Hyrule Town Square
- Thread starter Caldwin
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I have a question about something that's been bugging me for a while. Why is it that a lot of Zelda fans seem to be under the impression that Ocarina of Time is more important than A Link to the Past?
Like, I really get the feeling that a lot of people take what is said and done in Ocarina of Time as completely unquestionable and totally infallible truth, despite how much of it completely contradicts and ignores what is said and done in both A Link to the Past and its backstory.
To give an example, I've made comments on some Zelda YouTube videos where I've made mention about things that were said in ALTTP's backstory that don't match up with the events of OOT, only for several other commenters to try to rebuke my comments by bringing up things like Hyrule Historia or just the events of OOT itself, as if to say that what was said and done in ALTTP is wrong and that what was said and done in OOT is all that matters.
How can ALTTP be in the wrong when it came first and established much of the lore that OOT would go on to reiterate? And how can it be wrong especially when, not too long ago, Nintendo made a sequel to it (A Link Between Worlds) that was handled with much respect and reverence to the lore and events of ALTTP?
Like, I really get the feeling that a lot of people take what is said and done in Ocarina of Time as completely unquestionable and totally infallible truth, despite how much of it completely contradicts and ignores what is said and done in both A Link to the Past and its backstory.
To give an example, I've made comments on some Zelda YouTube videos where I've made mention about things that were said in ALTTP's backstory that don't match up with the events of OOT, only for several other commenters to try to rebuke my comments by bringing up things like Hyrule Historia or just the events of OOT itself, as if to say that what was said and done in ALTTP is wrong and that what was said and done in OOT is all that matters.
How can ALTTP be in the wrong when it came first and established much of the lore that OOT would go on to reiterate? And how can it be wrong especially when, not too long ago, Nintendo made a sequel to it (A Link Between Worlds) that was handled with much respect and reverence to the lore and events of ALTTP?
It's probably mostly because OoT is more popular than ALTTP. ALTTP is a great game, but for a long time OoT was considered one of the best games of ALL time. OoT just made a bigger impact on fans.
And, as time has gone on, the events in ALTTP's backstory have kind of been retconned. The powers at be just kind of tend to side with OoT, since it's the more popular game, so any inconsistencies tend to be...smoothed over, a bit.
I'll also mention that OoT is NOT the Imprisoning War from ALTTP's backstory. That's a separate event that we've never actually seen properly. The Imprisoning War happens AFTER "The Hero is Defeated" in OoT. At least, according to the Hyrule Historia, whatever that's worth.
Here's the page from the book, if anyone wants to see it:
Right now, in the game lore, OoT is kind of the nexus point for the split timelines we have in the Zelda franchise. The different possible events of OoT are what lead to the different scenarios we see in different games. OoT is where the 3 timelines split, so...to the larger franchise it IS more important.
But...really...I don't know if Nintendo actually CARES that much about the timeline, really. They know the fans care, so they tried to make it make sense. But, really, I don't think Nintendo really cares about which game belongs in which timeline. I don't think they ever really said which timeline, if any, Breath of the Wild fit into. And there's a good chance Breath of the Wild doesn't really fit into any of the three we know about...or it's all of them, somehow. The Zelda franchise is great, but not totally consistent in it's lore.
It might help if you describe what it is specifically that you're talking about, though.
And, as time has gone on, the events in ALTTP's backstory have kind of been retconned. The powers at be just kind of tend to side with OoT, since it's the more popular game, so any inconsistencies tend to be...smoothed over, a bit.
I'll also mention that OoT is NOT the Imprisoning War from ALTTP's backstory. That's a separate event that we've never actually seen properly. The Imprisoning War happens AFTER "The Hero is Defeated" in OoT. At least, according to the Hyrule Historia, whatever that's worth.
Here's the page from the book, if anyone wants to see it:
Right now, in the game lore, OoT is kind of the nexus point for the split timelines we have in the Zelda franchise. The different possible events of OoT are what lead to the different scenarios we see in different games. OoT is where the 3 timelines split, so...to the larger franchise it IS more important.
But...really...I don't know if Nintendo actually CARES that much about the timeline, really. They know the fans care, so they tried to make it make sense. But, really, I don't think Nintendo really cares about which game belongs in which timeline. I don't think they ever really said which timeline, if any, Breath of the Wild fit into. And there's a good chance Breath of the Wild doesn't really fit into any of the three we know about...or it's all of them, somehow. The Zelda franchise is great, but not totally consistent in it's lore.
It might help if you describe what it is specifically that you're talking about, though.
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Well, I guess a good place to start would be one time I made a comment on a video that, at one point in the video, talked about Ganondorf's being sealed away at the end of OOT. In this comment, I brought up a mistranslation that Nintendo of America made in the English version of the game, in which the translation said that Ganondorf was sealed away inside the Sacred Realm. In the Japanese version, it is instead said that Ganondorf was actually sealed away beyond the Sacred Realm, rather than inside.
This thoroughly-researched Reddit post goes into great detail about this mistranslation, but since YouTube doesn't allow external links in its comment section, I couldn't link out to it to show people what I was talking about.
And it's not like these kinds of mistranslations are uncommon. Even in games as recent as Breath of the Wild, such as Zelda saying in that game's English version that Dark Beast Ganon is a sign of Ganon having given up reincarnating, when in the Japanese version she said that Dark Beast Ganon is a sign of Ganon's refusal to give up reincarnating.
Anyway, after bringing that up, I got swarmed by a bunch of responses basically amounting to "NUH UH!! That's no mistranslation!! It's what leads OOT into ALTTP!! Ganon is sealed inside the Dark World in that game, which is a corrupted Sacred Realm!!"
I found these responses amusing since, last time I checked, the ending of OOT with Ganondorf being sealed away is the ending that leads into Wind Waker, not ALTTP.
And then when I tried to summarize all of the numerous differences between the backstory of ALTTP and the events of OOT that make them pretty incompatible with each other, half of the responses to that were basically, "Dude, you just wrote an essay. I'm not reading all that. Tl:dr," and the other half were basically "But Hyrule Historia says blah blah blah! OOT is the Imprisoning War. You're wrong and dumb!"
More amusement from latter responses since the book does not say that OOT was the Imprisoning War, but that said war was actually a separate event set after the events of OOT following Link's defeat (meaning the Sages sealed up Ganon in the Sacred Realm twice in the book's version of the story, but I digress).
It seems a lot of people are really hellbent on sticking to the idea of OOT overriding anything from ALTTP that doesn't match up with it no matter what, which is funny to me since Nintendo went on to make three sequel games to OOT that follow on from the game's two endings (Wind Waker following the Adult timeline ending, and Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess following the Child timeline ending), essentially removing any and all possibility for ALTTP to follow on from either ending, to the point that the Historia had to just make up a third ending not actually found in the game itself in order to cram in a connection to ALTTP when OOT already made itself so irreconcilable with ALTTP in the first place.
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Oh, well, that sounds like a combination of people mis-remembering things, being mis-informed, inconsistent translations, and the story being complicated after years worth of games. And, to be fair, *I* almost forgot that OoT wasn't ALTTP's backstory for a second. I needed to glance at the Historia to remind myself of what the official timeline was.
I'll admit though, the part about being sealed away "beyond the realm of the dead" is new to me. I guess some of these finer details are kind of lost on westerners, just due to the translations and censorship we got.
Honestly, the entire conceit of there being 3 timelines (or more) has always felt over-complicated to me. And, I think it's a retcon, since I seem to remember everyone assuming that the time travel in OoT canceled itself out and overwrote itself instead of creating split timelines BEFORE Hyrule Historia came out, at least as far as fan-speculation is concerned. But, it seem to be what it is, so...*shrug*
I mean, having 3 timelines kind of makes thematic sense since...the Triforce exists. The number 3 is a big deal in LOZ. But, I'm not sure it really adds anything to the story.
To be fair, I think there are bigger inconsistencies in LoZ. Such as...
Well, here's a big one: Every Link and Zelda is a reincarnation of the original version of themselves, right? So...how do the two Zeldas existing in LOZ1 and LOZ2 at the same time work? Have they ever officially addressed this? I mean, one of the two COULD just be a random princess named Zelda without being a reincarnation...but, I doubt Nintendo really wants to say that one of these Zeldas...isn't actually the "real" Zelda? This could get real "Kingdom Hearts", if this got too out of hand.
...And now I want a dating-sim game or rom-com manga with Link having to deal with both Zelda's competing for his affections. "Why are both of my Zeldas so CUTE?!"
...I don't know, it popped into my head, so I had to get it out. *shrug*
And, really...I think part of these inconsistencies MIGHT be on purpose. It's the "Legend" part of "The Legend of Zelda". Details fade and change with time and retellings, but the broader strokes of the story remain. Plus...then Nintendo doesn't have to worry about keeping a tight continuity.
I'll admit though, the part about being sealed away "beyond the realm of the dead" is new to me. I guess some of these finer details are kind of lost on westerners, just due to the translations and censorship we got.
Honestly, the entire conceit of there being 3 timelines (or more) has always felt over-complicated to me. And, I think it's a retcon, since I seem to remember everyone assuming that the time travel in OoT canceled itself out and overwrote itself instead of creating split timelines BEFORE Hyrule Historia came out, at least as far as fan-speculation is concerned. But, it seem to be what it is, so...*shrug*
I mean, having 3 timelines kind of makes thematic sense since...the Triforce exists. The number 3 is a big deal in LOZ. But, I'm not sure it really adds anything to the story.
To be fair, I think there are bigger inconsistencies in LoZ. Such as...
Well, here's a big one: Every Link and Zelda is a reincarnation of the original version of themselves, right? So...how do the two Zeldas existing in LOZ1 and LOZ2 at the same time work? Have they ever officially addressed this? I mean, one of the two COULD just be a random princess named Zelda without being a reincarnation...but, I doubt Nintendo really wants to say that one of these Zeldas...isn't actually the "real" Zelda? This could get real "Kingdom Hearts", if this got too out of hand.
...And now I want a dating-sim game or rom-com manga with Link having to deal with both Zelda's competing for his affections. "Why are both of my Zeldas so CUTE?!"
...I don't know, it popped into my head, so I had to get it out. *shrug*
And, really...I think part of these inconsistencies MIGHT be on purpose. It's the "Legend" part of "The Legend of Zelda". Details fade and change with time and retellings, but the broader strokes of the story remain. Plus...then Nintendo doesn't have to worry about keeping a tight continuity.
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The general vibe I get is that people look at the Historia and think its account of what happens between OOT and ALTTP is a completely accurate account of what was said and done in ALTTP, which isn't actually true at all. There is so much that was written in the ALTTP game manual that Historia just glosses over at best and flat out ignores/contradicts/rewrites at worst. There is just no way that OOT as is can work as a prequel to ALTTP without completely invalidating so much of what was said and done in both ALTTP and its backstory.
And the thing is, ALTTP is the only canonical game in the entire Zelda series to which people apply this sense of invalidation. No other game is so casually written off as "wrong", and it's only done to ALTTP in order to further validate OOT and the Historia timeline's made-up connections between the two games, which doesn't seem fair to ALTTP when it came first and did so much in crafting the greater lore of the entire series.
And looking at the source of the translation, the translator notes that the "realm of the dead" in Japanese, "meifu", is supposed to refer to an afterlife where all people go regardless of whether they are good or evil (in contrast to the Heaven and Hell of Abrahamic religions), so the Reddit user's guess of it being like Hades of Greek mythology, and Ganondorf being sent to a Tartarus-like realm beyond it, was right on the money.
Yeah, looking up Zelda Wiki's history on timeline theorizing, it looks like most fans felt there was either a single timeline, a split of just two timeline branches (particularly when Twilight Princess came out), or multiple separate continuities altogether. Certainly no one thought a third "Link dies" split at OOT was ever a factor in this.
I personally ascribe to the timeline created by Lorulean Historian and Instrutilus, which does still have three timeline branches but doesn't have a made up OOT --> ALTTP connection (or have the nonsensical placement of Four Swords Adventures coming after Twilight Princess), instead arranging the games in a more sensible way and getting the third timeline branch instead from the alternate bad ending that exists in The Minish Cap, complete with its own unique cutscene.
It's not quite a literal "reincarnation" for Link and Zelda. Rather, each Link is new person born with the "soul of the Hero", while each Zelda is a blood descendant of each previous one, containing the "bloodline of the goddess".
In the case of the two Zeldas from the first two games, the second game noted that its Zelda was the sister of a prince who became the young King of Hyrule, so the younger Zelda of the first game would logically be descended from that young king after he grew up and had children. The Zelda from the second game was put into a deep sleep (during which she presumably stopped aging, Sleeping Beauty style), allowing the Zelda from the first game to be born while her aunt/great-aunt/however-many-greats-aunt was in her deep sleep.
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Well, if we go through each canonical game one at a time, we might be able to piece together something that could make some degree of sense. Granted, there are 19 games to go through (and, apologies in advance, I wrote so much that it has to be spread across nine posts), so please bear with me.
I'll also be mainly going by the timeline presented in this video by Zelda Lore, a timeline that was originally created by Lorulean Historian and Instrutilus. However, I will be going about this differently from that video since, while I don't disagree with much of the video's content, it presents many of its arguments in very flawed, easily refutable ways. And I'll be going in order of release instead of the more confusing order that they went with.
So, without further ado, let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start):
The Legend of Zelda (NES), 1986/1987/1994 – TLOZ
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES), 1987/1988 – TAOL
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES), 1991/1992 – ALTTP
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (GB), 1993 – LA
I'll also be mainly going by the timeline presented in this video by Zelda Lore, a timeline that was originally created by Lorulean Historian and Instrutilus. However, I will be going about this differently from that video since, while I don't disagree with much of the video's content, it presents many of its arguments in very flawed, easily refutable ways. And I'll be going in order of release instead of the more confusing order that they went with.
