Well this is embarrassing. Apparently I didn't check to make sure my name actually fit inside the maxLength of the name field before hastily creating an account. -.- Oh well, let's go. And I'll take the easier rebuttal first.
The main thing that got me was that the writer said, in so many words, that the creators never confirmed a split timeline.
Er...
Me said:
Now, from these individual quotes, you can come up with the famous six-game partial timeline. It starts with Ocarina of Time and then, along the child timeline, you have Majora’s Mask and Twilight Princess. In the adult timeline, you have Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks.
I'm not sure where exactly you pulled that I didn't say that the developers didn't "confirm a split timeline," but I... uhm... said it right there. Now, you may have BELIEVED that I had meant it given the title of the article and maybe picking up the unintended message that the developers didn't know what they're doing, but I didn't say that last bit either.
Yes, the developers HAVE confirmed that there's a Split Timeline. My question is basically this: Is it any good?
Retcons = Nintendo has changed mind = Nintendo was wrong = lolinear timeline
That's also a rather perverted paraphrase of the premise as well, and while I do take the time to mention one specific case of this, the crux of the article isn't actually hinged upon this very point.
The theory that you're trying to disprove here is the Theory of Timeline Relativity here, which is that the developers cannot save the timeline. Because there's a human element here (and Nintendo is inherently unpredictable), I didn't raise this premise to "law" like I did the others because Nintendo COULD attempt to save it if they wished. They could (1) declare a timeline or (2) slowly and steadily make progress at building it up.
In the first case, unless Nintendo has SERIOUSLY considered this long and hard (and I don't doubt that they haven't, but I question whether or not they "care enough" to make it a fundamental pillar of their franchise), any timeline they come out with will be subject to the Zeroth Law (whereby you'll either have imperfect canon or an imperfect timeline). While sure, technically they've come out and said what they believe, and many will readily accept that, we have seen this case before... when NoA attempted to come out with their timeline. Sure, part of the reason for its rejection was that they didn't have "authority" or whatever, but the main reason for rejection was that it was just plain bad. While true, your link to the Perfect Solution Fallacy is semi-relevant in this case, people will still argue and debate, and the question won't be "settled." This besides, I flat out don't think you're ever going to see this happen; they really have zero reason to reveal this at the moment, although this may change later on.
(When and if that happens, I think we'll be able to revisit the Theory and strike it from the record then.)
The second case is to slowly build the timeline up from scratch, but as of yet, that hasn't been their focus here. Let's look at their recent history as far as making Zelda games go:
Zelda #6 is MM. MM was tied strictly to OoT and nothing else.
Zelda #7/8 is OoA/S. They were strictly tied to one another and nothing else.
Zelda #9 is WW. WW was tied to OoT and nothing else.
Zelda #10 is FS. FS was not explicitly tied to anything.
Zelda #11 is FSA. FSA was tied strictly to FS and no other game.
Zelda #12 is MC. MC was tied strictly to FS/FSA (already tied together) and nothing else.
Zelda #13 is TP. TP was tied strictly to OoT/MM (already tied together) and nothing else.
Zelda #14 is PH. PH was tied strictly to OoT/WW (already tied together) and nothing else.
Zelda #15 is ST. ST was tied strictly to WW/PH (already tied together) and nothing else.
If you believe (and it's looking quite apparent) that the timeline "started" with
Ocarina of Time, each successive Zelda game over the last decade hasn't made any strides at actually solving the problem. Each Zelda game has, at best, MOVED the problem from one spot to another and, at worst, created NEW problems. There's been no game so far that has linked together multiple games to create a mega-ordering. That's the whole premise for the "arc system" whereby you link several game arcs together. It's functional, but it still doesn't have everything all nice and pretty yet.
Suffice to say, for Nintendo to save the timeline through this methodology, they're going to need to do a lot more story linkup each game... but given the number of possible deaths that Ganondorf experiences, they're going to have to leave a lot of open-possibility endings (i.e., we only seal Ganondorf away instead of kill him), and that's honestly not as satisfying to the lay gamer. They might do it once again, but I doubt they will keep doing it over and over and over and over in order to solve things.
That's my defence of the Theory. Logically, Nintendo doesn't have a timeline that they're willing to reveal. And so, moving back to your original argument, I choose to answer the question not with logic but with art.
I can look at the Mona Lisa and come away with a thousand different thoughts than you might were you to look at the painting. Is it wrong that I feel differently? No. In fact, I bet that I take away a thousand different thoughts than Leonardo da Vinci himself. Does THAT make me wrong? I would certainly hope not! From a game developer's perspective, I'd like to believe that, at some level here, what we are doing is indeed art. We can take away our various perspectives, and these can be INDEPENDENT of its painter and still have some relevance.
For example, I don't think many, if any, of the developers ever originally envisioned anyone doing a three-heart run of
Ocarina, just for the sake of added challenge. But people do it with some regularity. It probably wasn't the developers' primary intent in this case.
Why not do a linear timeline for an added challenge despite what Nintendo has actually intended? You know, for added challenge? Sure, this isn't a game so much as a metagame, but... why not? Why can't we?
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