• Welcome to ZD Forums! You must create an account and log in to see and participate in the Shoutbox chat on this main index page.

What is "canon"?

DvSag

The Void in the Triforce
Joined
Mar 4, 2009
Location
New Jersey
See, now that makes it even harder to count. And at the time, Minish Cap wasn't even out yet. I bet now Miyamoto would state that "LA could take place anytime after MC." It really is a free-floating game.

If it doesn't have any clear placement with potential to sit anywhere on the timeline, and it was all just a dream, anyway, then how can we consider it truly part of the whole legend?
 
Joined
Feb 2, 2009
Location
Brasil
Dealing with canonicity is really difficult when talking about Zelda games. Basically because the definition of canon itself, as the OP puts, depends on what fans and developers think of the games. My old portuguese teacher even liked to ay that "canon" is like a canyon: everything that is inside is canon, everything that is outside is not.

In my opinion, the original NES games are canon, obviously, even though they don't have much in-game story. Without them, there would be no Zelda series after all.

The only SNES game, LttP, is also canon, even though the newest game version (the GBA one) should be considered the most canonical one. The manual from the SNES version has more storyline though, and should be considered the most canonical one.

The Satellaview games are a difficult issue. BSLoZ has no storyline connecting it to any other Zelda game. It's about a young boy in his own world that is teleported by a fortune teller to a world created just as LoZ Hyrule, but that isn't the same place. The backstory is also different, using many elements from LttP instead of the original LoZ.So i'd say BSLoZ is not canon. BSLttP is just as BSLoZ, except that it has no original storyline. It's just a version of the LttP story, so, even if it was canon, the GBA version of LttP would have retconned it. AST is, in my honest opinion, canon. It was featured in the Zelda no Video documentary and it was referred to as a Zelda game by the devs. the staff that worked on it was also the same staff that worked on LttP, and the story is clearly a continuation of LttP's.

The N64 games are, of course, canon, with the newest version of OoT (not necesserily the Master Quest, but just the normal game with the Mirror Shield changed) being the most canonical one.

The GBA games (talking about OoX and LA) are, as well, canon. LA for being created by the same team that had created LttP and for being an obvious sequel to it (at least at first, as proven by AST) and OoX, even though being a CAPCOM game and not a Nintendo one, for having several references to other Zelda games. Also, it is listed as a Zelda game in almost every official source one can find.

The NGC TWW is, also obviously, canon.

The Four Sourds Subseries games are canon, as well, in my opinion. They were created bythe Zelda team and have several references to LttP, OoT and TWW, and even some cameos from OoX.

The DS games are also canon for obvious reasons.

The only wii game so far, TP, is also canon for obvious reasons.

The LCD games are diffiult, I'd say that ZG&W could be considered canon, as it was re-released for the G&W Gallery recently. ZGW lacks good storyline, but could be considered canon too.

The CDi games cannot by any means be considered canon, as Nintendo does not list any of them in any offical source as Zelda games.

LCT is irrelevant. It has absolutely no storyline and all you have to do is shoot enemies to gain points. It's pretty stupid to add it to a timeline theory, imho. The same is valid for TBF.

FPTRR is, on the other hand, very story-wise significant. It connects to several games and has been made thinking about the overall storyline.

The mangas are not canon because they change the stories told in the games too much. Valiant comics are, on the other hand, original stories, so one might consider them narrowly canon.

So, I'd say that the canonical spectre would look like this:


......All Mangas.....FoE....WoG.....AoZ
.............ZGW.....BSLoZ.....BSLttP...S&D
__Valiant Comics_ZG&W__AST___LCT____TBF_____TRR______________________________

[highlight]LoZ.AoL....LttP..LA..............OoT.MM...OoS.OoA..FS.TWW..FSA.TMC...TP..PH..........ST[/highlight]
_____________________________________________________________________________

With games inside the red "canyon" being canon, the ones on the edge being pratically canon and the ones out not being canon. The games/things that are more distant from the "canyon" are "less" canon than the closer ones...
 
Joined
Jan 1, 2009
Location
Hyrule and Azeroth
lol have any of you even read the LA insturuction booklet? It appears to be quite obvious that it takes place after ALttP or AoL. (whichever was released before LA).
Actually I've read the Japanese LA manual atleast 30 times and it can apply to ANY game where Link defeats Ganondorf.

@TRR: It was not made by the Zelda team and had nothing to do with them in any way. The producer of TRR even admitted that he/she hadn't really played the Zelda games. That's more than enough reason to think of it as non-canon, to me.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom