down the reincarnation references across the board, plus people reading Demise's curse a bit too literally. To be more specific, Zelda's reincarnation is based on the old Japanese believe of the "Arahitogami", or "incarnation of a deity", in which it was believed that the Emperor of Japan was a reincarnation of the Goddess Amaterasu (or "extension in time", as it was sometimes called) as well as the Emperors that came before him. Zelda is basically following that idea, hence why she's always reincarnated inside the Royal Family, as opposed to Link, who can reincarnate both inside and outside of his own bloodline (which is the "standard" reincarnation in Japanese mythology). Of course, neither Link nor Zelda keep their memories from one lifetime to the next, so their personalities get essentially rebooted everytime they are born.
5:59 as a side note, Zelda games take on a lot of Christian mythos for plot with the language rooting from this mythos being Latin. This is why we get the name “Fi” for the Master Sword, also known as the Latin word for “Faithful/Loyal”. You’re correctly pronunciating “Farore” in Latin.
I was unaware that there was debate about the pronounciation of Farore. I always said "fair-roar" as a kid. I got a good laugh at the hard stace taken here. The argument makes sense, I am now on team "fair-roar-ayy".
I remember being SOOO obsessed with the Zelda lore as a teenager, until I started to realize how Nintendo doesn’t give a shit how it all fits together. Now I got the Soulsborne games to scratch that itch. But I do wish Nintendo would put some effort in keeping the Zelda lore consistent, Kuz it is still very cool.
Yeah, I prefer to think of the downfall 'timeline' more as an alternate universe as opposed to an actual timeline. Like a 'what if' situation more than anything. The only way it could make sense as a separate timeline is if time travel was somehow involved in Link's defeat. I.E someone from the Adult timeline traveled back in time and helped to ensure Link lost. But that would be far too contrived and just plain silly.
My top 10 all time: 🛡️⚔️ #10 A Link To The Past #9 Link’s Awakening #8 Twilight Princess #7 Minish Cap #6 A Link Between Worlds #5 Tears of the Kingdom #4 Breath of the Wild #3 Majora’s Mask #2 Wind Waker #1 Ocarina of Time
I just wanted to pop in to at least justify the downfall timeline. When Ocarina of Time first came out, Miyamoto said it was the earliest game in the timeline, taking place before A Link to the Past. The connection between the two games wasn't entirely solid, but maybe a future game would fix the inconsistencies. By the time Majora's Mask and Wind Waker (and later, Twilight Princess) were released and solidified the existence of a split timeline though, it was pretty clear that ALttP just didn't really have a way to fit into the timeline as an OoT sequel anymore. Hence, the creation of the downfall timeline. Now, Ganon has the full triforce, he's sealed in the Sacred Realm, and everything lines up with the beginning of ALttP. There's a fun fan theory going around that the downfall timeline is the original timeline, and when Link wishes on the Triforce at the end of ALttP, the triforce undoes all of the damage Ganon has done, including giving the Hero of Time a second chance to defeat Ganon and achieve the good ending we see in OoT. I'm trying to keep this comment short so I might not be explaining it too well, but I think it does a good job of explaining the existence of the downfall timeline without any major leaps in logic.
the downfall timeline only sounds worse than it is. in alttp, ganons backstory was that he was a king of thieves who stole the triforce, and had to be sealed away with it in the sacred realm by the sages. there was no link involved. in oot, however, ganondorf broke into the sacred realm to steal the triforce just like he did before alttp, but this time it split into 3 and he needed to fight link for the rest of it. the only way for this to lead to alttp is if link loses and ganondorf gains the full triforce, with him being sealed in the sacred realm being the next step. the problem is that oot was meant to be a prequel to alttp, but it instead acted as a soft reboot, changing ganondorfs backstory. the only way for the "classic" zelda games to remain canon and fit within the timeline is that alternate ending to oot. and no, it cant be after four swords adventures either because thats a new ganondorf (the only time he reincarnated) who turned into ganon through the tridents power, whereas alttp ganon took that form as a side effect of his influence changing the sacred realm into the dark world.
Precisely this. I feel that people who attempt to disregard the 3rd split cause they just don't want an alternate version of the ending, then try to place that line of games COMPLETELY disregarding what the actual backstory of Alttp is. To each their own... it's not like the devs place much priority on the timeline, as it's usually more of an afterthought. But I remember the days where, when we didn't have an official timeline, the hardcore theorists were saying then too, that there needed to be a 3rd split for those line of games to work because otherwise, there's too many contradictions attempting to wedge them into the CT or AT.
@@WindMageMaster i think before 2011 they were at least thinking about the timeline a little bit since all the games were either sequels or prequels with a few odd ones like the four swords trilogy. The split timeline was even confirmed in interviews back when wind waker came out.
8:02 I think that's not the case, and that the Triforce cares about the timeline. When Link was sent back in time at the end of OOT, he already had the Triforce of Courage, and the Triforce "detected" that someone had a piece and split in the same manner it did when Ganondorf himself acquired a piece in OOT.
Great video!! My only critique would be showing the hero of wind when talking about the reincarnation of Link. Isn't the hero of wind the only one that isn't a reincarnation and isn't born with the spirit of hero since he's not the hero of time?
I’m actually marathoning all the other Zelda’s (not Four swords.) before Tears of the kingdom comes out. It’s a daunting task. I’m at Phantom Hourglass now.
Just additional evidence for the convergence timeline theory. When zelda references skyward sword, ocarina of time and twilight princess, the rest of the what she said was cut off. In the Japanese cutscene she says "Umi o koe, kami no tsukurishi ōgon o motomen toki……" which translates to “Over the seas of time and distance, when we need the golden power of the Goddess…” . This clearly references windwaker.
This is a good video, however there's one point that I strongly disagree on. "Spirit of the hero" should *not* be interpreted as Link reincarnating. Link does *not* reincarnate. There are two main pieces of evidence of this. 1. Twilight Princess - In Twilight Princess, the player, playing as the Hero of Twilight (Twilight Princess' Link), meets a character known as the Hero's Shade, which is pretty much outright stated to be the Hero of Time (Ocarina of Time's Link). The Hero's Shade is dead, but he is clearly still a soul. His soul and the Hero of Twilight's soul are not the same. They are two distinct people with distinct souls that exist independently of each other. 2. Wind Waker (well, really the entire adult timeline) - Wind Waker takes place after the Hero of Time leaves the timeline. He doesn't die. His soul is not in the timeline. He has left that reality as though it never existed. And yet, the spirit of the hero reemerges in the Hero of Winds (Wind Waker link). Despite the soul of the previous hero completely disappearing from existence, the spirit of the hero continues. I interpret the spirit of the hero to be more about the concept of heroism. Someone with immense courage, a great belief in doing good, that sort of thing. Someone worthy of the triforce of courage. It's not literally the same soul, but rather a common metaphorical spirit.
I think a breath of the wild prequel in witch they combine all 3 timelines back into one would be fun. Link could travel between all 3 timelines and see 3 versions of hyrule much like link would travel back and forth between states in OOT and oracle of ages or oracle of seasons, or even a link to the past. at the end of the game it would merge all timelines back into one keeping elements of each and creating the wold that breath of the wild takes place in. we might even see elements of the shika technology being formed farther laying the groundwork for breath of the wild.
*puts on tinfoil hat* Obviously the timelines were crossed in the events of Hyrule warriors: definitive edition and BOTW and TOTK take place on that timeline, which is why they have elements of the others. Not to be confused with the age of calamity timeline created 100 years before botw, that one's actually pretty peaceful and we don't have content for it.
I just hope TotK breaks the whole timeline shenanigan completely. It was intriguing right up to the point where you realize it could never stand up to scrutiny. Zelda didn't need it before and it doesn't need it now. Things repeat in Zelda because they are motifs. You can iterate on a few core principles until the sun blows up. Video games are especially useful for exploring repeating motivic ideas because the game part of video games doesn't suffer from the kind of semantic satiation that narrative elements suffer from. As an aside, if you're relatively new to the series and digging into Zelda, play Tunic. Man it's good.
Or, you know, the dev team keeps making sequels of the original LoZ and reuses the characters so that they can sustain sales and business with franchise familiarity ;) and then just sort of artificially apply lore later to make up for it
I've seen people say the timeline doesn't make sense because rito and zora shouldn't exist together but that isn't how evolution works. Have you seen the difference in design between the zora in botw and the other games as well as the rito? They may as well be different species from game to game.
What does it mean to say that Demise conquered time itself? Whatever it is, it seems to imply he has power over Hylia, the Goddess of Time. And why she's always struggling because he seems to be more powerful than her. That's why she's always using all sorts of plans to try to stop him but she is never fully successful.
I’d like a Zelda game that ends with Link and Zelda sacrificing themselves to break their curse-bond to demise. But I imagine family show Nintendo won’t go for that
HEAVY SPOILERS about the timelines - - - - - I agree that the "The Hero is defeated" timeline divergence doesn't really make sense. The divergence of the adult and child timelines make sense due to timetravel in Ocarina of Time. It is the one Link's continuum that determines the timeline divergence. But if Link would have been defeated, then there would have been no timeline split. It would have been a straightforward continuum from the past to the future where child Link becomes adult Link and the is defeated. Then the "hero is defeated" timeline would have been the only timeline. In fact there should be as many "hero is defeated" timeline splits as the players have died in every Zelda game! Unless _maaaybe_ there could have been some time travel shenanigans such as Link's spirit being sent back to his child body at the moment Ganon would have struck the killing blow... Then there could be that timeline where Link travels from past to future and dies, Ganon gains the whole Triforce but is sealed within the sacred realm, and then the two other where Link wins in the future and then is sent back to the past to stop Ganondorf there as well. The two timelines are created when Zelda sends Link back to his childhood. This leaves the Ganondorf ravaged future world without a Link and perhaps without a Master Sword. In the intro of Wind Waker Ganondorf is told to have escaped from being sealed away after Ocarina of Time. Because there is no Link, the gods are forced to seal Ganondorf by flooding the world. A new Master Sword is created to replace the one that traveled back to the past (this is just a theory, not explicit canon, but a comment by Ganondorf hints at it not being the same, and you do "reforge" the sword in a similar fashion to Skyward Sword). The spirit of the hero somehow returns later on, or it's a completely new guy who has to take on the role of the hero (this is never explained). In fact if the original spirit of the hero is missing from this timeline, then maybe that would be enough to break Demise's curse? This new Link would be free from the curse and this is why he is successfull in killing Ganondorf once and for all at the end of Wind Waker, and this is the reason why Ganondorf is not seen for the rest of this timeline. The child timeline is quite self-explanatory. The original spirit of the hero and the original Master Sword is present in this timeline. Link warns Zelda about Ganondorf and they manage to convince the king about him, and then Ganondorf is executed. But his execution fails due to him still gaining the Triforce of Power (possibly because the door to the sacred realm was opened in some way due to time travel). Then he is instead sealed into the Twilight Realm. Later on Twilight Princess happens. Then there's the time travel in Skyward Sword! There is a future timeline where Demise is defeated once and for all, because Link gains the whole Triforce and makes a wish for Demis to be defeated. But because Ghirahim manages to travel to the past where Demise yet lives, he is able to create a new timeline. Demise breaks free in the past and Link has to defeat him. In this past Demise is defeated but he manages to place the curse on Link and Zelda that an incarnation of his hatred would find them throughout the ages. Link and Zelda travel back to the future but they carry the curse with them. This technically leaves the past where Demise is defeated by Link in combat as a separate timeline. This timeline is never revisited in any game. That timeline would technically contain no Demise and no curse.
Don't really want to write up a whole essay here on why I don't believe in the timeline convergence theory, but suffice it to say that a lot of the evidence for it is circumstancial. For example, the rock salt item COULD be referencing the Great Sea, but it isn't NECESSARILY. Parts of Hyrule have been covered by ocean at other times as well (e.g. the Sand Sea in Skyward Sword used to be a normal sea). Zelda using the word "twilight" in her sword-blessing ceremony COULD mean that Twilight Princess occured in Breath of the Wild's history, but it could be the developers winking at the player. The Zelda team often include little winks and nods to other games that aren't meant to be timeline evidence (e.g. Majora's Mask appearing in Link Between Worlds). (And FWIW, I've read online that the Japanese word used in the ceremony is the same word used for the Dark World in Link to the Past, NOT the Twilight Realm in Twilight Princess, but I can't read Japanese so I can't confirm that.) There's very little (I'd argue nothing) in the game that REQUIRES timeline convergence.
Right. I personally believe in the destiny convergence theory. All timelines technically converge but not literally. So, in reality, three BOTW exist. 3 timelines that have ultimately become identical
I think it’s very clearly just at the end of the childhood timeline. People attempt to use the ‘Ruto was recorded in history as a sage’ thing to debunk it, yet they forget the Royal Family still recorded the adventure of the Hero of Time as fact when he told them everything upon returning, which is stated at the very start of Majora’s Mask. Therefore, any reference to the events of Ocarina of Time as legend can still occur in the childhood timeline. Fits perfectly there, whereas, I see people having to jump through a lot of hoops and bend over backwards trying to place it at the end of the adult or downfall lines.
@@Enraric To start with basics, Downfall Hyrule is very different than BotW Hyrule. BotW Hyrule falls much more in line with TP and OoT Hyrule and even FSA Hyrule (only other title with peaceful Gerudo for example). To have all these races, general locations, etc, literally run into the ground largely non-existent, if not possibly outright extinct by Zelda II… to then suddenly be very much back to how they specifically use to be from long ago doesn’t make sense. The knowledge of the Triforce in BotW is treated exactly the same as all other games specifically only in the CT. Where it seems to be largely unknown (at the moment) and treated merely as a symbol for power. In the DT, it’s always focused on as a central physical item the land is desperately relying upon. I don’t wanna go through a checklist here, but look at it this way. To make BotW fit at the end of the DT, you have to jump through hoops reviving long gone races, long gone locations, have the role of the Triforce change, have the land- which became a split up kingdom- return to how it was before the DT, have a new Ganondorf in a newly revived Gerudo tribe, etc, etc. Whereas, for the CT, it’s literally already set up to play out.
Wait! @Ratatoskr, I temporarily retract my agreement with you about the pronunciation of Farore. What about Gundam? The Japanese made Gundam and pronounce it "gun-da-mu", yet we in the West spell it and say it, "gun-dum". Are we just wrong, or does translation get a little leeway? Edit: yeah, we spell it "Gundam", you meant what I know.
They really should add WW and TP to Switch as then every major Zelda game would be playable on Switch for younger people who werent alive when the og versions released.
- what is the difference/relationship between the Three Goddesses, and Hylia? (it’s “Fair-ROAR-rey”) - are villains like Vaati or Majora also possibly incarnations of Demise, or only Ganondorf? - why do other games in which the hero is defeated also create their own timeline? edit: I’d also accept “fair-ROAR-ruh.”
- The Three Goddesses created the world. They then enlisted Hylia to stay behind to protect the Triforce and lead the world. - Any villain titled ‘Demon King’. So Ganondorf and possibly Malladus. There are other evil beings, but not all of them are incarnations. One could argue they became villains due to Demise, because Demise is the root of all evil, but they aren’t all necessarily Demise himself. -A Link to the Past’s backstory directly ties into Ocarina of Time. It’s doubtful they’d create other splits. It’s just that OoT has 3 different direct sequels.
@@WindMageMaster - so who all existed before the Three Gs created Hyrule? Din, Farore, Nayru, Hylia, and Demise? and did they created the whole world, or just Hyrule? I realize some of the other kingdoms visited in various _Zelda_ games are parallel dimensions and such, but not all…
@@Sam_T2000 The three golden goddesses are stated to have existed beforehand. Nothing ever confirmed about Hylia and Demise, but it seems likely too. They don't get into the nitty gritty stuff about before the world existed, as it's not super necessary. As for realms outside of the world of Hyrule, also not entirely known, however, it's interesting to note that Hyrule Historia specifically points out that in the World of the Ocean King (in Phantom Hourglass) you can see the Triforce symbol around that world, and the historia states that this may indicate the goddesses created that realm also. In extension to that... this is just my own personal theory, so there's not much to back this, but it's possible the World of the Ocean King is a flooded Termina (from Majora's Mask). Kind of a leap, but the 4 realms in PH somewhat match up to the 4 realms of MM. Also a few other similarities. That's just my own take though.
Also on Farore, if the Japanese people use Western style terminology, I would prefer using the Western styling. What you're saying is basically - If the Japananese created a character named spaghetti, how should we pronounce it? The Japanese pronounce spaghetti in 4 syllables seu-pa-geh-tti. Should we call it that too?
Your comment on Farore's name got me going down a little bit of a rabbit hole. Farore's name does have 3 moras in Japanese, but it's Furoru. If you looked at that name as a katakana representation of a foreign name, it could just as easily be from a word that's pronounced Furor as it it could be from one pronounced Furoru (similar to how Link is Rinku in Japanese or how Zelda is Zeruda). But given that the first syllable changed from Fu to Fa, unless it was a mistake that ended up sticking, I don't think it was meant to be pronounced the same way in both languages (even if the first syllable is meant to be pronounced with a schwa, like Fuh, I would expect that to be Faroru in Japanese, so I'm not seeing a way these are meant to be exactly the same). So my take away is that the name has a different pronunciation between Japanese and English, so I would think each pronunciation should be judged separately from the other language, but if there was any tie between them, it is that both the Japanese and English versions end in the way they would spell it if the final sound is r and the final vowel is silent, but also in a way that could be used if the final vowel was not silent. So either way is plausible unless there is an official pronunciation listed by Nintendo at some point. When I first saw it as a kid, I pronounced sort of like you did, but with emphasis on the ro (fuhROre), and then later shifted to either fuhROr or FAror depending on how recently I've heard someone online say it the latter way. Edit: Also wanted to point out that Furoru could be intended to sound like it comes Fror, which opens up an interesting can of worms since suddenly there seems to be maybe some relation to Norse gods, with Din coming from Odin and Fror resembling either Freyr or maybe a combination of Frigg and Thor. Nayru (Neeru in Japanese) could easily be similarly inspired by a few different Norse Gods, maybe Njord, Freyr, and/or Hel (keeping in mind that R=L in Japanese). And of course using L in Furoru gives a bunch more options, like Flor, Frol, Flol, Frolu, Flolu, Floru, Fulor, Fulol, Furol, Furolu, Fulolu, etc.
I am one of those ppl in your audience. Hated BOTW, gave up after 18 hours. I'm not on hour # 225 in TOTK. I did a deep dive of all the games and timelines since. What I've personally concluded is that Nintendo likes to use and re-use stories and concepts over and over again. Ie. Rauru being a light sage in the older games. In totk there is another Rauru who is a zonai, Godking of light basically. So, what TOTK is for me is the perfected version of previous games who's gameplay mechanics and stories never held my interest. This finalized re-imaging/amalgamation of re-use concepts have finally assembled into a much better iteration. All that is to say, I am not a fan of the Zelda franchise. But I am a huge fan of Tears of the Kingdom. As someone who prioritizes story and combat, this final mix does it for me unlike the previous games. The story was actually touching in TOTK, a welcome surprise.
Personally, the "Zelda Timeline" has never made any sense to me, so I view each game as a stand alone game like the Final Fantasy series. Really, it feels like a bunch of different writers were handed a premise, characters, locations and dungeons and were told to make a game out of it and some were popular enough to get a spin-off or sequel. I love these games, but I'm not gonna pretend that their connections make sense, haha.
I mean, the connection between Wind Waker and Ocarina of Time is extremely explicit, can't really pretend like they're not connected. Seeing how it's the same Ganondorf, talking about what happened in OoT, glass paintings of all the saged from OoT. The opening of WW talk about the Herp of Time, of which we only know of one. (OoT)
I'm more than happy to accept WW as a successor to OoT as it declares its connection to it and doesn't contradict, but it also leaves OoT behind to tell its own story. You don't need OoT's story to enjoy WW. And as a whole, the "Zelda Timeline" takes very liberal assumptions. I have a hard time accepting that there is a timeline where Link fails to defeat Ganon in OoT when the game doesn't even have an official ending like that, and I highly doubt the writers for LttP were aware of OoT's eventual release, yet LttP claims to be a result of Links failure in OoT. I just don't believe that. Both incredible games, but I don't consider them to be in the same world. Maybe someone can explain it to me in a way that makes sense, but as I see it, every game comes up with its own special worldly mechanic unknown to any other game, one game claims to be the first, another claims to be the last, timelines split, rules change, presumed history evolves in all these different directions. One game will say nothing of another yet appear between two in a series because that's where it makes the most sense to shoehorn it in. It feels like a loose excuse for the writers to make whatever they want. And I'm not complaining about that. I love each game, both gameplay and story, but just as an individual experience and not some grander plan that expertly weaves these very different stories together. (Edit: I wrote "it's" when I should have written "its". Turanga Leela would kill me 😂)
@@merleetomlin6218 Yeah, I myself don't really buy the "fallen timeline", there's obviously a child and adult timeline, splitting off with WW and TP, as they both explicitly talk about the two different ends to Ganondorf in OoT. (Sealed and arrested) But instead of admitting they only came up with the timelines after OoT they instead made this bs "fallen timeline" and threw all the older games in there.
@@halosaft The reason for the 3rd branch is that ALTTP is also a sequel to OoT. Or rather, OoT was made to be it’s prequel. Placing those games far ahead in the AT or CT doesn’t really work. In fact, before the Historia, I remember people pointing out there would need to be a 3rd split for the backstory of ALTTP to work at all. One branch being an alternate story works fine imo.
I always thought that the inconsistencies between the games were explained by taking the title literally. The Legend of Zelda games are telling just that, a legend. Part of the events that are depicted are accurate history lived by past Links and Zeldas. Others are mythology and folkore verbally transmitted through millenia. So they contain tales and errors. This last reboot could be the present in which all these legends are told. Actually, the game begins by telling us a “story of old”. The truth is probably that all these games were released within successive reboots of the same license adapted to the gameplay and general ambiance Nintendo wanted at the time. The timelines went after to appeal to the fans in the age of cinematic universes. I like mine better^^.
Having a mention of "steeped in Twilight" in no way means the world referencing it is the same timline as Twilight Princess. The Twilight realm exists in all three brances. Its just seen in only one.
But as far as a hero's ritual ceremony, only Twilight Princess would have been relevant unless something big happened in another timeline we aren't aware of.
As an avid Zelda fan, I do have to say that the community has always been sparced for quality content (ie: good audio, interesting theories, educated takes), with only a handful of individuals (like Zeltik) who really dish out great pieces of work. It’s difficult for sure, and it’s not everyday you see someone new on the Zelda theory/lore scene.
With that said, you did a great job explaining everything (tbh I feel that you did it better than most others), and without breaking the 15 minute mark. The Zelda community definitely needs more individuals who focus on the overarching narrative, rather than moment by moment plot that many of the novice tubers do
Great post. Only thing I would disagree with usually is I like longer TH-cam videos that get more in depth. Quick videos to me are usually less impressive. But since this was supposed to appeal to new people, it works.
He’s also good at injecting skepticism and caution into the theory crafting business. Some of the theories out there are wild and baseless; fan fiction basically
@@Ray-dl5mp Same thing for me.
I consider myself to be pretty well-versed in Zelda lore and I think this is a really good video explaining the mythos of the Zelda universe. I wish you'd expand a bit more on the properties of the Triforce since it is a pretty crucial object for understanding how the Zelda world operates, so I'll do it here if anyone is interested.
As stated in the video, the Triforce is a relic formed by the Golden Goddesses embodying the virtues of Power, Wisdom and Courage. It is a manifestation of their nigh-infinite divine essence/Force in physical form. When the Triforce assembles, it will grant any wish (whether that be 'good' or 'wicked') that the user desires. The stronger your will for the wish, the stronger the wish shall be fulfilled. If it is weak, then so shall the expression of that wish be weak.
Basically in mythos terms, when you touch the Triforce or have one of the pieces, you have access to the Golden Goddesses' divine power to conduct powerful magic or rewrite aspects of reality. Think of it essentially as tapping into the omnipotent powers of the Golden Goddesses and the Laws of the Creation. This is one of the reasons why the Triforce is so incredibly important in the Zelda universe, whoever has it can basically use its divine power to shape everything to their desire.
In order to wield the Triforce, one must temper their heart and soul in balance of the virtues of Power, Wisdom and Courage. This is an exceptionally difficult task to do, and the multiple games we do see it (Skyward Sword, A Link to the Past, A Link Between Worlds, Adventure of Link) the users usually go on entire quests overcoming challenges to hone their character and determination for this task. If an individual is not sufficiently balanced in these virtues, the Triforce rejects their wish and houses its pieces in the individuals who best embody each respective virtue presumably for protection. This is why Link is commonly identified with the Triforce of Courage, Zelda with the Triforce of Wisdom and Ganon the Triforce of Power. We see this in Ocarina of Time - Ganondorf lays his hands on the Triforce, wherein it split and gave him the Triforce of Power since he embodied that virtue most excellently. If the Triforce breaks apart, it may be reassembled by retrieving the pieces either forcefully or voluntarily from its holders. The important thing to note that if the Triforce breaks apart but then is reassembled, it will grant the wish regardless of an imbalance. We see this in Ocarina of Time for the Downfall Timeline, and arguably King Daphnes in Wind Waker (although this can be debated).
So we have established the laws and properties that govern the Triforce, and also why there can be so much conflict around it. The obvious question is - why? Why would the Golden Goddesses create a relic *so powerful* that the wrong person wielding it could doom the world, and there have been countless conflicts in Zelda mythos around its possession? Surely it would be better to NOT have it, so no-one can fight over it? Well, the Triforce isn't just a powerful wish-granting relic - it is the *basis* of the entire world's providence. When the Golden Goddesses descended upon the void where the Demon Tribe resided, the Triforce guaranteed the Creation of the Goddesses will persist through the constant omnipotence of the Golden Goddesses' powers. It is the ultimate expression of order in a void of chaos, and its destruction would allow this chaos to erode and eventually destroy all of their creation. Without its existence upholding the Laws of Creation, the world would revert to this previous state of being and existence as it would be known in the Zelda universe would cease.
We can see this in A Link Between Worlds (ALBW), where Lorule (a parallel world to Hyrule) used a wish to destroy their Triforce. In that game, Lorule is physically crumbling and reverting to this state of formlessness, and monsters/demons run rampant across the surface. It is only after the restoration of Lorule's Triforce that their world can continue to exist and this process can be stopped. It's one of the reasons why ALBW is such an important game for the lore of series, since it clearly depicts why the Triforce is necessary and how it should not be destroyed.
