THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CLIKC => Topic started by: AnAverageWriter on 29 Dec 2011, 02:18
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So I guess since people have been bugging Nintendo to release an "official" timeline for Zelda... well for years now, they went and made one.
Thing is, it's the most batshit insane piece of work I've ever freakin' seen in any bit of fiction. THREE distinct, separate timelines, one of them apparently assuming that Link actually LOSES during Ocarina of Time. Yeah, they went there- they actually have a split where the poor guy gets offed. And some of the most famous Zelda games- Link To The Past, Link's Awakening, Zelda I and Zelda II? They got plopped right in there. (http://wii.ign.com/articles/121/1215301p1.html)
Am I the only one who's thinking this thing got tossed out by Eiji Aonuma from his hat just to shut fans up?
You guys think they've had this in their minds all along? That they have an entire timeline with some of the best games in the series based entirely around Link getting butchered at some point?
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I think it's less that Link is killed and more that he isn't present because he's in stasis when he draws the Master Sword as a child. Remember in the game, you can't go back to before Gannondorf has already stormed the castle and chased Zelda into hiding. It would be more like:
Adult: Ganondorf is cast into the Sacred Realm after being defeated by Adult Link
Child: Ganondorf's attempted execution at the hand of the Sages leading to him being sealed in the Twilight Realm
Failure: Link is in stasis and can't stop Ganondorf from succeeding
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I wish it were the case, but all the translations (including the one linked to on IGN) refer to him not simply as being unable to stop, but literally being defeated, being killed, being destroyed by the big fella. That and the stasis he was put under only temporarily allowed Ganon to take over- once Link's body had aged, he was removed from it and then went a-whackin'. This third timeline really is about Link's death; that's the only way Ganon is able to rip the Triforce from his body and thus acquire all the pieces...
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i saw some variant of this on youtube a little while back, made by some shut-in
it's funny because it makes no difference to anything
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I had always just assumed the games took place in seperate universes, except Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.
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I don't really understand the need for a proper timeline. Like Mister D Nomms said, I always saw them different iterations of the same game/separate universes, at least aside from Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask/Wind Waker and others like them.
I mean how exactly does a time line change any of the games?
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In my mind, putting these games on a timeline would be like saying "I'm confused. Where do Halo and Gears of War figure into each other?"
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I mean how exactly does a time line change any of the games?
It doesn't outside of fanservice in games referencing things in the past. It's just something for fans to speculate about between playing the games. Gives people something to discuss you know? I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that there has been an 'official' timeline for a while they just never released any details until now.
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I mean how exactly does a time line change any of the games?
It doesn't outside of fanservice in games referencing things in the past. It's just something for fans to speculate about between playing the games. Gives people something to discuss you know? I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that there has been an 'official' timeline for a while they just never released any details until now.
I will have to disagree with you on that point. Before there was an "official" timeline, the creators could do any screwy thing they wanted to do; create unrelated games at various and sundry points and let the fans hash out the minutiae of "when" things happen. But now that there is an actual sequence of events in play, a real timeline, the people who make these things are less free, creatively. There's now no easy way, for instance, to create a game that might, for instance, reference stuff from Timeline A in a game that follows Timeline B or C or whatnot.
Yes, some can argue "it's about the gameplay", but I can point out that storyline has played a pretty big role in the Zelda series since at least OOT (maybe even ALLTP).
So what you get is a convoluted mess where adding anything meaningful in terms of storyline becomes close to impossible and you've turned your game's lore into the equivalent of kitty-played yarn. So you end up taking the easy way out- instead of adding onto the mess of tangled fuzz you've made, you just make a prequel and sew it onto the ball. And that's precisely, if you notice, that Nintendo keeps doing- we keep going backwards and backwards.
They did it with Metroid, too, you know. When they made Fusion follow Super, the ending put Samus into a massive, storyline-related pickle, a tangled ball of conspiracy yarn that they STILL haven't added to. So they just kept making more prequels, like the Prime series and then Other M (which was a prequel to Fusion).
Because it's easier!
But the problem of course is that, eventually, you're going to end up with so many prequels that when you finally DO end up trying to continue things, you find that that you've made so much "backstory" that anything new you create won't make a whole lot of sense. Obvious retcons made to satisfy prequels often end up just looking ridiculously silly; MGS4 is a prime example of that. Kojima had made such a fricking garbage mess out of the timeline at that point that he just gave up, pulling plot links forward that made absolutely no sense.
We don't want Zelda to end up with the main antagonist controlled by a sentient talking arm, do we? :psyduck:
Well, I guess it would make more sense in a magic-fantasy world like Zelda than in a world that tries to take itself seriously like Metal Gear.
...
But I digress-
Storyline *is* relevant, and they've written themselves into a pretty big corner with this thing.
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(http://i1229.photobucket.com/albums/ee464/thenommshaveit/MetalGearZelda.png)
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*stuff*
I don't see the need for more prequels, or anything, to explain the timeline. Everything except how Link failed in the failure timeline is explained as far as I know. It's not much of convoluted mess. I can see the problems with having to work around the timelines with references though.