So, without further ado, let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start):
The Legend of Zelda (NES), 1986/1987/1994 – TLOZ
The first game in the series, it introduced us to the world of Hyrule and its people, namely Link, Zelda, Ganon, and Impa. The Triforce of Power and the Triforce of Wisdom were also introduced, along with the concept of Link exploring dungeons to defeat boss monsters in order to work his way up to the game's final boss.
The game's backstory also describes Ganon's invasion of Hyrule prior to the game's events, starting off the timeline like this:
The game's backstory also describes Ganon's invasion of Hyrule prior to the game's events, starting off the timeline like this:
Timeline: Ganon's invasion → TLOZ
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES), 1987/1988 – TAOL
The direct sequel to the first game, this one is set a few years later. The Triforce of Courage is introduced, and Ganon's minions are trying to revive him after his death in the first game.
The game's backstory also talks about an event known by the fandom as the "Tragedy of Princess Zelda I", in which a previous Princess Zelda was cursed into a deep sleep, Sleeping Beauty-style, by an evil magician who served the brother of this past Zelda. This prince later became king and continued the royal bloodline that led to the birth of the first game's Zelda. This tragedy took place back when Hyrule was still one country.
The game's backstory also talks about an event known by the fandom as the "Tragedy of Princess Zelda I", in which a previous Princess Zelda was cursed into a deep sleep, Sleeping Beauty-style, by an evil magician who served the brother of this past Zelda. This prince later became king and continued the royal bloodline that led to the birth of the first game's Zelda. This tragedy took place back when Hyrule was still one country.
Timeline: Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES), 1991/1992 – ALTTP
Known as "Triforce of the Gods" in Japan, this game was designed to be a distant prequel to the first game, creating an origin story for Ganon that revealed he was once a man named Ganondorf.
The game's Japanese manual notes that it is set in an era when Hyrule was still one country, very similar to the time setting of the Tragedy of Zelda I.
This, combined with Agahnim being similar in concept to the magician that cursed Zelda I, suggests that the game was at one point supposed to tell the story of that tragedy, but the final version is instead a completely new story, set before that tragedy.
This game also made arguably the biggest contributions to the series' lore, with numerous new events described in its backstory. Namely, the creation of the world by the three Golden Goddesses, who leave the Triforce behind in the land of Hyrule, the creation of the Master Sword to be a failsafe should the Triforce ever fall into the wrong hands, a conflict in which people fought to claim the Triforce for themselves, Ganondorf's acquisition of the Triforce, and the Imprisoning War (or "Sealing War" in Japan).
Regarding Ganondorf's getting the Triforce, the game says that he led a band of thieves throughout the land of Hyrule in search of the entrance to the Sacred Realm, where the Triforce was hidden by that point. When they finally happened upon the entrance by accident, they entered the Sacred Realm and gazed upon the Triforce. The thieves then turned on each other and fought over which of them would get the Triforce, with Ganondorf being the victor. Upon touching the Triforce, he made his wish, was turned into the boar-demon Ganon, and corrupted the Sacred Realm into the Dark World.
However, there was one thing that stood in his way: He couldn't figure out how to get back out of the Sacred Realm/Dark World. Even with the complete Triforce in his possession, he was stuck and trapped there immediately after first setting foot inside (this was in reference to the game's real-world mechanic of Link needing the Magic Mirror to move back and forth between the Light and Dark Worlds). This will be important later.
With all this game's new additions, and the notion of there being an unknown period of time between this game and TLOZ, the timeline now looks like this:
The game's Japanese manual notes that it is set in an era when Hyrule was still one country, very similar to the time setting of the Tragedy of Zelda I.
This, combined with Agahnim being similar in concept to the magician that cursed Zelda I, suggests that the game was at one point supposed to tell the story of that tragedy, but the final version is instead a completely new story, set before that tragedy.
This game also made arguably the biggest contributions to the series' lore, with numerous new events described in its backstory. Namely, the creation of the world by the three Golden Goddesses, who leave the Triforce behind in the land of Hyrule, the creation of the Master Sword to be a failsafe should the Triforce ever fall into the wrong hands, a conflict in which people fought to claim the Triforce for themselves, Ganondorf's acquisition of the Triforce, and the Imprisoning War (or "Sealing War" in Japan).
Regarding Ganondorf's getting the Triforce, the game says that he led a band of thieves throughout the land of Hyrule in search of the entrance to the Sacred Realm, where the Triforce was hidden by that point. When they finally happened upon the entrance by accident, they entered the Sacred Realm and gazed upon the Triforce. The thieves then turned on each other and fought over which of them would get the Triforce, with Ganondorf being the victor. Upon touching the Triforce, he made his wish, was turned into the boar-demon Ganon, and corrupted the Sacred Realm into the Dark World.
However, there was one thing that stood in his way: He couldn't figure out how to get back out of the Sacred Realm/Dark World. Even with the complete Triforce in his possession, he was stuck and trapped there immediately after first setting foot inside (this was in reference to the game's real-world mechanic of Link needing the Magic Mirror to move back and forth between the Light and Dark Worlds). This will be important later.
With all this game's new additions, and the notion of there being an unknown period of time between this game and TLOZ, the timeline now looks like this:
Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Triforce conflict → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (GB), 1993 – LA
The first game set outside of Hyrule, this game takes place on Koholint Island, a fabrication created by the dream of the Wind Fish, an ocean guardian whose dream is plagued by shadowy entities called Nightmares. The game's backstory indicates that the game is set after Link has saved Hyrule from Ganon. This could theoretically place it after any of the previous three games, but the final boss battle sees the final Nightmare shapeshift into three forms based off three specific bosses from ALTTP: Moldorm, Agahnim, and the ALTTP version of Ganon. These forms make the most sense if this game is thus a sequel to ALTTP.
The backstory also says that Link first arrived Koholint after being shipwrecked there. This was because, after defeating Ganon, he left Hyrule to do some training in other countries. According to the text, this training took place over the course of "months of difficult travel". It was when he was sailing back to Hyrule that he got shipwrecked on Koholint thanks to a storm destroying his boat. With this info, the timeline now looks like this:
The backstory also says that Link first arrived Koholint after being shipwrecked there. This was because, after defeating Ganon, he left Hyrule to do some training in other countries. According to the text, this training took place over the course of "months of difficult travel". It was when he was sailing back to Hyrule that he got shipwrecked on Koholint thanks to a storm destroying his boat. With this info, the timeline now looks like this:
Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Triforce conflict → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64), 1998 – OOT
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64), 2000 – MM
The first 3D Zelda game, this was a humungous deal at the time of release, and still considered one of the most beloved games in the series. Little known fact: According to this episode of Did You Know Gaming?, the very first intent of this game was to be a remake of TAOL, meaning it being an adaptation of the Imprisoning War described in ALTTP's backstory was not its original intent.
While ALTTP merely told the origin story of Ganon, this game attempted to actually show it play out, with Ganon starting off as Ganondorf, the king of the Gerudo Tribe. However, while there are some similarities between this game and ALTTP's backstory, there are far too many irreconcilable discrepancies between the two:
Of course, there is also the matter of there being two endings for OOT, one in the future and one in the new past, which causes the Child and Adult Timeline splits built upon by later games. And while the Adult Timeline events of OOT are what don't match up with ALTTP's backstory, the Child Ending could, perhaps in theory, lead into the ALTTP backstory (at least, for now). Granted, it's still not a perfect fit, since the Child Ending sees Link still in possession of the Triforce of Courage, when the complete Triforce remains unsplit inside the Sacred Realm at the beginning of ALTTP's backstory. So if Link were to somehow lose the Triforce of Courage and have it returned to the Sacred Realm to reunite with the other pieces, that could work to set the stage for ALTTP's backstory. But we'll see how long this holds.
Anyway, this game also reiterates the same creation-of-the-world story as ALTTP, so it's definitely at least wanting to be in the same timeline. It also mentions a fierce war that took place prior to the game's present, which ended with the land of Hyrule being unified. This is similar to the mention of the quarrel over the Triforce that was briefly mentioned in ALTTP's backstory, but we don't yet know if they are meant to be the same event or not. For now, though, with what information we have so far, it might be safe to assume that they are the same event. But, again, that could very well change.
While ALTTP merely told the origin story of Ganon, this game attempted to actually show it play out, with Ganon starting off as Ganondorf, the king of the Gerudo Tribe. However, while there are some similarities between this game and ALTTP's backstory, there are far too many irreconcilable discrepancies between the two:
- ALTTP Ganondorf found the Sacred Realm entrance by coincidence; OOT Ganondorf knew it was in the Temple of Time all along, and meticulously manipulated Link, Zelda, and the tribes of Hyrule into granting him access to it.
- ALTTP Ganondorf acquired the full Triforce upon his first setting foot inside the Sacred Realm, and keeps it all the way up until his defeat at the very end of the game, long after the Sealing War; OOT Ganondorf's heart was out of balance, so he only got the Triforce of Power, and never acquired the full Triforce.
- ALTTP Ganondorf couldn't figure out how to get back out of the Sacred Realm after he first entered it; OOT Ganondorf got right back out with no trouble at all, and ruled over Hyrule for seven long years.
- ALTTP Ganondorf became his pig-demon Ganon form after first getting the Triforce from within the Sacred Realm; OOT Ganondorf remained in his human Gerudo form for nearly the whole game, not becoming his pig-demon Ganon form until the very end of the game, and reverted back to his human form after being defeated.
- To end the Sealing War, the Seven Sages sealed shut the entrance to the Sacred Realm, cutting off Ganon from the Light World for good; OOT instead ends with the Seven Sages sealing Ganondorf in a void beyond the world of the dead (Nintendo of America mistranslated all references to this to instead make it seem like Ganondorf was being sucked into and sealed inside the Sacred Realm, which is not true despite Hyrule Historia leaning into the mistranslation).
Of course, there is also the matter of there being two endings for OOT, one in the future and one in the new past, which causes the Child and Adult Timeline splits built upon by later games. And while the Adult Timeline events of OOT are what don't match up with ALTTP's backstory, the Child Ending could, perhaps in theory, lead into the ALTTP backstory (at least, for now). Granted, it's still not a perfect fit, since the Child Ending sees Link still in possession of the Triforce of Courage, when the complete Triforce remains unsplit inside the Sacred Realm at the beginning of ALTTP's backstory. So if Link were to somehow lose the Triforce of Courage and have it returned to the Sacred Realm to reunite with the other pieces, that could work to set the stage for ALTTP's backstory. But we'll see how long this holds.
Anyway, this game also reiterates the same creation-of-the-world story as ALTTP, so it's definitely at least wanting to be in the same timeline. It also mentions a fierce war that took place prior to the game's present, which ended with the land of Hyrule being unified. This is similar to the mention of the quarrel over the Triforce that was briefly mentioned in ALTTP's backstory, but we don't yet know if they are meant to be the same event or not. For now, though, with what information we have so far, it might be safe to assume that they are the same event. But, again, that could very well change.
Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Triforce conflict/fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → (Link must lose his Triforce piece to recreate the complete Triforce inside the Sacred Realm) → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64), 2000 – MM
The direct sequel to OOT, this game is set only a few months after the Child Ending of that game. Link ends up in the parallel world of Termina, which he must save from total annihilation by the Moon being brought down by the power of an ancient stolen mask worn by a mischievous Skull Kid.
Link is still a child, and starts off on a quest to find Navi, his fairy companion from OOT who parted ways with Link during the Child Ending of that game.
There's no indication that Link still possesses the Triforce of Courage in this game, so going by the theory of him losing it at some point after OOT's Child Ending (in order for that ending to eventually lead into ALTTP's backstory), we have a timeline like so:
Link is still a child, and starts off on a quest to find Navi, his fairy companion from OOT who parted ways with Link during the Child Ending of that game.
There's no indication that Link still possesses the Triforce of Courage in this game, so going by the theory of him losing it at some point after OOT's Child Ending (in order for that ending to eventually lead into ALTTP's backstory), we have a timeline like so:
Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Triforce conflict/fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → (Link must lose his Triforce piece to recreate the complete Triforce inside the Sacred Realm) → MM → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
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The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (GBC), 2001 – OOS/OOA
Hoo boy, this duo of games. Developed by Capcom, these games went through several changes in intent before finally resulting in these two. First there was supposed to be six games (one of which being a remake of TLOZ), then three games, and finally these two.
The opening of both games sees Link riding on horseback to Hyrule, as if he were returning from a long journey. He is then summoned to Hyrule Castle by the Triforce (the complete Triforce) and whisked away on a mission to either Labrynna or Holodrum, two other countries outside of Hyrule. The game manual for OOS shows the Triforce refer to Link by name, as if the two are familiars. The manuals for both games refer to Ganon as "the specter of the greatest evil Link has ever known!" This is a Link who has fought Ganon before, who is now dead since the Oracle games see the Twinrova witches, Koume and Kotake, trying to resurrect him. This would then place these two games after a game in which Ganon is destroyed, which we're currently limited to just TLOZ and ALTTP. The completed Triforce being inside Hyrule Castle at the beginning of the games, and the Triforce's familiarity with Link, suggest the Oracle games to come after ALTTP.
What's more, the Oracle games use a slightly modified version of the LA game sprite of Marin for Princess Zelda, which matches up with Link initially mistaking Marin for Zelda in that game.
While Marin's expy Malon (originally from OOT) also appears in OOS, she is given a completely new sprite different from that of both Zelda and Marin, as if to reinforce Marin's resemblance to Zelda that led Link to mistake her for Zelda in the first place.
All this strongly suggests a connection between the Oracle games and LA. The strongest piece of evidence people point out is the very end of the Linked Oracle Game showing Link sail out to sea aboard a boat that looks remarkably similar to the boat Link sails on at the beginning of LA.
Though, the ending also shows a castle in the background of the country that Link sails away from. This can only be Hyrule Castle since neither Holodrum nor present-day Labrynna has a castle. If this were to lead into LA, then this would be the start of Link's departure from Hyrule to go train in other lands after saving Hyrule from Ganon, as described in the backstory for LA. Plus, the Nintendo Switch remake of LA gave Link's outfit the same color scheme as the outfit he wore in the Oracle games. And an artbook released for the Switch version of LA included art of Link's shields from both ALTTP and the Oracle games.
However, something thing people like to point out that seemingly contradicts the Link and Zelda of the Oracle games being the same as those of ALTTP and LA is the fact that Zelda seems to not know Link in the Oracle games, as she introduces herself to him: "Thank you for rescuing me. My name is Zelda." But what's often overlooked about this is that when she introduces herself, she also says "You are Link, right? I knew it at first glance." This suggests that she did recognize him, and that her formal introduction could be out of a sense of courtesy in case he didn't remember her, as if a long enough amount of time has passed since their last encounter.
The Zelda Encyclopedia placed the Oracle after LA, but likely because of the confusion surrounding Zelda's dialogue, and decided the Link and Zelda from the Oracle game were a different Link and Zelda from those in ALTTP and LA. But all that's really needed is for there to be enough time set between the Oracle games and ALTTP to warrant Zelda's sense of propriety.
So, comes the question of whether the Oracle games should come before or after LA. If LA were to come before the Oracle games, then the Linked Game ending seeing Link sail away from Hyrule would lead into his training prior to LA, which a lot of people like to believe. There is also, allegedly, an old developer interview from a 2000 issue of 64DREAM that, ostensibly, claimed that the Oracle games were indeed supposed to be set between ALTTP and LA, with the Linked Game's ending scene indeed meant to lead into LA.
However, if one were to take, at face value, the opening of whichever Oracle game one chooses to play first, in which Link is seen returning to Hyrule on horseback, this would mean that Link left Hyrule after ALTTP on some unseen, undisclosed journey, returned to Hyrule only to be sent to either Labrynna or Holodrum, where he had one adventure, returned back to Hyrule, only to be sent to the other country, had the other adventure there, fought and defeated Ganon in the Linked Game ending, returned to Hyrule again during the Linked Game's end credits, and then sailed away from Hyrule to do some months of training, before getting shipwrecked on Koholint Island. That is a LOT to work out, with Link going on an entirely unseen journey between ALTTP and the Oracle games.
Conversely, if one were to instead place the Oracle games after LA, that would mean Link left Hyrule to train for a few months after ALTTP, got shipwrecked on Koholint on his way back, and eventually made it back home to Hyrule safe and sound, only to be sent away on two more adventures before confronting a revived Ganon in the Oracle games, and then sailed away on another undisclosed adventure. It's still a lot, but it seems a bit less complicated in this setup.
Basically, either scenario looks like this:
Oracles come first: ALTTP → Link leaves Hyrule for whatever reason → Link returns to Hyrule but is sent to Labrynna or Holodrum → first Oracle game → Link returns home again but is sent to the other country → second Oracle game → Link defeats Ganon and returns to Hyrule again → Link sails away to train in foreign countries → LA
Oracles come after: ALTTP → Link leaves Hyrule to train in foreign countries → LA → Link returns home but is sent to Labrynna or Holodrum → first Oracle game → Link returns home again but is sent to the other country → second Oracle game → Link defeats Ganon and returns to Hyrule again → Link sails away from Hyrule for whatever reason
In the second setup, the unknown part of the story doesn't come until the end, which is already supposed to be a long, unexplored gap of time until the next game in the timeline, anyway.
What's more, placing the Oracle games after LA gives more time between ALTTP and LA, making Zelda's formality make more sense. We don't know how long it took Link to get back to Hyrule after LA, and that makes it plausible that it took him a long time (maybe a few years, even) to return home after being stranded out at sea. As for the boats seen in both games, they don't need to be the exact same boat. They could simply be the same kind of boat instead.
LA was clearly meant to be a direct sequel to ALTTP, with the final Nightmare taking the forms of Agahnim and ALTTP Ganon as if it had scanned Link's mind and was trying to psyche him out by taking the forms of the two greatest enemies that Link had most recently fought. Otherwise, placing the Oracle games before LA retroactively begs the question of why the Nightmare didn't also take the forms of Veran and Onox, whom Link would have battled even more recently.
And finally, the Linked Oracle games' ending also features a scene that could be interpreted as the Triforce splitting, which would set things up, narratively, for the later placement of A Link Between Worlds. Thus, ALTTP would end with Ganon defeated and the Triforce safe in Hyrule, Link leaves Hyrule to go train and gets temporarily stranded on Koholint Island during his return in LA, then he makes it back to Hyrule only to be sent on two more adventures before defeating a resurrected Ganon in the Oracle games. The Triforce is then split after this defeat of Ganon, setting up its status quo in A Link Between Worlds.
It really seems like the Oracle games were made with LA in mind, but without the knowledge that LA was meant to be a direct sequel to ALTTP.
On the subject of which Oracle game should precede the other, completing Ages before Seasons does result in more complete side-quests that carry over between the two, with the Linked version of OOS continuing side-quests started in OOA. For instance, Queen Ambi from OOA is reunited with her long lost love, the pirate captain from OOS, which does not happen when OOS is played before OOA. And in the Linked version of OOS, Onox mentions Link having defeat Veran in OOA, while Veran in the Linked version of OOA does not mention Link's defeat of Onox in OOS.
The Oracle games' depiction of Impa also make more sense in the order of Ages preceding Seasons. In the normal version of OOS, when Link first meets Impa, she pretends to be the cook of Din's performance troupe, before she tells Link the truth about her actually being Princess Zelda's nursemaid sent to Holodrum to protect Din. There was no reason for her to hide her identity from Link. In the Linked version of OOS, she instead already knows Link after having already encountered him back in Labrynna during OOA, and so is honest with him upfront about her business in Holodrum.
Meanwhile, in both the normal and Linked versions of OOA, Impa seems to introduce herself to Link as if the two never met each other before, but this is also when she is possessed by Veran, who wouldn't know if Link and Impa ever knew each other or not. But, in only the Linked version of OOA, when mentioning that Zelda sent her to Labrynna to protect Nayru, Impa says to Link a very confusing line: "We should not have forgotten you, the hero of Holodrum." That they could have simply "forgotten" about Link right after he saved Holodrum in OOS is just baffling. Conversely, playing OOA before OOS has her not speak this line, letting her dialogue flow more naturally.
Thus, in the order of OOS → OOA, Impa bizarrely fibs to Link about who she really is when they first meet in Holodrum, and then seemingly just "forgets" about how useful Link is as the Hero when they meet up in again in Labrynna. While in the order of OOA → OOS, Impa doesn't say anything nonsensical when she and Link first meet in Labrynna, and then she is both honest and familiar with him when they meet up again in Holodrum. The latter arrangement just makes so much more sense.
Therefore, I'll be putting the Oracle games after LA, and OOA before OOS:
The opening of both games sees Link riding on horseback to Hyrule, as if he were returning from a long journey. He is then summoned to Hyrule Castle by the Triforce (the complete Triforce) and whisked away on a mission to either Labrynna or Holodrum, two other countries outside of Hyrule. The game manual for OOS shows the Triforce refer to Link by name, as if the two are familiars. The manuals for both games refer to Ganon as "the specter of the greatest evil Link has ever known!" This is a Link who has fought Ganon before, who is now dead since the Oracle games see the Twinrova witches, Koume and Kotake, trying to resurrect him. This would then place these two games after a game in which Ganon is destroyed, which we're currently limited to just TLOZ and ALTTP. The completed Triforce being inside Hyrule Castle at the beginning of the games, and the Triforce's familiarity with Link, suggest the Oracle games to come after ALTTP.
What's more, the Oracle games use a slightly modified version of the LA game sprite of Marin for Princess Zelda, which matches up with Link initially mistaking Marin for Zelda in that game.
While Marin's expy Malon (originally from OOT) also appears in OOS, she is given a completely new sprite different from that of both Zelda and Marin, as if to reinforce Marin's resemblance to Zelda that led Link to mistake her for Zelda in the first place.
All this strongly suggests a connection between the Oracle games and LA. The strongest piece of evidence people point out is the very end of the Linked Oracle Game showing Link sail out to sea aboard a boat that looks remarkably similar to the boat Link sails on at the beginning of LA.
Though, the ending also shows a castle in the background of the country that Link sails away from. This can only be Hyrule Castle since neither Holodrum nor present-day Labrynna has a castle. If this were to lead into LA, then this would be the start of Link's departure from Hyrule to go train in other lands after saving Hyrule from Ganon, as described in the backstory for LA. Plus, the Nintendo Switch remake of LA gave Link's outfit the same color scheme as the outfit he wore in the Oracle games. And an artbook released for the Switch version of LA included art of Link's shields from both ALTTP and the Oracle games.
However, something thing people like to point out that seemingly contradicts the Link and Zelda of the Oracle games being the same as those of ALTTP and LA is the fact that Zelda seems to not know Link in the Oracle games, as she introduces herself to him: "Thank you for rescuing me. My name is Zelda." But what's often overlooked about this is that when she introduces herself, she also says "You are Link, right? I knew it at first glance." This suggests that she did recognize him, and that her formal introduction could be out of a sense of courtesy in case he didn't remember her, as if a long enough amount of time has passed since their last encounter.
The Zelda Encyclopedia placed the Oracle after LA, but likely because of the confusion surrounding Zelda's dialogue, and decided the Link and Zelda from the Oracle game were a different Link and Zelda from those in ALTTP and LA. But all that's really needed is for there to be enough time set between the Oracle games and ALTTP to warrant Zelda's sense of propriety.
So, comes the question of whether the Oracle games should come before or after LA. If LA were to come before the Oracle games, then the Linked Game ending seeing Link sail away from Hyrule would lead into his training prior to LA, which a lot of people like to believe. There is also, allegedly, an old developer interview from a 2000 issue of 64DREAM that, ostensibly, claimed that the Oracle games were indeed supposed to be set between ALTTP and LA, with the Linked Game's ending scene indeed meant to lead into LA.
However, if one were to take, at face value, the opening of whichever Oracle game one chooses to play first, in which Link is seen returning to Hyrule on horseback, this would mean that Link left Hyrule after ALTTP on some unseen, undisclosed journey, returned to Hyrule only to be sent to either Labrynna or Holodrum, where he had one adventure, returned back to Hyrule, only to be sent to the other country, had the other adventure there, fought and defeated Ganon in the Linked Game ending, returned to Hyrule again during the Linked Game's end credits, and then sailed away from Hyrule to do some months of training, before getting shipwrecked on Koholint Island. That is a LOT to work out, with Link going on an entirely unseen journey between ALTTP and the Oracle games.
Conversely, if one were to instead place the Oracle games after LA, that would mean Link left Hyrule to train for a few months after ALTTP, got shipwrecked on Koholint on his way back, and eventually made it back home to Hyrule safe and sound, only to be sent away on two more adventures before confronting a revived Ganon in the Oracle games, and then sailed away on another undisclosed adventure. It's still a lot, but it seems a bit less complicated in this setup.
Basically, either scenario looks like this:
Oracles come first: ALTTP → Link leaves Hyrule for whatever reason → Link returns to Hyrule but is sent to Labrynna or Holodrum → first Oracle game → Link returns home again but is sent to the other country → second Oracle game → Link defeats Ganon and returns to Hyrule again → Link sails away to train in foreign countries → LA
Oracles come after: ALTTP → Link leaves Hyrule to train in foreign countries → LA → Link returns home but is sent to Labrynna or Holodrum → first Oracle game → Link returns home again but is sent to the other country → second Oracle game → Link defeats Ganon and returns to Hyrule again → Link sails away from Hyrule for whatever reason
In the second setup, the unknown part of the story doesn't come until the end, which is already supposed to be a long, unexplored gap of time until the next game in the timeline, anyway.
What's more, placing the Oracle games after LA gives more time between ALTTP and LA, making Zelda's formality make more sense. We don't know how long it took Link to get back to Hyrule after LA, and that makes it plausible that it took him a long time (maybe a few years, even) to return home after being stranded out at sea. As for the boats seen in both games, they don't need to be the exact same boat. They could simply be the same kind of boat instead.
LA was clearly meant to be a direct sequel to ALTTP, with the final Nightmare taking the forms of Agahnim and ALTTP Ganon as if it had scanned Link's mind and was trying to psyche him out by taking the forms of the two greatest enemies that Link had most recently fought. Otherwise, placing the Oracle games before LA retroactively begs the question of why the Nightmare didn't also take the forms of Veran and Onox, whom Link would have battled even more recently.
And finally, the Linked Oracle games' ending also features a scene that could be interpreted as the Triforce splitting, which would set things up, narratively, for the later placement of A Link Between Worlds. Thus, ALTTP would end with Ganon defeated and the Triforce safe in Hyrule, Link leaves Hyrule to go train and gets temporarily stranded on Koholint Island during his return in LA, then he makes it back to Hyrule only to be sent on two more adventures before defeating a resurrected Ganon in the Oracle games. The Triforce is then split after this defeat of Ganon, setting up its status quo in A Link Between Worlds.
It really seems like the Oracle games were made with LA in mind, but without the knowledge that LA was meant to be a direct sequel to ALTTP.
On the subject of which Oracle game should precede the other, completing Ages before Seasons does result in more complete side-quests that carry over between the two, with the Linked version of OOS continuing side-quests started in OOA. For instance, Queen Ambi from OOA is reunited with her long lost love, the pirate captain from OOS, which does not happen when OOS is played before OOA. And in the Linked version of OOS, Onox mentions Link having defeat Veran in OOA, while Veran in the Linked version of OOA does not mention Link's defeat of Onox in OOS.
The Oracle games' depiction of Impa also make more sense in the order of Ages preceding Seasons. In the normal version of OOS, when Link first meets Impa, she pretends to be the cook of Din's performance troupe, before she tells Link the truth about her actually being Princess Zelda's nursemaid sent to Holodrum to protect Din. There was no reason for her to hide her identity from Link. In the Linked version of OOS, she instead already knows Link after having already encountered him back in Labrynna during OOA, and so is honest with him upfront about her business in Holodrum.
Meanwhile, in both the normal and Linked versions of OOA, Impa seems to introduce herself to Link as if the two never met each other before, but this is also when she is possessed by Veran, who wouldn't know if Link and Impa ever knew each other or not. But, in only the Linked version of OOA, when mentioning that Zelda sent her to Labrynna to protect Nayru, Impa says to Link a very confusing line: "We should not have forgotten you, the hero of Holodrum." That they could have simply "forgotten" about Link right after he saved Holodrum in OOS is just baffling. Conversely, playing OOA before OOS has her not speak this line, letting her dialogue flow more naturally.
Thus, in the order of OOS → OOA, Impa bizarrely fibs to Link about who she really is when they first meet in Holodrum, and then seemingly just "forgets" about how useful Link is as the Hero when they meet up in again in Labrynna. While in the order of OOA → OOS, Impa doesn't say anything nonsensical when she and Link first meet in Labrynna, and then she is both honest and familiar with him when they meet up again in Holodrum. The latter arrangement just makes so much more sense.
Therefore, I'll be putting the Oracle games after LA, and OOA before OOS:
Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Triforce conflict/fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → (Link must lose his Triforce piece to recreate the complete Triforce inside the Sacred Realm) → MM → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → OOA → OOS → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
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The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords (GBA), 2002/2003 – FS
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GCN), 2002/2003 – TWW
A remake of ALTTP for the Game Boy Advance, this port included a new side-game called Four Swords (FS) that introduced a brand new main villain: The Wind Sorcerer Vaati ("Gufuu" in Japan). It also introduced the new game mechanic of the Four Sword, which can split its wielder into up to four different entities, creating three copies of the wielder.
The backstory of this game describes a time long ago when Vaati terrorized Hyrule and went around kidnapping many beautiful girls. After many knights and other brave men failed to stop Vaati and rescue the captured girls, a young boy wielding the Four Sword entered Vaati's palace, defeated him, and sealed him away inside the Four Sword.
The game then begins with Vaati having already broken free of the sword's seal by his own power. He kidnaps Zelda and takes her to his palace in the sky. Link draws the Four Sword, splits himself into four, and then sets out to rescue Zelda. At the end of the game, Link defeats Vaati and seals him back inside the Four Sword.
Of further note is how the remake of ALTTP had much of its English dialogue rewritten to better reflect both the original Japanese dialogue and the terminology used in other games like OOT (e.g. – "Seven Wise Men" became "Seven Sages"). It also added in the character of Maple from the Oracle games (replacing the Witch's Assistant) to better tie together ALTTP and the Oracle games.
There was also a new bonus dungeon added to the Dark World, accessible only after both Ganon and FS were beaten: The "Palace of the Four Sword". While many Zelda fans don't consider this dungeon to be canon (since it's only accessible after the main quest of ALTTP has already been completed, meaning it can't be reached until after the end of the main story, by which point the Dark World is canonically no longer the Dark World), it does provide an interesting, plausible fate for the Four Sword after its next chronological appearance: The sword appears in the dungeon broken apart into four pieces hidden away in different areas, as if someone didn't want the pieces of the sword to ever be found.
Anyway, in regards to FS's placement, an old Game Informer interview saw series producer Eiji Aonuma make this statement: "The GBA Four Swords Zelda is what we’re thinking as the oldest tale in the Zelda timeline." So both it and its backstory would come before all other games thus far:
The backstory of this game describes a time long ago when Vaati terrorized Hyrule and went around kidnapping many beautiful girls. After many knights and other brave men failed to stop Vaati and rescue the captured girls, a young boy wielding the Four Sword entered Vaati's palace, defeated him, and sealed him away inside the Four Sword.
The game then begins with Vaati having already broken free of the sword's seal by his own power. He kidnaps Zelda and takes her to his palace in the sky. Link draws the Four Sword, splits himself into four, and then sets out to rescue Zelda. At the end of the game, Link defeats Vaati and seals him back inside the Four Sword.
Of further note is how the remake of ALTTP had much of its English dialogue rewritten to better reflect both the original Japanese dialogue and the terminology used in other games like OOT (e.g. – "Seven Wise Men" became "Seven Sages"). It also added in the character of Maple from the Oracle games (replacing the Witch's Assistant) to better tie together ALTTP and the Oracle games.
There was also a new bonus dungeon added to the Dark World, accessible only after both Ganon and FS were beaten: The "Palace of the Four Sword". While many Zelda fans don't consider this dungeon to be canon (since it's only accessible after the main quest of ALTTP has already been completed, meaning it can't be reached until after the end of the main story, by which point the Dark World is canonically no longer the Dark World), it does provide an interesting, plausible fate for the Four Sword after its next chronological appearance: The sword appears in the dungeon broken apart into four pieces hidden away in different areas, as if someone didn't want the pieces of the sword to ever be found.
Anyway, in regards to FS's placement, an old Game Informer interview saw series producer Eiji Aonuma make this statement: "The GBA Four Swords Zelda is what we’re thinking as the oldest tale in the Zelda timeline." So both it and its backstory would come before all other games thus far:
Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Vaati's attack/sealing → FS → Triforce conflict/fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → (Link must lose his Triforce piece to recreate the complete Triforce inside the Sacred Realm) → MM → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → OOA → OOS → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GCN), 2002/2003 – TWW
Here we go. The game that broke the linearity of the timeline, TWW is set chronologically after OOT's Adult Ending, with its opening backstory telling of the Hero of Time defeating Ganondorf and his being sealed away. Some time after that, Ganondorf broke free and attacked Hyrule again. Since the Hero of Time had been removed from this timeline, there was no hero to oppose Ganon. So the people prayed to the three Golden Goddesses, who flooded the land and drowned Hyrule beneath the Great Sea. Centuries later, Ganondorf reached the surface and kicked off the events of the game.
This basically confirms that the timeline split into two paths after OOT, creating the "Adult Timeline" split off from the "Child Timeline". The King of Red Lions even mentions the Hero of Time disappearing on a journey "through time" at one point near the start of the game's Triforce scavenger hunt (this line of dialogue was slightly mistranslated in the English version, leaving out the "through time" part). So now, the timeline branches off at OOT (which I will have to visualize with the use of a second timeline):
This basically confirms that the timeline split into two paths after OOT, creating the "Adult Timeline" split off from the "Child Timeline". The King of Red Lions even mentions the Hero of Time disappearing on a journey "through time" at one point near the start of the game's Triforce scavenger hunt (this line of dialogue was slightly mistranslated in the English version, leaving out the "through time" part). So now, the timeline branches off at OOT (which I will have to visualize with the use of a second timeline):
Child Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Vaati's attack/sealing → FS → Triforce conflict/fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → (Link must lose his Triforce piece to recreate the complete Triforce inside the Sacred Realm) → MM → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → OOA → OOS → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
Adult Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Vaati's attack/sealing → FS → Triforce conflict/fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW
Adult Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Vaati's attack/sealing → FS → Triforce conflict/fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW
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The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (GCN), 2004/2005 – FSA
Okay, now we're really gonna start deviating from the Hyrule Historia timeline with this one. This game is a sequel to FS, with the return and ultimate defeat of Vaati. The game's backstory describes both the same events of FS's backstory (with Vaati abducting girls and being sealed inside the Four Sword) and the in-game events of FS itself. The text also refers to the Link and Zelda of FS by name, as if to say that they are the same Link and Zelda of this game. Whenever a Zelda game refers to a different Link from the current one, he is always referenced in vague terms rather than by name: "the hero", "a young man", "a boy", or (as specifically written in this game's backstory in reference to the original hero who sealed Vaati the first time) "the wanderer" or "the young lad". Likewise for "the princess" in the case of other Zeldas.
Hyrule Historia ignored this and separated FSA from FS, placing this game long after FS, after the later-released Twilight Princess. This decision also contradicted what is explicitly said in FSA's intro text and dialogue from Zelda, which was that, right after Vaati was sealed back inside the Four Sword at the end of FS, peace returned to Hyrule, only for dark clouds to suddenly begin covering the kingdom not long after, which leads directly into the beginning of FSA. So there was a brief period of peace between FS and FSA, while the Historia timeline instead separates the two by centuries, placing between the two the war that preceded OOT, the Child Ending of OOT that led to Ganondorf's invasion of Hyrule and his subsequent botched execution, the next invasion of Hyrule by Zant, and the events of Twilight Princess. That's four different conflicts sandwiched between FS and FSA on that timeline, which is anything but brief or peaceful.
FSA even opens with its Link and Zelda already knowing each other, further supporting their being the same Link and Zelda from FS since those two were explicitly childhood friends in that game.
So if FSA is supposed to be a direct sequel to FS, why did the Historia separate the two? Because FSA also features the origin of Ganon as Ganondorf, when both ALTTP and OOT already did their own origins of Ganon. The book tried to get around this by claiming the FSA Ganondorf was a new one, born after the one in Twilight Princess was killed. But there are numerous instances in FSA that make no sense if it comes after that game. For one, none of the Seven Maidens (who basically serve the same role and function as the Seven Sages) have ever even heard of the name "Ganon", and can only recall the name "Ganondorf" in reference to the leader of the Gerudo people, a man that they don't believe monsters would ever serve.
Surely the Hyrulean royal court wouldn't have just "forgotten" all about the notorious tyrant who tried to take over the kingdom, cheated death at his execution, murdered a Sage, and nearly brought Hyrule to its knees in Twilight Princess. By then, the name "Ganondorf" would have been one of infamy. To even think the Gerudo tribe would have given their next male child the same name as the man who brought such an ill reputation to their tribe... is ludicrous. And most of all, throughout the game, Zelda and the maidens speak as if Vaati has been the greatest threat that Hyrule has ever faced, as if Ganon has never been an issue before.
The story goes that, when the Zelda team at Nintendo was making this game, it was originally intended to be the Imprisoning War described in ALTTP's backstory, but Shigeru Miyamoto stepped in and put a stop to that because he felt the Zelda team was putting too much focus on story over gameplay, which resulted in some lines of text being taken out of the game. However, the original quote that is commonly cited as the source of this claim has also been called into question, since it doesn't actually seem to be found anywhere in the interview it allegedly came from. But regardless, while the final product is not the Imprisoning War and cannot possibly represent that war at all, it can still work as a separate event that that preceded that war.
In FSA, Ganon first acquires a Trident that very closely resembles the one he wields in ALTTP, the Oracle games, and the later-made A Link Between Worlds. This game preceding those would thus give an origin for Ganon's trident. FSA also seems to give an origin for the Bombos Medallion and Quake Medallion from ALTTP, with their first being created in this game. It also takes place in a Hyrule that looks remarkably similar to that of ALTTP, with nearly the exact same layout.
The only notable difference is the presence of Frozen Hyrule where the Great Swamp was in ALTTP, but that area in FSA is said to have been cursed to an eternal winter by Ganon, and is shown during the game's end credits to have melted into a lush green area filled with lakes and puddles, matching how the Great Swamp appeared in ALTTP. And, well, the whole thing about FSA's Hyrule looking like it's surrounded by an ocean… I never took that at face value. Just an artistic choice for the map's design, to emphasize the kingdom of Hyrule's status as the only important thing on the map.
The same three Light World dungeons from ALTTP even appear in FSA, with the Eastern Temple basically being the Eastern Palace, the Desert Temple being the Desert Palace, and the Tower of Flames being the Tower of Hera. The former two even share the same Japanese names, as Nintendo of America changed the word "Temple" to "Palace" in ALTTP to remove any religious implications at the time (this stance changed by the time OOT came out); the Tower of Flames would simply have had its name changed to the Tower of Hera in the time between FSA and ALTTP. The Desert of Mystery from ALTTP was likewise called the "Desert of Doubt" in Japanese, sharing the same name as the Desert of Doubt in FSA. There's even the same kind of Zora in FSA, the monstrous River Zora, found only in games like TLOZ, TAOL, ALTTP, LA, the Oracle games, and the forthcoming A Link Between Worlds. Conversely, OOT and TP only have the more friendly kind of Zora not found in FSA.
So with all of these ties between FSA and ALTTP, where does that leave OOT in this equation? Well, we already have OOT's Child Ending and MM preceding Imprisoning War on the timeline, so this game would have to precede those too, since it also has to come right after FS. Except, that won't work either, because of how Ganon's origin in this game contradicts that of OOT. In FSA, Ganon is said to have been Ganondorf, the leader of the Gerudo tribe, who was transformed into the Demon King Ganon when he stole a powerful Trident, not the Triforce. This theft angered his own people into basically disavowing him as their leader, whereas the Gerudo remained mostly loyal to him in OOT (with Nabooru and her allies being the notable exception).
Ganon in this game also basically took over all of Hyrule, so if it were to come before OOT, he would already be a known warmonger, instead of the trusted ally to the King of Hyrule that he presents himself as at the beginning of OOT. And, like with how this game cannot come after Twilight Princess because of how the Hyrulean royal court logically wouldn't have simply forgotten about Ganondorf, the same is true for why this game is unable to precede OOT. So what are we to do about all these contradictions between FSA and OOT? Well, here's a radical idea: We simply remove OOT (and MM) from where it currently sits on the timeline, and place it on its own separate branch completely disconnected from ALTTP, allowing FSA to take its place.
I know, I know. That's crazy talk. But is it really? Back in OOT's section, I already covered how OOT's relation to ALTTP was already tenuous at best; trying to put OOT's Child Ending before the Imprisoning War always felt like forcing a square peg into a round hole. In fact, a lot of this might have been easier if OOT had never been placed on the same timeline as ALTTP in the first place. If it had simply been set aside to be added back in later, there might have been a few less headaches involved. So for now, let's take OOT and all its associates and put them off to the side on their own timeline, so that FSA can serve as a much more fitting bridge between FS and ALTTP. This, in turn, results in three separate timelines: One for all the retro 2D games, a 3D games Child Timeline, and a 3D games Adult Timeline. But don't worry, we'll come back later to reconcile OOT's two 3D timelines with the 2D timeline.
Though, at the end of FSA, Ganon is sealed away inside the Four Sword. Yet, prior to the Imprisoning War, he was out and about looking for the Triforce. All that we'd have to assume is that Ganon got out of the Four Sword at some point after FSA. Unlike the assumption of OOT Link somehow "losing" his piece of the Triforce to let it become whole again inside the Sacred Realm (which was needed to connect OOT's Child Ending to ALTTP's backstory), the idea of Ganon escaping from the Four Sword is very plausible since, if Vaati could do that by his own power (and offscreen, even) prior to the start of FS, then the more powerful Ganon could definitely do the same. He would then hear about the Triforce and the Sacred Realm, form a band of thieves to help him find them, and then go looking for the Sacred Realm's entrance, setting things up for ALTTP's backstory. The "Palace of the Four Sword" included in the GBA port of ALTTP (which I mentioned in the section for FS) even provides a plausible fate for the Four Sword after Ganon would escape from it, with it being shattered into four pieces that Ganon, supposedly, kept with him and later hid away inside the Dark World, to keep them from ever again being used against him.
One last thing to note is that FSA also mentions a time when a Dark Tribe invaded Hyrule in the past and was imprisoned within a mirror. Remember that "Triforce conflict" first mentioned in the backstory of ALTTP and which, up until this point, was equated with the "fierce war" from OOT? Well, for reasons that will be given later, I'm now going to instead equate the Dark Tribe's invasion with said conflict over the Triforce (even despite the Triforce itself not being a factor in FSA):
Hyrule Historia ignored this and separated FSA from FS, placing this game long after FS, after the later-released Twilight Princess. This decision also contradicted what is explicitly said in FSA's intro text and dialogue from Zelda, which was that, right after Vaati was sealed back inside the Four Sword at the end of FS, peace returned to Hyrule, only for dark clouds to suddenly begin covering the kingdom not long after, which leads directly into the beginning of FSA. So there was a brief period of peace between FS and FSA, while the Historia timeline instead separates the two by centuries, placing between the two the war that preceded OOT, the Child Ending of OOT that led to Ganondorf's invasion of Hyrule and his subsequent botched execution, the next invasion of Hyrule by Zant, and the events of Twilight Princess. That's four different conflicts sandwiched between FS and FSA on that timeline, which is anything but brief or peaceful.
FSA even opens with its Link and Zelda already knowing each other, further supporting their being the same Link and Zelda from FS since those two were explicitly childhood friends in that game.
So if FSA is supposed to be a direct sequel to FS, why did the Historia separate the two? Because FSA also features the origin of Ganon as Ganondorf, when both ALTTP and OOT already did their own origins of Ganon. The book tried to get around this by claiming the FSA Ganondorf was a new one, born after the one in Twilight Princess was killed. But there are numerous instances in FSA that make no sense if it comes after that game. For one, none of the Seven Maidens (who basically serve the same role and function as the Seven Sages) have ever even heard of the name "Ganon", and can only recall the name "Ganondorf" in reference to the leader of the Gerudo people, a man that they don't believe monsters would ever serve.
Surely the Hyrulean royal court wouldn't have just "forgotten" all about the notorious tyrant who tried to take over the kingdom, cheated death at his execution, murdered a Sage, and nearly brought Hyrule to its knees in Twilight Princess. By then, the name "Ganondorf" would have been one of infamy. To even think the Gerudo tribe would have given their next male child the same name as the man who brought such an ill reputation to their tribe... is ludicrous. And most of all, throughout the game, Zelda and the maidens speak as if Vaati has been the greatest threat that Hyrule has ever faced, as if Ganon has never been an issue before.
The story goes that, when the Zelda team at Nintendo was making this game, it was originally intended to be the Imprisoning War described in ALTTP's backstory, but Shigeru Miyamoto stepped in and put a stop to that because he felt the Zelda team was putting too much focus on story over gameplay, which resulted in some lines of text being taken out of the game. However, the original quote that is commonly cited as the source of this claim has also been called into question, since it doesn't actually seem to be found anywhere in the interview it allegedly came from. But regardless, while the final product is not the Imprisoning War and cannot possibly represent that war at all, it can still work as a separate event that that preceded that war.
In FSA, Ganon first acquires a Trident that very closely resembles the one he wields in ALTTP, the Oracle games, and the later-made A Link Between Worlds. This game preceding those would thus give an origin for Ganon's trident. FSA also seems to give an origin for the Bombos Medallion and Quake Medallion from ALTTP, with their first being created in this game. It also takes place in a Hyrule that looks remarkably similar to that of ALTTP, with nearly the exact same layout.
The only notable difference is the presence of Frozen Hyrule where the Great Swamp was in ALTTP, but that area in FSA is said to have been cursed to an eternal winter by Ganon, and is shown during the game's end credits to have melted into a lush green area filled with lakes and puddles, matching how the Great Swamp appeared in ALTTP. And, well, the whole thing about FSA's Hyrule looking like it's surrounded by an ocean… I never took that at face value. Just an artistic choice for the map's design, to emphasize the kingdom of Hyrule's status as the only important thing on the map.
The same three Light World dungeons from ALTTP even appear in FSA, with the Eastern Temple basically being the Eastern Palace, the Desert Temple being the Desert Palace, and the Tower of Flames being the Tower of Hera. The former two even share the same Japanese names, as Nintendo of America changed the word "Temple" to "Palace" in ALTTP to remove any religious implications at the time (this stance changed by the time OOT came out); the Tower of Flames would simply have had its name changed to the Tower of Hera in the time between FSA and ALTTP. The Desert of Mystery from ALTTP was likewise called the "Desert of Doubt" in Japanese, sharing the same name as the Desert of Doubt in FSA. There's even the same kind of Zora in FSA, the monstrous River Zora, found only in games like TLOZ, TAOL, ALTTP, LA, the Oracle games, and the forthcoming A Link Between Worlds. Conversely, OOT and TP only have the more friendly kind of Zora not found in FSA.
So with all of these ties between FSA and ALTTP, where does that leave OOT in this equation? Well, we already have OOT's Child Ending and MM preceding Imprisoning War on the timeline, so this game would have to precede those too, since it also has to come right after FS. Except, that won't work either, because of how Ganon's origin in this game contradicts that of OOT. In FSA, Ganon is said to have been Ganondorf, the leader of the Gerudo tribe, who was transformed into the Demon King Ganon when he stole a powerful Trident, not the Triforce. This theft angered his own people into basically disavowing him as their leader, whereas the Gerudo remained mostly loyal to him in OOT (with Nabooru and her allies being the notable exception).
Ganon in this game also basically took over all of Hyrule, so if it were to come before OOT, he would already be a known warmonger, instead of the trusted ally to the King of Hyrule that he presents himself as at the beginning of OOT. And, like with how this game cannot come after Twilight Princess because of how the Hyrulean royal court logically wouldn't have simply forgotten about Ganondorf, the same is true for why this game is unable to precede OOT. So what are we to do about all these contradictions between FSA and OOT? Well, here's a radical idea: We simply remove OOT (and MM) from where it currently sits on the timeline, and place it on its own separate branch completely disconnected from ALTTP, allowing FSA to take its place.
I know, I know. That's crazy talk. But is it really? Back in OOT's section, I already covered how OOT's relation to ALTTP was already tenuous at best; trying to put OOT's Child Ending before the Imprisoning War always felt like forcing a square peg into a round hole. In fact, a lot of this might have been easier if OOT had never been placed on the same timeline as ALTTP in the first place. If it had simply been set aside to be added back in later, there might have been a few less headaches involved. So for now, let's take OOT and all its associates and put them off to the side on their own timeline, so that FSA can serve as a much more fitting bridge between FS and ALTTP. This, in turn, results in three separate timelines: One for all the retro 2D games, a 3D games Child Timeline, and a 3D games Adult Timeline. But don't worry, we'll come back later to reconcile OOT's two 3D timelines with the 2D timeline.
Though, at the end of FSA, Ganon is sealed away inside the Four Sword. Yet, prior to the Imprisoning War, he was out and about looking for the Triforce. All that we'd have to assume is that Ganon got out of the Four Sword at some point after FSA. Unlike the assumption of OOT Link somehow "losing" his piece of the Triforce to let it become whole again inside the Sacred Realm (which was needed to connect OOT's Child Ending to ALTTP's backstory), the idea of Ganon escaping from the Four Sword is very plausible since, if Vaati could do that by his own power (and offscreen, even) prior to the start of FS, then the more powerful Ganon could definitely do the same. He would then hear about the Triforce and the Sacred Realm, form a band of thieves to help him find them, and then go looking for the Sacred Realm's entrance, setting things up for ALTTP's backstory. The "Palace of the Four Sword" included in the GBA port of ALTTP (which I mentioned in the section for FS) even provides a plausible fate for the Four Sword after Ganon would escape from it, with it being shattered into four pieces that Ganon, supposedly, kept with him and later hid away inside the Dark World, to keep them from ever again being used against him.
One last thing to note is that FSA also mentions a time when a Dark Tribe invaded Hyrule in the past and was imprisoned within a mirror. Remember that "Triforce conflict" first mentioned in the backstory of ALTTP and which, up until this point, was equated with the "fierce war" from OOT? Well, for reasons that will be given later, I'm now going to instead equate the Dark Tribe's invasion with said conflict over the Triforce (even despite the Triforce itself not being a factor in FSA):
2D Retro Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Vaati's attack/sealing → Dark Tribe's invasion/Triforce conflict → FS →FSA → (Ganon escapes the Four Sword) → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → OOA → OOS → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW
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The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GBA), 2004/2005 – TMC
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (GCN/Wii), 2006 – TP
This game is a distant prequel to FS, telling the origin of Vaati, who is revealed here to have been a Minish who went mad with power. This time, he's after a great source of power called the Light Force, which is revealed to be inside Princess Zelda herself. The Four Sword is also given an origin, as it is first created here from the Picori Blade.
There's just one notable problem here. Absolutely nothing in this game resembles any of the events told about Vaati's first attack on Hyrule in the backstory of FS. In this game, Vaati isn't a wind sorcerer who goes around kidnapping girls to his palace in the sky. He's instead a Minish who steals a magical wishing cap that transforms him into various powerful forms, he turns Zelda to stone and impersonates the King, and is trying to find the Light Force. He doesn't even have a palace in the sky; he uses Hyrule Castle as his base of operations. There is the Palace of Winds that resides in the sky, but it belongs to a new group of peaceful people called the Wind Tribe; Vaati has nothing to do with that palace. The game even ends not with Vaati being sealed inside the Four Sword, but instead with Vaati being destroyed. He very blatantly explodes at end of the final boss battle, while FS showed what it looks like for Vaati to be sealed away inside the Four Sword, which absolutely does not happen in this game. In order for TMC to fit properly before FS, Vaati has to be resurrected at some point after this game. He then has to take over the Palace of Winds, and then go around Hyrule kidnapping girls, only to be sealed away inside the Four Sword by yet another hero.
There is, however, another fix. One that exists inside this game in a secret alternate ending that is achievable at only one particular point in the game through a very specific set of circumstances. In the final level of the game, there a point where Link must reach the top of the castle before the third chime of a ringing bell. The first two are synchronized to ring upon Link setting foot in each room, but the third is actually on a timer. If Link reaches the final room before the third bell rings, he stops Vaati from draining all of the Light Force from the captured Zelda's stone body, which then leads into the final boss fights in which Vaati is ultimately killed. But, if Link fails to reach the final room before the third bell chimes, a special cutscene will play in which Vaati is successful at draining all of the Light Force from Zelda, which leads to a Game Over screen.
This alternate ending could then lead to Vaati becoming too powerful to be completely destroyed, which would then lead to him launching a full attack on Hyrule, in which he would take over the Palace of Winds and kidnap various girls from around the kingdom. Link would then have no choice but to continue to power up the Four Sword until it would be made strong enough to seal Vaati away. In TMC, the sword is only able to create temporary projections of Link instead of three fully-solid copies of himself, so it's still not at the same level of power that it was in both FS and FSA. In this hypothetical situation, once Link would make it that strong, he would then use its power to restore Zelda from her stone body back to flesh and blood, as the dialogue in TMC doesn't actually say that she would die, just that she "may never return to normal".
Link would then go to the Palace of Winds and defeat Vaati, seal him away inside the Four Sword, and rescue the girls that Vaati had kidnapped. This would then lead into FS proper.
Meanwhile, the proper ending of the game would see the less-powerful Vaati completely destroyed and killed, never to return again. This would then lead into… OOT, re-unifying the timeline back together with a new in-game split from the two possible endings of this game! Hyrule Historia tried to do this with OOT by making up a third split in which Link died facing Ganondorf at the end of that game. But not only have we already covered all the contradictions between OOT and ALTTP that don't make them fit together at all, this "Downfall split" is completely dependent on an unfounded hypothetical that has no in-game basis at all. It was never something that the game developers ever even considered at the time of their having made either OOT or any of its sequels. It is complete nonsense that continues to further the misconception that Ganondorf was sealed away inside the Sacred Realm at the end of OOT, which (as I previously covered in the section for OOT) was not the case.
Using this game's alternate ending to create a third split here actually uses an in-game alternate scenario to help smooth over the contradictions between this game and the FS backstory. And it would also make the Ganondorf from FSA and ALTTP be an alternate-timeline version of the one from OOT, just as the one from the upcoming Twilight Princess is an alternate-timeline version of the one from TWW. No need for any second Ganondorf to be born, now. It's all the same Ganondorf just living different versions of his life in different timeline branches. A much neater and cleaner arrangement for all these appearances of Ganondorf.
