Turo602
Vocare Ad Pugnam
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2010
- Location
- Gotham City
I don't know if anyone has made this point yet as all I ever see surrounding the topic of Tears of the Kingdom's timeline placement is whether the distant past is a re-founding of Hyrule in the distant future or whether we should take it at face value and consider it the actual founding of Hyrule before the timeline split with Ocarina of Time. However, something I think a lot of people seem to be neglecting about its timeline placement, whether we go the re-founding route or take the game at face value is that the events of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom would all exist in its own self-contained alternative timeline.
At the start of the game, Zelda comes across a mural depicting the Imprisoning War that is partially obscured by bombable rocks. Once you bomb these rocks later in the game, you'll reveal depictions of Zelda’s role during the Imprisoning War. Based on this alone, we can infer that Zelda has already altered history and everything from the Imprisoning War to Ganondorf's return is all occurring on a new timeline where Zelda was present as a dragon in the sky all along.
There's further evidence of this fact all throughout Tears of the Kingdom as well, like Zelda’s Purah Pad with the spirit of Mineru having been held since the Imprisoning War for Link in the present and even the Legend of the Sky Island side adventure that confirms the Temple of Time and the land it sits on was once on the surface and lifted into the sky by the sages to protect Link from Ganondorf in the present, which was absent in Breath of the Wild, meaning Zelda’s plan was already in effect long before her disappearance.
If we were to take the game at face value and say that Rauru's founding was before Ocarina of Time, there'd be some pretty big implications there with the rest of the timeline, making BotW and TotK fall on some alternate history of whatever timeline it's supposed to take place on as opposed to an alternate version of events we've never seen during some re-founding of Hyrule in the far future. But regardless of when we assume Rauru founded Hyrule, it all has to be occurring on this new timeline created by Zelda herself.
We know for a fact that the events of Ocarina of Time occured some time long before the Calamity in this timeline, but we also can't say for certain what actually happened as there seems to be a running theme within Tears of the Kingdom about uncertainty and misinformation, especially in regards to legends, which is something even written in the Creating a Champion book that makes it clear that the events of Breath of the Wild specifically cannot be disputed.
Even the hero's aspect challenges what we thought we knew about the hero by turning him into some strange amalgamation of a Hylian, Gerudo, and
Zonai which itself could be playing into the notion that the past isn't always passed down accurately as it is merely just an aspect of the hero as legend would have you believe, as opposed to Link himself, who many don't even seem to recognize as being Zelda’s champion due to his unimpressive build and everyman qualities. Or, it's simply the result of Zelda’s interference in the past which saw the Imprisoning of Ganon, therefore robbing the Hero of Time of his duty, thus the lack of the iconic green tunic in the future.
With how closely elements of Ganondorf's story mirror his own in Ocarina of Time, a case can be made that they're one in the same, which can be evidenced by the presence of Koume and Kotake, who appear to be a lot younger than they were in Ocarina of Time, making it possible that these events predate Ocarina of Time by at least 300+ years if they are indeed the same Koume and Kotake, or that they've simply been redesigned and we are witnessing the real-time events of Ocarina of Time play out right in front of us as they "actually" happened and not the "legend" that we experienced in 1998.
Another example of this would be the ancient sages who mysteriously remain without names and hide their identities behind masks that correspond to each Champion's Divine Beast despite not having been created yet. We also know that each Divine Beast was named in honor of past sages from Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker, so it's also unlikely that these ancient sages bear the exact namesakes of the Divine Beasts despite influencing their design.
But with the Ganondorf parallels to Ocarina of Time, it can also be reasoned that these ancient sages are indeed the same ones who inspired the names for the Divine Beasts from Ocarina of Time. Ruto, for example, was specifically cited in both renditions of the Zora Monuments in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom and now a confirmed ancestor of Sidon. Why include this detail in the same game where Sidon just happens to meet a past Zora sage who is not only a woman like Ruto, but wears a mask that resembles the exact Divine Beast named after Ruto?
I'm sure there's still a lot of holes in this, like the Rito being a thing during the founding of Hyrule if we are to assume these events are depicting the first ever founding of Hyrule or some weird retconned version of Ocarina of Time, but the one thing I think this game makes abundantly clear, is that it's all happening on a self-contained alternate timeline of events to whatever we perceive to be the original timeline, in a way, mirroring the 2 dragon uroboros imagery as the story doesn't exist on a linear timeline, but a paradoxical circular event.