Zelda lore is a favourite little nerd hobby of mine, since I love the series so much. I'm happy to answer more questions around the lore of the series if anyone is interested!
Wow thats really interesting, I was wondering why they would leave the Triforce, and Omnipotent relic in the hands of people, but iyou explained it well, thanks!
Very well put. Thank you.
A very concise, yet detailed, factual, yet open for debate answer. You know your stuff dude!!
Bless you
I really like how you position your comment with enough context to be able to choose to "Read more" or not. In this case, I didn't read more, but I thumbs up your comment and am writing to say THANK YOU!
Very good video 👍
I'll say this about BotW's timeline placement though.
If I understand correctly, it's not the the timelines eventually converge. Rather, the game is so far in the future that SOME version of each game eventually happened. At some point Link could've actually lost; at some point Hyrule could've flooded; at some point, the Twili invade. Those events don't actually have to have taken place in the correct order or in the same way that we've seen.
I think this opens a few doors.
Now they can, if they choose, basically only continue the timeline from botw, reducing confusion.
OR they can just have a few games that are tied together ( like WW,PH, AND ST are) without worrying too much about how those games fit in with the rest of the timeline.
This is due to the apparently cyclical nature of the time line
I’ve binged a billion Zelda lore vids after playing botw, and this was the most comprehensive summary and contextualised a lot of things that are usually assumed knowledge.
Great video man. Short and simple. I’m not even a newcomer at all to the series and this video even cleared things up to me lol. The lore gets convoluted and this video was like a quick refresher.
The best way to think of the Zelda timeline as a new fan is to imagine a world history book that’s missing most of it’s pages. We know earlier events happened and are distantly connected to latter events, but we’re not sure what happened in between or how far apart in time they are. In essence each Zelda game is so far apart in time that they are merely legends to each other.
Interesting take but sonic and knuckles kissing is actually canon
Stop making sonic woke, sonic has always been inherently racist
@@officeimpact6377 oh no, the woke is comming to get you 👻
@@cekaofficial true, outstanding analysis
I can’t tell what’s more unhinged, the actual comment or the replies
I accidentally clicked on this video and this comment is what is making me finish it
Great stuff my man, I am not a massive Zelda fan but find myself clicking on your Zelda content immediately
Hi Smough! It would be so cool if you two did another Elden Ring lore podcast after the DLC comes out :)
A note on your pronunciation of Farore: it's probably still wrong, according to the Japanese. In Japan she's called "Furoru," which theoretically could be transliterated as Farore ("Fuh-roar"). There is no way to end words on a consonant in Japanese (except for -n), so foreign words that end on consonants are replaced with the nearest sound available in the Japanese language. In this case, that's "-ru." A very similar case: "biiru" is the Japanese version of "beer." So much of the time, you can assume that "-ru" at the end of a word is meant to stand in for the final "-r" in Western languages.
Tbh though, whoever originally translated it did make it ambiguous, because Fa-ro-re looks like it could be directly transliterated from the Japanese, but it's not. But it's also a difficult thing to translate because of the R sounds, which could be equivalent to R or L in English. And F sounds in Japanese can sometimes be translated as an H sound. Equally reasonable transliterations would be "Flor," or "Fror" or even "Hulor," etc.
As someone who has never played any zelda besides botw, but knows the name of the older games, I could've sworn you would say "a link to the past" in 7:53, it just made so much sense 🤣🤣
You are really missing these are some of the greatest action adventure games of all time. I think you should try playing the other five 3D Zeldas starting with Ocarina Of Time followed by Majora's Mask,Wind Waker, Twilight Princess,and then Skyward Sword.
The top down games are good to they are usually more challenging puzzle wise then the 3D games.
@@Ghost-ul8eu More challenging in general I’d say. The combat is always more difficult for me because it feels clunky top down, and even just exploring the map and figuring out where you’re supposed to go next is way less intuitive then in 3D
You have such a good channel dude, I love , I love your format and I've been watching since the good old monster hunter days.
I've always been interested in the lore of the Zelda games ever since BotW and was always confused about the timeline stuff. This video finally helped me better understand how the separate timelines work. Great vid
Thank you so much! This is a very useful video for someone like me
Hey Ratatoskr, there is a logical way to explain the downfall timeline, if you disregard the official explanation. The game (OoT) centers around the mechanic of transporting link back and forth seven years through time by pulling out and putting back the master sword. However (and you said this yourself) at the end of the game, adult zelda uses the ocarina to transport link back through time to a point before link pulls the sword for the first time - thus "abandoning" both the original timeline where link grew up (creating the downfall timeline) as well as the adult timeline, setting up the backstory to windwaker. Zeldas intervention created the new child timeline and caused both of the other ones to be abandoned. In one, ganondorf is defeated, in the other, ganondorf is unopposed as link never returned.
Side note: i think this explains why ganondorf has his triforce piece in twilight princess, even though he never accuired it from the sacred realm. Link had it in his adult form when zelda sent him back through time at the end of oot, i think he retained his piece thus splitting up the triforce again.
Side note 2: there are actually depictions of both rito and zora (among other races) on some mural in twilight princess. Kinda confirming the existence of rito even though no great flood occured in tp. Also my head canon regarding koroks is that they assumed the kokiri form in oot, possibly when oot link arrived there as a baby. Both kokiri and koroks have the role as "children of the forest" and tightly connected to the deku tree, so it makes sense to me.
I can't for the life of me find it now but from what I recall a lot of those twilight princess murals were altered in the hd remake and it's questionable how much those reflect the intent of the original version of the game.
@@driptopher7222 the artist who drew that mural basically just took a texture from the original game that was extremely hard to interpret and added something from his own imagination. He himself admitted that it wasnt hinting at anything lore wise in the series, it was just based on his own personal idea for a Zelda story.
Edit: Zeltik has a video on the subject, titled "Twilight Princess's Strangest Mystery Solved?"
I think that for most people (me included), the appeal of Zelda games was never in the lore, but in the sense of adventure and exploration.
N…no. Zelda games are heavily story driven games. If you dont play zelda hames for the story then youre not playing zelda games. Breath of the wild is different, but not only does that make you seem like, excuse my slurs here, a *fake fan*, but also shows that youve only played breath of the wild, which is a game known for trying to be different from all other zelda games.
Sorry if i come across as argumentative, but eh.
Im not going to change this opinion, by the way. Very stubborn about it, im not going to lie 😅
@@zenith7128I mean I've only ever played the first five of them and I don't give a damn about the lore. Nerd elf swing sword.
@@OlExtraRegularBass the first five zelda games dont have nearly as in depth lore as the later ones, and theyre classics when it comes to gameplay. I understand that,, yes.
And the music
@@zenith7128 Theres a difference between lore and plot. Each game has its own self contained narative that usually fits in to the larger timeline, but the former (plot) always takes priorty, along with the gameplay and the other overarching themes of the series (adventure, discovey, heroism, silliness, etc.).
U make the best videos man. Always makes my lunch more enjoyable.
As old as the series is you can really sum up decades of games into a 15 minute video, ah simplicity is bliss
Great stuff! This could easily have taken hours to explain without even trying to drag it out, but you kept it concise and focused on the big picture - for anyone interested this should be great Primer as you called it.
Also the Farore pronounciation bit had me seriously cracking up :D
Pointed out to me by a friend: Ganondorf appears in A Link To The Past as a thief who stumbles across the Triforce in the Golden Land and transformed into the pig form Ganon.
Great video. One thing that I think will also be important to know in Tears of the Kingdom is the lore of the Master Sword.
The Master Sword is Link’s iconic blade with a purple hilt that almost all games have him use. The Goddess Hylia created it for the first Link, and it is (usually) the only weapon capable of killing Ganon. It’s also called the sword that seals the darkness.
The Master Sword is more than a weapon though, it’s kind of a sentient person in a way. The Goddess created a companion to the hero called Fi, who IS the Master Sword. Breath of the Wild was the only game to mention her existence besides Skyward Sword, and they were very vague about it. I suspect Fi will become more important in Tears of the Kingdom.
Finally, at the end of Skyward Sword, Link defeats Demise, and he is actually sucked into the Master Sword. Meaning there are actually two entities in the Master Sword itself, Fi and Demise. I don’t know if these things will matter for Tears of the Kingdom but I think they probably will.
So basically what you're saying is every Legend of Zelda game features the "next Link in the endless chain"?
