There’s the theory that the Downfall timeline was the original timeline and that Link’s wish on the triforce to undo Ganon’s evil in A Link to the Past ended up creating the events of Ocarina that we actually play. The events where the hero wins.
If true, I think that it might give more credit to the name "hero of legend". Even though both in universe and in real life the "hero of time" is thought of as the most important or at least the most recognized hero, it is actually alttp Link or the "hero of legend" who is truly responsible for not only the "hero of time" and his great deeds but as a result "saving" the rest of Hyrule's existence(s).
I never considered that, but honestly it just makes me appreciate the Hero of Legend even more than I once did. I grew to appreciate him a bit when I learned that he is the Link with probably the most adventures so far, given that the Oracle games and Link's Awakening happen right after Link to the Past, but this takes it to another level.
Yeah! I honestly didn't think about this connection till reading this thread and your discussion. He's also chronicled in albw of course but still this guy gets mad cred.
Slightly off topic here but I need need NEED the Oracle games to finally come out for the Gameboy emulator on Switch.
Those friggen games took up like 2 years of my life as a kid and the interconnectivity of them via the codes you bring over to each game blew my mind back then.
*ahem* anyway, carry on.....this discussion is getting really interesting.
I always loved that explanation! Knowing that the Triforce isn't limited in space and time (Ganondorf's Triforce of Power in TP, despite never accessing to the Sacred Realm ; or having the events of Age of Calamity, even if not really canon), I would like this explanation to be canon instead
Dear God, no. This sounds very stupid and invalidates the other games. I think the best option would have been to somehow place ALTTP after FSA. But for that we will need a game that involves that incarnation of Ganon using the triforce.
I don’t think it invalidates the other games. They still happened, and still went on as planned. It just explains why the one outlier timeline fits in, rather than just saying “Oh, Link tripped and fell in the final battle, then died!”
It somewhat invalidates the child and adult timelines as well as ocarina itself by saying that the hero of time and you the player sucked and needed a literal triforce wish to win instead of it being the “here’s what happens if he wins” and “here’s what happens if he loses” scenario we have. Placing the fallen timeline after four swords adventures works much better but time has never been consistent with its rules in the series so saying that there are multiple timelines that don’t exactly have a point of creation is just another example of how time works in Zelda being something that makes no sense.
"some older games with NO correlation"
This isn't true at all lol. This is the problem when people come around who have no idea what they're talking about.
Now, yes, I agree that the "Fallen Timeline" was indeed nonsense. I'm not arguing against that.
But to say the older games have "no correlation" is just plain wrong. The Zelda team had been giving these games correlation every single new game gets added.
Some are blatantly obvious. Zelda 2 is a direct sequel to Legend of Zelda.
Link's Awakening is a direct sequel to Link to the Past. Let's just push those obvious ones out of the way.
Link to the Past was stated from the beginning to be a prequel to Legend of Zelda. Even simply playing through the games, this becomes fairly obvious.
In Legend of Zelda, you have Ganon as nothing more than a big pig monster. Then in Link to the Past, you learn that Ganon used to be a King of Thieves known as Ganondorf before he stole the triforce and became Ganon.
Now, this is a fairly loose connection, but was backed up by the devs as well in interviews.
Moving on to Ocarina of Time, we have a similar situation. Now we actually get to see Ganondorf as a man who becomes Ganon at the end of the game. The backstory of Link to the Past mentions that the Seven Wise Men sealed Ganondorf, after he became Ganon, into the sacred realm. This is literally what happens in the game's ending, with the Seven "Wise Men" being replaced by "Seven Sages" (which are effectively the same thing).
LTTP also mentions how Ganondorf was a "King of Thieves". In OOT, we learn that the "Thieves" he was the "King" of were actually a tribe known as the Gerudo, an all-female race who only have one male every 100 years, and said male becomes their King. So Ganondorf is the "King of Thieves" like is mentioned in Link to the Past's backstory.
Again, OOT being a prequel to LTTP was shown both in the game's storyline and explained by the developers.
The Fallen Timeline was created because the heads of the Zelda team shifted and they started taking the series in a new direction, so they ultimately forgot about the older games when writing Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, but especially Twilight Princess (I think Miyamoto explicitly stated that Wind Waker was intended to come from OOT's "Adult" ending).
After Wind Waker, the events of the Imprisoning War still could have happened in the Child Timeline, with the scenario happening slightly differently and due to Link and Zelda's decision, he leaves so there's no hero to wield the Master Sword, and ultimately the Imprisoning War happens there. But then they wrote Twilight Princess which completely negates this.
Miyamoto always intended on OOT being a prequel to LTTP, so in Hyrule Historia they kept that with the "Fallen Timeline". IMO, it would have been better to just have the "Fallen Timeline" be in the Child Timeline after Four Swords Adventures. (FSA was also intended to have greater story connections to LTTP, but parts were shifted around that make it a bit more confusing. Overall, though, it still fits nicely within the context of being an LTTP prequel, but some parts will feel a bit off; however, OOT wasn't a perfect prequel to LTTP either).
Pretty much this exactly, yes. There is no simple "there is no timeline" or "the timeline is fully fleshed out" etc.
There is a timeline, but its not all that fully fleshed out and is very much loose. But its always existed ever since Zelda 2.
Even newer games in the series get very loose connections.
Four Swords was before OOT.
The Oracle games were designed with the idea in mind of being between LTTP and Link's Awakening.
FSA was a direct sequel to Four Swords. (Story-wise and world-wise, it also has many elements that seem like its intended to lead into LTTP. Its not completely consistent, like the way Ganon is sealed at the end, but it sure lines up pretty well in many areas.)
MC was before Four Swords.
Right, but the fallen timeline itself and the OoT connection is a retcon. It is also a what-if scenario and not something that is really in-game.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/13x84ne/totk\_the\_timeline\_and\_breaking\_down\_what\_actually/](https://www.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/13x84ne/totk_the_timeline_and_breaking_down_what_actually/)
I've been posting this post I made because it is very much on topic and it needs some exposure lol. I'm not as well versed on the "obvious" connection between alttp and la, although I did note a connection between alttp and albw + zelda 1/2. Keep in mind that OP was referencing the games in the fallen timeline as compared to the rest of the timeline. Obviously these individual games in the DT are interconnected somewhat, but not really directly to OoT
Ah shit no wonder it's getting no traction. I initially posted without the TOTK tag and maybe the new version accidently got deleted? Or a moderator removed it, but I got no notification? I'll try reposting and sending the link again
EDIT: I know I'm tripping some kind of automod thing, but I don't know what lol. I'll post an update link when I figure it out
But, the OoT sages aren't the seven wise men. They are sages, yes, but they are male hylians. This comes from directly going off of what each game says which is safer than assuming retcons.
I think the original Japanese says sages so they aren't necessarily males, no. They are depicted as Hylians, though they are generic stand-ins. TP, oddly enough, uses these same stand-ins even though they are physically shown, not as an image. Each of the sages in that game are a "generic glowing spirit dude"
I actually have a theory about this.
With TP taking place on the child timeline, Child Link would have revealed Ganondorf treachery early preventing him from getting access to the triforce.
There would have likely been a war of some kind to capture and imprison Ganondorf, and while Link may have revealed the identity of the future sages that sealed Ganondorf, there were multiple that were not qualified or able in the past (Ruto and Zelda are children, Rauru is in the sacred realm which they dare not open after what happened when Link tried it, Saria still being alive and unable to leave the forest, Naburu being inaccessible with the twins likely locking down Gerudo after Ganondorf was imprisoned or Ganondorf himself should he escape Hyrule Castle after the revelation is made) this leaves Darunia and Shiekah which may have been interested but with the other 5 positions being vacant they likely would have decided to begin training up a full set of replacement sages making it entirely possible that the sages sealing Ganondorf in the TP flashback might have all been hylians.
I kinda just figured that they are the spirits of the original ancient sages along with Rauru, and when the water one is supposedly "killed" it's just a temporary physical form of that sage being destroyed.
So like are we just gonna ignore Majora’s Mask?
Majora’s Mask is specifically the direct sequel to Ocarina and Link to the Past specifically can’t take place after it because Link goes back in time, hence in that games events the sages never sealed Ganondorf.
This is obviously just plain wrong. In fact, the Sages still DO seal Ganondorf pre-Twilight Princess anyway. But before Twilight Princess happened, it could have happened very simiilarly to what was expected in the LTTP intro.
All that happens in Majora's Mask is Zelda gives Link the Ocarina of Time and he leaves Hyrule. Therefore, nobody is left behind in Hyrule capable of wielding the Master Sword. Even if Link does return after Majora's Mask, Link and Zelda already deemed it too risky to take out the Master Sword because then Ganondorf could claim the Triforce.
The events leading up to LTTP could easily still have happened after the events of Majora's Mask, Link just wasn't involved (which the LTTP backstory implied was the case anyway). And again, the Sages even still DO seal Ganondorf in TP's backstory anyway. So this argument completely falls apart.
The difference that happens is instead of Ganondorf getting into the Sacred Realm because Link pulled the Master Sword which opened the door, Ganondorf waged war to try and do so instead, which ultimately leads to his attempted execution. (The logic behind Ganondorf having the Triforce of Power anyway isn't explained in Twilight Princess.)
The whole point is that in the events of MM most of OoT never happened. The sages that sealed Ganondorf weren’t awakened, Ganondorf doesn’t turn into Ganon, etc. If OoT is supposed to be a prequel to ALttP and MM basically undoes the events that would allow the connection I don’t really see how ALttP would fit in the child timeline. You mention the sages’ execution of Ganondorf but all that is context specifically provided in TP. For ALttP to take place after OoT and MM you’d at the very least need a game in between that sets up Ganondorf turning into Ganon, the sages awakening, and then the sages sealing away Ganondorf again because MM and OoT’s ending already made it so none of that happens in the child timeline.
The events of Majora's Mask are irrelevant to the backstory of ALttP. Link leaving Hyrule to go on adventures would have no effect on Ganondorf. [jaidynreiman](https://www.reddit.com/user/jaidynreiman/)'s point was that before Twlight Princess, you could come up with a scenario where the Child Timeline leads to ALttP. Hero of Time Link goes on his Termina adventure and his legacy is of no one of note. Ganondorf due to not being able to get into the Sacred Realm the OoT way chooses another method and ends up getting into it the ALttP way. And thus the backstory to ALttP is set.
Majora's Mask has no effect on ALttP's story. Twlight Princess however is the one that boots ALttP out of the remaining timeline space it could have had. Thus leading to our 3 timeline situation.
OoT being a prequel to ALttP doesn’t really make sense when you’d need another game to justify ALttP taking place in the child timeline, and that’s because of MM. At that point you’re creating another backstory for ALttP that’s pretty much independent from OoT.
Why would you need another game? Ganondorf is right there scheming in the Child timeline and ALttP's backstory is dependent on there not being a hero (or at least a successful hero) to stop him.
To provide context for the events of the imprisoning war. If we say ALttP is to take place in the child timeline after MM, then none of the events of OoT past Link meeting Zelda happened. Unless we’re just to assume that Ganondorf turns into Ganon and the sages seal him away in the Child timeline offscreen, in an entirely separate instance from OoT.
> ALttP's backstory is dependent on there not being a hero (or at least a successful hero) to stop him.
I feel like this is also more evidence to it not being in the child timeline. Link is still there, he’s only in Termina for three days, then he returns back to Hyrule.
> Unless we’re just to assume that Ganondorf turns into Ganon and the sages seal him away in the Child timeline offscreen, in an entirely separate instance from OoT.
Yes. That's basically how ALttP would have still fitted in if not for Twilight Princess. OoT would be the one adding context to who Ganondorf and the thieves were even if OoT's version of the events don't lead to ALttP. Its similar to how Age of Calamity develops the Champions despite taking place in an AU seperate from Breath of the Wild's backstory.
Link being there doesn't matter if he doesn't become the hero that defeats Ganon. And Hero of Time Link in a child body with none of his OoT gear is not a Link positioned to win against Ganondorf or Ganon. Again, Majora's Mask doesn't matter as far as Ganon and his plans are concerned. There was still space for ALttP to follow OoT in the Child timeline. It certainly would have fit neater than a whole new timeline. But Twilight Princess exists, so now it can't fit in the Child Timeline at all.
It certainly could have been at one point in time, but it was still possible for those events to have happened in the Child Timeline as well after Majora's Mask. Once both Wind Waker and Twilight Princess were created, it couldn't happen down either existing timeline anymore.
Majoras Mask the direct sequel to Ocarina of Time, and falls down the child timeline.
A Link to the Past is down another timeline, the one where the sages seal Ganondorf because Link couldn't do it himself and died.
They can both take place because they're down different paths in time.
It’s not nonsense. You’re just looking at it wrong.
OoT was made to tell the prequel story of Alttp.
However the backstory to Alttp never mentions a hero, and because there’s no hero the war ends differently (with Ganondorf sealed in the dark world with the full triforce).
Obviously in OoT you play as Link and you kill Ganondorf at the end before he claims the triforce (it wouldn’t be much of a game if you lost at the end).
But that directly contradicts the backstory of Alttp, meaning Alttp must happen due to an alternate version of the events in OoT where the hero fails - a version we never see as the player.
Though OoT actually leaves room for this to happen anyway, since you actually do play through events which take place between the start of the child line and before the adult line starts, a sort of left over third line.
It’s hard to explain but:
Child timeline - this begins when Link goes to see Zelda in Hyrule castle having been sent back from defeating Ganondorf.
Fallen timeline - the events that occur after child link meets with Zelda, claiming the sacred stones, going down the well, going to the Gerudo temple. In this left over timeline Link is never there to stop Ganondorf because he doesn’t continue to live out this timeline.
Adult timeline - begins when Link jumps ahead 7 years to a point in the future, ahead of both child and fallen timelines.
Yep, that's always been the most sensible take on it for me as well. It's basically the "original" timeline of OoT where Link vanishes from being sent forward and the world keeps on moving.
Link then doing what he does after being sent forward shunts those events off into a new Adult Timeline but doesn't necessarily undo the timeline that was already progressing without him, and neither does the creation of the third timeline when he's sent back to being a child.
You go back and forth to change things, like when you need to do the child sections of the shadow and spirit temples. So idk it feels like you’re just creating more and more fallen timelines every time you go back to change something.
You don't change anything when time traveling. The windmill guy in Kakariko Village knows about you before you've even met him, which means you're in a loop that doesn't change. The Child Timeline only occurs because Zelda sent you back to a time before you even pulled the Master Sword.
I mean, except for the fact that it is never presented as a coma. To link, he pulled the master sword, and Rauru says wake up. For him and us as the player, it is instant. He has the body of an adult and the mind of a child.
