#loz first chosen hero

[liccy]

Orville and Hyrule are twins, fight me!

Have some unfinished doodles.

Y diga que te fué bien.

#Loz orville #loz first chosen hero #lu hyrule #lu twilight #lu four #lu legend #lu wild #low quality #unfinished art #but I needed to post #linkeduniverse #linked universe #lu fanart

[zeldaseyebrows]

And Again and Again

This is the bridge comic I've wanted to draw forever between the Hyrule Historia manga (that introduced Hylia and First Link) and the start of Skyward Sword. My hands finally caught up to my brain.

#tloz #the legend of zelda #loz #zelda fanart #zelink #hylink #comic #artists on tumblr #zelda comic #hyrule historia #skyward sword manga #skyward sword #first link #goddess hylia #og link #hylia's chosen hero

[artbysavoir]

Hylia’s chosen hero. And the heroes of courage. (Hands from LU)

#loz link #zelda fanart #legend of zelda #linked universe #loz #ocarina of time #breath of the wild #skyward sword #hylia's chosen hero #first link #hyrule historia #link #artwork #linked universe au #linked universe fanart

[moore-nocturnal]

Forgot me nots are my favorite flower 😺

#hylia's chosen hero #first hero #the legend of zelda #skyward sword #skyward sword manga #tloz #zelda #loz #my art

[prankprincess123]

Hylia: *bringing home a half feral knight she found in the woods* This is Link and I love him!

Nayru: Hylia, we love you and support you fully, but falling for a mortal is 100% the dumbest thing you've ever done.

Din: ...yeah, he's gonna have to prove himself worthy before he's allowed to be your lover.

First Hero: Name your challenge!

Farore: Ooh! He has guts! I like him!

Demise: *trying to figure out how he can use this development in his plans to ruin Hylia's life over and over for eternity*

#loz divine history in a nutshell #legend of zelda #hylia #first hero #hylia's chosen hero #link #hylink #nayru #din #farore #demise #zelink

[themortaldraw]

the first hero

#i have no idea how to tag this guy #skyward sword #link #first link #first hero #hylia's chosen hero #legend of zelda #loz #that'll do i guess #shrimpdraws #art #oh wait #skyward sword manga #there we go

[summertimemusician]

Linktober (Shadow) 2023

Spirit

Welp turns out my exam season throughly steam rolled through my general Linktober plans, so you get this VERY late thing for now folks who find this, at least until I decide whether to continue this until I finish it even though it's no longer Linktober or if I'll make whatever other stories come later their own thing after exam season is over (mostly because the original for this one is my preferred draft, and that I feel the one for the Link/Dark Link prompt would be kind of wasted if it just sat there collecting dust cause I worked hard on the tension and horror there lord darn it, along with a few others mainly involving Fae Hyrule, Twilight, Time, First, among other Links like Legend, Sky, Warriors, just all of the boys, I wanted to give them all proper spotlight and still want to do that in any way I can). Welp. *Downs coffee like a shot* Also really need to find out how to make a Masterlist on mobile, figure out how AO3 works and answer asks.

Anyway, not really any warnings this time besides Reader Not Being Okay (par the course really) and angst.

As always can be read as either romantic or platonic, Reader is gender neutral on purpose, technically is meant to be read as either Hero's Shade Time x Reader or First x Reader mainly, but you can interpret it as any Link really lol

Good reading!

This corner of Faron Woods was quiet this time of year.

The woods were solemn in this Hyrule, the sliver of moonlight barely enough of a guide through the mist, it was silent but for the soft padding of animals through the underbrush and the howl of a wolf in the distance (not Wolfie's, not musical enough). The stars were your only company as you were separated from the group, the air was cold agaisnt your skin as you attempted to find your way.

Being alone in the forests of Hyrule never spelled anything good for anyone, but as you felt the brush of a hand tenderly twined in yours, the ghost of leather and the faint clinking of steel, and a faint glow of pale gold and ivory cutting through the veil of the night, mindful of roots you may trip onto and never flickering too far out of sight you couldn't feel safer, even  if instead something like melancholy threatened to lock your throat with the chains of silence, you felt as warm as the soft twilight glow and as frigid as ice, frostburned with the bitter cold of your own warring emotions.

