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Do you remember the time before Hyrule Historia?

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Jun 30, 2014
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I certainly remember those times-- and at once, I both miss that era and am relieved to see it gone.

I don't want to go the "Zelda theory's dead" route, because it isn't-- if anything, the insight HH gave us into te lore inspired me to delve into far more frutiful theorizing. That said, the theorizing community was definitely more vibrant back in the day, and the timeline served as a gateway for many fans, new and old, to hold meaningful conversation and appreciate Zelda's rich (albeit convoluted) universe.

And yes, I did have my own theory; it was pretty similar to the official chronology, barring , of course, the third split (which nobody really saw coming). As for the main differences, I had ALttP Link's games (ALttP, OoX, and LA) in between OoT and tWW on the Adult Timeline, as opposed to the more popular placement of following FSA; I had FS and FSA as a direct pair (similar to OoT and MM), and so I generally saw them as following TP, though I was never really sure; and I always struggled with placing LoZ and AoL anywhere, primarily because they were so distinctively medieval, contrasting the progressive societal trend from OoT to TP-- although I'd never taken into account the Era of Decline.
 

Iridescence

Emancipated Wind Fish
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Yes, the younger generation of kids aren't gonna know what it was like to not know how things went.

It was actually a fun time guessing the theories. They had to let the cat out of the bag eventually. Hyrule Historia was kind of like a magician revealing his trick. It was fun to make our own lists and guess but everything's revealed eventually.
 
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I wasn't there at the time, but I think I remember seeing some people talk about which games came before or after one another at several websites. Since I own HH, I'm okay with some of the placements for the games, but I always thought TMC's inclusion in the same timeline as SS & OOT never made sense to me. I made a thread months ago concerning this that, along with the FS games, should be in their own timeline instead of being placed in random timelines. Here's what I thought the order would be if this was the case:

The Minish Cap>Four Swords>Four Swords Adventures

Since TMC is considered a prequel to both FS games, I thought another timeline made for them would be a better idea, but that's how I feel about it anyway.
 

Spacefiller

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Yes, the younger generation of kids aren't gonna know what it was like to not know how things went.

YES!
I find differing perspectives very interesting. For 25 years we had all of these games and no real official "glue" to tie them all together, then everything changed and we have this order of events.

It's kind of like how everyone now is quite familiar with the concept of solar systems and galaxies but before 50 to 100 years ago common people had no idea as to the hierarchy of the universe. Or the word of mouth nature of religion in the west before the official books of the Bible were dictated by the Church.
hmmmhmhmhm?!?!?!
 

DekuNut

I play my drum for you
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I liked theorizing better back then. The timeline was the big thing.
And now the section has changed. It's still interesting, but not what i came here for.
 

Beauts

Rock and roll will never die
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I remember those days. I still think the timeline could be up for debate if people really wanted to do that, although some people are really religious about the HH order. I never really formulated an order of my own because although I always loved Zelda theories and liked creating my own around details within the games, I was never one to sit and try to make any sort of start to end sense of the timeline of the games. Not that I didn't think there was one, I was curious, but it was a subject I preferred reading others debate rather than actively participate.
 

Jamie

Till the roof comes off, till the lights go out...
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A timeline has to exist, it only makes sense within the context of the franchise. Personally, I never really cared that much about the timeline and I was quite tired of the speculation, so I'm happy that Nintendo released an official one.
 

Jamie

Till the roof comes off, till the lights go out...
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As dumb as it is, I prefer having a timeline to not having one. I don't think Nintendo ever had one until they made it for HH. I could be wrong, but I just can't understand the idea behind having a super-secret timeline. It never made sense to me. None of it makes any sense really.
There WAS a vague timeline. We knew Skyward Sword was the first game, We knew there was a split that went:
OoT--WW-PH-ST
|
MM
|
TP

We knew Link's Awakening came after ALTTP, and that Zelda 2 came after Zelda I. That's a pretty significant amount that everyone already knew.
 

Dan

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I was cool with the timeline being revealed. For me it was never about being right, I enjoyed the speculation and theories for itself. To me, it's still fun coming up with possible timelines. Nothing wrong with some harmless fan-fiction.
 

ihateghirahim

The Fierce Deity
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Back when I was sure their was one timeline. I still believe it was a retcon they made up sometime after WW because that and MM tie together perfectly, with the hero's disappearance obviously being his journey to termina.
 

Justac00lguy

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Yeah sure, it was great.

There was a lot more intrigue in the world and the little details of Hyrule. Sure there was a lot of wild theories and a vast amount of people declaring they had the solution to fix together all the games (eg the huge Timeline craze). However, because we didn't have a lot to go on, it encouraged more speculation and if you sifted through some of the wild out there theories, you'd find some really great ones.

However the main thing that has happened is that so many people now just consider theorising to be dead just because we know the official order of each game. Thing is, that's only one part of the puzzle. If anything, that now gives us theorists a foundation to build even more theories on. Yes, what's now known as canon has killed off a lot of old theories, but there's still tons to analyse, explore, and find out. When you have a series with such a deep and barley explained lore, it creates an intrigue into knowing what's beyond the games we play.

I will agree that theorising was much better before Hyrule Historia, but only because a bunch of people abandoned theorising deeming it now "dead", which is false.
 

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