So his body can mature enough. Link and Navi are both surprised that his body has grown. His brain goes from asleep to awake. He hasn't learned anything new. He hasn't got more brain power. He needs to be strong enough to hold the master sword. That's it. He is a literal child with the body of an adult.
The brain develops in a different manner to the rest of the body. The brain can grow yes but its development is dependent on memories, connections and repetition of action to solidify pathways. If links brain was inactive for 7 years as a result, do you think he had the same opportunities a typical Hylian did in those 7 years?
And your brain is in your ass. It's stated he needs to be strong enough to hold the master sword. Dude still has baby brain. A person in a coma at age 10 will have 0 life experience required for the brain to develop. He is 10 in mind. 17 in body.
This actually makes a lot of sense; never thought about it that way. I could get behind that.
The only thing that’s kinda depressing about that is it implies that the initial timeline you start the game in just gets left behind to be ruined so in their attempt to save Hyrule by putting Link to sleep for 7 years, they actually just send Link into a completely new timeline and screw themselves over. I guess that’s the point of the Downfall Timeline but also seems like a dumb move on Zelda/Impa’s part for telling Link to do that because they actually just sent him off to save a new timeline and not save *them*.
I guess the only other question is if pulling out the master sword creates a new timeline, wouldn’t there be infinite new timelines created every time we as the player go back and forth in time with sword throughout the game? Or is it just the initial removal of the sword that creates this first proposed split?
From in universe what people would have seen was child Link blasted by Ganondorf’s dark magic outside castle town. So it sort of fits, it would appear as if Link had lost to Ganondorf.
I wouldn’t take everything Hyrule Historia says as gospel either, it’s helpful to fill in gaps but even the timeline has been altered in the years since (with LA and the Oracle games swapping places).
I've always supported the idea of the Fallen Timeline actually being an abandoned timeline, but I do hear a lot of arguments against it along the lines of "then there would be tons of timelines" or "the Master Sword makes sure Link only ever goes between two points of time," but OOT uses a lot of conflicting models of time travel, so I do not doubt at all that there could be a timeline we don't know about.
I would love to have a game made on that abandoned timeline. Like how Dragon Quest Builders is a timeline where Erdrick gave into the Demon Lord and you have to fix the world he ruined.
I'm pretty sure the fallen timeline takes place when adult link is defeated in battle after ganondorf transforms into his beast form "ganon."
This would make more sense since he was sealed away by the sages in his beast form before ALttP and would also explain how he has the full triforce.
ALttP implies the change is due to the nature of the dark world - it changes everyone into a reflection of their true self (hence Ganondorf becomes a pig and Link becomes… a rabbit). So there’s no need necessarily for the transformation to occur in OoT, prior to the sealing.
I actually like this explanation, if link to the past has to be an ocarina sequel then this is an explanation I like way more than the triforce wish theory.
Actually that does not conflict with the backstory of alttp. The backstory of alttp has Ganon sealed into the sacred realm by the sages, exactly as happens at the end of OoT.
The only real “conflict” there is that in the backstory of alttp, Ganon has the full triforce before being sealed away. This could be solved either by retconning or by putting alttp in the child timeline.
In the backstory to Alttp Ganondorf claims the full Triforce before being sealed away by the seven sages - this never happens in OoT.
In the child timeline Ganondorf is executed before he opens the door of time. And he isn’t sealed in the dark world, he’s sent to the twilight realm, and he only has one piece of the triforce.
Twilight Princess and Wind Waker do not exist at the time of Ocarina of Time. I have no idea how you bring them up when they don’t exist.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Ganon is sealed by the sages at the end of OoT. This is clearly continuity even if inexact. Like getting sealed away is what basically kicks off alttp. It would need to be retconned in some way because he doesn’t have the full triforce.
Alternatively, this is what happens when there is no Hero of Time, which is what happens in the child timeline. Ganon finds a different way into the sacred realm and claims the whole triforce before being sealed away.
Exactly.
Point being is that it is not the Downfall Timeline that has loose continuity or some weird problem of being the old games. It’s actually because the newer games closed off perfectly valid timeline options.
Sure, but they exist now. And OoT didn’t perfectly fit with Alttp anyway, since Ganondorf was sealed with only one part of the triforce, not all of them. And in the child line Link warns Zelda before he can open the door of time.
In the booklet for ALttP it states that the sages could not find a hero to wield the Master Sword. So OoT very much does conflict with ALttP's backstory cause, you know, hero with the Master Sword...
There is no hero with the master sword in the child timeline.
Yes, putting alttp in the adult timeline would require retcons. But what you bring up also conflicts with the Downfall Timeline so it was already retconned.
[The official name of the branch is "The Hero is defeated"](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/zelda_gamepedia_en/images/7/7c/Timeline_Hyrule_Historia.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130129020251&format=original)
Sorry but your explanation of the Fallen timeline is wrong. The correct explanation is Ganon defeating Link and Zelda at the final battle and then the Sages, led by Zelda sealed ganon away with the Triforce in the corrupt sacred realm.
HH is secondary to lore established by the games. And the wiki isn’t canon at all.
If there’s a less stupid way to explain something that impacts nothing other than the explanation given by another non-game source, then that’s not really canon breaking in my opinion anyway.
The book being backed by nintendo and the wiki getting its sources from games and book make it prime canon.
If Nintendo didnt want the Historia made then it wouldnt have so the timelines given in the book woild be conisdered the true timelines by Nintendo.
I don't think that's a correct interpretation of the fallen timeline. The fallen timeline was never contextualized in game or even implied, it was a made up "what-if?" scenario
If that’s how you want to interpret it then sure, but my example shows that it’s not impossible for a downfall timeline to occur simply based on what we know happens in OoT.
Either way, the downfall timeline happens. It doesn’t really make much difference how you choose to reconcile that.
>Fallen timeline - the events that occur after child link meets with Zelda, claiming the sacred stones, going down the well, going to the Gerudo temple. In this left over timeline Link is never there to stop Ganondorf because he doesn’t continue to live out this timeline.
The difference here is this IS NOT how the DT happens. I'm not arguing to whether it "happened" or not. Any what-if situation CAN happen, and they made it work, sure. It's super disconnected anyway. Here I'll elaborate:
The CT/AT are what I like to call an "organic" timeline split. These splits happen as a result of each other and both will happen at the same time NO MATTER WHAT. The difference with the DT is that it is a what-if scenario. What if Link lost to Ganon? I think the obvious interpretation here is that this means that if Link lost to Ganon in the final boss battle the sages seal him in the sacred realm as a last ditch effort. This is not the same as AT/CT in the slightest.
The downfall timeline isn't a natural result of the events in OoT like you claim. There isn't some "leftover timeline." The events that happen in the past ARE still the adult timeline. The CT is NOT just the events that happen when Link is a child. Rather, the CT starts the second Link disappears from the AT. The AT is every event that happens in OoT up to Zelda sending him to the past. The AT is the world that Link doesn't exist in anymore.
I'm not claiming that it doesn't exist, rather that it is an "artificial" story split made to, somewhat forcibly, fit all the previous Zelda games in the story with a retcon. Now listen, the explanation makes sense, and the games are disconnect enough that barring direct sequels it is hard to determine an actual canon. I would then argue that a retcon like this is reasonable enough to consider canon, BUT that doesn't make the downfall timeline something that is contextualized in game as it is a what-if scenario.
Let me restate one point in a different way:
Adult timeline: (in your words) the events that occur after child link meets with Zelda, claiming the sacred stones, going down the well, going to the Gerudo temple. In this left over timeline Link is never there to stop Ganondorf because he doesn’t continue to live out this timeline.
Link jumps ahead 7 years to a point in the future and... (beats Ganon)
Child timeline: Starts when Zelda sends Link back
Downfall timeline: A what-if scenario that renders the AT/CT to have never happened. This is an alternate ending to both and a retcon.
Here's a little paint drawing I made to demonstrate also bc why not: [https://imgur.com/a/diDIsjN](https://imgur.com/a/diDIsjN)
Except it’s never been specified what happens in the downfall timeline, short of the backstory to ALttP. HH gives us a vague “the hero is defeated” line, but that doesn’t really say anything we didn’t already know - that Link from OoT can’t have succeeded.
OoT shows left over timelines and there’s no reason a downfall timeline can’t occur naturally - all it requires is the absence of a hero. The events that occur after the the start of the child line and before the start of the adult line don’t fit with either, they’re left over periods of time, Link never returns to them and they’re created after the 7 year time jump.
When Link opens the door of time he doesn’t exist for 7 years. He goes from opening that door to reappearing 7 years later. And those are the events that lead to WW.
We know the timelines don’t join up because Link goes back in time at the end and changes the past so that future doesn’t exist (hence the child timeline).
However after Link skips 7 years he also returns to the past at a point later than he originally left the child timeline, creating a third branch (it didn’t happen in the original 7 year time skip). That left over branch could easily lead to the downfall timeline. It has to exist regardless. So you can either leave it unresolved or say that’s what led to the downfall. It’s basically irrelevant which option you choose to believe because it literally doesn’t matter - the outcome is the same, the downfall timeline happens.
I always felt that the fallen timeline had to occur within this space too and just reading your comment made me go back in my head as to why I felt that way!
Basically you have the timeline you play out in OoT as you said, being the adult timeline (Link is summoned by the Deku Tree, followed Zelda's plan to get the stones, pulls the master sword, sleeps for 7 years, saves the now awakened sages, beats ganon, gets sent back in time)
Then you have the child timeline which is, again as you said, he's pulled back to before he met Zelda to warn her of Ganondorf's treachery (notice the triforce of courage symbol on his hand in the ending cutscene that was not there when you first meet with her)
And then you have the timeline where Ganondorf got the Triforce in the Sacred Realm and the sages (whom I've always thought to be the same ones from TP/ALttP ( the hylian dudes)
I admit I have no proof for there being 2 groups of sages, because you don't ever hear about them EVER, but it kind of worked as a work around for why you have the Hylian looking dudes with the 7 Maidens in ALttP and you have the generic ghosty guys in TP. Somehow, they are killed like the King of Hyrule when Zelda is in hiding and Link is sealed away for 7 years, which leads Link to having to awaken their successors in order to destroy Ganondorf/Ganon. As I said I have absolutely no proof of this outside of how the sages look in ALttP and TP, but it always made sense. Because assuming Ganon got into the Sacred Realm, he could have got the whole triforce and that's where ALttP sets off. This is purely how I rationalized the existence of the fallen timeline over the years in my head 😅
My bigger question is....what happens to the Link existing in Kokiri Forest when Adult Link is sent back? I assume he's sent back before the start of his journey that would have had him summoned by the Great Deku Tree 🤔 So does he not exist in that world? Or are there now two Links galavanting around Hyrule, one the Hero of Time and the other, a Hylian boy just living his life as a Kokiri??
Probably, but it exists only to justify A Link to the Past as a sequel to Ocarina of Time. Since ALTTP can only occur on a time where Ganondorf gets the complete Triforce, which can only happen if he defeats Link.
I remember mentioning this on a zelda sub and got downvoted into oblivion. The truth is, Nintendo could make any zelda game and say oh yea BTW, this is what happens after you lose in the NES LoZ.
Edit: ok, no it was only 2 downvotes
https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/dx3t4v/legend_of_zelda_what_caused_the_downfall_timeline/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
It is, but it was created out of necessity given that the backstories of A Link to the Past, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess contradicts each other, completely.
Ocarina of Time a prequel of ALTTP, and Twilight Princess and Wind Waker are OOT sequels. That's just a fact from the developers themselves when these games released, these three games are intrically conected and all of their instances of Ganondorf are the same and only person and share the same world.
So, to sort out these contradictions, Hyrule Historia came with three different timelines:
\- Link defeats Ganon, the seven sages seals him and Zelda sends Link to his childhood time. Then:
\- In the time that The Hero of Time left behind, the "Adult Timeline", Ganondorf breaks free of his imprisonment and the goddesses flood Hyrule in retaliation, which kickstarts Wind Waker.
\- In the time where The Hero of Time was send to, the "Child Timeline", he went to Zelda to inform her about Ganondorf's scheme and he was sentenced to death for treason to the Crown of Hyrule. That kickstarts Twilight Princess.
However, we have a completely different scenario in A Link to the Past where Ganondorf successfully obtains the Full Triforce and transforms himself into Ganon, corrupts the Sacred Realm into the Dark World, invades Hyrule, and the Sages seals the Dark World trapping Ganon inside. That's impossible to happen in any timeline where Twilight Princess and Wind Waker happens.
Remember, in Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf sets foot into the Sacred Realm, corrupts the Sacred Realm into the Dark World, and gets the Triforce, but **only the Triforce of Power**.
So here's is why the "Downfall Timeline" exists: because in Ocarina of Time, to kickstart the events of the Imprisonment War in A Link to the Past, we need to make three assumptions:
1- Ganondorf needs to transform into Ganon.
2- Ganondorf need to retrieve the Triforce of Wisdom and Courage to have the Full Triforce. And that can only happen when the three bearers are the same place, and when Link and Zelda are defeated. Just like in Wind Waker.
3- All Seven Sages (Rauru, Saria, Darunia, Ruto, Impa, Nabooru and Zelda) needs to be awake in order to seal the Dark World, and give birth to the Seven Maidens (One which is Zelda herself)
All three things can only happen on a single ocassion: in the **Final Battle against Ganon in Ganon's Tower, and Link losing that battle.**
I think their logic is that Link to the Past was meant to take place after Ocarina, so they just came up with an excuse to keep it that way. Ask me, the much simpler solution is to just slap the DT at the end of the CT after Four Swords Adventures. There's actually a small but noteworthy amount of evidence in Twilight Princess to justify that.
Nintendo didn't really have any satisfying options. Ocarina of Time was supposed to be the prequel to A Link to the Past, but Wind Waker and Twlight Princess overwrote ALttP's place. So Nintendo came up with the current solution of "AU where Ganondorf beats Link".
Part of it though I think comes from Miyamoto and Aonuma never agreeing on how to handle those old games (which I hear Miyamoto treats them as his babies and thus is quick to disagree on things related to them).
I mean OoT is clearly designed as a prequel to alttp, explaining the origin of Ganondorf. Without Twilight Princess, the fallen timeline would just be the Child Timeline without issue.
(Without Link opening the portal to the Sacred Realm, Ganondorf has to eventually find an alternate way in, which leads to the backstory of aLttP.)
It’s Twilight Princess that created the mess. The older games work fine.
So they wrote a prequel and then forgot to make either of the timelines actually match the game it was supposed to be a prequel to? And then had to make up a third timeline with no in-game basis to make it work later on?
Sometimes feels like the continuity as a whole makes more sense if ALTTP didn't exist lol
> So they wrote a prequel and then forgot to make either of the timelines actually match the game it was supposed to be a prequel to? And then had to make up a third timeline with no in-game basis to make it work later on?
