Spoiler Time Paradoxes

[AnimeHat]

After I finished playing Skyward Sword, I noticed two major time paradoxes that should have screwed up the enitre game. Of course, they didn't (Nintendo Logic). These are my theories:

1. The Sword

After vanquishing Demise, Link puts the Master Sword to rest to seal away Demise's conciousness. He places the Master Sword in the pedestal of the Sealed Temple IN THE PAST. He then returns to the future Sealed Temple with Zelda and Groose and notices that the sword is still there. This shouldn't be possible. If this happened, then the Goddess Sword NEVER should have been inside the statue of the goddess to begin with. The only way I can think of to explain this is that two different Goddess Swords were created in the process.

2. Destruction of Demise

During the final battle, Link destroys Demise's body and seals his conciousness away in the Master Sword IN THE PAST, after already eliminating The Imprisoned in the present. Since Link vanquished Demise in the past, then shouldn't the entire quest never have happened...?

Thoughts or theories?

 

[Ventus]

1) This makes complete sense. He is in the past, i.e before the present. He places the MS in the pedestal IN THE PAST. Travels forward in time WITHOUT the MS, and the blade is still there in the present. Makes perfect sense. (btw, G Sword is in the Statue because that's chronologically the first time with the sword)

2) Again, this is chronologically the first time with Demise. We experience Link's personal quest from the original start (i.e the start of SS), then rewrite history via uberpwnz0ring Demise.

Everything you listed happens as it does, because we're playing at the original start of the timeline. Only via what happens throughout the course of the game does stuff get rewritten.

 

[RedDekuScrub]

1) There is a paradox, but not the way you say it is. The Goddess Sword and the Master Sword could co-exist. Its like if you went back in time and saw your past self. You and the "past-you" would be co-existing in the same time. The reason it is a paradox is because the Master Sword should have been in the Sealed Temple the entire game if Link placed it there in the past

2) This is very true.

 

[MiniMouseofPyru]

Like Vanitas said, this makes complete sense.

1) This happened in the past, the past comes before the future, so when Link puts the Master Sword in its pedestal in the past, than it appears in the future as if it was always there.

2) Again, this makes sense. When Demise is destroyed in the past, he no longer exists in the future, which means that the Imprisoned never existed.

There is one flaw I can see in this. If Demise is destroyed in the past and the Imprisoned never existed then Link never battled it. But if you go to the Thunder Dragon, Lanayru, you will still be able to battle the Imprisoned, which means that he does exist (?). I think that Lanayru said that he made the bosses out of Link's memory, Link knows that he has battled the Imprisoned. I'm not sure though.

Another flaw that completely obscured what I said is this: If you go to the Sealed Temple in the present BEFORE Zelda seals herself in that orange crystal. You can look through the cracked wall and you can see an orange crystal, that means that Zelda has already sealed herself. The thing is, if the Master Sword only appears in the present when Link places it in the pedestal in the past then the same should happen to Zelda. When Zelda seals herself in the past than you can see her in the crystal in the present through the crack. Not before this event occurs.

I'm not sure if that made any sense, but this is a paradox, it's not supposed to make very much sense.

 

[AnimeHat]

There is one flaw I can see in this. If Demise is destroyed in the past and the Imprisoned never existed then Link never battled it. But if you go to the Thunder Dragon, Lanayru, you will still be able to battle the Imprisoned, which means that he does exist (?). I think that Lanayru said that he made the bosses out of Link's memory, Link knows that he has battled the Imprisoned. I'm not sure though.

^Yes, those bosses were reanimated versions of Link's memory for the purpose of the challenge.

1. I understand RedDekuScrub's explanation. It's possible for the Goddess Sword and the Master Sword to co-exist.

2. If Demise was destroyed IN THE PAST, then it never should have been possible for Link to battle The Imprisoned in the present, creating a massive paradox. The point is that Demise never existed beyond the past.

 

[RedDekuScrub]

The point is. Yes, the Zelda series is chock-full of Paradoxes. Everytime the Zelda series dabbles with Time, there are ALWAYS paradoxes. Everything in Lanayru is a parafox as well. Just think about it and you mind will implode. All of those puzzles with the Timeshift stones are paradoxes. When Nintendo makes the games they don't think about all of the Scientific principles for Time-travel, they just focus on what makes a good story and a good gaming experience.

 

[Rafa1996]

That's what I don't like about SS, the ending negates the entire game. If you kill Demise IN THE PAST, there's absolutely no reason for the rest of the game to happen.

 

[AnimeHat]

Exactly. This is the point I'm trying to make.

 

[WechyPichu]

Well, looking at the paradoxes, the whole zelda timeline doesnt exist.

Haha.

 

[Pen]

I believe I have one simple answer to both of these: Link changed the history.

 

[akasireddy]

when they defeat the imprisoned . . . the games over, they return to skyloft and the imprisoned didnt exist in the present. You're thinking of the recap of all the missions.

 

[RoBirk29384]

When you think of the timeline split after Ocarina of Time, I can understand how you'd think the time theory in Skyward Sword is off.

However, think of the END of Skyward Sword as the beginning of the Zelda timeline. I say this because, unlike Ocarina of Time where Link is sent back to the past, leaving the future to its fate without the Hero, Link, in Skyward Sword, travels into a rewritten future. This phenomenon is also seen when you plant the seedling at the Temple of Hylia in the past, only to return to the future and find that Groose had always known the tree to be there, having no knowledge of the empty patch of soil that he acknowledged before.

In time travel, there would be endless dimensions of time, as Nintendo has addressed by following the child and adult timelines that branched from Ocarina of Time. In Skyward Sword, just traveling through time ensured Link's inevitable inability to return to the dimension of which he had left, as history would be rewritten, and he would return to a new dimension.

As this is a video game, and not every story from each dimension can be told, Nintendo has chosen to, so far, follow only the dimensions of the child and adult timelines from Ocarina of Time, after Skyward Sword's Link returned to the future upon defeating Demise in the distant past.

*edit

I will admit, however, that the world that Link, Zelda, and Groose returned to should have been vastly different from the one they left. Demise was no more, eliminating the need for Link to venture from Skyloft to the surface. Link would not be the Hero, Zelda would never become the Goddess in human form, and Groose would have never followed Link down to the surface. The Link, Zelda, and Groose that returned from the past would have lived out their days on the surface, creating Hyrule, and leaving the Skyloftians to live their lives in the clouds.

 

[AnimeHat]

Of course, this could all easily be another form of Nintendo Time travel where there are no consequences to altering the past, other than events playing out the way you want them to.

 

[Terminus]

The issue of paradoxes (paradoxii?) has stumped many a physicist. I doubt that any of us here can untangle this web of cristmas lights... (we all know how tangled those can get )

 

[AnimeHat]

That, or earbuds.