You can't help but chuckle a bit whille holding a old scabbard close to your heart, it's a wry sound, "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

There is no answer, of course there isn't, but you don't mind, you know he'll listen, thorns wrap around your heart and crawl up your throat, the smell of lilies and steel coats and sticks in your throat like honey, or maybe blood, "... I didn't think you'd show up, you know? I always considered the possibility but..." You trail off, you feel something brush your side, you can only see him in the corner of your eyes or with a passing glance, there but not, existing but gone, so you keep your eyes on the road and in the flicker of light, so you carefully don't look to your side, you don't think you could contain the shaking in your heart otherwise, to stare at inevitability and prophecy, "... I know, I know you're fine. At least for now, I apologize for all the trouble I gave you."

'It's alright. It could never be a hardship aiding you.', the voice echoes in your ears, and you swallow thickly, breath hitching, the warmth of the sun in the fields of Hyrule, the wind caressing your hair, the song of the animals in Faron Woods, someone holding you carefully, fondly. The warmth of your hand in his. Not really here, but not gone either, more feeling than true echo.

You chuckle, and try to pretend it's not a bit breathless, something like a wounded keen, "... You're too kind. Too, too kind, thank you."

Spirits in Hyrule never spell anything good, in this wild land of light and shadow in a gestalt of divinity. There are some exceptions though, even if it hurts to witness then. So you follow him through the dark, certain that as you've guided his way once, he'll lead you now to where you need to go.

----------------------------------------------------------

... The clearing he leads you to is open, but by no means truly quiet among the trees, there is no peace to be found for the armored skeleton here. You choke on sorrow, on unfinished business, on the cruelty of being brought to ruin and being denied peace, and you stumble towards the familiar figure, almost in a trance as your vision blurs, roots and thorny vines wrap over rusted armor and a thorn cape, the skeleton's void sockets piercing through your soul, illuminated by the solemn gaze of the wretched moon and it's uncaring maids of honor in the stars.

You fall to your knees near the decaying skeleton, biting back against the wounded sound that attempts to leave your throat with enough strenght to bleed, you lay the scabbard by his side with a bouquet of lilies and shiver at the gentle, phantom touch, so soft, so loving it almost leads you to ruin all over again.

'... It's foolish to grieve for someone who isn't gone yet.' the thought comes to you, yet you can't help it. You still hurt for him, you still hold onto the fury at the heavens themselves for denying them quietus. For denying them rest over and over and over again. To watch this cycle and be helpless to stop it all due to the will of uncaring gods.

Alive. Dead. Alive. Dead. Denied full rest over and over again, to watch the chance at rest to the kindest of souls found in this world you found yourself in.

You barely register the touch to your cheek, ephemeral as it is, as you can't help but shed tears, can't help but grieve. Because if you don't, who will?

You know by now that some wounds can never heal, some rifts can never be mended. Even with the guarantee of cyclic, eternal rebirth, some things never return to how they were. And reminding yourself of this inevitability to them will never not hurt, even if you know it's futile to blame anyone but the one god who started this, and maybe the goddess who stood complacent to it. It leaves a bitter taste in your mouth that it'll one day come to this, that the frost of death and the sharpness of pain will leave a mark the sands of time can't scar over.

You reach a trembling hand towards the one in your cheek, try to find catharsis in the remains of decayed, dead yet ever eternal, ever growing love. And you breathe.

'We'll meet again. So do not mourn for me, please.'

You don't think you could deny him if you tried. Not when you know he's trying to soothe you, to thaw your sorrow. To allow your heart's healing to fallow.

"We will, I know. I'm sorry for making you worry." You chuckle, leaning into the cold, trying to brand the memory of the shadowed, but not gone love given to you so you can return it in kind. Just until you meet again, just until you can give all you can to his not yet decomposing self, grasping onto what remains of him, "I love you."

'I love you too. Until we meet again.'

The cold is gone, the echo of love leaves. And you breathe, and pretend you don't feel empty.

(When you see Link again, reuniting with the Chain on the next day's twilight. You hug him as tight as you can, and hope you he doesn't notice the tears in your eyes. And that you don't feel the lingering traces of a frigid embrace.

