The Irony Behind HH's Timeline

[NewJourneysFire]

Since the timeline has been officially announce, it has been met with much criticism. Some are downright offended by it, an many choose to discount it as being canon, and therefore has chosen it to still be a worthy topic of debate.

While people still hold unto their own theories of the Zelda timeline, why are people so pent up on debating the timeline? Why is the canon timeline as easily discounted as any fan made theory?

Could the timeline be that impossible to decipher? Did Nintendo expect, or even plan this reaction? I will try to avoid a conspiracy point of view, but what if the Zelda franchise actually survives off making their fans ponder endlessly, and that the timeline presented was purposefully unbelievable and easily discountable?

Considering I don't support conspiracies, I don't believe that Nintendo's methods were that manipulative. However, this phenomenon itself deserves a few theories of its own.

Care to share?

 

[DarkestLink]

I'd rather just do away with the timeline or make multiple timelines that are not connected at all.

 

[Vampire Squid]

I agree that having multiple unrelated timelines would be preferable to the haphazard timeline we have now.

 

[Locke]

The official timeline actually isn't all that bad. Perhaps I'm biased because it's very similar to mine, but there were only a couple unexpected placements, and that should be expected since we didn't know the timeline beforehand. It covers most of the major and minor points that any experienced theorist would consider, and it was edited by Aonuma himself, so I do believe that it's a reliable presentation of the developers' intentions at that time. As for why it was released, either Aonuma hasn't been forthright to the media about his views on the timeline (i.e. whether and why it should or should not be kept secret), or he was pressured into it. Was he just reciting Miyamoto's opinions on those several occasions of explaining the secrecy, while holding his own vision of solidifying the timeline? Or did he valiantly edit in all the uncertainty found in the inevitable official timeline?

The uncertainties are the important things now. While I don't agree that the timeline is unbelievable or currently easily discountable, it was presented in the language of a theory. Just like any timeline theory, it must be flexible to new games, and is therefore potentially discountable. There are few contradictions now (none of which merit disregard of the timeline as a whole), but new games may "prove" the "theories" or the HH timeline wrong. Also note Aonuma's afterword. He calls out existing inconsistencies and inadequacies while asking fans not to think too hard about them. Of course this will backfire when the HH becomes outdated and fans begin debating what parts of it have been retconned. Those debates will not be fun.

 

[Jetter]

Yes, I do agree with Locke on that. Why else would they release an official timeline, even pulished in the book. Other accounts on the timeline were quick questions in interviews. But anyway, I have also thought that the reason they realeased an official to Timeline was to give the series a straight line to go into or to help wrap up certain ideas.

 

[Justac00lguy]

To be honest I have come to accept the timeline, like Locke said is isn't all that bad, at least as people make it out to be. I think the thing that threw most people was the 3rd split being the downfall timeline, as HH states the Hero was defeated, now this made me think; what if the hero could have been defeated hypothetically at the ending of each game. This would supposedly lead to a multitude of splits and obviously this won't happen but the fact that this was the explanation of the 3rd split in my opinion was quite a poor explanation.

However taking out the fact that the Hero was defeated, the rest of the timeline all fits together quite nicely and there is room for a range of games to fit in between and make connections and pose new questions etc. I only have one problem with a placement of a Zelda game and that is Four Swords Adventures, apart from that I think it all makes sense.

 

[hylianordonlink]

I like the timeline, mostly because its the official timeline that was released by the creators of the series, so really, you cant disagree unless there is a flaw that cannot exist.(although I only like it now because ive accepted it)

 

[OcarinistOfTime]

I think the timeline was released because Zelda finally got it's garden of eden with Skyward Sword. I think after 25 years of having us harass them about giving us a timeline Nintendo finally told us to go to our rooms. As for how easily some people discounted it, it's kinda similar to telling a Christian how his beliefs are supposed to work. Some people truly spent 100s of hours reading through the texts of these games trying to solve the once famous Zelda Timeline mystery and when Nintendo released HH it offended those who worked very hard on their own. I was one of those crazed theorist and was actually the only person (that I know of) that was ecstatic when the downfall timeline was revealed because it kinda played into my theory that most of the games on the DF timeline were retconned out of the official timeline. My timeline was very close to the HH one so obviously I had no trouble accepting it feeling more rewarded than offended. But that's what it mostly boils down to imo and more will come to accept the official timeline as the sting of Miyamoto's chastising fades away, lol.

 

[felipe970421]

Again, seriously? I don't want to sound rude, but HH came out months ago (and translations were available shortly thereafter), people complained, and then we all just kinda accepted it, but now a official English version with almost no changes comes out and people are disputing it again.

 

[Hylian_Monolith]

Personally, I liked the timeline from the beginning. It makes perfect sense in my mind.

Or maybe I hard-wired my mind for filling in the gaps subconsciously from a young age with fantasy and science...

Or maybe I just like the way it looks. I don't know. I think this timeline is great, personally. Mostly, I'm curious on how Nintendo intends to build on it.

 

[HylianHero]

To be honest I have come to accept the timeline, like Locke said is isn't all that bad, at least as people make it out to be. I think the thing that threw most people was the 3rd split being the downfall timeline, as HH states the Hero was defeated, now this made me think; what if the hero could have been defeated hypothetically at the ending of each game. This would supposedly lead to a multitude of splits and obviously this won't happen but the fact that this was the explanation of the 3rd split in my opinion was quite a poor explanation.

If you take the Downfall Timeline into account, there has been a split at every game, depending on whether the Hero wins or not, there just haven't been any games created on those timelines yet.

Think about the Adventure of Link. If you die, the game over screen says "return of ganon". This proposes that when you die, because you aren't there to stop it, Ganon is resurrected. This presents a split in the timeline; one where Link wins, and one where he is defeated and Ganon is revived.

 

[DarkestLink]

What worries me most is that the team might start limiting themselves solely because of the limitations the timeline offers. Limitations aren't always bad...often times they are good when used correctly...but the gain from a limited timeline should be an engaging storyline and decent continuity. But this comes together as a terrible mess, so there is no pay off for constricting the series in this case.

 

[Beauts]

The timeline mostly makes sense. I like the fact the timelines are linked, although alternate. It's nice to think your gameplay technically has an outcome on what happens next. Of course it's flawed, but I don't think that before Wind Waker and Twilight Princess that they ever intended it to have a timeline. It just sort of ended up that way as so many people loved the stories involved, especially in OoT, and it was an obvious road to further success. Nobody wants to think it was a business ploy, and I'm not saying that's all it was, but I'm sure that's part of the reason for it.

 

[Macklem]

Whenever I build my new computer sometime this summer, I want to make a video examining technological aging of the Zelda games, like stone age -> bronze age kind of aging. Not chronological aging but technological aging by analyzing mostly architectural styles/techniques and the way tools are constructed.

 

[ihateghirahim]

I just think its annoying because they failed to tie together all the other loose ends. They also made the insulting Fallen timeline. Why would they kill Link? They also failed to make one timeline; although TP pretty much made that necessary. I just want a simple timeline that connects many storylines and factors. It also can't kill Link.