Anyway, another past event is also revealed in this game, known as the War of the Bound Chest. This would have come at some point before TMC, giving us a timeline like this:
There's just one notable problem here. Absolutely nothing in this game resembles any of the events told about Vaati's first attack on Hyrule in the backstory of FS. In this game, Vaati isn't a wind sorcerer who goes around kidnapping girls to his palace in the sky. He's instead a Minish who steals a magical wishing cap that transforms him into various powerful forms, he turns Zelda to stone and impersonates the King, and is trying to find the Light Force. He doesn't even have a palace in the sky; he uses Hyrule Castle as his base of operations. There is the Palace of Winds that resides in the sky, but it belongs to a new group of peaceful people called the Wind Tribe; Vaati has nothing to do with that palace. The game even ends not with Vaati being sealed inside the Four Sword, but instead with Vaati being destroyed. He very blatantly explodes at end of the final boss battle, while FS showed what it looks like for Vaati to be sealed away inside the Four Sword, which absolutely does not happen in this game. In order for TMC to fit properly before FS, Vaati has to be resurrected at some point after this game. He then has to take over the Palace of Winds, and then go around Hyrule kidnapping girls, only to be sealed away inside the Four Sword by yet another hero.
There is, however, another fix. One that exists inside this game in a secret alternate ending that is achievable at only one particular point in the game through a very specific set of circumstances. In the final level of the game, there a point where Link must reach the top of the castle before the third chime of a ringing bell. The first two are synchronized to ring upon Link setting foot in each room, but the third is actually on a timer. If Link reaches the final room before the third bell rings, he stops Vaati from draining all of the Light Force from the captured Zelda's stone body, which then leads into the final boss fights in which Vaati is ultimately killed. But, if Link fails to reach the final room before the third bell chimes, a special cutscene will play in which Vaati is successful at draining all of the Light Force from Zelda, which leads to a Game Over screen.
This alternate ending could then lead to Vaati becoming too powerful to be completely destroyed, which would then lead to him launching a full attack on Hyrule, in which he would take over the Palace of Winds and kidnap various girls from around the kingdom. Link would then have no choice but to continue to power up the Four Sword until it would be made strong enough to seal Vaati away. In TMC, the sword is only able to create temporary projections of Link instead of three fully-solid copies of himself, so it's still not at the same level of power that it was in both FS and FSA. In this hypothetical situation, once Link would make it that strong, he would then use its power to restore Zelda from her stone body back to flesh and blood, as the dialogue in TMC doesn't actually say that she would die, just that she "may never return to normal".
Link would then go to the Palace of Winds and defeat Vaati, seal him away inside the Four Sword, and rescue the girls that Vaati had kidnapped. This would then lead into FS proper.
Meanwhile, the proper ending of the game would see the less-powerful Vaati completely destroyed and killed, never to return again. This would then lead into… OOT, re-unifying the timeline back together with a new in-game split from the two possible endings of this game! Hyrule Historia tried to do this with OOT by making up a third split in which Link died facing Ganondorf at the end of that game. But not only have we already covered all the contradictions between OOT and ALTTP that don't make them fit together at all, this "Downfall split" is completely dependent on an unfounded hypothetical that has no in-game basis at all. It was never something that the game developers ever even considered at the time of their having made either OOT or any of its sequels. It is complete nonsense that continues to further the misconception that Ganondorf was sealed away inside the Sacred Realm at the end of OOT, which (as I previously covered in the section for OOT) was not the case.
Using this game's alternate ending to create a third split here actually uses an in-game alternate scenario to help smooth over the contradictions between this game and the FS backstory. And it would also make the Ganondorf from FSA and ALTTP be an alternate-timeline version of the one from OOT, just as the one from the upcoming Twilight Princess is an alternate-timeline version of the one from TWW. No need for any second Ganondorf to be born, now. It's all the same Ganondorf just living different versions of his life in different timeline branches. A much neater and cleaner arrangement for all these appearances of Ganondorf.
Anyway, another past event is also revealed in this game, known as the War of the Bound Chest. This would have come at some point before TMC, giving us a timeline like this:
2D Retro Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Bad Ending) → Vaati's attack/sealing → Dark Tribe's invasion/Triforce conflict → FS →FSA → (Ganon escapes the Four Sword) → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → OOA → OOS → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (GCN/Wii), 2006 – TP
Alrighty, things should be smooth sailing from this point onward. In a Nintendo Dream interview, Eiji Aonuma revealed that TP takes place "a hundred and something years" after the Child Ending of OOT, in which Link warned Zelda about Ganondorf's impending betrayal. This led to him launching an invasion of Hyrule some years later, which ended with his botched execution that saw him instead banished to the Twilight Realm. Over a century later, Hyrule is invaded by Zant, Usuper King of the Twilight Realm, which then leads to the events of TP proper. The Link of this game is also a blood descendant of OOT Link, and even still has the Triforce of Courage, which firmly disproves the theory of OOT Link having lost it at some point after OOT's Child Ending (which was necessary to let ALTTP come after it, but that is no longer the case). Thus, all this would take place after MM.
TP also describes another past event in which a group of magic wielders (called "interlopers" in the English version) tried to subjugate the Sacred Realm, seemingly with the intent of controlling the Triforce. This tribe was stopped by the Light Spirits, and its members were banished into the Twilight Realm via the Mirror of Twlight. The descendants of these sorcerers went on to become the Twili, with Midna as their princess. However, much of this information was mistranslated in the English version. The "interlopers" were never referred to as such in the Japanese version, instead simply referred to as "persons who excelled in magic". And the biggest difference is that they weren't fighting over the Sacred Realm, but the land of Hyrule itself. The Japanese text refers to Hyrule as a "holy land" (聖地 seichi), the same Japanese name for the Sacred Realm, so it's easy to see how the mistake was made. Nonetheless, it was "a rivalry" over Hyrule itself that happened, not "word of the Sacred Realm" spreading like the English text says.
This event also seems to parallel the invasion of Hyrule by a "tribe of darkness" first described in FSA, right down to their having been banished by the use of a mirror. Though this game and FSA would be on separate timeline branches, both branches could have experienced similar versions of this event. There are some differences, of course, but they can be chalked up to the differences of their respective timeline branches. The "Interloper war" (as the fans call it) also seems to parallel the "Triforce conflict" first mentioned all the way back in ALTTP's backstory, which is why I placed the Dark Tribe's invasion as coinciding with that event, so that all three could occur at roughly the same time on all timeline branches, and which now I will simply refer to as the "Triforce war" from here on out.
TP also alludes to the Sheikah having disappeared in the "prolonged wars" that took place long ago. The "Triforce war" could have been the first of these many wars, and the Temple of Time (first introduced in OOT) was most likely first built right after it (as its construction was said, in OOT, to have been in response to a need to protect the Triforce and the Sacred Realm), with the "fierce war" that immediately preceded OOT being the last of these many wars.
Finally, TP also introduced a group of Sky People (called the "Oocca" in the English version) who helped in the Founding of Hyrule long ago. The Wind Tribe of TMC is eerily similar in concept (but not in appearance) to these Sky People, having been very close to the royal family in the distant past before their ascension into the clouds. Both the Sky People and the Wind Tribe were also very technologically advanced (similar to how the Sheikah would later be portrayed in Breath of the Wild). It is very possible that they may have had ties to each other once upon a time, but that's just a guess. Still, the founding of Hyrule would have likely come at some point prior to the War of the Bound Chest.
TP also describes another past event in which a group of magic wielders (called "interlopers" in the English version) tried to subjugate the Sacred Realm, seemingly with the intent of controlling the Triforce. This tribe was stopped by the Light Spirits, and its members were banished into the Twilight Realm via the Mirror of Twlight. The descendants of these sorcerers went on to become the Twili, with Midna as their princess. However, much of this information was mistranslated in the English version. The "interlopers" were never referred to as such in the Japanese version, instead simply referred to as "persons who excelled in magic". And the biggest difference is that they weren't fighting over the Sacred Realm, but the land of Hyrule itself. The Japanese text refers to Hyrule as a "holy land" (聖地 seichi), the same Japanese name for the Sacred Realm, so it's easy to see how the mistake was made. Nonetheless, it was "a rivalry" over Hyrule itself that happened, not "word of the Sacred Realm" spreading like the English text says.
This event also seems to parallel the invasion of Hyrule by a "tribe of darkness" first described in FSA, right down to their having been banished by the use of a mirror. Though this game and FSA would be on separate timeline branches, both branches could have experienced similar versions of this event. There are some differences, of course, but they can be chalked up to the differences of their respective timeline branches. The "Interloper war" (as the fans call it) also seems to parallel the "Triforce conflict" first mentioned all the way back in ALTTP's backstory, which is why I placed the Dark Tribe's invasion as coinciding with that event, so that all three could occur at roughly the same time on all timeline branches, and which now I will simply refer to as the "Triforce war" from here on out.
TP also alludes to the Sheikah having disappeared in the "prolonged wars" that took place long ago. The "Triforce war" could have been the first of these many wars, and the Temple of Time (first introduced in OOT) was most likely first built right after it (as its construction was said, in OOT, to have been in response to a need to protect the Triforce and the Sacred Realm), with the "fierce war" that immediately preceded OOT being the last of these many wars.
Finally, TP also introduced a group of Sky People (called the "Oocca" in the English version) who helped in the Founding of Hyrule long ago. The Wind Tribe of TMC is eerily similar in concept (but not in appearance) to these Sky People, having been very close to the royal family in the distant past before their ascension into the clouds. Both the Sky People and the Wind Tribe were also very technologically advanced (similar to how the Sheikah would later be portrayed in Breath of the Wild). It is very possible that they may have had ties to each other once upon a time, but that's just a guess. Still, the founding of Hyrule would have likely come at some point prior to the War of the Bound Chest.
2D Retro Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Bad Ending) → Vaati's attack/sealing → Triforce war → FS →FSA → (Ganon escapes the Four Sword) → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → OOA → OOS → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW
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The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS), 2007 – PH
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS), 2009 – ST
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii), 2011 – SS
Well, here's an easy one! A direct sequel to TWW, this game is set not too long after that one, and sees Link venture into the mysterious world of the Ocean King to content with the ocean demon Bellum. Thus, this game goes on the timeline right after TWW:
2D Retro Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Bad Ending) → Vaati's attack/sealing → Triforce war → FS →FSA → (Ganon escapes the Four Sword) → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → OOA → OOS → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (DS), 2009 – ST
Another easy one! This game takes place in the land of New Hyrule, one century after both TWW and PH. TWW ended with Link and the pirate crew captained by Tetra setting sail to find a new continent, and this game pretty much confirms that they did.
ST also introduces a new villain named Malladus, who incited a war in the past. This war would have come after the founding of New Hyrule, placing it after TWW and PH. Of further note is how Malladus is referred to as the "Demon King", a title that has been held only by Ganon up to this point, and which would later be held by Demise in the forthcoming Skyward Sword.
With that game introducing the concept of the Demon Tribe's Curse basically making Ganon the reincarnation of Demise's hatred and malice, combined with Ganondorf's death in TWW, Malladus bearing the title of "Demon King" sure makes it seem like this branch of the timeline simply moved on from Ganon altogether, with Malladus replacing/succeeding him as the next incarnation of Demise's hatred and malice. This will be important later.
Anyway, another easy entry for the timeline:
ST also introduces a new villain named Malladus, who incited a war in the past. This war would have come after the founding of New Hyrule, placing it after TWW and PH. Of further note is how Malladus is referred to as the "Demon King", a title that has been held only by Ganon up to this point, and which would later be held by Demise in the forthcoming Skyward Sword.
With that game introducing the concept of the Demon Tribe's Curse basically making Ganon the reincarnation of Demise's hatred and malice, combined with Ganondorf's death in TWW, Malladus bearing the title of "Demon King" sure makes it seem like this branch of the timeline simply moved on from Ganon altogether, with Malladus replacing/succeeding him as the next incarnation of Demise's hatred and malice. This will be important later.
Anyway, another easy entry for the timeline:
2D Retro Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Bad Ending) → Vaati's attack/sealing → Triforce war → FS →FSA → (Ganon escapes the Four Sword) → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → OOA → OOS → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH → Founding of New Hyrule → Malladus's war → ST
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Master Sword creation → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH → Founding of New Hyrule → Malladus's war → ST
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Wii), 2011 – SS
Hey, three for three on the easy placements! SS takes place before the founding of the Kingdom of Hyrule, going into the creation of the Master Sword, which ALTTP established as a very early event. So, all we really gotta do is replace the words "Master Sword creation" with "SS" on the timeline. Though, the game also mentions the ancient invasion by the Demon King Demise, which happened in the distant past and ended with both his being sealed away and the land of Skyloft being sent up into the sky by the Goddess Hylia.
Something else of note is the fact that TP mentioned that the Master Sword was created by the "Ancient Sages", when this game instead shows it being forged by Link. Well, the sword starts off as the Goddess Sword created by Hylia herself, and inside the Temple of Hylia's entrance dome can be found the symbols of the Sages on the dome's ceiling, which could mean that Hylia could have worked with the Sages to make the Goddess Sword, while Link completed its forging into the Master Sword.
One last thing to mention: Some have suggested that a timeline split could occur in this game with its time travel scenario at the end. In this scenario, Demise is killed as the Imprisoned in the present day, but then his minion Ghirahim goes back in time and revives him in the past, where Link then defeats him in a duel, meaning Demise is destroyed in the past long before his later death in the present. And yet, the game still acts like this paradox is part of a closed time loop since Old Impa in the present still has the bangle that Zelda gives her younger self in the past, and which Old Impa already had from the first moment Link met her near the beginning of the game. Plus, the amber crystal that Zelda seals herself inside while in the past midway through game is also visible behind a door in the present day from the beginning of the game as well. Unlike the time travel in OOT that created a clean split in the timeline, the time travel in SS is just poorly written, creating instead a nonsensical paradox that it just brushes aside like "Don't think about it too much. Or at all, really." It's not usable for a timeline split.
