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Whatever is being said at the time should be considered canon until new information comes out; in 2011, OoX took place between ALttP and LA with the same Link, but that is not true in 2021, for example.
Which is more canon?
- Thread starter TofuSheik
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ArchAngel217
Spoonman, come together with your hands, save meee
Nintendo changes too much. I consider the pre-retcon stuff to be canon more than the 2021 stuff.
even if there's a game that has that retconned material like frax mentioned w/ skyward sword?
DekuNut
I play my drum for you
Specifically with regard to Smash Bros. I imagine most of that can be ignored. Even if it's Nintendo, even those that go with the word of god need to remember that Saukrai isn't a Zelda dev. Most of those descriptions are written by his team rather than, say, Aonuma. It may just be how they view something, but we've seen enough blatant inaccuracies in Smash Bros. That I started taking statements from those games with a large helping of salt a long time ago.
Edit: Miyamoto is a Zelda dev. Sakurai is not
If the retcons come from official sources or official material, then they're the superseding canon. Unfortunately, this is the cost of producing a series with no interconnecting lore or storytelling. All the important stuff gets told in side content.
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For me, the intention of the developers working on the individual game is so majorly more important than the retcons. Retconning is to deny the intended story; it is to change past intention. The end of the Oracle games SO OBVIOUSLY lead to LA. HE'S LEAVING ON A BOAT! FSA is a prequel to ALTTP. And a sequel to FS. KILL ME! This is mainly timeline stuff, but it works for really anytime that they add something to change the original intention. This is also why I do believe in setting aside bad graphics and stuff when judging older games.
I like Zelda 2 more because of what the developers wanted it to be. I like SS less because of what the developers wanted it to be. Developer intention is super important and retcons, while technically canon, should probably be put to the side.
I like Zelda 2 more because of what the developers wanted it to be. I like SS less because of what the developers wanted it to be. Developer intention is super important and retcons, while technically canon, should probably be put to the side.
Developer intent that is implied in-game, and even better, collaborated in statements by the devs, supersedes any retcon from side material in publications that were outsourced to be compiled by other people, in my opinion. I think when the books, even the developers, are saying those books and the retcons in them are only loosely canon and encourage fans to continue thinking about things in other ways, you have to start wondering if being flexible is the better option.
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Link and Zelda don't know eachother in the Oracles. We see Link on a horse(Epona) at the end of Majora's Mask(as well as the beginning of it) and at the beginning of the Oracle titles. Does that mean that the OoX are after MM? No.
FSA doesn't work as a prequel to ALttP, as ALttP and FSA both have different Ganons; ALttP Ganon was the leader of a band of thieves(just like OoT Ganon, which makes sense as they're both the same), FSA has nothing to do with the Triforce, and Ganon is sealed in the Four Sword at the end, not the Sacred Realm/Dark World. Even if you say that Ganon breaks out of the FS(which is an assumption not backed up by evidence) and that the Imprisoning War is between FSA and ALttP after he goes to the Lost Woods and gathers up thieves for whatever reason(he's already a powerful demon at the end of FSA, so why would he need to do that?) it still doesn't work, as Ganon becomes the Demon King as a result of him touching the Triforce. And yet, he's already the Demon King in FSA upon getting the Trident.
FSA being after FS with the same Link can go both ways. There's evidence supporting both sides( the fact that it's implied that were was peace between FS and FSA vs. The fact that the back of the box says that it's a different Link IIRC, as well as Link pulling the FS and unwittingly releasing Vaati). They just happened to go with the latter. FSA was said to be sometime after FS, but was never given a direct placement unlike most of the other games. It's possible they didn't make their mind up until 2011.
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"He later learned that the townsfolk had evacuated to safety, and that the ReDeads were just magic animated into hideous humanoid shapes."
To be honest, I can't remember learning in-game that Redeads were clay, but Triforce Heroes has Redeads that are more clay-blobs than human. My headcanon is that once a dead person is buried, when the 'human' is gone, a body is reanimated but makes a clay exterior to replace muscle and tissue over the skeleton/rotting corpse. Over time, the body goes from an OoT Redead shape to a more stylized/rounder/less human proportioned WW Redead shape, to then the human-body element fading into the TFH Redead shape.
I remember that there was some real shotty trophy descriptions for Pokemon, and I was under the impression that Pokemon Company/Gamefreak/whoever were more protective of the IP. I remembered how SSBB's Toon Link trophy saying that he was 12 in WW, so I looked up the trophy writers, where only two names popped up: Takeshi Hariu and Hisashi Obara.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl/credits
These are credits from Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Masahiro Sakurai Kazuhiro Irie Kenichi Niwano Masaya Kuninaga Yoshiyasu Okawara Takeshi Suzuki Shintaro Kataoka Miki Yakabe Masayuki Tada Takeshi Suganuma Kunihiko Nakata Norihiko Yonesaka Kou Arai Daisuke Shimizu Hiroyuki Koyama Kouichi Watanabe...
nintendo.fandom.com
I can't find ANYTHING else about these guys besides that they seem to only be credited in SSBB.
