OoT Split Timeline Paradox

[Jimmy]

At the end of OoT Zelda confesses that Ganon's entrance to the Sacred Realm was all her fault, based on mistakes she made as a kid. We then see in the final scene that Link goes back in time, Navi leaves and in the final shot Link meets up with Zelda in the Castle. Given that in MM we see child Link and Zelda (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HqZlEYgUMw about 3 minutes in) it seems logical that they managed to defeat Ganondorf somehow - indeed TP could be seen as confirmation of this in Ganon's Execution scene.

All this should be familiar to you, and I don't think I've said anything incorrect or disputable at this point.

In fictionalised time travel one danger is always highlighted - the possibility that through your own actions you will erase yourself from time. This then leads to the following time paradox:

1. You erase yourself from time by preventing yourself being born.
2. Now you are not born you cannot travel back in time and erase yourself from time.
3. Therefore you will be born, travel back in time and erase yourself again

Repeat ad nauseum

My point is that Link travels forward in time and after his conversation with Zelda returns to his Native time and defeats Ganondorf. This in turn means the future he visited no longer exists and thus he cannot have the conversation with Zelda and return to his Native time to defeat Ganon. And so on. OoT's time travel element is logically impossible, as well as the split timeline theory that follows.

This of course rests on a linear view of time (which at present does not seem to be the generally accepted view among Quantum Physicists). Indeed, given the impact of Chaos Theory combined with linear time any time travel backwards to the past would likely be rendered impossible (ie if you went back to China in 500 BC and so much as delayed someone for 30 seconds in their day you would alter the whole of history, meaning you probably wouldn't be born - and back to the time paradox).

If you view time travel as an interdimensional sort of thing (when you travel through time you move laterally: across timelines rather than up and down the same one) then it really is anything goes, and this theory is irrelevant.

 

[MrMosley]

Its not meant to be thought of in that sense. The world which Zelda stayed in, after Ganondorf was defeated and sealed away, kept going on without Link. Wind Waker, beginning the adult timeline, is built off of this world. Once Link was sent back, the timeline that followed (Majora's Mask, then later on Twilight Princss, etc.), became the Child Timeline. If you think of it in a logical, "real world" sense of things, yes, that would create a paradox. But the Zelda series is obviously not meant to work that way. Nintendo chose to write the tales based on either of these two branches.

 

[Locke]

What you say is true of the Master Sword's time travel. This is where you get the Song of Storms paradox, for instance.

The Master Sword is a ship with which you can sail upstream and downstream
through time's river...
The port for that ship is in the Temple of Time...

Here, sheik speaks of time in the linear fashion.

But what Zelda explains at the end of the game sounds quite different:

こ れまでの　悲劇は すべて　私の　あやまちです… おのれの　未熟さを　かえりみず、 聖地を　制御しようとし… さらに　あなたまで この争いに　巻き込んでしまった。 今こそ　私は　その　あやまちを 正さねばなりません。 マスターソードを　眠りにつかせ… 「時の扉」を　閉ざすのです。
All of the tragedy up to this point has been my fault… I attempted to control the Sacred Land without considering my inexperience… I even got you involved in this conflict. Now I must correct that mistake. Lay the Master Sword to sleep… and close the “Door of Time”.
All the tragedy that has befallen Hyrule was my doing... I was so young...I could not comprehend the consequences of trying to control the Sacred Realm. I dragged you into it, too. Now it is time for me to make up for my mistakes... You must lay the Master Sword to rest and close the Door of Time...

けれど… その時、時を旅する道も 閉ざされてしまいます…
But… When you do, the road to travel in time will also close…
However, by doing this, the road between times will be closed..

I think that in closing the Door of Time, Link prevents anything that he does after that from affecting what already happened in the AT. So one must apply an interdimensional theory to this case.

 

[Steve]

My point is that Link travels forward in time and after his conversation with Zelda returns to his Native time and defeats Ganondorf. This in turn means the future he visited no longer exists and thus he cannot have the conversation with Zelda and return to his Native time to defeat Ganon. And so on. OoT's time travel element is logically impossible, as well as the split timeline theory that follows.

This of course rests on a linear view of time (which at present does not seem to be the generally accepted view among Quantum Physicists). Indeed, given the impact of Chaos Theory combined with linear time any time travel backwards to the past would likely be rendered impossible (ie if you went back to China in 500 BC and so much as delayed someone for 30 seconds in their day you would alter the whole of history, meaning you probably wouldn't be born - and back to the time paradox).

This isn't completely correct. If you were to travel back in time, and interfere with your own birth, what would happen is a timeline split would occur in which an alternate timeline is created. In the new timeline, yes you would not exist, however you would still exist in the old chain of events.

It's not a linear view of time, but the exact opposite; that time is, in a sense, a record player playing over and over. If you change events in the past, the new changes override, but it does not affect any of the timelines that exist before the alterations.

 

[DuckNoises]

I'll just use my standard OoT time travel response:

think the single best explanations of time travel in the Zelda games are in the games themselves. The most effective of which, I feel, comes from Sheik in OoT:

This one's from Sheik before entering the Spirit Temple:

Past, present, future...
The Master Sword is a ship with
which you can sail upstream and
downstream through time's river...
The port for that ship is in the
Temple of Time...
To restore the Desert Colossus
and enter the Spirit Temple, you
must travel back through time's
flow...

I don't think this is just a pretty simile for the sake of sounding profound, I think this is actually a very brilliant and eloquent hint at the Zelda timeline put in by the writers.

The OoT Master Sword can travel forward to the specific point in time where the Hero of Time is old enough to wield it, so 7 years from when Link pulled it out of its pedestal ("downstream"). It can be put back in, and send you straight back, heading "upstream" the river of time. The Master Sword isn't that great a boat for time travel, as you can see.

This is a very helpful analogy, and I believe it to be the earliest allusion to the split timeline's function. It establishes the way time travel functions in the Zelda universe; rather than the Adult Timeline ceasing to exist because of the events of the Child Timeline, the Adult timeline becomes isolated from the Child Timeline, but still remains in existence. This is similar to a time theory stating that time travels in waves, rather than a purely linear format (despite the misnomer "timeline" ). To continue Sheik's analogy, going back in time would not cease the flow of the river, but instead divert the flow slightly, hence "split" timeline.

 

[Jimmy]

The quote from Sheik is very interesting. As is the record player analogy. Obviously no-one knows how time travel would work in the real world anyway, and seeing as Zelda is fiction they can do what they want with it. I just found it something good to pick on.