Twilight Princess I Just Realized Something...

[Sir Quaffler]

When you're on Lanayru Bridge, during the Twilight segment, an archer shoots a flaming arrow to the other side and ignites the oil that traps you, then lights it in front of him.

Umm.... Shouldn't Link and Midna have immediately caught on fire? It's not a slow wood fire, it's an oil fire, and since that type of fire relies on the vapor form rather than the liquid form to burn it can travel great distances very quickly. Instead of a wall of fire slowly creeping up on them, the entire bridge would have caught fire pretty much immediately.

 

[Sydney]

Video Game logic, what can you expect? :I

 

[Random Person]

Magic! It solves all life's problems! (aka Zelda's logic problems)

 

[Ronin]

Apparently Nintendo didn't take into account how quickly regular oil burns. But...

I surmise that if oil is watered down, it doesn't burn as quickly. I'm not absolutely certain on that concept, even though it makes sense to me. If we were to look at this realistically, that is.

Video Game logic, what can you expect? :I

This is the most appropriate view, I think. Zelda isn't an ongoing movie series; it's a video game franchise. My intent is not to sound harsh in saying that, but point out that video games don't seem to have any or as many expectations of staying realistic. It's like a world that's open to the player's perspective. Conversely, movies have a set plot, never change no matter what, and more often than not have limited interpretation

 

[Cfrock]

Yeah, video game logic. Everyone knows oil burns and it wouldn't work to just have wood cover the entire bridge so they used oil and just made it burn as slow as they needed.

 

[Wolf Sage]

The oil that was used in said fire might have been a special slow-burning Hylian oil or something.... That, or:

This:

Video Game logic, what can you expect? :I

This:

Apparently Nintendo didn't take into account how quickly regular oil burns. But...

I surmise that if oil is watered down, it doesn't burn as quickly. I'm not absolutely certain on that concept, even though it makes sense to me. If we were to look at this realistically, that is.



This is the most appropriate view, I think. Zelda isn't an ongoing movie series; it's a video game franchise. My intent is not to sound harsh in saying that, but point out that video games don't seem to have any or as many expectations of staying realistic. It's like a world that's open to the player's perspective. Conversely, movies have a set plot, never change no matter what, and more often than not have limited interpretation

And this:

Yeah, video game logic. Everyone knows oil burns and it wouldn't work to just have wood cover the entire bridge so they used oil and just made it burn as slow as they needed.

 

[Kupsacker]

It's a game. No big deal.

 

[Ventus]

It is video game logic, or we could go along with Wolf Sage's proposal in that the oil may have been a specific Hylian brand of some kind, or Thareous' proposal that the oil may have been watered down. Those make the most sense to me. But, it is interesting to note, oil doesn't burn along a line "immediately". The time it took for that wall of fire to come to Link&co. was too slowly, I admit, but they wouldn't have died instantly.

 

[willsfairysword]

video game logic (correction: nintendo logic)

 

[Wolf Sage]

video game logic (correction: nintendo logic)

Nah, I wouldn't quite attribute such odd physics and such to Nintendo alone. In fact, most videogames - particularly action-adventure or RPG genres - seem to have physics that upon second glance makes you go "WTF?" (lol) However, the purpose of videogames is not to be overly realistic; that'd simply be too boring. After all, the majority of us play video games to "escape" reality. The purpose of video games is to be enjoyable, and if some aspects of realism must be sacrificed for the sake of enjoyment, then so be it. "Video game logic" is the preferred term, as it pretty much speaks for video games in general, not just Nintendo.... </rant>

 

[ZeldaFan11235]

It's a video game and it's not supposed to be real. But it is pretty cool that you caught that little detail. I never would've. I'm thinking that there was just oil at the ends of the bridge to just get the fire started. that's what it looked like to me.

 

[Night Owl]

I put it with the same principle that the hero always has time to escape/accomplish his goal.
You see this all the time in movies involving a black powder trail.
Blackpowder would be at the end of the trail quicker than cameras could catch it, yet they slow it down so viewers can see the burn and the hero can escape.

I think the oil was done like that to create dramatic tension and to give the feeling like you narrowly escaped when you jump off the bridge.

 

[Night Owl]

The oil was laid out when we got there as a deliberate trap. It wasn't flowing onto it, it looked like it was poured out on it.
Zant knew Link was going to Lanayru after clearing the Goron Mines; He destroyed the Eldin bridge, probably to force you to keep going, and left an ambush to slow you down.

I remember wondering what it was, I think Midna even said it smelled funny.
Crude does bubble out of the ground in places so it could have been harvested by Zant.
But if it wasn't crude they could have have used lantern oil. They could have used alcohol from wines, and beers.

In the real world; they used tar, pitch, animal fats, and other oils for flammable weapons and other things. Maybe they didn't have access to crude like we do today, But that doesn't mean they didn't have flammable substances.

Also crude is very flammable even before refinement. The refinement breaks it down into products that can be used more easily.

 

[SinkingBadges]

I've always liked to think Nintendo took a page out of Looney Tunes and made their own brand of products that works to the script's convenience.

Let's also remember that back then (that's right, Zelda took place in real world history!) they didn't have access to oil like we do. The oil we grab goes through refinement processes and all sorts before it's ready to burn. It may not even have been oil, it may well have been a slow-burning sap. My memory is a little fuzzy, but it may have also been that the oil wasslowly spilling onto the bridge. Someone will have to back me up on that one though, I can't remember if it was already laid out.

Or this. The one about the sap is a pretty good guess, I think you've found a nice way around Ninty's logic.

 

[Sir Quaffler]

Ok I'll accept the idea of a slow-burning sap. It's internally consistent and works to avoid this supposed lapse in logic I found.