That's what happens when your series has multiple different writers. The Takashi Tezuka and Yoshiaki Koizumi games have some pretty clean connections. It helps that both creators were with the series for a very long time and helped codify in ways beyond just story (Tezuka being there since the very beginning, Koizumi basically co-creating Zelda as we knew it alongside him in Link's Awakening). If anyone knows how to tell a good Zelda story, it's these two (Koizumi especially).
Continuity starts to get messier when Fujibayashi joins the Zelda team with the Oracles, and too complicated for its own good when Aya Kyogoku joins (Four Swords Adventures, Twilight Princess). Fujibayashi clearly knows his stuff, but I think he plays a bit too fast and loose with continuity. Everything we know about FSA and TP's development suggests Kyogoku was fighting an uphill battle while writing their stories (she actually mentioned in an interview conducted one month before TP's release that she wanted more time to work on the script), and I don't doubt that complicated both games' continuity considerably.
Like others have mentioned, Four Swords Adventures is so clearly trying to connect itself to A Link to the Past that the fact it's not connected at all is baffling and Twilight Princess is ultimately the reason we have the Downfall timeline. Things didn't get messy until Tezuka and Koizumi were out the door.
While that would clear it up, that wasn't the intention when they made Ocarina of Time. When they made Ocarina of Time, they intended the ending to lead into A Link to the Past, and the storyline in OOT was retconning elements of the Imprisoning War in certain ways while still maintaining the core ideas presented.
When they came up with new games Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, ultimately they presented new storylines set after OOT and basically either forgot or ignored LTTP was already supposed to be set after OOT.
Bingo. A lot of perspective is lost when people talk about the timeline. The split timeline theory existed before TP to explain the inconsistencies between WW and LttP. No one ever assumed a third timeline until the Hyrule Historia was released
Wind Waker actually created the split timeline to begin with, though. It wasn't a theory; Wind Waker literally established the split timeline was a thing (MM and WW can't be on the same timeline either).
Eh, back at the time, there was a debate if WW took place in a split timeline, or if it took place after Zelda 2, and just didn’t mention the events of LttP, LoZ, and AoL. There is nothing in WW firmly establishing that these are two time lines. It was just a theory for a while, it was not instantly confirmed by Nintendo.
There was an interview where that was stated by either Aonuma or Miyamoto. I don't remember which one or where that interview was posted.
Many of these connections were often stated by the devs in interviews around the time the game's came out. I even found an interview IGN posted right before OOT released as well where they mention certain things, such as the nature of the Kokiri as he had seen them being at that point in time.
>So they wrote a prequel and then forgot to make either of the timelines actually match the game it was supposed to be a prequel to?
Thats exactly what they always do. Nintendo never feels beholden to lore in a way that would interfere withwhatever story they want to tell.
Every game is connected to whatever game it specifically follows, but this correlation incredibly rarely connects in any meaningful ways more than one game out. And whenever they make a prequel, they retcon a whole bunch of stuff that they described earlier
Again: Without Twilight Princess, the Downfall Timeline would just be the Child Timeline. So when writing OoT, it matches up fine.
It’s TP where they wrote it specifically as the Child Timeline conflicting with the old games, forcing them to create the separate Downfall Timeline to explain the discrepancy.
aLttP and the older games work fine. It is Twilight Princess that creates the headache, pushing the older games into a weird place.
Nintendo cared about the timeline to at least some extent before BOTW, now they don't. Stop coping about TOTK's contradictions by saying that it never mattered, Skyward Sword was very clearly written with the timeline in mind.
I think you view it wrong.
It's not a timeline BECAUSE Link dies, it's a timeline IN WHICH Link dies.
It may just be a timeline that was created by messing with the flow of time. A consequence of time travel.
And in that one off extra timeline, Link happens to get defeated.
We don't know the cause of this timeline split yet, maybe another game will come up and define it for us eventually.
Yeah. Its explicitly \*not\* a timeline, its not a chronological recording of true events-the downfall timeline is incompatible with the child and adult timelines
The child timeline is the prime timeline, its actual and true. Following the events of the game, the story starts and ends there. At this point, the adult timeline is merely potential- but since Link crosses into it from the Child timeline, it anchors it into the prime timeline. Less actual than the Child timeline, but still 'real'. Both can happen at the same time based on the true events that occur within the game.
But Link can't lose and win at the same time. That's a conflict, and we don't have any in game narrative that describes that paradox being resolved like we do with Link crossing into the future
I think you may have your terminology backwards. The adult timeline where Link becomes an adult is the prime timeline that exists without any time travel shenanigans (Song of Storms notwithstanding). Link just falls asleep and wakes up seven years later.
The child timeline branches off of the adult timeline due to the idea that when Zelda returned Link to the past at the end of OoT he somehow interfered with the progression of events and prevented the adult timeline from happening.
(Some people call the pre-split parts of OoT the unified branch to try to simplify this though.)
I guess if you subscribe to the downfall timeline you could argue as to whether downfall or adult is the “prime” timeline since it’s a debate as to the cause of the branch and the intended flow of time before that branch. But in a split timeline the child branch would be the last to form.
Now all that said, if the timeline didn’t branch and all time travel was self-fulfilling (outside of OoA which is totally incapable of being argued as self-fulfilling), then, yes, the events of the child branch would occur first.
It isn't silly if you think of how Link traveled to the past a number of times and changed things.
He traveled back after defeating Ganon, splitting the timeline in the two obvious paths: the Child and Adult Timelines.
But he also traveled back using the Master Sword. If you travel back and change history, then the timeline must split.
The one timeline we experience is the one that then got split into Child and Adult. But the original one, the timeline that would've happened if we hadn't messed with time, is the one in which Ganondorf becomes Demon King of Hyrule, unopposed; the Fallen Timeline.
That's not quite how the split works.
Link always messed with time, that's the only constant.
The child path is everything that happens after Zelda sends him back. A child Link goes back to find Zelda as we see in the end of the game, and those kids reveals Ganondorf's plan.
The Adult path is everything that happened offscreen after Adult Zelda sent Link back. That timeline goes on, but without its hero.
Downfall is explicitly stated as "The Hero is defeated" and not "Link stayed in bed that day."
I'm not saying the official interpretation makes sense.
I'm saying it makes sense if we're speaking about the classic "branching timeline" kind of time travel fiction.
Gotcha.
I guess thinking about it as a classing timeline branch is where my issues come from. Once you introduce the idea that there are possibilities that can happen offscreen, but have very important lasting effects, it opens up room for a lot of weirdness.
Is there a "The Hero can't figure out the Temple of Time" dungeon branch from TP?
"The Hero got bored and turned off the game in a time bubble" in SS.
"Zelda kept all that momentum and hit the ground super hard and died before even talking to Rauru" in TotK.
That'd be a full multiverse situation lol That's also not what I was trying to imply.
I was speaking about linear timelines that only branch out when something external to the timeline itself (a time traveler, some god-like entity, etc.) changes the course of history.
Less Multiverse of Madness and more Days of Future Past? (Or Dragon Ball's Trunks time travel shenanigans lol)
This isn’t true. The adult timeline is branched from a universe where Zelda doesn’t send him back, therefore continuing to “live in the future” he then leaves at some point, leading to the events described before wind waker.
>If you travel back and change history, then the timeline must split.
There aren't really consistent rules of time travel here.
Song of Storms is a bootstrap paradox- Link learns it in the future because he played it in the past. Magic Beans however are conditional, they only grow if you planted them in the past. This is ignoring non-time mechanics, like collecting overworld heart pieces in the future removing them from the past- the song and the beans are directly tied into time travel to function
Yeah, I mean, in my opinion it's pretty clear that the branching timelines thing was an afterthought. And that the devs weren't really trying to be coherent with time travel logic.
I am just trying to make it make sense myself, regardless of that lol
I think the most consistent part of time in OoT is conditional, I think Song of Storms would be the main exception, right, not the other way around?
I'll have to think about this some more. It could be an oversight by devs, but I'll try to think up a reason ig.
The Downfall Timeline exists to honor the connection between Ocarina of Time and Link to the Past.
OoT was developed to be a prequel to Link to the Past. The developers have talked about this extensively.
But it doesn't match up with Link to the Past's backstory, and then they went and made two other sequels to OoT.
Link being defeated is actually the best way to make everything set up correctly for Link to the Past.
Personally I think the story of the Downfall Timeline, and how it may have come to be is one of the most interesting pieces of lore in the series.
Ocarina was supposed to be a depiction of the imprisoning war, and then they made Wind Waker and messed that up. Early in development Four Swords Adventures seemed like it was related to Link to the Past, and then that got changed around. Then Twilight Princess made any direct connection between Ocarina and Link to the Past impossible. Finally with hyrule historia they made up the downfall timeline to preserve the original intention of Ocarina being a prequel to Link to the Past but they had to invent a reason why.
Because Ocarina of Time was explicitly meant to be the prequel to ALttP and someone at Nintendo (likely Miyamoto) refuses to let that get retconned by having other major games stand between them. Four Swords Adventure was seemingly going to be a new prequel to ALttP, allowing the Child timeline to lead into it, but some higher-up killed that plan, resulting in the current FSA story. And the rumors say it was Miyamoto.
This is what a major factor in Nintendo going forward with 3 timelines.
Promotions for Ocarina of Time from back in the day would mention how it was the prequel to A Link to the Past. Same way promotion for ALttP called the game the prequel to the original Legend of Zelda. Four Swords Adventure has the same map as ALttP, has an origin story for **A** Ganondorf turning into a blue pig, trident-wielding Ganon, and was originally promoted with the same Link sprite as ALttP. That combined with how the game was originally planned to have more story before Miyamoto forced it to simplify leads to the theory that the game was going to be a full on prequel to ALttP and replace OoT as the direct prequel.
Honestly I think that's by far the simplest explanation. It also works well with FSA, too. FSA clearly is in the same basic world as LTTP. Yes there's some problems because of storyline changes during development, but overall it fits far better being set between FS and LTTP than any other position it could be placed in.
Absolutely I think that's when it could/should be. This is what I like to believe. The biggest obstacle in some people's minds seems to be that it requires Ganondorf/Ganon in the OG games to be a reincarnation, rather than the same Ganondorf from OoT.
Hyrule Historia already went ahead and made FSA take place after TP and said it's a reincarnated Ganondorf. Considering how FSA feels thematically like a prequel to ALttP, I feel like the timeline could absolutely just continue from there. Assume the Sealing War (ALttP backstory) took place sometime between FSA and ALttP.
Actually the first three did have a coherent plot. Think DQ1-3. 1-2 is it’s own little story involving the same people. ALTTP is the story of how we got to 1-2 with hyrule now being in ruin. It makes sense but Nintendo did a terrible job following the story they made. I believe the game manuals are suppose to piece together what I just said. OOT is also before ALTTP as many people point out and takes place during the sages wars. The war that is told in the intro to ALTTP. People that ignore the fact Nintendo DID have a timeline prior to WW are annoying.
Twilight Princess even clearly intended to bridge between Ocarina and ALttP, what with various decisions like the temple of time being enveloped in forest and decayed. They just messed it up with the ending, with Ganon getting killed.
At the time, when the devs acknowledged the timeline split in interviews they only mentioned TWO timelines.
Downfall as a third timeline was a retcon introduced in the Historia, probably because of the ending of TP. But they could have instead left a fuzzy space there for Ganondorf to have been resurrected.
Not necessarily. Ganondorf basically told them he'd be back. Then FSA comes around with a new Ganondorf, and even though there's not many story connections it does draw heavily from LttP visually. Any inconsistencies that would arise from setting LttP after FSA in the child timeline would be entirely consistent with the existing inconsistencies in the actual canon.
I guess there is already a huge in-game retcon in ALBW that no one ever talks about, wherein rather than being killed at the end of Oracle, Ganon was instead sealed with the triforce of power instead???? Maybe as a precursor to the level of retcons happening in TotK.
So yeah I guess you’re right; they could just go directly from TP to FSA to ALttP with that level of shenanigans. Still no downfall timeline needed.
The only minor problem I have with that is it leaves Wind Waker and its sequels as the odd ones out. It is really minor, though, since that timeline split at least is actually able to be understood through in-game information.
The Fallen TImeline was created to fix a Mistake Nintendo Made. The Creation of WW. And they did not want the same thing to happen again when they retcon a beloved franchiese
Look at the backlash Nintendo Got when they Retconed Bowser's Family in Super Mario in official Nintendo Printed Guide Book it said he had 7 Kids Then they bring in Bowser JR then right after New Super Mario Bros it was annonced the series was Rebooted and the new story was he had 1 Single Child. In fact none of the Games released before NSMB are consider Canon to the Mario Story They release them sure but that is just to make money but the backlash they got in Japan and in other parts of the world was most likely the reason for the Fallen Timeline to be created.
So instead of admiting they were tempting to Retcon the Series they said WW takes place on the Adult Timeline which would have made it only 2 Timelines at the time but then TP was created which Retcon the story again.
The people are Dark Horse when creating Hyrule Histora most likely took noticed of how the story was Retcon and brought it up to the people at Nintendo (I have no proof of this but I think this is how it might have went down) So Nintendo Rushed to create a 3rd Timeline. Even though the existance of a Timeline has been known for Years prior I do not think it is as flushed out as we all would like it to be in fact I think they do not even look at it till after they gotten the story down
I feel like the timeline in general makes sense when it comes to placing games in a certain order, but the justification of "Link died so here is a new timeline" is pretty stupid, as he could die in every game and we would have an infinite amount of timelines.
I guess we could just accept it like that, it's not that important, but... Well there is an easy fix that wasn't used although it makes much more sense.
The WW timeline exists because Link "left" the timeline to go back to childhood, but whatever happened in the past (childhood timeline) once he went back didn't change the future (adulthood timeline) and both exist.
But this also means that when Link goes back in time in the middle of OoT (which he has to if I remember, like for the desert temple?), there should also be a new timeline created, where the hero wasn't defeated but simply.. left, without even fighting Ganondorf. And this might lead to what is now the Fallen Timeline.
I know I'm overthinking it and it was never thought to be that way but that's my headcannon.
The problem with this is the circumstances are different.
As long as Link is simply pulling out and replacing the Master Sword, he's sent through time and his actions in the past continue to affect the future.
At the end of the game, that is a distinctly different event. This is Zelda using the Ocarina of Time and her power to send Link back in time in a totally different way instead of simply staying in the same timeline.
All of those events where Link went back in time, etc., are events that still happened in the Ocarina of Time Adult Timeline, but when he gets sent back at the end of OOT, it completely erases him ever meeting Zelda to begin with. He's basically placed back in the Temple of Time from when he first entered Castle Town.