When no one is looking, you wave goodbye to the shade. And pray he dreams of warmer days until he finds quietus.)

#linked universe x reader #hero's shade x reader #linked universe time x reader #first x reader #hylia's chosen hero x reader #first link x reader #also know as What Happens When Summer Watches Corpse Bride after Playing MJM #I'll never not be emotional about the Hero's Shade and how it's an inevitability that Time will always die relatively young #how First died alone in the surface and likely never got a proper burial #And the fact we never learn what happens to the heroes after the task is done and THE ONE INSTANCE #we do is to learn they died young in some manner (ex Time. The Link before Hyrule. First. #Probably Twilight if we go by the theory Wolfie in BOTW is a spirit sent to help Wild #Technically pre calamity Wild because losing your memories is technically death of identity although that's for another story #and related to Lost #Most of the more effective LoZ games present themselves as either dark fairy tales and I'm running with that concept #Plus it's literally LEGEND of Zelda. Hardly do things end well for protagonists in actual legends and mythology involving gods #I think I have a right to worry #Anyway I'll probably elaborate more later because I'm tired lol #gotta perish to tackle studying and THEN be free to start on the pages long LU/LoZ essays /jk #unless? #we'll see #summer writes linktober 2023 #summer writes linktober shadow 2023 #summer writes #this short fic was also brought to you by the death holiday we have here in my country because it always makes me sad #and thinking of the Hero's Shade and what happens to First basically made it Depression times 100 lol

[koino30]

Happy Holidays

#loz #fan art #legendofzelda #hylink #goddess hylia #hylia’s chosen hero #illustration #hyrule historia #zelda #first link

[demiboydemon]

I am normal about Hylink (lying)

#the legend of zelda #legend of zelda #zelda #tloz #link #loz hylia #hylia #goddess hylia #hylia's chosen hero #skyward sword #hylink #pre sksw #first link #link x hylia #hylia x link #Tloz #loz #loz link #zelink #princess zelda

[alasse-earfalas]

[deletes entirety of previous post] you know what screw it imma just post the entire first chapter to entice you all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You know who I am, don’t you?” 

Batreaux’s smile faltered. “I’m, not sure what you mean? You’re Link, the human who helped me become one.” 

Link shook his head. “I mean before. Before Skyloft.” 

“Before…?” Batreaux wrung his hands together nervously. “Well, I… I suppose, that, you, do resemble, someone, from, well…” His shoulders dropped. With a plaintive look he sat beside Link. After a moment of thoughtful quiet, he attempted a smile and said, “If it, makes you feel any better, I… I couldn’t recognize you.” 

“You recognize me now?” 

Batreaux wrung his hands some more. “Well, you’re older now, and, you were much taller then, so…” He sighed. “Link, I try to not look to our pasts. It was a dark, terrible time, and you and I both did some dark, terrible things.” He put a hand on Link’s shoulder. “We are who we are now, not then. You are my friend. You are Link, husband to Gaepora’s daughter, devoted to your wife and a loving father to your little ones. You are strong and kind and good. Charitable. A friend to those in need.” 

Link swallowed. “Have I ever told you that I’ve wanted to kill myself since I was a boy?” 

Batreaux gasped. “Link, no!” 

Link looked away from him. “I always felt like there was something wrong with me, some inner darkness that I… just couldn’t shake. And now I know why.” 

“You should be proud of that,” said Batreaux. “It means you’ve truly changed. You’re a greater man now than you ever were then.” 

“Greater,” Link echoed scornfully. “Tell me, does a ‘greater man’ go to any lengths necessary to—” he faltered, “—murder his own brothers?” 

Batreaux scoffed. “Hardly worthy to be called your brothers, with what they did to you. Not to mention how they treated the rest of us. I’d call your scheming against them a liberation plot, if anything.” He smiled briefly, but it faded when he saw that it had no effect. “You, do know why you changed, don’t you?” 

Link shook his head. “Besides scheming to get my hands on the Triforce by any means necessary, no. Not really.” 

“You did it for us,” said Batreaux. “For monsters who wanted to leave the demon tribe, but, didn’t know we could. When you didn’t kill Hylia—” Batreaux caught his misstep, but continued anyway. “—even though you could have, even though the other Demon Lords wanted you to, demanded that you do it—when you chose to spare her, that sent a message to the rest of us. We didn’t have to follow the evil that made us! We could make our own choices, become something new! Yes, Hylia’s grace made the initial transformations possible, but you’re the one who inspired us to want to become something different, to become the first humans. You’re our hero—” He choked up. “You’re my hero, Link. You’re the reason humanity exists, the reason any of us thought we could change at all. That’s who you are, who you’ve always been. Please, my friend, don’t ever forget that.” 

Link chewed on his friend’s words. Leaned into the open arm that was offered him. “Thank you.” 

After some time they parted ways, each returning to his home. Link walked in his front door to find Zelda wrestling with the triplets and trying (without much success) to herd the rest of them. 

“Daddy!” one of the children cried, and began a stampede of little feet in his direction. Link laughed and offered himself as the family jungle gym, meeting Zelda’s grateful eyes a few times. “Have you been giving your mom trouble? Huh?” He grabbed one of them and blew a raspberry on him. 

His little boy squealed in delight. “No!” he insisted. 

“Oh really? Maybe I should ask your mom about that.” 

“No!” he cried with a giggling smile. 

Later on when the kids were in bed, Link watched his wife change into her bedclothes. He grabbed her blouse off the floor when she dropped it, his heart warmed by the way it draped over her rounded belly. 

“You were melancholic this morning,” she whispered. “Is everything alright?” 

Link gazed into his lover’s eyes. Brushed a calloused hand down her cheek. “I remember when your eyes were gold,” he replied. 

He was surprised at her reaction. “How could… How do you know that?” 

So she didn’t remember. He was relieved. He exhaled softly and kissed her forehead. “Thank you,” he whispered, for a million reasons he wouldn’t name. 

“Link?” 

He took her hands in his, pressed their palms together. “I don’t want you to remember,” he said. “Not until this adventure is through. I am your Link; you are my Zelda. That’s all I care about now.” 

Still with a worried look, she pressed into him for a hug. He wrapped his arms around her. 

“I remember when yours were red.” 

Link swallowed hard and clutched her tighter. “For how long?” 

“Does it matter? You’re my Link. I’m your Zelda. We don’t need our old names anymore.” 

Link remembered his. “Heretic,” he whispered. 

Zelda looked into his eyes. “Hylia,” she whispered back. 

It was a relief to hear her say it. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against hers. 

“Now can we forget about them and go back to living our life, as it is now?” 

He nodded. Hands either side of her abdomen, thinking of their children, how much he loved each and every one of them, and how dearly he loved his wife. He thought of the friends he had: Groose, Fledge, Pipit, Batreaux, the entire community of Skyloft. This life was a happy one, and it was his. Built up over time by fate and his own decisions. 

Maybe Batreaux was right. Maybe he really had changed.

“I love you.” 

“I love you too.” 

They shared a warm kiss, then crawled under the covers and fell asleep. 

[chapter 2]

#legend of zelda #writing #alasse writes #first hero #first link #first hero link #fierce deity link #fierce deity #skyward sword #zelink #ss zelink #hylia's chosen hero #loz hylia #goddess hylia #hylia #fierce deity x hylia #lu sky

[writingnocturne]

ZelinkTines

Day 2 - Glow

Hylink (Pre-SkSw)

Hylia's first love was no hero at all.

Word Count: 528

Rating: G

Courtesy of brainrot that has been plaguing me for a few weeks. Don't worry! I'll be revisiting this portrayal of the pair very soon...

#zelinktines 2024 #zelinktines #hylink #sksw zelink #ss zelink #the legend of zelda #legend of zelda #tloz #loz #link #hylia #goddess hylia #first link #hylia's chosen hero #hero of the sky #loz fanfiction #loz fic #loz fanfic #tloz fanfiction #sksw manga #ss manga #loz manga #sksw #zelda skyward sword #sksw link #sksw hylia #loz sksw #loz skyward sword #zelink fanfiction #fanfic

[zeldaseyebrows]

The duality of man Link

Character ref sketches of First Link and Skyward Sword Link.

OG Link looks like he just got released from solitary after 4 years and then came off a double customer service shift. Sksw Link just woke up from a nap and is ready to smack down a demon god for his gf. They're both big Hylia fans.

