When I beat The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the first time, the idea of a timeline seemed intriguing.
Fast-forward 12 years and I’m regretting that wish.
Nintendo released its official The Legend of Zelda timeline in 2011 in Japan prior to its 2013 release in the West. This move shifted the series from a largely anthology franchise to an interconnected universe.
Of course, with this type of undertaking came a lot of retconning on Nintendo’s part. In fact, many of the older games were placed in “The Hero is Defeated” timeline, which felt more like the “We Don’t Know Where to Put These Games” timeline.
At first, the official timeline sparked interesting debate about your favorite game’s placement. After a while, it felt like the timeline brought more of a headache than anything.
My main issue with the timeline is the mental gymnastics and suspension of disbelief required to connect every game into a cohesive timeline. I accept that some are directly connected but that was Nintendo’s intention from the start.
This further gets complicated when you try to figure out how Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom fit into it all. Fortunately, Nintendo did the sensible thing and made them their own universe.
Still, that move throws into question the entire timeline because now, we have two separate universes. Again, too many headaches.
If I could pull a Burger King and have it my way, I would make BotW and TotK your main timeline. Then, I would make all the other games “Legends” that the inhabitants of the BotW/TotK Hyrule tell to each other.
To me, you could easily explain this by saying that is why all of the locations and landmarks in Hyrule carry the names of characters from past games. These places get their names from the stories that the people of Hyrule have passed down for centuries.
Is this any different than what we do with mythology? Greek and Roman mythologies share a lot of similarities and those ancient people placed the names of their gods on their landmarks.
Don’t get me wrong, the idea of Zelda lore extending beyond its own game is a fun concept. I fear placing it into an official timeline will make it more difficult to accept with each new game that releases.
We’re a few weeks away from Echoes of Wisdom releasing and the debate will pick up on where to place it in the timeline. I’d rather the simple explanation and quickly move on to what makes the game special or not.
Furthermore, leaving the majority of games as legendary tales allows the fans to shine creatively. There are so many great pieces of lore in the Zelda franchise that shoehorning it eliminates some of the mystique surrounding Hyrule.
In theory, a Zelda timeline sounds great but in practice, it gets really messy. I will say I do enjoy that there is some connectivity between games unlike franchises like Final Fantasy or Mario.
That said, the forced connectivity through the official timeline has created headaches that will likely continue until Nintendo decides to abandon it all together.
Regardless, Hyrule is still a rich world that begs the exploration of its lore so I am, at least, thrilled to have lore to analyze.
What about you? Do you like the Zelda timeline? Are you ok with Nintendo’s recent placement of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom? How would you revise the timeline? Let us know in the comments below or head over to our Discord channel to join the conversation.
Featured Image: Nintendo (via Eurogamer)
Leave a Reply