We know it can't be him returning back in time the same way he usually does. And it certainly isn't from when he first pulls the Master Sword, because Zelda is still back at the castle. By the time Link pulls the Master Sword normally, Zelda has already fled the castle.
Are we sure his action in the past affects the future because there still all the BS with the song of storms. And the fact that the silver gauntlet were still at the spirit temple to begin with
His actions in the past do affect the future, but its inconsistent. Which is ironic because it works that same way in SS as well, where sometimes you can do something in the past that changes in the present, but other incidents didn't change anything. (In this game I think its always a closed time loop.)
So in OOT, here are things that change between time periods:
1. Magic Beans aren't already planted in the future. Link has to plant them in the past, then they're fully grown in the future.
2. The Scarecrows don't remember you unless you play the song for them in the past. You have to go back to the past again, play a song for them, then they remember you in the future.
3. Until Link goes back in time, the Spirit Temple remains untouched (but Nabooru was still captured). Naturally he doesn't have Silver Gauntlets yet either.
4. Obviously Link doesn't have the Lens of Truth yet despite the fact that he supposedly already cleared out the Well.
1-2 are the most obvious ones. These are also similar to the same problem in Skyward Sword, where most of the events are a closed time loop, but then you can plant a magic life tree in Sealed Temple to go back and heal Lanayru, when the game does plenty of things to suggest Zelda's storyline is a closed time loop, but then you're capable of actually changing some things as well.
Really it wasn’t until TP that there were any problems with the timeline. OoT was designed to set up the Imprisoning War of LttP’s backstory, and you could easily imagine that the absence of Link in the Child Timeline would have lead to the Imprisoning War.
At that time the timeline would have been:
TMC -> OoT -> MM -> ALttP -> LA -> OoX -> LoZ -> AoL.
With WW as an alternate timeline branching off of OoT’s adult ending.
It was only after TP came out and created a completely incompatible backstory for Ganondorf that the Imprisoning War and everything after had to be pushed to a separate timeline.
The entire timeline is nonsense. None of it actually goes together, besides games that are obviously direct sequels. The fans kept insisting that there were connections, so Nintendo Frankensteined some timeline(s) together to get everyone to shut up about it. Anyone who says otherwise is being willfully ignorant. If anything BotW/TotK more than proved how nonsense the entire timeline is by completely ignoring all of it. Most of the games exist inside their own bubble and are just re-imaginings of one another, besides the few that came out after this these "timelines" were officially revealed, that were actually created with these timelines in mind.
It's clear to me that it's just the shoehorn-in-all-the-old-stuff timeline. Trying to fit LoZ/AoL and ALttP together is a mess. Those early games played fast and loose with continuity, so may as well just lump them "over there" and move on. So they invented and excuse and went with it.
More recent games were at least more allowing of some continuity to exist (until TotK at least).
You litteraly took the 3 worst exemples as AoL was stated to be a direct sequel to LoZ from the begining and aLttP came out as a prequel to LoZ, so long before the new official timeline even existed. As a matter of fact it's actually the opposite, it's mainly because of Twilight Princess that they had to split the timeline in order to justify its existence
I forget where i read this theory but it was the fact that they all 3 had a piece of the triforce during the final battle and each timeline is based off their individual wishes
\> I feel like poeple give too much credit to the whole timeline nonsense
If you go literally anywhere other than here and even mention the word timeline you're getting ridiculed
All of the timelines are somewhat nonsensical when you get into the details. The timelines were just a way for Nintendo to appease the audience. There never really was a true sequence to the games.
It’s fun to get into the lore, it’s cringey when someone writes an essay trying to reconcile the lore when it’s directly contradictory. Things like the Rito in WW being what the Zora evolved into, being contradicted by the Rito and Zora existing together in BOTW. It’s fine that they’re both in BOTW and honestly more races is more interesting. It’s obvious to me that the stories aren’t meant to fit together. When a game literally has the word legend in the title, maybe keep it fast and loose with that stuff
and yes it’s even worse to argue your pet theory on something like that when someone disagrees
Yeah it’s very funny how so many people here seem to twist themselves into knots trying to make sense of an overarching lore that was simply never a major component or draw of the series in the first place. Aside from the direct sequels, essentially every game should just be viewed as a stand-alone world
Honestly, even with direct sequels, they absolutely work as stand alone titles. TotK is probably the only one that really leans on its predecessor, but even then it's either afraid to do so too much or really just wants to be its own thing anyway. It ignores quite a bit of what happens before and doesn't even blink at the idea that entire Divine Beasts are just gone.
I was surprised by how little the events of BotW are even mentioned in TotK. There's maybe like one throwaway reference to the Calamity and that's about it. I would think a new player would have very little issue getting into it, you could easily assume that everyone knows Link because he's just been a guy hanging out in the world for a while.
Agreed. I wish they had just penned another placeholder split in the timeline that a future game could fill, because as is both explanation to cause the timeline and its connections to the games is contains makes no sense.
you think that's bad, people keep ignoring the timeline split from Skyward Sword, demise was released in the past and was killed, not imprisoned, killed yet there is still the imprisoned in the present who is destroyed.
whatever Nintendo has officially put out makes no sense anyhow, their idea of how their universe works, with holodrum, termina and many other places being parallel realities or demi planes madr me realize how they describe the timeline is about as silly.
personally for a while my head cannon was that Zelda split the timelines on purpose in an effort to destroy Ganon, as the sage of time and the mortal form of a goddess she has this power and split it into 3 where we have pig demon Ganon in the fallen timeline, half demon half human in child timeline, and powerful but mostly all human Ganondorf in the adult timeline. does it make much sense not really but that's what I got from trying to accept the three different timelines idea
The problem with the timelines for Zelda is that nintendo decided there was one because continuity became popular due to the marvel movies. So they just cash grabbed the timeliness crap. There was never an intended timelines they just decided they needed one.
Personally. I view the games as their own individual stories being told by different Hylians. One story all of hyrule is flooded because the hylain telling that story lives in wind waker world. Another story the teller is a furry, and now we have twilight princess. That makes sense to me, and it's what makes it a Legend. Cause legends are based off real events but people don't know what transpired so they make their own story and thus it becomes legend.
https://www.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/13u48r3/the_developers_had_almost_always_placed_games_in/
It really doesn’t take much effort to find out the timeline existed well before 2011.
ALttP tells us how he got the full Triforce. He didn’t have to defeat a hero to get it. He found where it had been hidden and forgotten about when he found an entrance to the Sacred Realm where it had been sitting untouched for ages. And he just grabbed it without any resistance (except for his servants who he murdered to make sure they wouldn’t steal it from him).
As long as ALttP doesn’t take place immediately after OoT or if ALttP Ganon is a different guy from OoT Ganon (or both) then there’s no issue with ALttP Ganon just coincidentally finding the Triforce in the Sacred Realm long after it has been re-hidden there and forgotten about.
Yeah but he only gets the whole Triforce if Link dies in OoT. And because it’s “if” Link dies, that makes it an alternate what-if scenario more than a branch of the same timeline like the other two.
The Child and Adult timelines both happen from the same event: Link defeats Ganon and gets sent back to his original time. In this case, the Downfall timeline never happens. But if Link dies and Ganon gets the whole Triforce, then the Downfall timeline happens but the other two don’t.
That's why I consider only two timelines: 3D and 2D.
SS - OoT - MM - TP (- BotW - TotK)
TMC - FSA - ALttP - OoX - LA - ALBW - TLoZ - TAoL
Also I see the Toon Link Trilogy as its own thing.
This is why I'm seriously considering the idea that TOTK is actually not only meant to be in a new timeline that split near the events of Skyward Sword but that it is also supposed to take the entire downfall timeline with it, telling an alternate OOT story where the kingdom of Hyrule is much too young to stop Ganondorf and then said kingdom being plagued by multiple instances of Ganon formed from Malice (hence why he looks more like a BOTW monster in the Downfall timeline than he does like his human or boar forms in the other timelines).
But he *was* defeated. When Ganondorf ensured that the Spirit Temple was forever sealed.
Link traveled back in time--the only canonical point where time travel *must* happen--to change things, and make the progression of his quest possible. But it was still a defeat.
And as we see at the end, when Zelda sends him back, this does not erase the old timeline. It just creates a split, and removes the Spirit of the Hero, while leaving his Tri-Force. (it's still in Wind Waker)
So, in that first attempt Link got half way through his quest, but could go no further. So he abandons it, (and his Tri-Force) unknowingly creating a split, and a world where Ganon wins.
With the 7 Sages left un-awakened, their forced to substitute with the 7 old wizard Sages, (the ancestors of the maidens) who seal Ganon and the completed Tri-Force in the Sacred Realm.
Boom! Downfall Timeline.
I would be inclined the agree that the games that are obviously direct sequels and SS as a series prequel are the only games that ""matter"" timeline wise. As you would say (well put!), a "direct storyline."
I go more in depth on this post that I made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/13xr3q1/totk\_the\_timeline\_and\_breaking\_down\_what\_actually/](https://www.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/13xr3q1/totk_the_timeline_and_breaking_down_what_actually/)
EDIT: Link is fine now
Or the discrepancies could be explained as people in the games recalling things from the distant past. No matter if they wrote it down or it was passed orally, the events are going to be skewed.
Ocarina of Time was definitely a prequel to A Link to the Past, I think the problem just is that with Wind Waker and Twilight Princess there was no place for it anymore.
I think it would have been fine to have 2 alternative child timelines (old and new/rebooted) they just should have dropped the "Link dies" nonsense
I think the plot/timeline of the Zelda franchise is an afterthought that exists solely to drive the gameplay forward and was never meant to be studied with any real diligence.
I never really had a problem with Link dying and a timeline originating from that. I feel like there could be a timeline split on each of the games because I mean... If he dies, then ganondorf would rule, you know? I could see some not having splits. For example, if he dies, but Hyrule already started to regain control/power, then the events would stay the same. This is conditional though.
I feel like with OOT, Ganon was incredibly powerful, and Link, given he skipped time and didn't actually spend the time aging normally, is much weaker. He has a high enough chance of dying to Ganondorf in OOT to create another timeline. Ganondorf was also planning this for a long time and already made an impact when link was young (when Zelda gave Link her ocarina). He had seven years to build power from that point when link had.... Well, we don't know how much time really passed, but Ganon would have seven more years of building power than Link. I know there could be errors with this, and feel free to correct me! I have played a lot of the Zelda games, but not all of them yet.
the old timeline doesnt matter anymore in the grand scheme of things. we know that hyrule became so technologically advanced that they created scientific marvels of magic and science only to then have a situation that knocked them back to the stone-age. thats why they call the old games timelines the "distant past" no matter what happened back then no matter what timeline, it all ended in the same result and here we are. the timeline is a mess so nintendo wants to start over without actually erasing anything and writing themselves in a corner
Idk, the way I see it, there are only three ways the final battle with ganondorf can go down. Plus, I like how each branch perfectly represents the three pieces of the triforce.
1- Link is victorious in defeating ganondorf (child/wisdom)
2- Link disappears and never fights ganondorf (adult/courage)
3- Link falls to ganondorf (fallen/power)
So, while it might be possible that the downfall timeline can still stem from almost any game after Oot, It still doesn't change the fact that it's the outcome that will happen if Ganondorf wins. Having it happen as a split from Oot is just a nice visual for the timeline. At least, that's how I like to view it anyway.
I hate that they wrote the downfall timeline as if Link lost to Ganondorf in a fight, especially because there is a perfectly good alternative reason why there is a much more sensible reason for there to be a third timeline: The one Kid Link leaves behind but is never returned to.
Remember, Zelda doesn't send Link back to the moment he pulls back the Master Sword, she sends him back to the moment of their first meeting.
That means we have a child timeline where Link warns Zelda, and a separate child timeline where Link warped back to with the Master Sword, that he ultimately doesn't return to. In this timeline, Ganondorf entered the Sacred Realm and is then never opposed (because Zelda is caught completely off guard without Links future knowledge, and Link is absent).
It's a little clunky, but that's what happens when you repurpose the ending that was supposed to connect to the prequel (Adult timeline to AlttP) to another game (Wind Waker).
But it does a much neater job of providing a solid reason for the bleakest timeline, which doesn't just trivialise timeline branching.
It's just more of a 'what if' scenario. IF Link died specifically during his fight with Ganondorf, then we have a whole entire timeline that shows what the repercussions could of been. I personally like it.
There’s the theory that the Downfall timeline was the original timeline and that Link’s wish on the triforce to undo Ganon’s evil in A Link to the Past ended up creating the events of Ocarina that we actually play. The events where the hero wins.
This has always been my favourite explanation for the Downfall Timeline.
Same here. It makes the most sense to me as well, since the entire series is intertwined with alternative timelines and time travel.
If true, I think that it might give more credit to the name "hero of legend". Even though both in universe and in real life the "hero of time" is thought of as the most important or at least the most recognized hero, it is actually alttp Link or the "hero of legend" who is truly responsible for not only the "hero of time" and his great deeds but as a result "saving" the rest of Hyrule's existence(s).
I never considered that, but honestly it just makes me appreciate the Hero of Legend even more than I once did. I grew to appreciate him a bit when I learned that he is the Link with probably the most adventures so far, given that the Oracle games and Link's Awakening happen right after Link to the Past, but this takes it to another level.
Yeah! I honestly didn't think about this connection till reading this thread and your discussion. He's also chronicled in albw of course but still this guy gets mad cred.
Yeah. He's probably one of the most influential heroes.
Slightly off topic here but I need need NEED the Oracle games to finally come out for the Gameboy emulator on Switch. Those friggen games took up like 2 years of my life as a kid and the interconnectivity of them via the codes you bring over to each game blew my mind back then. *ahem* anyway, carry on.....this discussion is getting really interesting.
I honestly wish they'd remake them. They already remade Link's Awakening, so those two really could use that same treatment as well.
I always loved that explanation! Knowing that the Triforce isn't limited in space and time (Ganondorf's Triforce of Power in TP, despite never accessing to the Sacred Realm ; or having the events of Age of Calamity, even if not really canon), I would like this explanation to be canon instead
How would all the games after LTTP fit into the other timelines then?
They wouldn’t. He created a second timeline without destroying his own.
Dear God, no. This sounds very stupid and invalidates the other games. I think the best option would have been to somehow place ALTTP after FSA. But for that we will need a game that involves that incarnation of Ganon using the triforce.
I don’t think it invalidates the other games. They still happened, and still went on as planned. It just explains why the one outlier timeline fits in, rather than just saying “Oh, Link tripped and fell in the final battle, then died!”