Very good video, but a bit wrong on some points :
5:19 Small precision : There actually are 3 Ganondorfs. The OoT one, that appears a lot of time, the FSA one, that has a different backstory and only appears there, and the ToTK one, whose design is so different from the others that he probably is someone else. Especially since the OoT Ganon dies, in all timelines ( in Twilight Princess, WindWaker and Zelda I ( as Ganon ), with a resurrection attempt thwarted in Zelda II )
8:12 The implication here is, I think, not that if Ganon has it in one TL, he has it in all of them, but that there was a problem with Link going back in time while having the Triforce of Courage. We see, just before, when he speaks with Zelda as a child, that he has it. But at this point, the Triforce shouldn't be split. This means that when he came back, the Triforce immediately split itself, the pieces going to Ganondorf, Link and Zelda. In the adult timeline, this problem of a Triforce leaving to never return was solved by it shattering but not following Link.
9:13 another small precision, but it's not Ganondorf that wins, it's Ganon. Otherwise, we would be fighting the human, not the pig, in the defeat TL
i think for your point at 5:19 there’s an argument to be made for the ganondorf we see in TOTK to be the one in Twilight Princess. We see him die in Twilight Princess, yes, with a sword through his chest and zant snapping his neck. However, the castle in both games is incredibly similar in its design, and the mummified ganondorf we see in TOTK looks to have the same wounds that were present in Twilight Princess (the hand’s grabbing point seems to be where the malice is coming from, namely his chest). if calamity ganon is a manifestation of pure hatred, having it emanate from the corpse of TP ganondorf is very fitting i think.
Four swords is ganon not dorf. It would be more accurate to say that they summon a manifestation of ganon. And do we even have confirmation that the mummy in totk is dorf yet?
@@eliar6122 It would be more fitting if the malice releases demise from the master sword and he needs to be defeated properly instead of just sealed
@@eliar6122 Demise is sealed into the sword and Fi sleeps in the sword. Demise's hatred is reincarnated to follow the hero and the goddess. Actually deally with the origin of the curse of hatred would be a good way to bring the timeline full circle.
@@devastatheseeker9967 Demise is permanently defeated via a Triforce wish in Skyward Sword. The seal of the Master Sword happens in the PAST, and is the very seal Link fights to maintain throughout the whole game. It is why Link gets nightmares of the Imprisoned at the start and why the seal reacts only to him throughout the game. The Triforce obliterated Demise fully in the present, and thus, he could only return born anew as Ganon.
Not having played Wind Waker or Twilight Princess yet, the claim that it's always the same Ganondorf had puzzled me. Your explanation cleared that confusion up nicely!
Simply delightful
This was a great explanation of the zelda lore at large. The only thing I would mention is that the Links in the adult timeline (the one with wind waker) are actually not reincarnations at all. This would explain why Ganondorf is able to randomly have the triforce of power in twilight princess, but Link has to hunt down the pieces of the triforce of courage in wind waker. At the end of ocarina of time, zelda sends Link back to the past, leaving the adult timeline without a Link to be reincarnated entirely.
As a side note, I do want to mention that I feel like BotW is so far removed from the other games that I really don't feel like you need to know anything about the other games besides BotW for tears of the kingdom. It makes sense for Nintendo from a business perspective since they aren't alienating new fans behind required knowledge of the previous games (especially since they want to make access to them so damn inconvenient). At best, you'll get some references, but you should be able to follow the story of the game without any prior knowledge.
9:12 Why does it offend you?? The third timeline is such a cool concept, usually in Nintendo games the good guy always wins so I think it's a really interesting twist on a usually stagnant formula
Thank you for this, as someone who played the heck out of botw but never played any of the past ones
Great job!! ole buddy. This had me interested all the way thru. That’s quite impressive, considering all of the previous Zelda content I’ve watched and played LOZ since ‘87. Damn I’m old.
I thought this wouldn't be that useful for me to watch since I've played and beaten damn near every single Zelda game multiple times but nope. I learned a lot, or rather, _Remembered_ a lot of stuff I had forgotten. Thanks for this. It's a nice more bite-sized informative Zelda lore/recurring themes breakdown. I'd recommend this one over a lot of the other more long winded tedious Zelda lore vids I've seen on TH-cam, which is a lot, in fact way too many even.
Regarding the third timeline. One thing I hope you mention in the next video is how it's basically borne out of a big continuity error.
A Link to the Past was created as a prequel to the original Legend of Zelda that shows the origins of Ganon. But in that game, the actual origin of Ganon is relegated to the game's backstory.
Ocarina of Time was created as a prequel to A Link to the Past that actually shows the origins of Ganon. It shows the events that ALttP describes as "The Imprisoning War". Of course, the events of Ocarina are not 100% faithful to those described in ALttP, but that's not the big continuity error.
The continuity error is that afterwards, Ocarina of Time got sequels of its own, and those sequels outright contradicted ALttP. Majora's Mask is one such sequel but that one doesn't really conflict, it's a self-contained story. But later on we get Wind Waker on the adult timeline and Twilight Princess on the child timeline, and the events of those two games are completely inconsistent with those of Ocarina (notably, Ganondorf permanently dies in human form in both games, unlike in the downfall timeline where he becomes this evil piglike force of nature).
So that's why the downfall timeline has to exist. Ocarina was a prequel to ALttP, but t then it got two sequels that conflict with it. My headcanon is that the downfall timeline is one of the timelines that Link abandoned in Ocarina when he returned to being a child.
That's mostly true, although Wind Waker nor Twilight Princess contradict Ocarina of Time. Nothing ever states that Ganondorf can't die in human form. However, there was already a contradiction to A Link to the Past after Ocarina of Time came out. At the end of the game, he's sealed away in the Dark World with only the Triforce of Power piece. Whereas, he has the entire Triforce with him sealed in the Dark World in A Link to the Past. So there was already a contention there that needed explaining before all the sequels Ocarina of Time got which made it a lot more complex. The 3rd split allowed for all the games to coexist without the continuity errors.
The "downfall" timeline is so goofy. You can see how the other two timelines fall out of OoT because of the time travel shenanigans and what happens at the end. But the third timeline has nothing to do with time travel and has a completely separate explanation. It's a counterfactual. ALttP and its respective "timeline" are relegated to a "what if" scenario.
@@WindMageMaster The reason I put so much stock on Ganondorf dying in human form is that when that happens, both in Twilight Princess and Wind Waker, he actually does stay dead. Games after Wind Waker feature completely different villains, and while technically there is a Ganondorf in Four Swords Adventures and Nintendo placed that one after Twilight Princess (for what I would argue are thematic reasons), that Ganondorf is actually a different guy with a different backstory.
The point here is that Ganon, the Gerudo man who obtained a piece of the triforce and became a pig, is not actually this recurring, eternal force of nature in most of the timelines. That is only the case in the downfall timeline
@@NotaWalrus1 He stays dead after Wind Waker because Hyrule itself is gone along with the Triforce. The cycle/curse may be continued with Malladus or other demon kings in the new land, but Ganon has always been bound to Hyrule and the Triforce, hence it makes sense he stays dead. For Twilight Princess, he doesn’t stay dead, because while Four Swords Adventures Ganondorf is a new man, he’s stated to have the spirit and malice of the one who was defeated. He also dies in A Link to the Past and needs to be brought back from the dead in the Oracles, so him dying in Twilight Princess is no different. And it *might* be possible the Ganon corpse we see in TotK is the body of Twilight Princess Ganondorf, meaning, his original body would not be staying dead either. Perhaps Four Swords Ganon was the first and ‘early calamity’, with each time it returns, the calamity grows larger and more powerful to the point of BotW’s, as it seems to be Ganon’s spirit/malice. So, basically, he’s definitely not at all gone in the CT.
@@WindMageMaster That's fair enough, but I have one counterargument based entirely on feelings. It's Urbosa's dialogue in Breath of the Wild, where she explains that Calamity Ganon was once a Gerudo man.
Now, I'll grant, this is completely consistent with Ganondorf II from FSA. That guy is also a Gerudo Man. However, I refuse to believe that Calamity Ganon, the endless, cyclical, malignant force of nature, is some random Gerudo man who found a magic trident in a pyramid, instead of the mythical figure of returning hatred who obtained the full triforce, created the Dark Realm, and that we fight over and over in the Downfall timeline. I refuse to believe Calamity Ganon is the two bit villain from a co-op only spinoff, or worse, some third Ganon from somewhere down the line.
"My channel has a big history with the Monster Hunter and Elden Ring fanbases, and there are lot of those people who have followed me into Zelda content, even though their experience with Zelda games is minimal." - Hey that's me!
Thanks, I've been looking for a video like this.
I remember playing Ocarina of Times at 7 in my Nintendo 64 and from there on Zelda is simply a vibe that can’t never be copied
This video is so great, I will save it as one of my references.
If you want to get into the details of the Zelda timeline, Polygon has an old video going into that that is very good and also reveals how seriously it should be taken.
To throw even more fuel on the Wind Waker references, Lurelin Village has a strikingly similar layout to Outset Island, although the geography makes little sense.
I always imagined the convergent timeline explanation for botw not exactly being that they all "fused" somehow, but that it’s so far into the future that the events of the two alternate timelines eventually happened in all 3
like an example would be if after TP the next reincarnation of link lost to ganondorf, then the exact events of the fallen timeline happen, and then after for whatever reason an incarnation of link fails to appear for ganondorfs next return and the events of the child timeline happen, then way later botw takes place
Great video! Please do a video about the third timeline! Now I'm curious to hear your opinions haha
aw yeah, a video catching me up on the thing i have already been obsessing over since i was little. it's gamer time.
edit: i've always had my own headcanon for BotW's timeline placement, and an explanation for the timeline convergence. it would be that in the context of BotW, all the other games are stories (ie folklore, literal legends) with events based on reality, all of which have been gradually altered as they are passed down through generations.
maybe some schools of belief disagreed on what the real history of the world was, and so we end up with splitting timelines, only for it all to have been true in some way, just maybe not exactly the way it's told to us.
maybe some of the entries are retellings of the same events, but with details altered by that age's events, or some stories are mixing up different events and explaining them in some way, which would give way for things like the Oracle games.
i dunno, i think the idea of these stories all being literally legends - honoring their title - could be a cool concept, that plays into their mentality of not restricting themselves into one timeline.
i personally kindof like that there are multiple timelines, i just dont necessarily care about rigidly sticking to them or focusing on the details of them, i like that zelda games can reimagine their whole setting and if timelines are how people conceptualize that then thats great, whether or not they actually consider them when creating a zelda game.
now just to go through the mario timelines.
I saw a video that made the argument that the fallen timeline actually splits not from Ocarina of Time but from the Minish Cap which is the only Zelda game I know of that has an alternate ending if you don't save Zelda quick enough in the final dungeon. The split from the Minish Cap leads to the Fallen Timeline where Vatii was sealed rather than destroyed. Honestly it's the version of the Zelda Timeline that makes the most sense
One mistake here: Zelda DOES reincarnate as well.
The idea that she doesn't is a misconception born out of the English localization toning down the reincarnation references across the board, plus people reading Demise's curse a bit too literally. To be more specific, Zelda's reincarnation is based on the old Japanese believe of the "Arahitogami", or "incarnation of a deity", in which it was believed that the Emperor of Japan was a reincarnation of the Goddess Amaterasu (or "extension in time", as it was sometimes called) as well as the Emperors that came before him.
Zelda is basically following that idea, hence why she's always reincarnated inside the Royal Family, as opposed to Link, who can reincarnate both inside and outside of his own bloodline (which is the "standard" reincarnation in Japanese mythology).
Of course, neither Link nor Zelda keep their memories from one lifetime to the next, so their personalities get essentially rebooted everytime they are born.
Definitely need that 3rd timeline video!
5:59 as a side note, Zelda games take on a lot of Christian mythos for plot with the language rooting from this mythos being Latin. This is why we get the name “Fi” for the Master Sword, also known as the Latin word for “Faithful/Loyal”. You’re correctly pronunciating “Farore” in Latin.
I was unaware that there was debate about the pronounciation of Farore. I always said "fair-roar" as a kid. I got a good laugh at the hard stace taken here. The argument makes sense, I am now on team "fair-roar-ayy".
I love the dry sense of humour you have
ive been a zelda fan since i was like 4 years old.. so im not new to it by any means but i really enjoy your videos and i like zelda videos so... :)
ive been a zelda fan my entire life but im watching anyway
I remember being SOOO obsessed with the Zelda lore as a teenager, until I started to realize how Nintendo doesn’t give a shit how it all fits together. Now I got the Soulsborne games to scratch that itch. But I do wish Nintendo would put some effort in keeping the Zelda lore consistent, Kuz it is still very cool.
Yeah, I prefer to think of the downfall 'timeline' more as an alternate universe as opposed to an actual timeline. Like a 'what if' situation more than anything.
The only way it could make sense as a separate timeline is if time travel was somehow involved in Link's defeat. I.E someone from the Adult timeline traveled back in time and helped to ensure Link lost. But that would be far too contrived and just plain silly.
My top 10 all time: 🛡️⚔️
#10 A Link To The Past
#9 Link’s Awakening
#8 Twilight Princess
#7 Minish Cap
#6 A Link Between Worlds
#5 Tears of the Kingdom
#4 Breath of the Wild
#3 Majora’s Mask
#2 Wind Waker
#1 Ocarina of Time
Great video. Nice job.
Me watching this being a lifelong zelda fan with expertley deep knowledge of the lore of all of the games and many of the popular theories:
I just wanted to pop in to at least justify the downfall timeline. When Ocarina of Time first came out, Miyamoto said it was the earliest game in the timeline, taking place before A Link to the Past. The connection between the two games wasn't entirely solid, but maybe a future game would fix the inconsistencies. By the time Majora's Mask and Wind Waker (and later, Twilight Princess) were released and solidified the existence of a split timeline though, it was pretty clear that ALttP just didn't really have a way to fit into the timeline as an OoT sequel anymore. Hence, the creation of the downfall timeline. Now, Ganon has the full triforce, he's sealed in the Sacred Realm, and everything lines up with the beginning of ALttP.
There's a fun fan theory going around that the downfall timeline is the original timeline, and when Link wishes on the Triforce at the end of ALttP, the triforce undoes all of the damage Ganon has done, including giving the Hero of Time a second chance to defeat Ganon and achieve the good ending we see in OoT. I'm trying to keep this comment short so I might not be explaining it too well, but I think it does a good job of explaining the existence of the downfall timeline without any major leaps in logic.
5:58 You didn't lie when you said you were going to alienate me eventually...
My theory is that fans came up with a time line. Nintendo didn't give a shit and was like yep that's pretty much it
Thank you for your work!
the downfall timeline only sounds worse than it is. in alttp, ganons backstory was that he was a king of thieves who stole the triforce, and had to be sealed away with it in the sacred realm by the sages. there was no link involved. in oot, however, ganondorf broke into the sacred realm to steal the triforce just like he did before alttp, but this time it split into 3 and he needed to fight link for the rest of it. the only way for this to lead to alttp is if link loses and ganondorf gains the full triforce, with him being sealed in the sacred realm being the next step.
the problem is that oot was meant to be a prequel to alttp, but it instead acted as a soft reboot, changing ganondorfs backstory. the only way for the "classic" zelda games to remain canon and fit within the timeline is that alternate ending to oot. and no, it cant be after four swords adventures either because thats a new ganondorf (the only time he reincarnated) who turned into ganon through the tridents power, whereas alttp ganon took that form as a side effect of his influence changing the sacred realm into the dark world.
Precisely this. I feel that people who attempt to disregard the 3rd split cause they just don't want an alternate version of the ending, then try to place that line of games COMPLETELY disregarding what the actual backstory of Alttp is. To each their own... it's not like the devs place much priority on the timeline, as it's usually more of an afterthought. But I remember the days where, when we didn't have an official timeline, the hardcore theorists were saying then too, that there needed to be a 3rd split for those line of games to work because otherwise, there's too many contradictions attempting to wedge them into the CT or AT.
@@WindMageMaster i think before 2011 they were at least thinking about the timeline a little bit since all the games were either sequels or prequels with a few odd ones like the four swords trilogy. The split timeline was even confirmed in interviews back when wind waker came out.
As BOTW was my first Zelda game I really enjoyed this.
And can Nintento please remake all Zelda games so I can buy and play them, please? :)
You can play like half of them on their online service
@@TROBassGuitar Oh rly? Didn't know that, thank you!
8:02 I think that's not the case, and that the Triforce cares about the timeline. When Link was sent back in time at the end of OOT, he already had the Triforce of Courage, and the Triforce "detected" that someone had a piece and split in the same manner it did when Ganondorf himself acquired a piece in OOT.
Maybe there's an as yet unreleased timequake game to look forward to that will bring the chronology together
"I'm gonna call the character differently because whatever"
Ganondorf has never been reincarnated 4sa Ganondorf over in the corner crying.
Great video!! My only critique would be showing the hero of wind when talking about the reincarnation of Link. Isn't the hero of wind the only one that isn't a reincarnation and isn't born with the spirit of hero since he's not the hero of time?
1:03
Why recurring cast?
A: Because Nintendo and most actual media/companies are affraid of "new"
I’m actually marathoning all the other Zelda’s (not Four swords.) before Tears of the kingdom comes out.
It’s a daunting task.
I’m at Phantom Hourglass now.
Just additional evidence for the convergence timeline theory. When zelda references skyward sword, ocarina of time and twilight princess, the rest of the what she said was cut off. In the Japanese cutscene she says "Umi o koe, kami no tsukurishi ōgon o motomen toki……" which translates to “Over the seas of time and distance, when we need the golden power of the Goddess…” . This clearly references windwaker.
This is a good video, however there's one point that I strongly disagree on.
"Spirit of the hero" should *not* be interpreted as Link reincarnating. Link does *not* reincarnate.
There are two main pieces of evidence of this.