I honestly wouldn't put it past Nintendo to lump these games in a new timeline to avoid having an answer to all the inconsistencies while also opening up room for future games to occupy space on a new branch like they've pretty much been doing with every mainline game since The Wind Waker. It also feels like that may have been the intention of Tears of the Kingdom's story all along. With all the questions everyone had about Breath of the Wild's timeline placement, they purposely take us to the opposite point in time and hand wave everything in between with time travel.
At the start of the game, Zelda comes across a mural depicting the Imprisoning War that is partially obscured by bombable rocks. Once you bomb these rocks later in the game, you'll reveal depictions of Zelda’s role during the Imprisoning War. Based on this alone, we can infer that Zelda has already altered history and everything from the Imprisoning War to Ganondorf's return is all occurring on a new timeline where Zelda was present as a dragon in the sky all along.
There's further evidence of this fact all throughout Tears of the Kingdom as well, like Zelda’s Purah Pad with the spirit of Mineru having been held since the Imprisoning War for Link in the present and even the Legend of the Sky Island side adventure that confirms the Temple of Time and the land it sits on was once on the surface and lifted into the sky by the sages to protect Link from Ganondorf in the present, which was absent in Breath of the Wild, meaning Zelda’s plan was already in effect long before her disappearance.
If we were to take the game at face value and say that Rauru's founding was before Ocarina of Time, there'd be some pretty big implications there with the rest of the timeline, making BotW and TotK fall on some alternate history of whatever timeline it's supposed to take place on as opposed to an alternate version of events we've never seen during some re-founding of Hyrule in the far future. But regardless of when we assume Rauru founded Hyrule, it all has to be occurring on this new timeline created by Zelda herself.
We know for a fact that the events of Ocarina of Time occured some time long before the Calamity in this timeline, but we also can't say for certain what actually happened as there seems to be a running theme within Tears of the Kingdom about uncertainty and misinformation, especially in regards to legends, which is something even written in the Creating a Champion book that makes it clear that the events of Breath of the Wild specifically cannot be disputed.
Even the hero's aspect challenges what we thought we knew about the hero by turning him into some strange amalgamation of a Hylian, Gerudo, and
Zonai which itself could be playing into the notion that the past isn't always passed down accurately as it is merely just an aspect of the hero as legend would have you believe, as opposed to Link himself, who many don't even seem to recognize as being Zelda’s champion due to his unimpressive build and everyman qualities. Or, it's simply the result of Zelda’s interference in the past which saw the Imprisoning of Ganon, therefore robbing the Hero of Time of his duty, thus the lack of the iconic green tunic in the future.
With how closely elements of Ganondorf's story mirror his own in Ocarina of Time, a case can be made that they're one in the same, which can be evidenced by the presence of Koume and Kotake, who appear to be a lot younger than they were in Ocarina of Time, making it possible that these events predate Ocarina of Time by at least 300+ years if they are indeed the same Koume and Kotake, or that they've simply been redesigned and we are witnessing the real-time events of Ocarina of Time play out right in front of us as they "actually" happened and not the "legend" that we experienced in 1998.
Another example of this would be the ancient sages who mysteriously remain without names and hide their identities behind masks that correspond to each Champion's Divine Beast despite not having been created yet. We also know that each Divine Beast was named in honor of past sages from Ocarina of Time and Wind Waker, so it's also unlikely that these ancient sages bear the exact namesakes of the Divine Beasts despite influencing their design.
But with the Ganondorf parallels to Ocarina of Time, it can also be reasoned that these ancient sages are indeed the same ones who inspired the names for the Divine Beasts from Ocarina of Time. Ruto, for example, was specifically cited in both renditions of the Zora Monuments in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom and now a confirmed ancestor of Sidon. Why include this detail in the same game where Sidon just happens to meet a past Zora sage who is not only a woman like Ruto, but wears a mask that resembles the exact Divine Beast named after Ruto?
I'm sure there's still a lot of holes in this, like the Rito being a thing during the founding of Hyrule if we are to assume these events are depicting the first ever founding of Hyrule or some weird retconned version of Ocarina of Time, but the one thing I think this game makes abundantly clear, is that it's all happening on a self-contained alternate timeline of events to whatever we perceive to be the original timeline, in a way, mirroring the 2 dragon uroboros imagery as the story doesn't exist on a linear timeline, but a paradoxical circular event.
I honestly wouldn't put it past Nintendo to lump these games in a new timeline to avoid having an answer to all the inconsistencies while also opening up room for future games to occupy space on a new branch like they've pretty much been doing with every mainline game since The Wind Waker. It also feels like that may have been the intention of Tears of the Kingdom's story all along. With all the questions everyone had about Breath of the Wild's timeline placement, they purposely take us to the opposite point in time and hand wave everything in between with time travel.