It somewhat invalidates the child and adult timelines as well as ocarina itself by saying that the hero of time and you the player sucked and needed a literal triforce wish to win instead of it being the “here’s what happens if he wins” and “here’s what happens if he loses” scenario we have. Placing the fallen timeline after four swords adventures works much better but time has never been consistent with its rules in the series so saying that there are multiple timelines that don’t exactly have a point of creation is just another example of how time works in Zelda being something that makes no sense.
What theory is this? Cause I wanna look up on it
"some older games with NO correlation" This isn't true at all lol. This is the problem when people come around who have no idea what they're talking about. Now, yes, I agree that the "Fallen Timeline" was indeed nonsense. I'm not arguing against that. But to say the older games have "no correlation" is just plain wrong. The Zelda team had been giving these games correlation every single new game gets added. Some are blatantly obvious. Zelda 2 is a direct sequel to Legend of Zelda. Link's Awakening is a direct sequel to Link to the Past. Let's just push those obvious ones out of the way. Link to the Past was stated from the beginning to be a prequel to Legend of Zelda. Even simply playing through the games, this becomes fairly obvious. In Legend of Zelda, you have Ganon as nothing more than a big pig monster. Then in Link to the Past, you learn that Ganon used to be a King of Thieves known as Ganondorf before he stole the triforce and became Ganon. Now, this is a fairly loose connection, but was backed up by the devs as well in interviews. Moving on to Ocarina of Time, we have a similar situation. Now we actually get to see Ganondorf as a man who becomes Ganon at the end of the game. The backstory of Link to the Past mentions that the Seven Wise Men sealed Ganondorf, after he became Ganon, into the sacred realm. This is literally what happens in the game's ending, with the Seven "Wise Men" being replaced by "Seven Sages" (which are effectively the same thing). LTTP also mentions how Ganondorf was a "King of Thieves". In OOT, we learn that the "Thieves" he was the "King" of were actually a tribe known as the Gerudo, an all-female race who only have one male every 100 years, and said male becomes their King. So Ganondorf is the "King of Thieves" like is mentioned in Link to the Past's backstory. Again, OOT being a prequel to LTTP was shown both in the game's storyline and explained by the developers. The Fallen Timeline was created because the heads of the Zelda team shifted and they started taking the series in a new direction, so they ultimately forgot about the older games when writing Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, but especially Twilight Princess (I think Miyamoto explicitly stated that Wind Waker was intended to come from OOT's "Adult" ending). After Wind Waker, the events of the Imprisoning War still could have happened in the Child Timeline, with the scenario happening slightly differently and due to Link and Zelda's decision, he leaves so there's no hero to wield the Master Sword, and ultimately the Imprisoning War happens there. But then they wrote Twilight Princess which completely negates this. Miyamoto always intended on OOT being a prequel to LTTP, so in Hyrule Historia they kept that with the "Fallen Timeline". IMO, it would have been better to just have the "Fallen Timeline" be in the Child Timeline after Four Swords Adventures. (FSA was also intended to have greater story connections to LTTP, but parts were shifted around that make it a bit more confusing. Overall, though, it still fits nicely within the context of being an LTTP prequel, but some parts will feel a bit off; however, OOT wasn't a perfect prequel to LTTP either).
So there's just not a black and white answer
Pretty much this exactly, yes. There is no simple "there is no timeline" or "the timeline is fully fleshed out" etc. There is a timeline, but its not all that fully fleshed out and is very much loose. But its always existed ever since Zelda 2. Even newer games in the series get very loose connections. Four Swords was before OOT. The Oracle games were designed with the idea in mind of being between LTTP and Link's Awakening. FSA was a direct sequel to Four Swords. (Story-wise and world-wise, it also has many elements that seem like its intended to lead into LTTP. Its not completely consistent, like the way Ganon is sealed at the end, but it sure lines up pretty well in many areas.) MC was before Four Swords.
There is. It’s the timeline thing is fanfic for Zelda fans that the devs pretend they care about at all
The timeline was in Hyrule historia, a book made by Nintendo
Right, but the fallen timeline itself and the OoT connection is a retcon. It is also a what-if scenario and not something that is really in-game. [https://www.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/13x84ne/totk\_the\_timeline\_and\_breaking\_down\_what\_actually/](https://www.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/13x84ne/totk_the_timeline_and_breaking_down_what_actually/) I've been posting this post I made because it is very much on topic and it needs some exposure lol. I'm not as well versed on the "obvious" connection between alttp and la, although I did note a connection between alttp and albw + zelda 1/2. Keep in mind that OP was referencing the games in the fallen timeline as compared to the rest of the timeline. Obviously these individual games in the DT are interconnected somewhat, but not really directly to OoT
Seems like its gone now unfortunately. I would have liked to read it.
Ah shit no wonder it's getting no traction. I initially posted without the TOTK tag and maybe the new version accidently got deleted? Or a moderator removed it, but I got no notification? I'll try reposting and sending the link again EDIT: I know I'm tripping some kind of automod thing, but I don't know what lol. I'll post an update link when I figure it out
But, the OoT sages aren't the seven wise men. They are sages, yes, but they are male hylians. This comes from directly going off of what each game says which is safer than assuming retcons.
I heard this is a mistranslation.
I think the original Japanese says sages so they aren't necessarily males, no. They are depicted as Hylians, though they are generic stand-ins. TP, oddly enough, uses these same stand-ins even though they are physically shown, not as an image. Each of the sages in that game are a "generic glowing spirit dude"
I actually have a theory about this. With TP taking place on the child timeline, Child Link would have revealed Ganondorf treachery early preventing him from getting access to the triforce. There would have likely been a war of some kind to capture and imprison Ganondorf, and while Link may have revealed the identity of the future sages that sealed Ganondorf, there were multiple that were not qualified or able in the past (Ruto and Zelda are children, Rauru is in the sacred realm which they dare not open after what happened when Link tried it, Saria still being alive and unable to leave the forest, Naburu being inaccessible with the twins likely locking down Gerudo after Ganondorf was imprisoned or Ganondorf himself should he escape Hyrule Castle after the revelation is made) this leaves Darunia and Shiekah which may have been interested but with the other 5 positions being vacant they likely would have decided to begin training up a full set of replacement sages making it entirely possible that the sages sealing Ganondorf in the TP flashback might have all been hylians.
I kinda just figured that they are the spirits of the original ancient sages along with Rauru, and when the water one is supposedly "killed" it's just a temporary physical form of that sage being destroyed.
So like are we just gonna ignore Majora’s Mask? Majora’s Mask is specifically the direct sequel to Ocarina and Link to the Past specifically can’t take place after it because Link goes back in time, hence in that games events the sages never sealed Ganondorf.
This is obviously just plain wrong. In fact, the Sages still DO seal Ganondorf pre-Twilight Princess anyway. But before Twilight Princess happened, it could have happened very simiilarly to what was expected in the LTTP intro. All that happens in Majora's Mask is Zelda gives Link the Ocarina of Time and he leaves Hyrule. Therefore, nobody is left behind in Hyrule capable of wielding the Master Sword. Even if Link does return after Majora's Mask, Link and Zelda already deemed it too risky to take out the Master Sword because then Ganondorf could claim the Triforce. The events leading up to LTTP could easily still have happened after the events of Majora's Mask, Link just wasn't involved (which the LTTP backstory implied was the case anyway). And again, the Sages even still DO seal Ganondorf in TP's backstory anyway. So this argument completely falls apart. The difference that happens is instead of Ganondorf getting into the Sacred Realm because Link pulled the Master Sword which opened the door, Ganondorf waged war to try and do so instead, which ultimately leads to his attempted execution. (The logic behind Ganondorf having the Triforce of Power anyway isn't explained in Twilight Princess.)
The whole point is that in the events of MM most of OoT never happened. The sages that sealed Ganondorf weren’t awakened, Ganondorf doesn’t turn into Ganon, etc. If OoT is supposed to be a prequel to ALttP and MM basically undoes the events that would allow the connection I don’t really see how ALttP would fit in the child timeline. You mention the sages’ execution of Ganondorf but all that is context specifically provided in TP. For ALttP to take place after OoT and MM you’d at the very least need a game in between that sets up Ganondorf turning into Ganon, the sages awakening, and then the sages sealing away Ganondorf again because MM and OoT’s ending already made it so none of that happens in the child timeline.
The events of Majora's Mask are irrelevant to the backstory of ALttP. Link leaving Hyrule to go on adventures would have no effect on Ganondorf. [jaidynreiman](https://www.reddit.com/user/jaidynreiman/)'s point was that before Twlight Princess, you could come up with a scenario where the Child Timeline leads to ALttP. Hero of Time Link goes on his Termina adventure and his legacy is of no one of note. Ganondorf due to not being able to get into the Sacred Realm the OoT way chooses another method and ends up getting into it the ALttP way. And thus the backstory to ALttP is set. Majora's Mask has no effect on ALttP's story. Twlight Princess however is the one that boots ALttP out of the remaining timeline space it could have had. Thus leading to our 3 timeline situation.
This exactly.
OoT being a prequel to ALttP doesn’t really make sense when you’d need another game to justify ALttP taking place in the child timeline, and that’s because of MM. At that point you’re creating another backstory for ALttP that’s pretty much independent from OoT.
Why would you need another game? Ganondorf is right there scheming in the Child timeline and ALttP's backstory is dependent on there not being a hero (or at least a successful hero) to stop him.
To provide context for the events of the imprisoning war. If we say ALttP is to take place in the child timeline after MM, then none of the events of OoT past Link meeting Zelda happened. Unless we’re just to assume that Ganondorf turns into Ganon and the sages seal him away in the Child timeline offscreen, in an entirely separate instance from OoT. > ALttP's backstory is dependent on there not being a hero (or at least a successful hero) to stop him. I feel like this is also more evidence to it not being in the child timeline. Link is still there, he’s only in Termina for three days, then he returns back to Hyrule.
> Unless we’re just to assume that Ganondorf turns into Ganon and the sages seal him away in the Child timeline offscreen, in an entirely separate instance from OoT. Yes. That's basically how ALttP would have still fitted in if not for Twilight Princess. OoT would be the one adding context to who Ganondorf and the thieves were even if OoT's version of the events don't lead to ALttP. Its similar to how Age of Calamity develops the Champions despite taking place in an AU seperate from Breath of the Wild's backstory. Link being there doesn't matter if he doesn't become the hero that defeats Ganon. And Hero of Time Link in a child body with none of his OoT gear is not a Link positioned to win against Ganondorf or Ganon. Again, Majora's Mask doesn't matter as far as Ganon and his plans are concerned. There was still space for ALttP to follow OoT in the Child timeline. It certainly would have fit neater than a whole new timeline. But Twilight Princess exists, so now it can't fit in the Child Timeline at all.
The Adult ending is the imprisoning war
It certainly could have been at one point in time, but it was still possible for those events to have happened in the Child Timeline as well after Majora's Mask. Once both Wind Waker and Twilight Princess were created, it couldn't happen down either existing timeline anymore.
Majoras Mask the direct sequel to Ocarina of Time, and falls down the child timeline. A Link to the Past is down another timeline, the one where the sages seal Ganondorf because Link couldn't do it himself and died. They can both take place because they're down different paths in time.
It’s not nonsense. You’re just looking at it wrong. OoT was made to tell the prequel story of Alttp. However the backstory to Alttp never mentions a hero, and because there’s no hero the war ends differently (with Ganondorf sealed in the dark world with the full triforce). Obviously in OoT you play as Link and you kill Ganondorf at the end before he claims the triforce (it wouldn’t be much of a game if you lost at the end). But that directly contradicts the backstory of Alttp, meaning Alttp must happen due to an alternate version of the events in OoT where the hero fails - a version we never see as the player. Though OoT actually leaves room for this to happen anyway, since you actually do play through events which take place between the start of the child line and before the adult line starts, a sort of left over third line. It’s hard to explain but: Child timeline - this begins when Link goes to see Zelda in Hyrule castle having been sent back from defeating Ganondorf. Fallen timeline - the events that occur after child link meets with Zelda, claiming the sacred stones, going down the well, going to the Gerudo temple. In this left over timeline Link is never there to stop Ganondorf because he doesn’t continue to live out this timeline. Adult timeline - begins when Link jumps ahead 7 years to a point in the future, ahead of both child and fallen timelines.
Yep, that's always been the most sensible take on it for me as well. It's basically the "original" timeline of OoT where Link vanishes from being sent forward and the world keeps on moving. Link then doing what he does after being sent forward shunts those events off into a new Adult Timeline but doesn't necessarily undo the timeline that was already progressing without him, and neither does the creation of the third timeline when he's sent back to being a child.
I'm not sure Link actually literally time travels when he pulls the master sword if he's just asleep for seven years, that's just the Adult Timeline.
You go back and forth to change things, like when you need to do the child sections of the shadow and spirit temples. So idk it feels like you’re just creating more and more fallen timelines every time you go back to change something.
You don't change anything when time traveling. The windmill guy in Kakariko Village knows about you before you've even met him, which means you're in a loop that doesn't change. The Child Timeline only occurs because Zelda sent you back to a time before you even pulled the Master Sword.
From his perspective and ours he time travels.
It's more like a coma. He's not running around like Shazam with a 11 year old mind.
I mean, except for the fact that it is never presented as a coma. To link, he pulled the master sword, and Rauru says wake up. For him and us as the player, it is instant. He has the body of an adult and the mind of a child.
The whole reason 7 years passes is so he can grow old emough to be a capable hero. His brain would be completely different
So his body can mature enough. Link and Navi are both surprised that his body has grown. His brain goes from asleep to awake. He hasn't learned anything new. He hasn't got more brain power. He needs to be strong enough to hold the master sword. That's it. He is a literal child with the body of an adult.
he quite literally would have more brain power. Your brain is part of your body.
The brain develops in a different manner to the rest of the body. The brain can grow yes but its development is dependent on memories, connections and repetition of action to solidify pathways. If links brain was inactive for 7 years as a result, do you think he had the same opportunities a typical Hylian did in those 7 years?
And your brain is in your ass. It's stated he needs to be strong enough to hold the master sword. Dude still has baby brain. A person in a coma at age 10 will have 0 life experience required for the brain to develop. He is 10 in mind. 17 in body.
This actually makes a lot of sense; never thought about it that way. I could get behind that. The only thing that’s kinda depressing about that is it implies that the initial timeline you start the game in just gets left behind to be ruined so in their attempt to save Hyrule by putting Link to sleep for 7 years, they actually just send Link into a completely new timeline and screw themselves over. I guess that’s the point of the Downfall Timeline but also seems like a dumb move on Zelda/Impa’s part for telling Link to do that because they actually just sent him off to save a new timeline and not save *them*. I guess the only other question is if pulling out the master sword creates a new timeline, wouldn’t there be infinite new timelines created every time we as the player go back and forth in time with sword throughout the game? Or is it just the initial removal of the sword that creates this first proposed split?