1. Twilight Princess - In Twilight Princess, the player, playing as the Hero of Twilight (Twilight Princess' Link), meets a character known as the Hero's Shade, which is pretty much outright stated to be the Hero of Time (Ocarina of Time's Link). The Hero's Shade is dead, but he is clearly still a soul. His soul and the Hero of Twilight's soul are not the same. They are two distinct people with distinct souls that exist independently of each other.
2. Wind Waker (well, really the entire adult timeline) - Wind Waker takes place after the Hero of Time leaves the timeline. He doesn't die. His soul is not in the timeline. He has left that reality as though it never existed. And yet, the spirit of the hero reemerges in the Hero of Winds (Wind Waker link). Despite the soul of the previous hero completely disappearing from existence, the spirit of the hero continues.
I interpret the spirit of the hero to be more about the concept of heroism. Someone with immense courage, a great belief in doing good, that sort of thing. Someone worthy of the triforce of courage. It's not literally the same soul, but rather a common metaphorical spirit.
Rat has come a long way , damn
Love your channel!!
The reason for the timeline was because Nintendo were more focused on gameplay then continuity.
I think a breath of the wild prequel in witch they combine all 3 timelines back into one would be fun. Link could travel between all 3 timelines and see 3 versions of hyrule much like link would travel back and forth between states in OOT and oracle of ages or oracle of seasons, or even a link to the past. at the end of the game it would merge all timelines back into one keeping elements of each and creating the wold that breath of the wild takes place in. we might even see elements of the shika technology being formed farther laying the groundwork for breath of the wild.
*puts on tinfoil hat* Obviously the timelines were crossed in the events of Hyrule warriors: definitive edition and BOTW and TOTK take place on that timeline, which is why they have elements of the others. Not to be confused with the age of calamity timeline created 100 years before botw, that one's actually pretty peaceful and we don't have content for it.
I just hope TotK breaks the whole timeline shenanigan completely.
It was intriguing right up to the point where you realize it could never stand up to scrutiny.
Zelda didn't need it before and it doesn't need it now. Things repeat in Zelda because they are motifs. You can iterate on a few core principles until the sun blows up. Video games are especially useful for exploring repeating motivic ideas because the game part of video games doesn't suffer from the kind of semantic satiation that narrative elements suffer from.
As an aside, if you're relatively new to the series and digging into Zelda, play Tunic.
Man it's good.
Or, you know, the dev team keeps making sequels of the original LoZ and reuses the characters so that they can sustain sales and business with franchise familiarity ;) and then just sort of artificially apply lore later to make up for it
The third timeline is likely due to another use of the Ocarina that precedes the events of OoT imo
How does Ganondorf become unsealed and regain the triforce in the Windwaker timeline? Sorry, but it's been a long time since I played that game.
I've seen people say the timeline doesn't make sense because rito and zora shouldn't exist together but that isn't how evolution works. Have you seen the difference in design between the zora in botw and the other games as well as the rito? They may as well be different species from game to game.
What does it mean to say that Demise conquered time itself? Whatever it is, it seems to imply he has power over Hylia, the Goddess of Time. And why she's always struggling because he seems to be more powerful than her. That's why she's always using all sorts of plans to try to stop him but she is never fully successful.
I’d like a Zelda game that ends with Link and Zelda sacrificing themselves to break their curse-bond to demise. But I imagine family show Nintendo won’t go for that
Does Hyrule Warrior's lore count towards explaining the fusing of the timelines?
HEAVY SPOILERS about the timelines
- - - - -
I agree that the "The Hero is defeated" timeline divergence doesn't really make sense. The divergence of the adult and child timelines make sense due to timetravel in Ocarina of Time. It is the one Link's continuum that determines the timeline divergence. But if Link would have been defeated, then there would have been no timeline split. It would have been a straightforward continuum from the past to the future where child Link becomes adult Link and the is defeated. Then the "hero is defeated" timeline would have been the only timeline. In fact there should be as many "hero is defeated" timeline splits as the players have died in every Zelda game! Unless _maaaybe_ there could have been some time travel shenanigans such as Link's spirit being sent back to his child body at the moment Ganon would have struck the killing blow... Then there could be that timeline where Link travels from past to future and dies, Ganon gains the whole Triforce but is sealed within the sacred realm, and then the two other where Link wins in the future and then is sent back to the past to stop Ganondorf there as well.
The two timelines are created when Zelda sends Link back to his childhood. This leaves the Ganondorf ravaged future world without a Link and perhaps without a Master Sword. In the intro of Wind Waker Ganondorf is told to have escaped from being sealed away after Ocarina of Time. Because there is no Link, the gods are forced to seal Ganondorf by flooding the world. A new Master Sword is created to replace the one that traveled back to the past (this is just a theory, not explicit canon, but a comment by Ganondorf hints at it not being the same, and you do "reforge" the sword in a similar fashion to Skyward Sword). The spirit of the hero somehow returns later on, or it's a completely new guy who has to take on the role of the hero (this is never explained). In fact if the original spirit of the hero is missing from this timeline, then maybe that would be enough to break Demise's curse? This new Link would be free from the curse and this is why he is successfull in killing Ganondorf once and for all at the end of Wind Waker, and this is the reason why Ganondorf is not seen for the rest of this timeline.
The child timeline is quite self-explanatory. The original spirit of the hero and the original Master Sword is present in this timeline. Link warns Zelda about Ganondorf and they manage to convince the king about him, and then Ganondorf is executed. But his execution fails due to him still gaining the Triforce of Power (possibly because the door to the sacred realm was opened in some way due to time travel). Then he is instead sealed into the Twilight Realm. Later on Twilight Princess happens.
Then there's the time travel in Skyward Sword! There is a future timeline where Demise is defeated once and for all, because Link gains the whole Triforce and makes a wish for Demis to be defeated. But because Ghirahim manages to travel to the past where Demise yet lives, he is able to create a new timeline. Demise breaks free in the past and Link has to defeat him. In this past Demise is defeated but he manages to place the curse on Link and Zelda that an incarnation of his hatred would find them throughout the ages. Link and Zelda travel back to the future but they carry the curse with them. This technically leaves the past where Demise is defeated by Link in combat as a separate timeline. This timeline is never revisited in any game. That timeline would technically contain no Demise and no curse.
There's 3 slices of cheese that make you God.
Awesome video.
Don't really want to write up a whole essay here on why I don't believe in the timeline convergence theory, but suffice it to say that a lot of the evidence for it is circumstancial. For example, the rock salt item COULD be referencing the Great Sea, but it isn't NECESSARILY. Parts of Hyrule have been covered by ocean at other times as well (e.g. the Sand Sea in Skyward Sword used to be a normal sea). Zelda using the word "twilight" in her sword-blessing ceremony COULD mean that Twilight Princess occured in Breath of the Wild's history, but it could be the developers winking at the player. The Zelda team often include little winks and nods to other games that aren't meant to be timeline evidence (e.g. Majora's Mask appearing in Link Between Worlds). (And FWIW, I've read online that the Japanese word used in the ceremony is the same word used for the Dark World in Link to the Past, NOT the Twilight Realm in Twilight Princess, but I can't read Japanese so I can't confirm that.) There's very little (I'd argue nothing) in the game that REQUIRES timeline convergence.
Right. I personally believe in the destiny convergence theory.
All timelines technically converge but not literally. So, in reality, three BOTW exist. 3 timelines that have ultimately become identical
I think it’s very clearly just at the end of the childhood timeline. People attempt to use the ‘Ruto was recorded in history as a sage’ thing to debunk it, yet they forget the Royal Family still recorded the adventure of the Hero of Time as fact when he told them everything upon returning, which is stated at the very start of Majora’s Mask. Therefore, any reference to the events of Ocarina of Time as legend can still occur in the childhood timeline. Fits perfectly there, whereas, I see people having to jump through a lot of hoops and bend over backwards trying to place it at the end of the adult or downfall lines.
@@WindMageMaster What problems do you see with the downfall timeline?
@@Enraric To start with basics, Downfall Hyrule is very different than BotW Hyrule. BotW Hyrule falls much more in line with TP and OoT Hyrule and even FSA Hyrule (only other title with peaceful Gerudo for example). To have all these races, general locations, etc, literally run into the ground largely non-existent, if not possibly outright extinct by Zelda II… to then suddenly be very much back to how they specifically use to be from long ago doesn’t make sense.
The knowledge of the Triforce in BotW is treated exactly the same as all other games specifically only in the CT. Where it seems to be largely unknown (at the moment) and treated merely as a symbol for power. In the DT, it’s always focused on as a central physical item the land is desperately relying upon. I don’t wanna go through a checklist here, but look at it this way. To make BotW fit at the end of the DT, you have to jump through hoops reviving long gone races, long gone locations, have the role of the Triforce change, have the land- which became a split up kingdom- return to how it was before the DT, have a new Ganondorf in a newly revived Gerudo tribe, etc, etc. Whereas, for the CT, it’s literally already set up to play out.
@@squidlytv
If three timelines become identical, then logically there is only one timeline.
Thank you!