#tloz #the legend of zelda #loz #zelda fanart #skyward sword #first link #hyrule historia #hylia’s chosen hero #sorry OG Link is the only Link aside from oot Link that is not a Short King #but he's got the spirit #Hylia is still taller too

[divan-daikon]

finally showing off (one) of my loz ocs yuuuhh mkay so I've spent months making sure this guy was lore accurate enough and I've spent an unhealthy amount of hours just thinking about him and his descendant's role in the story so imma get on with it

(i'm trying to finish the hawkmoth redesign i swear I'm just strugglin)

#loz #loz oc #skyward sword prequel #loz manga #goddess hylia #hylia's chosen hero #the first link #oc lore #oc artwork #i still haven't finished totk help

[moore-nocturnal]

So I was thinking about first after he dies, ya know being the heros spirit and all with the triforce of courage. I like to think time was the first one to meet em face to face. Plus I just like drawing him 😩 like this he doesn't remember his previous life. But remembers countless lives going forward. I just call em hero 🥹 who remembers all but one.

#the legend of zelda #first hero #Time #Tloz #Majora's mask #Loz #skyward sword manga #hylia's chosen hero #my art #zelda

[legendofzoodles]

Era of Hylia Lore 3

The Sheikah

I forgot to mention what happened to Hylia’s most loyal servants during the war. In short they were used to keep the hordes of monsters at bay while the Hylians and other defenceless tribes escaped. 

During their time directly serving her, Hylia shared with them secrets of the world that she never disclosed to the Hylians, allowing them to create magic and technology faster and better than the other tribes

Hylia’s reincarnation spell

Sky and Sun are their own people, so don’t compare them to Allen and Hylia please. Tell Sun she doesn’t seem at all like a Goddess and needs to act like one, and Sky will smite you

The only thing Sky has in common with Allen is sharing the original hero’s courage and drive for justice (that green coloured spirit I mentioned in the first lore dump), always answering the call to action. 

Like how in ATLA, each avatar is a completely different person, only sharing the avatar spirit and the ability to bend all four elements. Both Allen and Sky have their own strengths and weaknesses (which follows through when this reincarnation is forced to repeat itself following Demise’s curse, as in no two incarnations of the hero are the same)

Personality wise they’re both pure hearted and courageous, but they’d be very different outside of that. Since Allen caught the eye of the Goddess herself he’d have been a popular and famous figure despite his humble origins, truly selfless, committed, goal driven and stubborn. In SS Sky starts out as the opposite, a lovable but lazy dork, content to go where life takes him and not very motivated to do much 

In Sun’s case she has access to Hylia’s powers, but loses the innate ability to command the full Triforce and now has to have the whole balance of all three virtues in her heart, like the rest of us scrubs. 

In terms of personality she still has that confident authoritative nature about her as shown when she defends Sky from Groose’s bullying and pushes Sky off a ledge...twice. But she’s warmer, friendlier and sweeter than Hylia. Y’know, more human.

It’s cute that Sky and Sun are childhood friends, I like to think that it’s a manifestation of how close Hylia and Allen became. Or since it was Hylia’s spell maybe she wanted to them to be close in their next life, or it was just a practical measure to give Sky incentive to protect Sun and vice versa

It’s less cute that Sky doesn’t seems to have any close connections other than Sun. There’s no mention of family in the game, Sky seems to be an introvert (maybe a reason for him sleeping in a lot of the time was to skip class. He’s not shy but definitely a little awkward if you look at the dialogue options) preferring lounging around on his own to socialising with classmates (to me, talking to other students at the academy like Pipit felt more like talking to acquaintances than friends) and let’s not forget that he gets bullied on the regular. 

The reason nintendo did this was probably to give Zelda as much focus as possible since her relationship with Link is the most important thing, and getting the player to care about her is vital in engaging them with the story. I’m just saying, in lore it’s a tad sus that she seems to be the only person in his orbit.

Demise’s curse

Demise’s curse was centred around the Hero of the Sky (rip Allen). 

All reincarnations vaguely echo Sky in appearance because that’s how Demise remembers him, they share his name because that is the name Demise with forever rue and they share his vaguely humble beginnings because...that’s a remnant of Hylia’s version of reincarnation

To be fair those were his dying breaths. He’d be forgiven for not thinking everything through and accidently creating loopholes, in the couple of minutes he stood across Sky and pointed at him like a child

The curse as a whole tied himself, Link and Zelda to forever fight in an endless cycle of reincarnation for the rest of time. He probably hoped/thought that Sky would come back as himself so that he could fight him again, and take his revenge. 

But in a strange twist of fate his curse followed Hylia’s reincarnation spell (maybe due to a loophole or some divine meddling). He probably didn’t want Sun to reincarnate, hoping that her divine powers would weaken across the ages through her descendants. Or hopefully they’d die out entirely.  

I’d argue that Demise shot himself in the foot by reincarnating himself. It may have worked out for the hero and the Goddess, but as shown in TP and HW his later reincarnations prove to be not as patient and calculating has he was. Not all of them thought, the Calamity and WW Ganon were very methodical.

Random idea here: What if the reincarnation cycle only featured Link and himself? Zelda was used in order to break Hylia’s seal and resurrect Demise, but she didn’t participate in the fight and Demise didn’t expect her to. Probably seeing her human form as weak and pathetic, not worth the time. As shown in game, she posed absolutely no threat to him. Link was the danger. So maybe the royal bloodline was left out of this curse to focus on getting even with the hero, and Zelda’s across have gotten involved purely because they have the power to deal with Demise’s incarnations. And them doing was something Demise never anticipated or wanted. idk