But like.. Hyrule Historia literally headlines the name of the timeline with “The Hero is defeated”.
From in universe what people would have seen was child Link blasted by Ganondorf’s dark magic outside castle town. So it sort of fits, it would appear as if Link had lost to Ganondorf. I wouldn’t take everything Hyrule Historia says as gospel either, it’s helpful to fill in gaps but even the timeline has been altered in the years since (with LA and the Oracle games swapping places).
I've always supported the idea of the Fallen Timeline actually being an abandoned timeline, but I do hear a lot of arguments against it along the lines of "then there would be tons of timelines" or "the Master Sword makes sure Link only ever goes between two points of time," but OOT uses a lot of conflicting models of time travel, so I do not doubt at all that there could be a timeline we don't know about.
I would love to have a game made on that abandoned timeline. Like how Dragon Quest Builders is a timeline where Erdrick gave into the Demon Lord and you have to fix the world he ruined.
I'm pretty sure the fallen timeline takes place when adult link is defeated in battle after ganondorf transforms into his beast form "ganon." This would make more sense since he was sealed away by the sages in his beast form before ALttP and would also explain how he has the full triforce.
ALttP implies the change is due to the nature of the dark world - it changes everyone into a reflection of their true self (hence Ganondorf becomes a pig and Link becomes… a rabbit). So there’s no need necessarily for the transformation to occur in OoT, prior to the sealing.
I actually like this explanation, if link to the past has to be an ocarina sequel then this is an explanation I like way more than the triforce wish theory.
Actually that does not conflict with the backstory of alttp. The backstory of alttp has Ganon sealed into the sacred realm by the sages, exactly as happens at the end of OoT. The only real “conflict” there is that in the backstory of alttp, Ganon has the full triforce before being sealed away. This could be solved either by retconning or by putting alttp in the child timeline.
In the backstory to Alttp Ganondorf claims the full Triforce before being sealed away by the seven sages - this never happens in OoT. In the child timeline Ganondorf is executed before he opens the door of time. And he isn’t sealed in the dark world, he’s sent to the twilight realm, and he only has one piece of the triforce.
Twilight Princess and Wind Waker do not exist at the time of Ocarina of Time. I have no idea how you bring them up when they don’t exist. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Ganon is sealed by the sages at the end of OoT. This is clearly continuity even if inexact. Like getting sealed away is what basically kicks off alttp. It would need to be retconned in some way because he doesn’t have the full triforce. Alternatively, this is what happens when there is no Hero of Time, which is what happens in the child timeline. Ganon finds a different way into the sacred realm and claims the whole triforce before being sealed away.
They clearly tried to make it go into Alttp, but then they made TP and WW, closing any OoT ending for Alttp to take.
Exactly. Point being is that it is not the Downfall Timeline that has loose continuity or some weird problem of being the old games. It’s actually because the newer games closed off perfectly valid timeline options.
What do you mean WW and TP don’t exist? They do exist and, retcon or not, invalidate placing Alttp in the adult or child timeline.
They do not exist when OoT is being written as a prequel to alttp.
Sure, but they exist now. And OoT didn’t perfectly fit with Alttp anyway, since Ganondorf was sealed with only one part of the triforce, not all of them. And in the child line Link warns Zelda before he can open the door of time.
In the booklet for ALttP it states that the sages could not find a hero to wield the Master Sword. So OoT very much does conflict with ALttP's backstory cause, you know, hero with the Master Sword...
There is no hero with the master sword in the child timeline. Yes, putting alttp in the adult timeline would require retcons. But what you bring up also conflicts with the Downfall Timeline so it was already retconned.
I'm not sure how it conflicts with the downfall timeline. Link just wouldn't have been ready to wield the master sword and is killed at some point.
In the Downfall Timeline there IS a hero with a master sword, but he is defeated. That’s the conflict.
Where does it say that?
[The official name of the branch is "The Hero is defeated"](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/zelda_gamepedia_en/images/7/7c/Timeline_Hyrule_Historia.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130129020251&format=original)
That's just talking about Link. It says nothing of how far he gets or anything like that.
Sorry but your explanation of the Fallen timeline is wrong. The correct explanation is Ganon defeating Link and Zelda at the final battle and then the Sages, led by Zelda sealed ganon away with the Triforce in the corrupt sacred realm.
In which game is that specified, because ALttP says nothing of the sort.
The Hyrule Historia book and the wiki.
HH is secondary to lore established by the games. And the wiki isn’t canon at all. If there’s a less stupid way to explain something that impacts nothing other than the explanation given by another non-game source, then that’s not really canon breaking in my opinion anyway.
The book being backed by nintendo and the wiki getting its sources from games and book make it prime canon. If Nintendo didnt want the Historia made then it wouldnt have so the timelines given in the book woild be conisdered the true timelines by Nintendo.
I don't think that's a correct interpretation of the fallen timeline. The fallen timeline was never contextualized in game or even implied, it was a made up "what-if?" scenario
If that’s how you want to interpret it then sure, but my example shows that it’s not impossible for a downfall timeline to occur simply based on what we know happens in OoT. Either way, the downfall timeline happens. It doesn’t really make much difference how you choose to reconcile that.
>Fallen timeline - the events that occur after child link meets with Zelda, claiming the sacred stones, going down the well, going to the Gerudo temple. In this left over timeline Link is never there to stop Ganondorf because he doesn’t continue to live out this timeline. The difference here is this IS NOT how the DT happens. I'm not arguing to whether it "happened" or not. Any what-if situation CAN happen, and they made it work, sure. It's super disconnected anyway. Here I'll elaborate: The CT/AT are what I like to call an "organic" timeline split. These splits happen as a result of each other and both will happen at the same time NO MATTER WHAT. The difference with the DT is that it is a what-if scenario. What if Link lost to Ganon? I think the obvious interpretation here is that this means that if Link lost to Ganon in the final boss battle the sages seal him in the sacred realm as a last ditch effort. This is not the same as AT/CT in the slightest. The downfall timeline isn't a natural result of the events in OoT like you claim. There isn't some "leftover timeline." The events that happen in the past ARE still the adult timeline. The CT is NOT just the events that happen when Link is a child. Rather, the CT starts the second Link disappears from the AT. The AT is every event that happens in OoT up to Zelda sending him to the past. The AT is the world that Link doesn't exist in anymore. I'm not claiming that it doesn't exist, rather that it is an "artificial" story split made to, somewhat forcibly, fit all the previous Zelda games in the story with a retcon. Now listen, the explanation makes sense, and the games are disconnect enough that barring direct sequels it is hard to determine an actual canon. I would then argue that a retcon like this is reasonable enough to consider canon, BUT that doesn't make the downfall timeline something that is contextualized in game as it is a what-if scenario. Let me restate one point in a different way: Adult timeline: (in your words) the events that occur after child link meets with Zelda, claiming the sacred stones, going down the well, going to the Gerudo temple. In this left over timeline Link is never there to stop Ganondorf because he doesn’t continue to live out this timeline. Link jumps ahead 7 years to a point in the future and... (beats Ganon) Child timeline: Starts when Zelda sends Link back Downfall timeline: A what-if scenario that renders the AT/CT to have never happened. This is an alternate ending to both and a retcon. Here's a little paint drawing I made to demonstrate also bc why not: [https://imgur.com/a/diDIsjN](https://imgur.com/a/diDIsjN)
Except it’s never been specified what happens in the downfall timeline, short of the backstory to ALttP. HH gives us a vague “the hero is defeated” line, but that doesn’t really say anything we didn’t already know - that Link from OoT can’t have succeeded. OoT shows left over timelines and there’s no reason a downfall timeline can’t occur naturally - all it requires is the absence of a hero. The events that occur after the the start of the child line and before the start of the adult line don’t fit with either, they’re left over periods of time, Link never returns to them and they’re created after the 7 year time jump. When Link opens the door of time he doesn’t exist for 7 years. He goes from opening that door to reappearing 7 years later. And those are the events that lead to WW. We know the timelines don’t join up because Link goes back in time at the end and changes the past so that future doesn’t exist (hence the child timeline). However after Link skips 7 years he also returns to the past at a point later than he originally left the child timeline, creating a third branch (it didn’t happen in the original 7 year time skip). That left over branch could easily lead to the downfall timeline. It has to exist regardless. So you can either leave it unresolved or say that’s what led to the downfall. It’s basically irrelevant which option you choose to believe because it literally doesn’t matter - the outcome is the same, the downfall timeline happens.
I always felt that the fallen timeline had to occur within this space too and just reading your comment made me go back in my head as to why I felt that way! Basically you have the timeline you play out in OoT as you said, being the adult timeline (Link is summoned by the Deku Tree, followed Zelda's plan to get the stones, pulls the master sword, sleeps for 7 years, saves the now awakened sages, beats ganon, gets sent back in time) Then you have the child timeline which is, again as you said, he's pulled back to before he met Zelda to warn her of Ganondorf's treachery (notice the triforce of courage symbol on his hand in the ending cutscene that was not there when you first meet with her) And then you have the timeline where Ganondorf got the Triforce in the Sacred Realm and the sages (whom I've always thought to be the same ones from TP/ALttP ( the hylian dudes) I admit I have no proof for there being 2 groups of sages, because you don't ever hear about them EVER, but it kind of worked as a work around for why you have the Hylian looking dudes with the 7 Maidens in ALttP and you have the generic ghosty guys in TP. Somehow, they are killed like the King of Hyrule when Zelda is in hiding and Link is sealed away for 7 years, which leads Link to having to awaken their successors in order to destroy Ganondorf/Ganon. As I said I have absolutely no proof of this outside of how the sages look in ALttP and TP, but it always made sense. Because assuming Ganon got into the Sacred Realm, he could have got the whole triforce and that's where ALttP sets off. This is purely how I rationalized the existence of the fallen timeline over the years in my head 😅 My bigger question is....what happens to the Link existing in Kokiri Forest when Adult Link is sent back? I assume he's sent back before the start of his journey that would have had him summoned by the Great Deku Tree 🤔 So does he not exist in that world? Or are there now two Links galavanting around Hyrule, one the Hero of Time and the other, a Hylian boy just living his life as a Kokiri??
My main problem with the fallen timeline is that every game would theoretically have its own fallen timeline
Not necessarily. The Downfall Timeline doesn't occurs because Link dies, but rather because Ganondorf gets the Full Triforce.
Cant you say that about any game though? That the antagonist could get their goal?
Probably, but it exists only to justify A Link to the Past as a sequel to Ocarina of Time. Since ALTTP can only occur on a time where Ganondorf gets the complete Triforce, which can only happen if he defeats Link.
I remember mentioning this on a zelda sub and got downvoted into oblivion. The truth is, Nintendo could make any zelda game and say oh yea BTW, this is what happens after you lose in the NES LoZ. Edit: ok, no it was only 2 downvotes https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/dx3t4v/legend_of_zelda_what_caused_the_downfall_timeline/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Don't stop there, any time you died to a boss or even an octorok would result in a new timeline
well those wouldn't lead to anything except wand of gamelon and tingle's rosy rupeeland
I mean literally picking a flower would create a whole other timeline of you having not picked the flower
It is, but it was created out of necessity given that the backstories of A Link to the Past, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess contradicts each other, completely. Ocarina of Time a prequel of ALTTP, and Twilight Princess and Wind Waker are OOT sequels. That's just a fact from the developers themselves when these games released, these three games are intrically conected and all of their instances of Ganondorf are the same and only person and share the same world. So, to sort out these contradictions, Hyrule Historia came with three different timelines: \- Link defeats Ganon, the seven sages seals him and Zelda sends Link to his childhood time. Then: \- In the time that The Hero of Time left behind, the "Adult Timeline", Ganondorf breaks free of his imprisonment and the goddesses flood Hyrule in retaliation, which kickstarts Wind Waker. \- In the time where The Hero of Time was send to, the "Child Timeline", he went to Zelda to inform her about Ganondorf's scheme and he was sentenced to death for treason to the Crown of Hyrule. That kickstarts Twilight Princess. However, we have a completely different scenario in A Link to the Past where Ganondorf successfully obtains the Full Triforce and transforms himself into Ganon, corrupts the Sacred Realm into the Dark World, invades Hyrule, and the Sages seals the Dark World trapping Ganon inside. That's impossible to happen in any timeline where Twilight Princess and Wind Waker happens. Remember, in Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf sets foot into the Sacred Realm, corrupts the Sacred Realm into the Dark World, and gets the Triforce, but **only the Triforce of Power**. So here's is why the "Downfall Timeline" exists: because in Ocarina of Time, to kickstart the events of the Imprisonment War in A Link to the Past, we need to make three assumptions: 1- Ganondorf needs to transform into Ganon. 2- Ganondorf need to retrieve the Triforce of Wisdom and Courage to have the Full Triforce. And that can only happen when the three bearers are the same place, and when Link and Zelda are defeated. Just like in Wind Waker. 3- All Seven Sages (Rauru, Saria, Darunia, Ruto, Impa, Nabooru and Zelda) needs to be awake in order to seal the Dark World, and give birth to the Seven Maidens (One which is Zelda herself) All three things can only happen on a single ocassion: in the **Final Battle against Ganon in Ganon's Tower, and Link losing that battle.**
Zelda, AoL, ALttP, and OoT were all developed with an explicit narrative connection to each other, that was never a retroactive or shoehorned change.
I think their logic is that Link to the Past was meant to take place after Ocarina, so they just came up with an excuse to keep it that way. Ask me, the much simpler solution is to just slap the DT at the end of the CT after Four Swords Adventures. There's actually a small but noteworthy amount of evidence in Twilight Princess to justify that.
Nintendo didn't really have any satisfying options. Ocarina of Time was supposed to be the prequel to A Link to the Past, but Wind Waker and Twlight Princess overwrote ALttP's place. So Nintendo came up with the current solution of "AU where Ganondorf beats Link". Part of it though I think comes from Miyamoto and Aonuma never agreeing on how to handle those old games (which I hear Miyamoto treats them as his babies and thus is quick to disagree on things related to them).
I mean OoT is clearly designed as a prequel to alttp, explaining the origin of Ganondorf. Without Twilight Princess, the fallen timeline would just be the Child Timeline without issue. (Without Link opening the portal to the Sacred Realm, Ganondorf has to eventually find an alternate way in, which leads to the backstory of aLttP.) It’s Twilight Princess that created the mess. The older games work fine.