Fa Ro Re with the Re sounding like Ray. Farore
Wait! @Ratatoskr, I temporarily retract my agreement with you about the pronunciation of Farore. What about Gundam? The Japanese made Gundam and pronounce it "gun-da-mu", yet we in the West spell it and say it, "gun-dum". Are we just wrong, or does translation get a little leeway?
Edit: yeah, we spell it "Gundam", you meant what I know.
They really should add WW and TP to Switch as then every major Zelda game would be playable on Switch for younger people who werent alive when the og versions released.
- what is the difference/relationship between the Three Goddesses, and Hylia? (it’s “Fair-ROAR-rey”)
- are villains like Vaati or Majora also possibly incarnations of Demise, or only Ganondorf?
- why do other games in which the hero is defeated also create their own timeline?
edit: I’d also accept “fair-ROAR-ruh.”
- The Three Goddesses created the world. They then enlisted Hylia to stay behind to protect the Triforce and lead the world.
- Any villain titled ‘Demon King’. So Ganondorf and possibly Malladus. There are other evil beings, but not all of them are incarnations. One could argue they became villains due to Demise, because Demise is the root of all evil, but they aren’t all necessarily Demise himself.
-A Link to the Past’s backstory directly ties into Ocarina of Time. It’s doubtful they’d create other splits. It’s just that OoT has 3 different direct sequels.
@@WindMageMaster - so who all existed before the Three Gs created Hyrule? Din, Farore, Nayru, Hylia, and Demise?
and did they created the whole world, or just Hyrule? I realize some of the other kingdoms visited in various _Zelda_ games are parallel dimensions and such, but not all…
@@Sam_T2000 The three golden goddesses are stated to have existed beforehand. Nothing ever confirmed about Hylia and Demise, but it seems likely too. They don't get into the nitty gritty stuff about before the world existed, as it's not super necessary. As for realms outside of the world of Hyrule, also not entirely known, however, it's interesting to note that Hyrule Historia specifically points out that in the World of the Ocean King (in Phantom Hourglass) you can see the Triforce symbol around that world, and the historia states that this may indicate the goddesses created that realm also.
In extension to that... this is just my own personal theory, so there's not much to back this, but it's possible the World of the Ocean King is a flooded Termina (from Majora's Mask). Kind of a leap, but the 4 realms in PH somewhat match up to the 4 realms of MM. Also a few other similarities. That's just my own take though.
Huh. So Breath of the wild is basically the Turn A gundam of Zelda. A universal quantifier. Neat.
Also on Farore, if the Japanese people use Western style terminology, I would prefer using the Western styling.
What you're saying is basically - If the Japananese created a character named spaghetti, how should we pronounce it? The Japanese pronounce spaghetti in 4 syllables seu-pa-geh-tti. Should we call it that too?
Your comment on Farore's name got me going down a little bit of a rabbit hole.
Farore's name does have 3 moras in Japanese, but it's Furoru. If you looked at that name as a katakana representation of a foreign name, it could just as easily be from a word that's pronounced Furor as it it could be from one pronounced Furoru (similar to how Link is Rinku in Japanese or how Zelda is Zeruda). But given that the first syllable changed from Fu to Fa, unless it was a mistake that ended up sticking, I don't think it was meant to be pronounced the same way in both languages (even if the first syllable is meant to be pronounced with a schwa, like Fuh, I would expect that to be Faroru in Japanese, so I'm not seeing a way these are meant to be exactly the same).
So my take away is that the name has a different pronunciation between Japanese and English, so I would think each pronunciation should be judged separately from the other language, but if there was any tie between them, it is that both the Japanese and English versions end in the way they would spell it if the final sound is r and the final vowel is silent, but also in a way that could be used if the final vowel was not silent. So either way is plausible unless there is an official pronunciation listed by Nintendo at some point.
When I first saw it as a kid, I pronounced sort of like you did, but with emphasis on the ro (fuhROre), and then later shifted to either fuhROr or FAror depending on how recently I've heard someone online say it the latter way.
Edit: Also wanted to point out that Furoru could be intended to sound like it comes Fror, which opens up an interesting can of worms since suddenly there seems to be maybe some relation to Norse gods, with Din coming from Odin and Fror resembling either Freyr or maybe a combination of Frigg and Thor. Nayru (Neeru in Japanese) could easily be similarly inspired by a few different Norse Gods, maybe Njord, Freyr, and/or Hel (keeping in mind that R=L in Japanese). And of course using L in Furoru gives a bunch more options, like Flor, Frol, Flol, Frolu, Flolu, Floru, Fulor, Fulol, Furol, Furolu, Fulolu, etc.
I am one of those ppl in your audience. Hated BOTW, gave up after 18 hours.
I'm not on hour # 225 in TOTK. I did a deep dive of all the games and timelines since.
What I've personally concluded is that Nintendo likes to use and re-use stories and concepts over and over again. Ie. Rauru being a light sage in the older games. In totk there is another Rauru who is a zonai, Godking of light basically.
So, what TOTK is for me is the perfected version of previous games who's gameplay mechanics and stories never held my interest. This finalized re-imaging/amalgamation of re-use concepts have finally assembled into a much better iteration.
All that is to say, I am not a fan of the Zelda franchise. But I am a huge fan of Tears of the Kingdom. As someone who prioritizes story and combat, this final mix does it for me unlike the previous games. The story was actually touching in TOTK, a welcome surprise.
With years of the kingdom are we going to have to replay the BOTW areas and then the tears part
Dude 12 minutes? Come on this series deserves an hour at least.
Personally, the "Zelda Timeline" has never made any sense to me, so I view each game as a stand alone game like the Final Fantasy series.
Really, it feels like a bunch of different writers were handed a premise, characters, locations and dungeons and were told to make a game out of it and some were popular enough to get a spin-off or sequel.
I love these games, but I'm not gonna pretend that their connections make sense, haha.
I mean, the connection between Wind Waker and Ocarina of Time is extremely explicit, can't really pretend like they're not connected. Seeing how it's the same Ganondorf, talking about what happened in OoT, glass paintings of all the saged from OoT. The opening of WW talk about the Herp of Time, of which we only know of one. (OoT)
I'm more than happy to accept WW as a successor to OoT as it declares its connection to it and doesn't contradict, but it also leaves OoT behind to tell its own story. You don't need OoT's story to enjoy WW. And as a whole, the "Zelda Timeline" takes very liberal assumptions.
I have a hard time accepting that there is a timeline where Link fails to defeat Ganon in OoT when the game doesn't even have an official ending like that, and I highly doubt the writers for LttP were aware of OoT's eventual release, yet LttP claims to be a result of Links failure in OoT. I just don't believe that. Both incredible games, but I don't consider them to be in the same world.
Maybe someone can explain it to me in a way that makes sense, but as I see it, every game comes up with its own special worldly mechanic unknown to any other game, one game claims to be the first, another claims to be the last, timelines split, rules change, presumed history evolves in all these different directions. One game will say nothing of another yet appear between two in a series because that's where it makes the most sense to shoehorn it in.
It feels like a loose excuse for the writers to make whatever they want. And I'm not complaining about that. I love each game, both gameplay and story, but just as an individual experience and not some grander plan that expertly weaves these very different stories together.
(Edit: I wrote "it's" when I should have written "its". Turanga Leela would kill me 😂)
@@merleetomlin6218 Yeah, I myself don't really buy the "fallen timeline", there's obviously a child and adult timeline, splitting off with WW and TP, as they both explicitly talk about the two different ends to Ganondorf in OoT. (Sealed and arrested)
But instead of admitting they only came up with the timelines after OoT they instead made this bs "fallen timeline" and threw all the older games in there.
@@halosaft The reason for the 3rd branch is that ALTTP is also a sequel to OoT. Or rather, OoT was made to be it’s prequel. Placing those games far ahead in the AT or CT doesn’t really work. In fact, before the Historia, I remember people pointing out there would need to be a 3rd split for the backstory of ALTTP to work at all. One branch being an alternate story works fine imo.
I always thought that the inconsistencies between the games were explained by taking the title literally. The Legend of Zelda games are telling just that, a legend. Part of the events that are depicted are accurate history lived by past Links and Zeldas. Others are mythology and folkore verbally transmitted through millenia. So they contain tales and errors. This last reboot could be the present in which all these legends are told. Actually, the game begins by telling us a “story of old”.
The truth is probably that all these games were released within successive reboots of the same license adapted to the gameplay and general ambiance Nintendo wanted at the time. The timelines went after to appeal to the fans in the age of cinematic universes. I like mine better^^.
You have a great voice, sir
I want a game focused around the unification of the three timelines now.
That’s not how time works. But it’s fantasy so whatever?
Having a mention of "steeped in Twilight" in no way means the world referencing it is the same timline as Twilight Princess. The Twilight realm exists in all three brances. Its just seen in only one.
But as far as a hero's ritual ceremony, only Twilight Princess would have been relevant unless something big happened in another timeline we aren't aware of.