TL;DR the demon king is a sore loser

~~~

Lore for the Era of Hylia 1 

Lore for the Era of Hylia 2

#legend of zelda #legend of zelda link #loz #loz demise #hylia #hylia's chosen hero #loz link #link #nintendo #skyward sword link #skyward sword #lu sun #lu sky #loz first #first hero #chosen hero

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-zelda-fan]

Guys. Why is there even a debate here. Some of the games were explicitly written to be connected, some of them weren't. Not everything has to fit into one cohesive timeline. As a matter of fact, they can't. Now, there is some more nuance to it. Read below for my explanation (infodump) plus a more nuanced chart.

Red and blue lines are canon within the games' text. Ambiguities are filled in with green. I'll get more into that later. Let's first explain the two completely separate mini timelines.

The Four Swords miniseries stands mostly alone. The Master Sword and the Triforce are present in every other game or (mostly--looking at you, Master Sword in LoZ and AoL) have a good reason not to be, but they are not present at all in these three games. Instead, we have the Four Sword and Light Force. The only wrinkle is that Ganondorf shows up in FSA... so I don't know about that one. I don't think anyone does.

As for BotW and TotK. Oh brother. What do we do with these. Skyward Sword is intended to take place seemingly millennia, or at least several centuries before Ocarina. We see the founding of Hyrule with the first monarch and her chosen knight, the cycle of recurring evil and heroism being established, and the forging of the Master Sword

Wait. What about Rauru and Sonia? I thought they were the first rulers of Hyrule. And if the Zonai were around long before Hyrule, where is any of their presence in Skyward Sword? Huh. Alright. We don't know how much time passed between the first Calamity and the second, but from the past era of TotK to its present, we can account for at least 10,105 years of history. We don't even need to get into how Zora and Rito coexist or anything smaller like that. There's just no fucking way these two games fit with any of the others. Fine, that's fine. Moving on.

There's also a little hiccup around the Oracles. Nintendo seems to go back and force on whether the Oracles feature the same Link as in ALttP and LA, but if they do, it probably makes more sense that Oracles happen before LA (the linked Oracle game ends with Link boarding sailing off on a small ship and LA starts with him on one). So like... I guess they fit there?

Either way, let's take a second to look back at where this idea of a timeline split happened. Remember that WW and TP both clearly take place after OoT. That isn't theorizing, that's in the actual text of each game. The thing is, they're mutually exclusive. TP has Ganondorf being executed, as he would have been after the Hero of Time goes back to his original era and warns Zelda that her plan to get to the Triforce first isn't going to work (which is implied to be what happens at the "The End" screen of OoT). WW has Ganondorf coming back by breaking the seal put on him, and the Hero of Time didn't appear to stop him again (as would happen if Link was sent back in time). Fans started theorizing way back in 2006 that OoT created separate timelines, with WW and TP being mutually exclusive sequels to it as the evidence.

Some fans have asserted that Nintendo just "took" the fan theory. But come on, put everything together here. The texts of OoT, WW, and TP HEAVILY imply the timeline split. The only reason we called it a theory is because the writers didn't literally say "And then the timeline split in two". The texts are pretty clear though. It's the only thing that makes sense. That isn't to say that there needs to be a cohesive timeline, and that the split is the only way to fit it together. No, OoT is connected to both WW and TP no matter what. That was the intent. It's just that the explanation for OoT to have mutually exclusive sequels actually fits neatly into the texts of the games.

And now we come to the tricky part. Put yourself back into the 90s real quick. ALttP seems to have been written as a prequel to Zelda 1, showing Hyrule before its period of decline. Alright, let's just accept that because it may as well be true. The lore at that point was so thin that it made enough sense. I kinda slapped Zelda 1 and 2 at the end there to show it, because we do have a cohesive timeline from ALttP to TFH. That's fine, all well and good.

Likewise, OoT seems to be written as a prequel to ALttP. We see conflict over the Triforce, the origin of Ganon, the seven sages, and an earlier iteration of the Master Sword. Back in 1998, we had no reason to not believe it. These are tenuous connections that are not explicit in the games' text, so I've paired them with green lines to show it.

But wait. ALttP is ALSO mutually exclusive to TP and WW. Oh brother. What do we do about this? Even after figuring out the timeline split in 2006, fans didn't know what the fuck to do with the first four games of this franchise. They could go after TP, but that's even messier than putting them right after OoT. Yuck. This doesn't feel good at all. Oh yeah, and then there's the Four Swords games that don't fit anywhere.

Now you can imagine the position the writers of Hyrule Historia found themselves in when they were tasked with creating an official timeline. Some of the games have certain explicit connections, as detailed in my first chart. But they had to cram everything into one timeline. Well. They knew they had a timeline split in OoT, because that's what the texts of OoT, WW, and TP collectively say. The lore of ALttP also mentions seven sages (or wise men, but let's call them sages), but not a legendary hero. So... if you really stretch your brain out here... it kinda makes sense that there's a timeline where the Hero of Time died fighting Ganon. Maybe. Kinda. Not really, but kinda. And then there's the Four Swords miniseries. Fuck it, throw them in randomly.

The two-way split doesn't disagree with OoT's text at all, which said that Link won. The three-way split does disagree with it by asserting that Link lost. But if we're really trying to fit everything into one timeline, that is the cleanest place to put them. Some people really hate this, but it does seem that those are the same people that demanded that there be an official timeline in the first place. ie the same people who were gonna be pissed off with anything Nintendo gave them that wasn't exactly their own theory being confirmed.

Alright, real talk. The producers of the Zelda series have said time and time again that they think of what would make a fun game then write a story that fits around it. The Wind Waker devs wanted you to sail around the ocean. Then the writers decided "oh, we could put this after Ocarina! After all, weren't they left without a hero? What if Ganon came back with no one to stop him? How would that problem resolve itself? What if the gods just flooded the world?" Then the Twilight Princess devs wanted a spiritual successor to Ocarina, with an epic adventure on horseback across the traditional Zelda kingdom setting. So the writers went "hey, in Ocarina, Link warned Zelda about Ganon, right? What if he was executed then, and then the world was never flooded?"

We have to realize that trying to put games with this design philosophy into a neat little timeline is a futile effort. It's never gonna work because it wasn't designed to. More so than any other storytelling medium, video games take so many approaches to continuity. The Halo games were all meant to be sequential and fit neatly into a strict timeline. Pokemon is all canon within itself but the ties between games are less important than the stories of each game. Mario essentially has no canon except for recurring characters and settings. Zelda is gameplay first, canon second. That's why the two most recent mainline games don't even try to fit in the canon of the previous eighteen. That's just how it works and we're gonna have to accept that.

#zelda #the legend of zelda #zelda timeline #zelda analysis #my own #infodump #yikes man #this is precisely why I have this blog