So it sounds like people are saying that we should throw the laws of nature out if the window.
I mean, we all ignore the laws of nature in Zelda when we use magic, or use the Ocarina or Stasis to manipulate time, or transform into other creatures, or when dragons fly without wings, or when ghosts show up, or when... I'm sure you get my point. Why is three timelines somehow converging into one such a radical notion?
If you
need natural laws to make it acceptable/work then I'm sure there's some quantum black magic that can fit the bill.
However, if that were to be done, what's the need for a timeline in the first place?
There never was one. Zelda would have been absolutely fine as a series of unrelated adventures. You have a few entries that are directly linked and have in-game connections (LoZ/AoL, OoT/MM, OoT/WW, WW/PH/ST, MC/FS/FSA, ALttP/ALBW) but the rest? Outside of people saying they are chronologically connected there's nothing in-game to connect them. No shared geography, no historical references, no cultural artefacts. There's nothing to tie ALttP to OoT other than someone saying they are connected, nothing tying LA to OoX other than someone saying so. The games don't
need to be in a shared chronology. And people can debate it until the sun blows up, but Nintendo have definitely spent the majority of the last thirty years not caring about it. The fact that
no timeline can exist without glaring holes, contradictions, and flat out nonsense is evidence of this. The bulk of these games were created without any regard for how they connect to others, and trying to force them to do so is the intellectual equivalent of forcing a square peg into a round hole.
Now that there's an official timeline you'd think Nintendo would be bound to it. At the very least, they have to actively think of and include connections, right? Instead they set BotW
ten thousand years in the future and say it's up to fans to decide on which timeline they think it fits. To put that in perspective, human beings only began to practice agriculture about ten thousand years ago. All of our history, everything we've ever recorded and ever known, all of it happened in the last ten thousand or so years. BotW may as well be a reboot. I have no doubt in my mind at all that they included this huge gap to free them from the responsibility of having to make actual timeline connections because they do not care about it.
All of the random place names and items in BotW are just references, little nuggets of series trivia that long-time fans will recognise and go "Hey, I know that", the same way there've been multiple Spectacle Rocks, multiple Death Mountains, multiple Hyrule Fields, all of them in different places, all of them different shapes, all of them unrelated to one another except through name. They aren't an attempt at world building in the way a lot of people seem to want. Zelda lore is mostly just repetition, using familiar names and items because it's simpler than making up new stuff for every game and given time it'll feel robust enough to most people that it'll be distinctly Zelda. The continued policy of "Let the fans interpret it as they see fit" is further evidence of this. If Nintendo had, or even cared about, an actual, real, planned timeline they wouldn't say that because there would be
an answer to the question of timeline placement, one that made sense and could be backed up with in-game content. Since the timeline came out we've had three Zelda games (four if you count Tri-Force Heroes, I guess). One of them (SS) retconned a whole bunch of existing lore, showing that Nintendo don't care about it since they'll change it (
ahem butcher it) on a whim to shoehorn in some gameplay mechanics. Another one was conceived and intended as a direct sequel (ALBW) and has clear connections to ALttP because of that, but not to any other games in the franchise. And the third is BotW which I talked about above as being a 'reset button' a best, a 'get out of jail free' card at worst.
I know I'm coming off as really negative here, and I don't mean to give the impression of a ranting killjoy (even if that's exactly what I am). It's just that it frustrates me to see so many people put so much effort into something they clearly feel passionate about and yet Nintendo repeatedly demonstrate that they do not care about it. I used to theorise about Zelda myself years ago, and while I wouldn't say the Hyrule Historia specifically is what made me stop, it was the increasingly apparent lack of care from Nintendo that put me off, coupled with the resulting desperation from other theorists to try to understand something that was never intended to make sense. The timeline is smoke and mirrors. Zelda has never had one. Some specific games are direct sequels or prequels, but these are tiny islands of continuity in a vast ocean of caprice and fleeting fancy.
The bottom line is that
@Spirit is right. If Aonuma decides to alter things then he will. If he decides BotW is on all three timelines then he's going to do that, regardless of whether it makes sense. And it won't make sense, but he and the rest fo Nintendo just don't care. That's what being a Zelda theorist,
especially a timeline theorist will get you, repeated slaps in the face and no end of confusion and frustration.