Are Hyrule Historia and Encyclopedia more canon than the games?

[Spirit]

With so many retcons and contradictory lore in Zelda it can be hard to keep on top of what counts and what doesn't and what goes where and why it all matters.

A game won't explicitly tell you that elements of previous games are being retconned or changed while you play them.

Enter Hyrule Historia and Encyclopedia. Books that are advertised to tell the stories and history of Hyrule. They are designed to give a concise and clear explanation of canon events.

These books exist before Breath of the Wild and so eighteen or so games are covered in canon lore to give us the best picture of what counts and what doesnt and how it all fits together.

But do you see these books as the best example of Zelda lore and canon or will you still always go off the games despite the Historia and Encyclopedia being official products?

 

[Jirohnagi]

Nope, to me the games came first and set the entire stage the texts are like the actors, interchangeable, contradictory and not reliable.

 

[el :BeoWolf:]

I don't consider them primary canon. The games themselves are primary canon, HH and HE may offer some ideas that we can take to fill in the gaps, but their canonicity is very debatable

 

[Dio]

I consider that all the 3D games fit together as part of the canon and I accept there being a split timeline and the direct sequels like PH are part of it but there are some games which clearly weren't really supposed to go anywhere so I kind of don't think about them when considering the canon as they don't really contribute anything useful to the lore e.g the four swords games and Tri Force Heroes.

I also refuse to accept Majoras Mask as a dream as it was clearly never intented to be or would have been described as such in the past at some point. I don't know why they decided to put that in HE but it really takes a **** on MM.

 

[Moblinking5000]

I consider the official three way timeline canon, as the official Japanese website acknowledges it, Aonuma acknowledges it, and no one at Nintendo has ever denied it, as well as the fact that all of the placements on it except for FSA and the OoX have been confirmed at one point or another, whether in interviews, ingame, or both. Considering the fact that the timeline has appeared outside of the books, it's no longer really tied to them, IMO.

However, the ZE also says that it's taken some liberties; anything that doesn't contradict can be considered canon, anything that does shouldn't.

 

[AncientPoe]

No. Not at all. Not ever. And I think to even assert such a thing is folly.