Though, the game does have an alternate bad ending similar to that of TMC, complete with a unique cutscene: In any of the boss battles with the Imprisoned, if Link fails to defeat it in time, the Imprisoned will reach the Sealed Temple and, in the words of Old Impa, "All is lost."
However, this bad ending doesn't work for a timeline split either, since the world is presumably either destroyed or completely taken over by Demise, preventing Hyrule from ever coming to exist, meaning no other games can come after it. It's the same reason that a timeline split also can't occur with the bad ending of Majora's Mask, as the world is completely destroyed by the Moon. Not to mention the fact that, with the Imprisoned winning in the present, Demise's curse is never cast in the past, so the Spirit of the Hero and the Goddess's bloodline wouldn't continue onward.
Something else of note is the fact that TP mentioned that the Master Sword was created by the "Ancient Sages", when this game instead shows it being forged by Link. Well, the sword starts off as the Goddess Sword created by Hylia herself, and inside the Temple of Hylia's entrance dome can be found the symbols of the Sages on the dome's ceiling, which could mean that Hylia could have worked with the Sages to make the Goddess Sword, while Link completed its forging into the Master Sword.
One last thing to mention: Some have suggested that a timeline split could occur in this game with its time travel scenario at the end. In this scenario, Demise is killed as the Imprisoned in the present day, but then his minion Ghirahim goes back in time and revives him in the past, where Link then defeats him in a duel, meaning Demise is destroyed in the past long before his later death in the present. And yet, the game still acts like this paradox is part of a closed time loop since Old Impa in the present still has the bangle that Zelda gives her younger self in the past, and which Old Impa already had from the first moment Link met her near the beginning of the game. Plus, the amber crystal that Zelda seals herself inside while in the past midway through game is also visible behind a door in the present day from the beginning of the game as well. Unlike the time travel in OOT that created a clean split in the timeline, the time travel in SS is just poorly written, creating instead a nonsensical paradox that it just brushes aside like "Don't think about it too much. Or at all, really." It's not usable for a timeline split.
Though, the game does have an alternate bad ending similar to that of TMC, complete with a unique cutscene: In any of the boss battles with the Imprisoned, if Link fails to defeat it in time, the Imprisoned will reach the Sealed Temple and, in the words of Old Impa, "All is lost."
However, this bad ending doesn't work for a timeline split either, since the world is presumably either destroyed or completely taken over by Demise, preventing Hyrule from ever coming to exist, meaning no other games can come after it. It's the same reason that a timeline split also can't occur with the bad ending of Majora's Mask, as the world is completely destroyed by the Moon. Not to mention the fact that, with the Imprisoned winning in the present, Demise's curse is never cast in the past, so the Spirit of the Hero and the Goddess's bloodline wouldn't continue onward.
2D Retro Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Bad Ending) → Vaati's attack/sealing → Triforce war → FS →FSA → (Ganon escapes the Four Sword) → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → OOA → OOS → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH → Founding of New Hyrule → Malladus's war → ST
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH → Founding of New Hyrule → Malladus's war → ST
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The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS), 2013 – ALBW
The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (3DS), 2015 – TFH
Another one that's pretty easy to figure out. Known as "Triforce of the Gods 2" in Japan, ALBW is a sequel to ALTTP, but one set a long time after it. LA and the Oracle games are already set a few years after ALTTP, so this would come after those, too.
The game's backstory also described a history of Hyrule that seems very familiar. It recounts the history of the Triforce as told in ALTTP, OOT, and TP, stating that the Triforce was originally located in Hyrule. This matches up with how, all throughout SS, the Triforce was not in the Sacred Realm, but in the world that Hyrule Kingdom would later be founded in. It also mentions a war that was fought by the people in order to claim the Triforce, which echoes the "Triforce war" described in both ALTTP's backstory and in TP (the latter of which also echoed the Dark Tribe's invasion described in FSA).
A new piece of info is added to the mix, which states that the war ended with the Royal Family summoning the Seven Sages to hide the Triforce away inside the Sacred Realm. This also matches up with OOT's Temple of Time being built to protect the Triforce, so it would have been built around this time (at least, in the timeline branches that include the events of OOT). However, the ALTTP version of these events state that there was still a state of unrest going on as people searched for the entrance to the Sacred Realm, with Ganondorf's finding it and inciting the Imprisoning War being the denouement of this quarreling over the Triforce. However, that was before FS and FSA were created, so this unrest probably died down over time when nobody ever found the entrance, and only resumed after Ganondorf found it, allowing FS and FSA to slot into the time between.
The rest of the backstory describes the events of ALTTP, with Ganondorf finding the Sacred Realm, getting the Triforce, becoming Ganon, and taking over Hyrule (via an unmentioned Agahnim). With guidance from the princess, a hero rose to oppose and ultimately defeat Ganon. Though, there are a few minor alterations to the story: For one, it is said that the hero defeated Ganon with the combined power of the Seven Sages. This is technically true since it was the Seven Maidens who helped Link in ALTTP, as the maidens were the descendants of the Sages and thus inherited their power. What's more, ALBW treats ALTTP Zelda as separate from the Seven who helped Link, instead of her being one of them. This could all be due to the story having been told orally, and thus distorted by time, as the text also uses words like "It is said…" and such.
Another alteration is the backstory saying that Ganon was sealed away rather than destroyed. Indeed, ALBW sees Yuga summon Ganon from a sort of world of darkness by the use of a portal. In ALTTP, Ganon's final defeat was depicted as a series of explosions that very strongly looked like he was completely obliterated. However, this could be reconciled better with help from the Oracle games. At the end of the Linked Game, Ganon is resurrected from the dead by Koume and Kotake. While the final boss battle does also seem to have him explode at the end, it's more of a single "puff" of smoke rather than the multiple explosions seen in his death in ALTTP, making his defeat in the Oracle games look kinda like he was "poofed" away, as if Link had sent him somewhere else. This could be what ALBW's legend is referring to, with time again obscuring the finer details.
One more addition to the legend is the note that the Triforce split between Ganon, the Royal Family, and the Hero, following Ganon's defeat. Once again, we can point to the Oracle games for this. At the start of both, the three pieces of the Triforce are located in a chamber inside Hyrule Castle. During the end credits of the Linked Game, they are then seen ascending into the sky and turning into three birds, which fly off as Link himself sets sail out to sea. This scene could be taken to be the moment the Triforce split apart, since it is animation that is actually part of the cutscene. While some have suggested alternately that the Triforce was instead split at the end of ALTTP's credits, that wasn't a cutscene, it was just closing animation for the very end of the credits. Using that animation to show when the Triforce split would be like claiming that the Triforce was also previously split prior to ALTTP because of how the three pieces first come together from separate directions in ALTTP's title screen. It's not diagetic animation.
The game's backstory also described a history of Hyrule that seems very familiar. It recounts the history of the Triforce as told in ALTTP, OOT, and TP, stating that the Triforce was originally located in Hyrule. This matches up with how, all throughout SS, the Triforce was not in the Sacred Realm, but in the world that Hyrule Kingdom would later be founded in. It also mentions a war that was fought by the people in order to claim the Triforce, which echoes the "Triforce war" described in both ALTTP's backstory and in TP (the latter of which also echoed the Dark Tribe's invasion described in FSA).
A new piece of info is added to the mix, which states that the war ended with the Royal Family summoning the Seven Sages to hide the Triforce away inside the Sacred Realm. This also matches up with OOT's Temple of Time being built to protect the Triforce, so it would have been built around this time (at least, in the timeline branches that include the events of OOT). However, the ALTTP version of these events state that there was still a state of unrest going on as people searched for the entrance to the Sacred Realm, with Ganondorf's finding it and inciting the Imprisoning War being the denouement of this quarreling over the Triforce. However, that was before FS and FSA were created, so this unrest probably died down over time when nobody ever found the entrance, and only resumed after Ganondorf found it, allowing FS and FSA to slot into the time between.
The rest of the backstory describes the events of ALTTP, with Ganondorf finding the Sacred Realm, getting the Triforce, becoming Ganon, and taking over Hyrule (via an unmentioned Agahnim). With guidance from the princess, a hero rose to oppose and ultimately defeat Ganon. Though, there are a few minor alterations to the story: For one, it is said that the hero defeated Ganon with the combined power of the Seven Sages. This is technically true since it was the Seven Maidens who helped Link in ALTTP, as the maidens were the descendants of the Sages and thus inherited their power. What's more, ALBW treats ALTTP Zelda as separate from the Seven who helped Link, instead of her being one of them. This could all be due to the story having been told orally, and thus distorted by time, as the text also uses words like "It is said…" and such.
Another alteration is the backstory saying that Ganon was sealed away rather than destroyed. Indeed, ALBW sees Yuga summon Ganon from a sort of world of darkness by the use of a portal. In ALTTP, Ganon's final defeat was depicted as a series of explosions that very strongly looked like he was completely obliterated. However, this could be reconciled better with help from the Oracle games. At the end of the Linked Game, Ganon is resurrected from the dead by Koume and Kotake. While the final boss battle does also seem to have him explode at the end, it's more of a single "puff" of smoke rather than the multiple explosions seen in his death in ALTTP, making his defeat in the Oracle games look kinda like he was "poofed" away, as if Link had sent him somewhere else. This could be what ALBW's legend is referring to, with time again obscuring the finer details.
One more addition to the legend is the note that the Triforce split between Ganon, the Royal Family, and the Hero, following Ganon's defeat. Once again, we can point to the Oracle games for this. At the start of both, the three pieces of the Triforce are located in a chamber inside Hyrule Castle. During the end credits of the Linked Game, they are then seen ascending into the sky and turning into three birds, which fly off as Link himself sets sail out to sea. This scene could be taken to be the moment the Triforce split apart, since it is animation that is actually part of the cutscene. While some have suggested alternately that the Triforce was instead split at the end of ALTTP's credits, that wasn't a cutscene, it was just closing animation for the very end of the credits. Using that animation to show when the Triforce split would be like claiming that the Triforce was also previously split prior to ALTTP because of how the three pieces first come together from separate directions in ALTTP's title screen. It's not diagetic animation.
2D Retro Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Bad Ending) → Vaati's attack/sealing → Triforce war → FS →FSA → (Ganon escapes the Four Sword) → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → OOA → OOS → ALBW → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH → Founding of New Hyrule → Malladus's war → ST
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH → Founding of New Hyrule → Malladus's war → ST
The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes (3DS), 2015 – TFH
Another side game. This one's pretty standalone, and features a number of Easter eggs from all across the timeline. It could pretty much fit in several different places, but the developers basically came right out and said that it's set a few years after ALBW, involving the same Link traveling to the neighboring kingdom of Hytopia.
2D Retro Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Bad Ending) → Vaati's attack/sealing → Triforce war → FS →FSA → (Ganon escapes the Four Sword) → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → OOA → OOS → ALBW → TFH → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH → Founding of New Hyrule → Malladus's war → ST
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH → Founding of New Hyrule → Malladus's war → ST
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The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii U/Switch), 2017 – BOTW
Conclusion
And so we come to the final game released as of this typing. BOTW is set so long after OOT that it might as well be a whole new world altogether. Well over 10,000 years have passed since then, with Ganon now in the form of Calamity Ganon, a monstrous specter that caused the first Great Calamity 10,000 years ago, returned 9,900 years later to incite the second Great Calamity, and then the present day events see Link waking up from a century of stasis sleep in the Shrine of Resurrection.
This is the one game that all fans bicker and argue over which timeline it belongs in, on account of it containing an enormous amount of references to every previous game. At this point, it's probably not even worth giving it a decisive placement since the game's sequel, Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK), is just on the horizon, and could hold any number of surprises. But, I'm gonna try and do so away. Using what we currently know, we can conclude that it must at least come at the end of a timeline containing OOT, since a lot of that game's elements are included as part of BOTW's ancient history.
For instance, both the Zora princess Ruto and the Gerudo warrior Nabooru are each said to have been a Sage in the ancient past. While this only happened in OOT's Adult Timeline, one could say that those who became Sages in that game were always destined to become Sages in all timelines. After all, Ganondorf still attacked Hyrule post-OOT in the Child Timeline, so there would have been a need for them to awaken as Sages during that crisis too. However, while their awakening as Sages would have also happened at some point offscreen in the 2D Retro Timeline (so as to still match up with the towns in TAOL being named after the Sages), the 2D timeline is disqualified from being BOTW's timeline since it is now the only one that OOT is not a part of.
This would then leave the 3D Child Timeline and the 3D Adult Timeline as the remaining candidates. And between those two, the Child Timeline seems the most likely option, to me. TWW saw Hyrule completely washed away into oblivion by the goddesses, so it's pretty much gone in that timeline. BOTW can't take place on New Hyrule since structures like the Temple of Time are strongly intimated to the be the same ones from OOT, which was set in the old Hyrule. That old Hyrule would have had to have been brought back somehow, which would go against the will of the goddesses utterly destroying it. Plus, the Adult Timeline pretty much moved on from Ganon with TWW killing him off and ST replacing him with Malladus as the new Demon King.
And while the game has numerous references to every game, most of them are in the form of Easter eggs that could either be taken as not canon to the game's world, or taken as places simply using the names of things from other games without necessarily being tied to those things from other games. By contrast, there are a number of references to things from the Child Timeline that are physical, tangible things that actually exist canonically in this game's world. The Great Hylia Bridge that runs across Lake Hylia greatly resembles a longer, bigger, reconstructed version of the same bridge from TP, complete with both games using the same name for the bridge in Japanese.