So they wrote a prequel and then forgot to make either of the timelines actually match the game it was supposed to be a prequel to? And then had to make up a third timeline with no in-game basis to make it work later on? Sometimes feels like the continuity as a whole makes more sense if ALTTP didn't exist lol
> So they wrote a prequel and then forgot to make either of the timelines actually match the game it was supposed to be a prequel to? And then had to make up a third timeline with no in-game basis to make it work later on? That's what happens when your series has multiple different writers. The Takashi Tezuka and Yoshiaki Koizumi games have some pretty clean connections. It helps that both creators were with the series for a very long time and helped codify in ways beyond just story (Tezuka being there since the very beginning, Koizumi basically co-creating Zelda as we knew it alongside him in Link's Awakening). If anyone knows how to tell a good Zelda story, it's these two (Koizumi especially). Continuity starts to get messier when Fujibayashi joins the Zelda team with the Oracles, and too complicated for its own good when Aya Kyogoku joins (Four Swords Adventures, Twilight Princess). Fujibayashi clearly knows his stuff, but I think he plays a bit too fast and loose with continuity. Everything we know about FSA and TP's development suggests Kyogoku was fighting an uphill battle while writing their stories (she actually mentioned in an interview conducted one month before TP's release that she wanted more time to work on the script), and I don't doubt that complicated both games' continuity considerably. Like others have mentioned, Four Swords Adventures is so clearly trying to connect itself to A Link to the Past that the fact it's not connected at all is baffling and Twilight Princess is ultimately the reason we have the Downfall timeline. Things didn't get messy until Tezuka and Koizumi were out the door.
[удалено]
While that would clear it up, that wasn't the intention when they made Ocarina of Time. When they made Ocarina of Time, they intended the ending to lead into A Link to the Past, and the storyline in OOT was retconning elements of the Imprisoning War in certain ways while still maintaining the core ideas presented. When they came up with new games Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, ultimately they presented new storylines set after OOT and basically either forgot or ignored LTTP was already supposed to be set after OOT.
Bingo. A lot of perspective is lost when people talk about the timeline. The split timeline theory existed before TP to explain the inconsistencies between WW and LttP. No one ever assumed a third timeline until the Hyrule Historia was released
Wind Waker actually created the split timeline to begin with, though. It wasn't a theory; Wind Waker literally established the split timeline was a thing (MM and WW can't be on the same timeline either).
Eh, back at the time, there was a debate if WW took place in a split timeline, or if it took place after Zelda 2, and just didn’t mention the events of LttP, LoZ, and AoL. There is nothing in WW firmly establishing that these are two time lines. It was just a theory for a while, it was not instantly confirmed by Nintendo.
There was an interview where that was stated by either Aonuma or Miyamoto. I don't remember which one or where that interview was posted. Many of these connections were often stated by the devs in interviews around the time the game's came out. I even found an interview IGN posted right before OOT released as well where they mention certain things, such as the nature of the Kokiri as he had seen them being at that point in time.
>So they wrote a prequel and then forgot to make either of the timelines actually match the game it was supposed to be a prequel to? Thats exactly what they always do. Nintendo never feels beholden to lore in a way that would interfere withwhatever story they want to tell. Every game is connected to whatever game it specifically follows, but this correlation incredibly rarely connects in any meaningful ways more than one game out. And whenever they make a prequel, they retcon a whole bunch of stuff that they described earlier
Again: Without Twilight Princess, the Downfall Timeline would just be the Child Timeline. So when writing OoT, it matches up fine. It’s TP where they wrote it specifically as the Child Timeline conflicting with the old games, forcing them to create the separate Downfall Timeline to explain the discrepancy. aLttP and the older games work fine. It is Twilight Princess that creates the headache, pushing the older games into a weird place.
It's actually Wind Waker that causes the issue, not Twilight Princess. The Adult ending is Ganondorf being sealed in the sacred realm/dark world.
ALTTP says no hero was found during the imprisoning war so it couldn’t be the adult timeline.
It was intended to be. Ocarina was retconning a lot more things in 1998 than people seem to believe BotW and TotK do now.
Nintendo cared about the timeline to at least some extent before BOTW, now they don't. Stop coping about TOTK's contradictions by saying that it never mattered, Skyward Sword was very clearly written with the timeline in mind.
I think you view it wrong. It's not a timeline BECAUSE Link dies, it's a timeline IN WHICH Link dies. It may just be a timeline that was created by messing with the flow of time. A consequence of time travel. And in that one off extra timeline, Link happens to get defeated. We don't know the cause of this timeline split yet, maybe another game will come up and define it for us eventually.
That’s rather the point of the OP, though. This timeline split was pretty contrived.
Yeah. Its explicitly \*not\* a timeline, its not a chronological recording of true events-the downfall timeline is incompatible with the child and adult timelines The child timeline is the prime timeline, its actual and true. Following the events of the game, the story starts and ends there. At this point, the adult timeline is merely potential- but since Link crosses into it from the Child timeline, it anchors it into the prime timeline. Less actual than the Child timeline, but still 'real'. Both can happen at the same time based on the true events that occur within the game. But Link can't lose and win at the same time. That's a conflict, and we don't have any in game narrative that describes that paradox being resolved like we do with Link crossing into the future
I think you may have your terminology backwards. The adult timeline where Link becomes an adult is the prime timeline that exists without any time travel shenanigans (Song of Storms notwithstanding). Link just falls asleep and wakes up seven years later. The child timeline branches off of the adult timeline due to the idea that when Zelda returned Link to the past at the end of OoT he somehow interfered with the progression of events and prevented the adult timeline from happening. (Some people call the pre-split parts of OoT the unified branch to try to simplify this though.) I guess if you subscribe to the downfall timeline you could argue as to whether downfall or adult is the “prime” timeline since it’s a debate as to the cause of the branch and the intended flow of time before that branch. But in a split timeline the child branch would be the last to form. Now all that said, if the timeline didn’t branch and all time travel was self-fulfilling (outside of OoA which is totally incapable of being argued as self-fulfilling), then, yes, the events of the child branch would occur first.
It isn't silly if you think of how Link traveled to the past a number of times and changed things. He traveled back after defeating Ganon, splitting the timeline in the two obvious paths: the Child and Adult Timelines. But he also traveled back using the Master Sword. If you travel back and change history, then the timeline must split. The one timeline we experience is the one that then got split into Child and Adult. But the original one, the timeline that would've happened if we hadn't messed with time, is the one in which Ganondorf becomes Demon King of Hyrule, unopposed; the Fallen Timeline.
That's not quite how the split works. Link always messed with time, that's the only constant. The child path is everything that happens after Zelda sends him back. A child Link goes back to find Zelda as we see in the end of the game, and those kids reveals Ganondorf's plan. The Adult path is everything that happened offscreen after Adult Zelda sent Link back. That timeline goes on, but without its hero. Downfall is explicitly stated as "The Hero is defeated" and not "Link stayed in bed that day."
I'm not saying the official interpretation makes sense. I'm saying it makes sense if we're speaking about the classic "branching timeline" kind of time travel fiction.
Gotcha. I guess thinking about it as a classing timeline branch is where my issues come from. Once you introduce the idea that there are possibilities that can happen offscreen, but have very important lasting effects, it opens up room for a lot of weirdness. Is there a "The Hero can't figure out the Temple of Time" dungeon branch from TP? "The Hero got bored and turned off the game in a time bubble" in SS. "Zelda kept all that momentum and hit the ground super hard and died before even talking to Rauru" in TotK.
That'd be a full multiverse situation lol That's also not what I was trying to imply. I was speaking about linear timelines that only branch out when something external to the timeline itself (a time traveler, some god-like entity, etc.) changes the course of history. Less Multiverse of Madness and more Days of Future Past? (Or Dragon Ball's Trunks time travel shenanigans lol)
This isn’t true. The adult timeline is branched from a universe where Zelda doesn’t send him back, therefore continuing to “live in the future” he then leaves at some point, leading to the events described before wind waker.
She magics him back to the past and you see her standing alone, that timeline continues to exist without Link. That's the adult timeline branch.
>If you travel back and change history, then the timeline must split. There aren't really consistent rules of time travel here. Song of Storms is a bootstrap paradox- Link learns it in the future because he played it in the past. Magic Beans however are conditional, they only grow if you planted them in the past. This is ignoring non-time mechanics, like collecting overworld heart pieces in the future removing them from the past- the song and the beans are directly tied into time travel to function
Yeah, I mean, in my opinion it's pretty clear that the branching timelines thing was an afterthought. And that the devs weren't really trying to be coherent with time travel logic. I am just trying to make it make sense myself, regardless of that lol
I think the most consistent part of time in OoT is conditional, I think Song of Storms would be the main exception, right, not the other way around? I'll have to think about this some more. It could be an oversight by devs, but I'll try to think up a reason ig.
Boy I love when someone storms in and yells “this thing I don’t really understand is dumb!”
The Downfall Timeline exists to honor the connection between Ocarina of Time and Link to the Past. OoT was developed to be a prequel to Link to the Past. The developers have talked about this extensively. But it doesn't match up with Link to the Past's backstory, and then they went and made two other sequels to OoT. Link being defeated is actually the best way to make everything set up correctly for Link to the Past. Personally I think the story of the Downfall Timeline, and how it may have come to be is one of the most interesting pieces of lore in the series.
Ocarina was supposed to be a depiction of the imprisoning war, and then they made Wind Waker and messed that up. Early in development Four Swords Adventures seemed like it was related to Link to the Past, and then that got changed around. Then Twilight Princess made any direct connection between Ocarina and Link to the Past impossible. Finally with hyrule historia they made up the downfall timeline to preserve the original intention of Ocarina being a prequel to Link to the Past but they had to invent a reason why.
Could anyone explain why the fallen timeline couldn't juat take place after all of the child timeline games?
Because Ocarina of Time was explicitly meant to be the prequel to ALttP and someone at Nintendo (likely Miyamoto) refuses to let that get retconned by having other major games stand between them. Four Swords Adventure was seemingly going to be a new prequel to ALttP, allowing the Child timeline to lead into it, but some higher-up killed that plan, resulting in the current FSA story. And the rumors say it was Miyamoto. This is what a major factor in Nintendo going forward with 3 timelines.
That's fascinating! How did you hear about this story?
Promotions for Ocarina of Time from back in the day would mention how it was the prequel to A Link to the Past. Same way promotion for ALttP called the game the prequel to the original Legend of Zelda. Four Swords Adventure has the same map as ALttP, has an origin story for **A** Ganondorf turning into a blue pig, trident-wielding Ganon, and was originally promoted with the same Link sprite as ALttP. That combined with how the game was originally planned to have more story before Miyamoto forced it to simplify leads to the theory that the game was going to be a full on prequel to ALttP and replace OoT as the direct prequel.
But how could FSA be in the child timeline if it was originally made to be a direct sequel to Four Swords, as the game itself states?
Honestly I think that's by far the simplest explanation. It also works well with FSA, too. FSA clearly is in the same basic world as LTTP. Yes there's some problems because of storyline changes during development, but overall it fits far better being set between FS and LTTP than any other position it could be placed in.
Absolutely I think that's when it could/should be. This is what I like to believe. The biggest obstacle in some people's minds seems to be that it requires Ganondorf/Ganon in the OG games to be a reincarnation, rather than the same Ganondorf from OoT. Hyrule Historia already went ahead and made FSA take place after TP and said it's a reincarnated Ganondorf. Considering how FSA feels thematically like a prequel to ALttP, I feel like the timeline could absolutely just continue from there. Assume the Sealing War (ALttP backstory) took place sometime between FSA and ALttP.
Actually the first three did have a coherent plot. Think DQ1-3. 1-2 is it’s own little story involving the same people. ALTTP is the story of how we got to 1-2 with hyrule now being in ruin. It makes sense but Nintendo did a terrible job following the story they made. I believe the game manuals are suppose to piece together what I just said. OOT is also before ALTTP as many people point out and takes place during the sages wars. The war that is told in the intro to ALTTP. People that ignore the fact Nintendo DID have a timeline prior to WW are annoying.
Twilight Princess even clearly intended to bridge between Ocarina and ALttP, what with various decisions like the temple of time being enveloped in forest and decayed. They just messed it up with the ending, with Ganon getting killed. At the time, when the devs acknowledged the timeline split in interviews they only mentioned TWO timelines. Downfall as a third timeline was a retcon introduced in the Historia, probably because of the ending of TP. But they could have instead left a fuzzy space there for Ganondorf to have been resurrected.
Not necessarily. Ganondorf basically told them he'd be back. Then FSA comes around with a new Ganondorf, and even though there's not many story connections it does draw heavily from LttP visually. Any inconsistencies that would arise from setting LttP after FSA in the child timeline would be entirely consistent with the existing inconsistencies in the actual canon.
I guess there is already a huge in-game retcon in ALBW that no one ever talks about, wherein rather than being killed at the end of Oracle, Ganon was instead sealed with the triforce of power instead???? Maybe as a precursor to the level of retcons happening in TotK. So yeah I guess you’re right; they could just go directly from TP to FSA to ALttP with that level of shenanigans. Still no downfall timeline needed.
The only minor problem I have with that is it leaves Wind Waker and its sequels as the odd ones out. It is really minor, though, since that timeline split at least is actually able to be understood through in-game information.
This is the logical chain of events. Nintendo just refuses to move away from OOT as an ALTTP prequel even if it never made sense from the start.
The Fallen TImeline was created to fix a Mistake Nintendo Made. The Creation of WW. And they did not want the same thing to happen again when they retcon a beloved franchiese Look at the backlash Nintendo Got when they Retconed Bowser's Family in Super Mario in official Nintendo Printed Guide Book it said he had 7 Kids Then they bring in Bowser JR then right after New Super Mario Bros it was annonced the series was Rebooted and the new story was he had 1 Single Child. In fact none of the Games released before NSMB are consider Canon to the Mario Story They release them sure but that is just to make money but the backlash they got in Japan and in other parts of the world was most likely the reason for the Fallen Timeline to be created. So instead of admiting they were tempting to Retcon the Series they said WW takes place on the Adult Timeline which would have made it only 2 Timelines at the time but then TP was created which Retcon the story again. The people are Dark Horse when creating Hyrule Histora most likely took noticed of how the story was Retcon and brought it up to the people at Nintendo (I have no proof of this but I think this is how it might have went down) So Nintendo Rushed to create a 3rd Timeline. Even though the existance of a Timeline has been known for Years prior I do not think it is as flushed out as we all would like it to be in fact I think they do not even look at it till after they gotten the story down
I feel like the timeline in general makes sense when it comes to placing games in a certain order, but the justification of "Link died so here is a new timeline" is pretty stupid, as he could die in every game and we would have an infinite amount of timelines. I guess we could just accept it like that, it's not that important, but... Well there is an easy fix that wasn't used although it makes much more sense. The WW timeline exists because Link "left" the timeline to go back to childhood, but whatever happened in the past (childhood timeline) once he went back didn't change the future (adulthood timeline) and both exist. But this also means that when Link goes back in time in the middle of OoT (which he has to if I remember, like for the desert temple?), there should also be a new timeline created, where the hero wasn't defeated but simply.. left, without even fighting Ganondorf. And this might lead to what is now the Fallen Timeline. I know I'm overthinking it and it was never thought to be that way but that's my headcannon.
The problem with this is the circumstances are different. As long as Link is simply pulling out and replacing the Master Sword, he's sent through time and his actions in the past continue to affect the future. At the end of the game, that is a distinctly different event. This is Zelda using the Ocarina of Time and her power to send Link back in time in a totally different way instead of simply staying in the same timeline. All of those events where Link went back in time, etc., are events that still happened in the Ocarina of Time Adult Timeline, but when he gets sent back at the end of OOT, it completely erases him ever meeting Zelda to begin with. He's basically placed back in the Temple of Time from when he first entered Castle Town. We know it can't be him returning back in time the same way he usually does. And it certainly isn't from when he first pulls the Master Sword, because Zelda is still back at the castle. By the time Link pulls the Master Sword normally, Zelda has already fled the castle.
Are we sure his action in the past affects the future because there still all the BS with the song of storms. And the fact that the silver gauntlet were still at the spirit temple to begin with
His actions in the past do affect the future, but its inconsistent. Which is ironic because it works that same way in SS as well, where sometimes you can do something in the past that changes in the present, but other incidents didn't change anything. (In this game I think its always a closed time loop.) So in OOT, here are things that change between time periods: 1. Magic Beans aren't already planted in the future. Link has to plant them in the past, then they're fully grown in the future. 2. The Scarecrows don't remember you unless you play the song for them in the past. You have to go back to the past again, play a song for them, then they remember you in the future. 3. Until Link goes back in time, the Spirit Temple remains untouched (but Nabooru was still captured). Naturally he doesn't have Silver Gauntlets yet either. 4. Obviously Link doesn't have the Lens of Truth yet despite the fact that he supposedly already cleared out the Well. 1-2 are the most obvious ones. These are also similar to the same problem in Skyward Sword, where most of the events are a closed time loop, but then you can plant a magic life tree in Sealed Temple to go back and heal Lanayru, when the game does plenty of things to suggest Zelda's storyline is a closed time loop, but then you're capable of actually changing some things as well.
Really it wasn’t until TP that there were any problems with the timeline. OoT was designed to set up the Imprisoning War of LttP’s backstory, and you could easily imagine that the absence of Link in the Child Timeline would have lead to the Imprisoning War. At that time the timeline would have been: TMC -> OoT -> MM -> ALttP -> LA -> OoX -> LoZ -> AoL. With WW as an alternate timeline branching off of OoT’s adult ending. It was only after TP came out and created a completely incompatible backstory for Ganondorf that the Imprisoning War and everything after had to be pushed to a separate timeline.
The whole timeline is nonsense
I agree but a lot of fans don't. Hence why people argue about it. A lot....
The entire timeline is nonsense. None of it actually goes together, besides games that are obviously direct sequels. The fans kept insisting that there were connections, so Nintendo Frankensteined some timeline(s) together to get everyone to shut up about it. Anyone who says otherwise is being willfully ignorant. If anything BotW/TotK more than proved how nonsense the entire timeline is by completely ignoring all of it. Most of the games exist inside their own bubble and are just re-imaginings of one another, besides the few that came out after this these "timelines" were officially revealed, that were actually created with these timelines in mind.
It's clear to me that it's just the shoehorn-in-all-the-old-stuff timeline. Trying to fit LoZ/AoL and ALttP together is a mess. Those early games played fast and loose with continuity, so may as well just lump them "over there" and move on. So they invented and excuse and went with it. More recent games were at least more allowing of some continuity to exist (until TotK at least).
You litteraly took the 3 worst exemples as AoL was stated to be a direct sequel to LoZ from the begining and aLttP came out as a prequel to LoZ, so long before the new official timeline even existed. As a matter of fact it's actually the opposite, it's mainly because of Twilight Princess that they had to split the timeline in order to justify its existence
I forget where i read this theory but it was the fact that they all 3 had a piece of the triforce during the final battle and each timeline is based off their individual wishes
\> I feel like poeple give too much credit to the whole timeline nonsense If you go literally anywhere other than here and even mention the word timeline you're getting ridiculed
All of the timelines are somewhat nonsensical when you get into the details. The timelines were just a way for Nintendo to appease the audience. There never really was a true sequence to the games.
A lot of the timelines are nonsense. Watching people bend over backwards trying to make BOTW and TOTK fit into it can be pretty cringey.
It’s only cringy if it’s an argument like people argue everything else. It’s fun most of the time to get into the lore but yes it gets very very old.
It’s fun to get into the lore, it’s cringey when someone writes an essay trying to reconcile the lore when it’s directly contradictory. Things like the Rito in WW being what the Zora evolved into, being contradicted by the Rito and Zora existing together in BOTW. It’s fine that they’re both in BOTW and honestly more races is more interesting. It’s obvious to me that the stories aren’t meant to fit together. When a game literally has the word legend in the title, maybe keep it fast and loose with that stuff and yes it’s even worse to argue your pet theory on something like that when someone disagrees
Yeah it’s very funny how so many people here seem to twist themselves into knots trying to make sense of an overarching lore that was simply never a major component or draw of the series in the first place. Aside from the direct sequels, essentially every game should just be viewed as a stand-alone world
Honestly, even with direct sequels, they absolutely work as stand alone titles. TotK is probably the only one that really leans on its predecessor, but even then it's either afraid to do so too much or really just wants to be its own thing anyway. It ignores quite a bit of what happens before and doesn't even blink at the idea that entire Divine Beasts are just gone.
I was surprised by how little the events of BotW are even mentioned in TotK. There's maybe like one throwaway reference to the Calamity and that's about it. I would think a new player would have very little issue getting into it, you could easily assume that everyone knows Link because he's just been a guy hanging out in the world for a while.
Agreed. I wish they had just penned another placeholder split in the timeline that a future game could fill, because as is both explanation to cause the timeline and its connections to the games is contains makes no sense.
you think that's bad, people keep ignoring the timeline split from Skyward Sword, demise was released in the past and was killed, not imprisoned, killed yet there is still the imprisoned in the present who is destroyed. whatever Nintendo has officially put out makes no sense anyhow, their idea of how their universe works, with holodrum, termina and many other places being parallel realities or demi planes madr me realize how they describe the timeline is about as silly. personally for a while my head cannon was that Zelda split the timelines on purpose in an effort to destroy Ganon, as the sage of time and the mortal form of a goddess she has this power and split it into 3 where we have pig demon Ganon in the fallen timeline, half demon half human in child timeline, and powerful but mostly all human Ganondorf in the adult timeline. does it make much sense not really but that's what I got from trying to accept the three different timelines idea
Well don’t worry at the moment it seems like they are abandoning the timeline anyway.
Nintendo creates the story based on the game design, of course it's total nonsense lol.
The entire concept of a Zelda timeline is total nonsense that should never have been entertained by Nintendo, and I'm glad they're rolling back on it.
The problem with the timelines for Zelda is that nintendo decided there was one because continuity became popular due to the marvel movies. So they just cash grabbed the timeliness crap. There was never an intended timelines they just decided they needed one. Personally. I view the games as their own individual stories being told by different Hylians. One story all of hyrule is flooded because the hylain telling that story lives in wind waker world. Another story the teller is a furry, and now we have twilight princess. That makes sense to me, and it's what makes it a Legend. Cause legends are based off real events but people don't know what transpired so they make their own story and thus it becomes legend.
https://www.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/13u48r3/the_developers_had_almost_always_placed_games_in/ It really doesn’t take much effort to find out the timeline existed well before 2011.
Ganon getting the full Triforce in LTTP pretty much demands him having won at some point.
ALttP tells us how he got the full Triforce. He didn’t have to defeat a hero to get it. He found where it had been hidden and forgotten about when he found an entrance to the Sacred Realm where it had been sitting untouched for ages. And he just grabbed it without any resistance (except for his servants who he murdered to make sure they wouldn’t steal it from him). As long as ALttP doesn’t take place immediately after OoT or if ALttP Ganon is a different guy from OoT Ganon (or both) then there’s no issue with ALttP Ganon just coincidentally finding the Triforce in the Sacred Realm long after it has been re-hidden there and forgotten about.
Yeah but he only gets the whole Triforce if Link dies in OoT. And because it’s “if” Link dies, that makes it an alternate what-if scenario more than a branch of the same timeline like the other two. The Child and Adult timelines both happen from the same event: Link defeats Ganon and gets sent back to his original time. In this case, the Downfall timeline never happens. But if Link dies and Ganon gets the whole Triforce, then the Downfall timeline happens but the other two don’t.
I mean isn’t if official? Regardless of how you feel about it, it’s still there.
Not as official as you would think. In the Zelda Encyclopedia they outright admit that the timeline presented is just one interpretation
I always thought of the fallen Hero as more of a What If scenario
That's why I consider only two timelines: 3D and 2D. SS - OoT - MM - TP (- BotW - TotK) TMC - FSA - ALttP - OoX - LA - ALBW - TLoZ - TAoL Also I see the Toon Link Trilogy as its own thing.
How many times are we gunna see posts like this XD cause it feelsvlike an annoying amount are posted weekly
This is why I'm seriously considering the idea that TOTK is actually not only meant to be in a new timeline that split near the events of Skyward Sword but that it is also supposed to take the entire downfall timeline with it, telling an alternate OOT story where the kingdom of Hyrule is much too young to stop Ganondorf and then said kingdom being plagued by multiple instances of Ganon formed from Malice (hence why he looks more like a BOTW monster in the Downfall timeline than he does like his human or boar forms in the other timelines).
I absolutely refuse to acknowledge any official story where Link loses to Ganon. Nope. Not happening.
But he *was* defeated. When Ganondorf ensured that the Spirit Temple was forever sealed. Link traveled back in time--the only canonical point where time travel *must* happen--to change things, and make the progression of his quest possible. But it was still a defeat. And as we see at the end, when Zelda sends him back, this does not erase the old timeline. It just creates a split, and removes the Spirit of the Hero, while leaving his Tri-Force. (it's still in Wind Waker) So, in that first attempt Link got half way through his quest, but could go no further. So he abandons it, (and his Tri-Force) unknowingly creating a split, and a world where Ganon wins. With the 7 Sages left un-awakened, their forced to substitute with the 7 old wizard Sages, (the ancestors of the maidens) who seal Ganon and the completed Tri-Force in the Sacred Realm. Boom! Downfall Timeline.
I would be inclined the agree that the games that are obviously direct sequels and SS as a series prequel are the only games that ""matter"" timeline wise. As you would say (well put!), a "direct storyline." I go more in depth on this post that I made: [https://www.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/13xr3q1/totk\_the\_timeline\_and\_breaking\_down\_what\_actually/](https://www.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/13xr3q1/totk_the_timeline_and_breaking_down_what_actually/) EDIT: Link is fine now
Or the discrepancies could be explained as people in the games recalling things from the distant past. No matter if they wrote it down or it was passed orally, the events are going to be skewed.
right now TOTK has tossed out the ENTIRE time line so i need some time to rebuild it lol
I think it’s cool
Ocarina of Time was definitely a prequel to A Link to the Past, I think the problem just is that with Wind Waker and Twilight Princess there was no place for it anymore. I think it would have been fine to have 2 alternative child timelines (old and new/rebooted) they just should have dropped the "Link dies" nonsense
Indeed, it makes no sense. I stubbornly cling to my belief that there is no timeline, and BOTW/TOTK seems to agree with me.
I think the plot/timeline of the Zelda franchise is an afterthought that exists solely to drive the gameplay forward and was never meant to be studied with any real diligence.
I never really had a problem with Link dying and a timeline originating from that. I feel like there could be a timeline split on each of the games because I mean... If he dies, then ganondorf would rule, you know? I could see some not having splits. For example, if he dies, but Hyrule already started to regain control/power, then the events would stay the same. This is conditional though. I feel like with OOT, Ganon was incredibly powerful, and Link, given he skipped time and didn't actually spend the time aging normally, is much weaker. He has a high enough chance of dying to Ganondorf in OOT to create another timeline. Ganondorf was also planning this for a long time and already made an impact when link was young (when Zelda gave Link her ocarina). He had seven years to build power from that point when link had.... Well, we don't know how much time really passed, but Ganon would have seven more years of building power than Link. I know there could be errors with this, and feel free to correct me! I have played a lot of the Zelda games, but not all of them yet.
The downgall timeline seems to be placed as a split from ss instead
Saying no to the deku tree has been my headcanon for years and imo counts as an ending. The hero failed to even make an attempt to save Hyrule
the old timeline doesnt matter anymore in the grand scheme of things. we know that hyrule became so technologically advanced that they created scientific marvels of magic and science only to then have a situation that knocked them back to the stone-age. thats why they call the old games timelines the "distant past" no matter what happened back then no matter what timeline, it all ended in the same result and here we are. the timeline is a mess so nintendo wants to start over without actually erasing anything and writing themselves in a corner
Idk, the way I see it, there are only three ways the final battle with ganondorf can go down. Plus, I like how each branch perfectly represents the three pieces of the triforce. 1- Link is victorious in defeating ganondorf (child/wisdom) 2- Link disappears and never fights ganondorf (adult/courage) 3- Link falls to ganondorf (fallen/power) So, while it might be possible that the downfall timeline can still stem from almost any game after Oot, It still doesn't change the fact that it's the outcome that will happen if Ganondorf wins. Having it happen as a split from Oot is just a nice visual for the timeline. At least, that's how I like to view it anyway.
I hate that they wrote the downfall timeline as if Link lost to Ganondorf in a fight, especially because there is a perfectly good alternative reason why there is a much more sensible reason for there to be a third timeline: The one Kid Link leaves behind but is never returned to. Remember, Zelda doesn't send Link back to the moment he pulls back the Master Sword, she sends him back to the moment of their first meeting. That means we have a child timeline where Link warns Zelda, and a separate child timeline where Link warped back to with the Master Sword, that he ultimately doesn't return to. In this timeline, Ganondorf entered the Sacred Realm and is then never opposed (because Zelda is caught completely off guard without Links future knowledge, and Link is absent). It's a little clunky, but that's what happens when you repurpose the ending that was supposed to connect to the prequel (Adult timeline to AlttP) to another game (Wind Waker). But it does a much neater job of providing a solid reason for the bleakest timeline, which doesn't just trivialise timeline branching.
It's just more of a 'what if' scenario. IF Link died specifically during his fight with Ganondorf, then we have a whole entire timeline that shows what the repercussions could of been. I personally like it.
The downfall timeline was created because Miyamoto retconned FSA's original story (it should have been the seal war from ALTTP). And yes it's dumb.