The statue of famous Gorons in Goron City features Gor Coron from TP and both Darmani and the Goron Elder's infant son from MM (or more likely Hyrulean counterpart versions of those two, since Darmani and the baby both lived in Termina). There are also the ruins of the Arbiter's Grounds from TP being found buried in BOTW's Gerudo Desert. Not to mention the trailers for TOTK showing the source of Calamity Ganon to be none other than a mummified Ganondorf. The end of TP saw Ganondorf defeated and impaled in the chest by Link. With this Ganondorf also having a big gaping hole in his chest (from which Malice pours out into the world), this could very possibly be the same Ganondorf from TP.
And then there's the game's references to the Sages. In addition to the aforementioned acknowledgement of Ruto and Nabooru having been Sages, the Divine Beast Vah Rudania is named after the Goron Sage of Fire Darunia from OOT, while the Divine Beast Vah Medoh is named after the Rito Sage of Earth Medli from TWW. While, again, these two were only shown to be Sages in the Adult Timeline, inevitable destinies would likely see them both eventually become Sages in all timelines. And BOTW has even more references to the Seven Sages from OOT, such as the statues of the Seven Heroines found in the East Gerudo Ruins: each statue is inscribed with Gerudo text that, when translated, reads "The Seven Sages". What's more, in Japanese, the Heroines are instead referred to as 英雄 (eiyū), which is a word that can refer to a "hero" or "outstanding person" of either gender, meaning the Sages of OOT consisting of two males and five females is of no conflict in the Japanese version.
There's also the seven Sheikah Monks in the Trial of the Sword sharing the exact same poses as the Seven Sages from OOT:
But while all of these feel like Adult Timeline references instead of Child Timeline ones (and, like I've said, these guys could have also become Sages in the Child Timeline, complete with those poses), there is one more reference to the Sages that feels more specifically connected to TP. In several locations related to the mysterious Zonai tribe, one can find statues of dragons, owls, and boars, each representing different aspects of the Triforce: dragons for Courage, owls for Wisdom, and boars for Power. These also represent the bearers of the Triforce pieces, Link, Zelda, and Ganon, respectively. In Faron Woods, northeast of the Sarjon Bridge, there is a Zonai statue of a Boar surrounded by six pillars, and one of the pillars is fallen over.
This feels like a very overt reference to the botched execution of Ganondorf by the Six (not Seven, Six) Sages of TP, in which Ganondorf managed to murder one of the six, the Sage of Water, prior to his being sealed within the Twilight Realm. This particular event would have only happened in the recorded history of the Child Timeline, which seems good enough for me to put BOTW on that branch.
And there's one more thing to note. In addition to TOTK's Ganondorf having a big hole in his chest being reminiscent of TP Ganondorf having been impaled at the end of that game, Ganondorf's final words at the end of TP feel particular noteworthy. After being stabbed by Link, he says "Do not think this ends here...
The history of light and shadow will be written in blood!" At least, in the English version. In the Japanese version, his final words are a bit different:
This is the one game that all fans bicker and argue over which timeline it belongs in, on account of it containing an enormous amount of references to every previous game. At this point, it's probably not even worth giving it a decisive placement since the game's sequel, Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK), is just on the horizon, and could hold any number of surprises. But, I'm gonna try and do so away. Using what we currently know, we can conclude that it must at least come at the end of a timeline containing OOT, since a lot of that game's elements are included as part of BOTW's ancient history.
For instance, both the Zora princess Ruto and the Gerudo warrior Nabooru are each said to have been a Sage in the ancient past. While this only happened in OOT's Adult Timeline, one could say that those who became Sages in that game were always destined to become Sages in all timelines. After all, Ganondorf still attacked Hyrule post-OOT in the Child Timeline, so there would have been a need for them to awaken as Sages during that crisis too. However, while their awakening as Sages would have also happened at some point offscreen in the 2D Retro Timeline (so as to still match up with the towns in TAOL being named after the Sages), the 2D timeline is disqualified from being BOTW's timeline since it is now the only one that OOT is not a part of.
This would then leave the 3D Child Timeline and the 3D Adult Timeline as the remaining candidates. And between those two, the Child Timeline seems the most likely option, to me. TWW saw Hyrule completely washed away into oblivion by the goddesses, so it's pretty much gone in that timeline. BOTW can't take place on New Hyrule since structures like the Temple of Time are strongly intimated to the be the same ones from OOT, which was set in the old Hyrule. That old Hyrule would have had to have been brought back somehow, which would go against the will of the goddesses utterly destroying it. Plus, the Adult Timeline pretty much moved on from Ganon with TWW killing him off and ST replacing him with Malladus as the new Demon King.
And while the game has numerous references to every game, most of them are in the form of Easter eggs that could either be taken as not canon to the game's world, or taken as places simply using the names of things from other games without necessarily being tied to those things from other games. By contrast, there are a number of references to things from the Child Timeline that are physical, tangible things that actually exist canonically in this game's world. The Great Hylia Bridge that runs across Lake Hylia greatly resembles a longer, bigger, reconstructed version of the same bridge from TP, complete with both games using the same name for the bridge in Japanese.
The statue of famous Gorons in Goron City features Gor Coron from TP and both Darmani and the Goron Elder's infant son from MM (or more likely Hyrulean counterpart versions of those two, since Darmani and the baby both lived in Termina). There are also the ruins of the Arbiter's Grounds from TP being found buried in BOTW's Gerudo Desert. Not to mention the trailers for TOTK showing the source of Calamity Ganon to be none other than a mummified Ganondorf. The end of TP saw Ganondorf defeated and impaled in the chest by Link. With this Ganondorf also having a big gaping hole in his chest (from which Malice pours out into the world), this could very possibly be the same Ganondorf from TP.
And then there's the game's references to the Sages. In addition to the aforementioned acknowledgement of Ruto and Nabooru having been Sages, the Divine Beast Vah Rudania is named after the Goron Sage of Fire Darunia from OOT, while the Divine Beast Vah Medoh is named after the Rito Sage of Earth Medli from TWW. While, again, these two were only shown to be Sages in the Adult Timeline, inevitable destinies would likely see them both eventually become Sages in all timelines. And BOTW has even more references to the Seven Sages from OOT, such as the statues of the Seven Heroines found in the East Gerudo Ruins: each statue is inscribed with Gerudo text that, when translated, reads "The Seven Sages". What's more, in Japanese, the Heroines are instead referred to as 英雄 (eiyū), which is a word that can refer to a "hero" or "outstanding person" of either gender, meaning the Sages of OOT consisting of two males and five females is of no conflict in the Japanese version.
There's also the seven Sheikah Monks in the Trial of the Sword sharing the exact same poses as the Seven Sages from OOT:
But while all of these feel like Adult Timeline references instead of Child Timeline ones (and, like I've said, these guys could have also become Sages in the Child Timeline, complete with those poses), there is one more reference to the Sages that feels more specifically connected to TP. In several locations related to the mysterious Zonai tribe, one can find statues of dragons, owls, and boars, each representing different aspects of the Triforce: dragons for Courage, owls for Wisdom, and boars for Power. These also represent the bearers of the Triforce pieces, Link, Zelda, and Ganon, respectively. In Faron Woods, northeast of the Sarjon Bridge, there is a Zonai statue of a Boar surrounded by six pillars, and one of the pillars is fallen over.
This feels like a very overt reference to the botched execution of Ganondorf by the Six (not Seven, Six) Sages of TP, in which Ganondorf managed to murder one of the six, the Sage of Water, prior to his being sealed within the Twilight Realm. This particular event would have only happened in the recorded history of the Child Timeline, which seems good enough for me to put BOTW on that branch.
And there's one more thing to note. In addition to TOTK's Ganondorf having a big hole in his chest being reminiscent of TP Ganondorf having been impaled at the end of that game, Ganondorf's final words at the end of TP feel particular noteworthy. After being stabbed by Link, he says "Do not think this ends here...
The history of light and shadow will be written in blood!" At least, in the English version. In the Japanese version, his final words are a bit different:
In the Japanese version, he declares that this defeat of his is only the beginning, the beginning of something much worse yet to come. An entire history filled with bloodshed. I'd say the multiple Great Calamities in BOTW's history certainly qualify. Otherwise, there's nothing else to put after TP that would illustrate the prophetic foreshadowing in Ganondorf's final declaration.
2D Retro Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Bad Ending) → Vaati's attack/sealing → Triforce war → FS →FSA → (Ganon escapes the Four Sword) → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → Link's training (months of travel) → LA → OOA → OOS → ALBW → TFH → (unknown length of time) → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP → 10,000+ years → first Great Calamity → second Great Calamity → BOTW → (TOTK)
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH → Founding of New Hyrule → Malladus's war → ST
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP → 10,000+ years → first Great Calamity → second Great Calamity → BOTW → (TOTK)
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH → Founding of New Hyrule → Malladus's war → ST
Conclusion
And so, we have a complete, triple-branched timeline that looks like this:
2D Retro Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Bad Ending) → Vaati's attack/sealing → Triforce war → FS →FSA → (Ganon escapes the Four Sword) → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → (6 years) → OOA → OOS → Link's training → LA → ALBW → TFH → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP → 10,000+ years → first Great Calamity → second Great Calamity → BOTW → (TOTK)
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH → Founding of New Hyrule → Malladus's war → ST
Or, perhaps these would make for a cleaner visual (though, I don't fully agree with all the time spans listed in the second pic, just the organization of the events. Except for placing the Oracle games before LA, those I feel ought to go after LA):
PS – If anyone really wanted to also include Hyrule Warriors, it would easily go after TP, before the 10,000+ years time gap that preceded the first Great Calamity. And Age of Calamity would simply be a fourth timeline branch split off from the second Great Calamity.
2D Retro Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Bad Ending) → Vaati's attack/sealing → Triforce war → FS →FSA → (Ganon escapes the Four Sword) → Ganon gets the Triforce → Sealing War → ALTTP → (6 years) → OOA → OOS → Link's training → LA → ALBW → TFH → Tragedy of Zelda I → Ganon's invasion → TLOZ → TAOL
3D Child Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Child Ending) → MM → Ganondorf's invasion/banishment → Twilight invasion → TP → 10,000+ years → first Great Calamity → second Great Calamity → BOTW → (TOTK)
3D Adult Timeline: World creation → Demise's invasion → SS → Founding of Hyrule → War of the Bound Chest → TMC (Good Ending) → Triforce war → prolonged wars → fierce war → OOT (Adult Ending) → Great Flood → TWW → PH → Founding of New Hyrule → Malladus's war → ST
Or, perhaps these would make for a cleaner visual (though, I don't fully agree with all the time spans listed in the second pic, just the organization of the events. Except for placing the Oracle games before LA, those I feel ought to go after LA):
PS – If anyone really wanted to also include Hyrule Warriors, it would easily go after TP, before the 10,000+ years time gap that preceded the first Great Calamity. And Age of Calamity would simply be a fourth timeline branch split off from the second Great Calamity.
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Every single time that someone acts like a building in BotW is the original building from an earlier game, I'm mystified. The idea that any building that isn't Sheikah super-tech is even ten thousand years old completely shatters my suspension of disbelief.
Honestly, given that Hyrule was apparently destroyed at some point between Calamity Ganon being sealed and emerging, New Hyrule makes as much sense as old Hyrule. Or even raising Old Hyrule from the ocean floor. Heck, given the construction of the shrines, I wouldn't be surprised if the entire surface of Hyrule was artificial.
Something happened to wipe out Hyrule's technologically advanced civilization. You can speculate as to what, but all the surviving super tech was literally buried.
Also, lionels only appear in the retro game timeline. Character references may transcend timelines, but they don't.
I also find the insistence that the Gerudo Heroines are specifically the Sages from OoT unconvincing. And kinda disappointing. To explain, three different sets of sages have appeared in the games, and it's basically inevitable that new sets would be found as needed. So, unconvincing that they have to have been the set from Ocarina, and disappointing that people skip the possibilities of an unknown set of sages, whether they were all gerudo or not.
Personally, with an unknown amount of time between the sealing of the Calamity and any previous game, I tend to assume some world-shaking events have been going on. I find most of these Breath of the Wild timeline theories too uneventful to be plausible. It's not like Hyrule tends to be static between games.
Personally, as far as timelines go, I'll be disappointed and vaguely surprised if Breath of the Wild isn't taking place in a fifth or even sixth timeline outside of the three known. Possibly using time viewing to take notes on other timelines.
Oh, for the timelines you put together as a whole, they fit together better than the official one. I'm generally okay with some light retcons, but your timeline manages to avoid needing to do that.
Honestly, given that Hyrule was apparently destroyed at some point between Calamity Ganon being sealed and emerging, New Hyrule makes as much sense as old Hyrule. Or even raising Old Hyrule from the ocean floor. Heck, given the construction of the shrines, I wouldn't be surprised if the entire surface of Hyrule was artificial.
Something happened to wipe out Hyrule's technologically advanced civilization. You can speculate as to what, but all the surviving super tech was literally buried.
Also, lionels only appear in the retro game timeline. Character references may transcend timelines, but they don't.
I also find the insistence that the Gerudo Heroines are specifically the Sages from OoT unconvincing. And kinda disappointing. To explain, three different sets of sages have appeared in the games, and it's basically inevitable that new sets would be found as needed. So, unconvincing that they have to have been the set from Ocarina, and disappointing that people skip the possibilities of an unknown set of sages, whether they were all gerudo or not.
Personally, with an unknown amount of time between the sealing of the Calamity and any previous game, I tend to assume some world-shaking events have been going on. I find most of these Breath of the Wild timeline theories too uneventful to be plausible. It's not like Hyrule tends to be static between games.
Personally, as far as timelines go, I'll be disappointed and vaguely surprised if Breath of the Wild isn't taking place in a fifth or even sixth timeline outside of the three known. Possibly using time viewing to take notes on other timelines.
Oh, for the timelines you put together as a whole, they fit together better than the official one. I'm generally okay with some light retcons, but your timeline manages to avoid needing to do that.
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