Takeshi Hariu - MobyGames
Game credits, biography, portraits and other game industry information for Takeshi Hariu - MobyGames
www.mobygames.com
Hisashi Obara - MobyGames
Game credits, biography, portraits and other game industry information for Hisashi Obara - MobyGames
www.mobygames.com
(Obara actually also worked on Fighting Vipers)
I didn't find anything of them being specifically Sakurai's team or Sora's or Aonuma's or some other Nintendo's team. The info that Link is 12 in WW seems to align with Aonuma, though. https://www.glitterberri.com/the-wind-waker/zelda-box/character-commentary/the-main-characters/
"Text Writing" would be the closest thing for SSB4, and this is where things get interesting.
Akihito Toda
Akihito Toda (JPJapanese: 戸田昭吾) is a Japanese scriptwriter and artist. He worked on Ape, Inc. and Creatures Inc. between April 1992 and April 2001, but later became freelance. He has worked on various games with Nintendo, usually in the Pokémon and Mother franchises. He has written and...
nintendo.fandom.com
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/credits
These are the credits to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, including the credits to the Expansion Pass DLC Packs: The Master Trials and The Champions' Ballad. Hidemaro Fujibayashi Daiki Iwamoto Kentaro Tominaga Hiroaki Tamura Yohei Fujino Hiroshi Sakasai Yasutaka Takeuchi Eiji Mukao Yuya...
nintendo.fandom.com
"Akihito Toda(JP) is a Japanese scriptwriter and artist. He worked on Ape, Inc. and Creatures Inc. between April 1992 and April 2001, but later became freelance. He has worked on various games with Nintendo, usually in the Pokémon and Mother series. He has written and illustrated many books about Pokémon and wrote some songs for the anime.
Toda also wrote the desciptions for all the trophies in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS/Wii U, and supervised the script of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild."
Because it seems like some of the Smash trophy writing is taken from people who have some connections to the games, I'd assume that extra info from Smash games post Brawl to be in the same category as Hyrule Historia and Zelda Encyclopedia for now. Having even someone work on a future Zelda game is enough 'strength' to be canon for me since both books were written by the people who never worked on Zelda games but instead on guidebooks (besides Aonuma being the Supervising Editor of HH). But, since the books are the most recent sources, they should be taken as the most canon, even if it goes over past manuals. The timeline from ZE is on Nintendo's Zelda page, so I'd say all of this stuff is all canon in the eyes of Nintendo. Official Nintendo content, even Aonuma-less content, would be my safest bet for canon. I don't think Aonuma has ever publicly disregarded official material besides maybe, "Yeah, we published a timeline in a book but among our staff, we would like to be able to stop thinking about it...". (in an interview with French youtuber Siphano)
This is just how I see things, of course. Some people will disregard ZE but stick to HH since ZE pulls lots crap out of its butt (Termina as a dream world from ZE, despite HH saying it is a parallel world, and that Kokiri came from humans, and that the Master Sword had the light force in it). But, to be fair, HH was the one to have an alternate OoT timeline where Link canonically fails and Ganon gets the full Triforce. Also, the Hero's Shade supposedly regretted being forgotten? Both of these books are equal in my eyes in terms of added 'lore', so throwing in some faulty Smash trophies fit the bill. And honestly, with ALBW's mess of a backstory and classifying most of the timeline as "Era of Myth" in CaC (BotW's relation to the past games as a whole, honestly), I feel like the lore is purposefully being relaxed so that we'll be more tolerant of wack lore in the future. At least there's the possibility of retcons getting retconned! Personally, these things are all in the 'background' to the games to me, like a small step down in terms of canonocity, so I don't think of them unless it pops up in discussion (like if someone else brings up Termina not being real).
As an example of Aounuma-less Nintendo products, I'd go with the amiibo description of OoT Link for his age.
amiibo Detail
www.nintendo.com
"—this amiibo shows a 17-year old Link™ playing the ocarina that allowed him to warp back and forth across a seven-year gap to defeat the power-hungry Ganondorf."
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- Oct 10, 2017
I had recently brought up a similar topic, where I also stated that the death of the author is important to how I take in information about what is cannon, and what is not. When I played Hyrule Warriors, I thought it was stupid to make it non-cannon, out of the gate. It could be used to explain so many plotholes, in other games. Then I found out that the main Zelda creators canonized it. Now, I only vaguely care if the game is officially cannon or not. I find the Zelda universe(s), and that game, more enjoyable with it included.
You bring up an interesting point. When comic book fans talk about their preferred content, they state their favorite universe, perhaps add in an awesome thing from somewhere else, high-five, and continue living. When many Zelda fans get together, there is often arched backs and hissing, as they tell each other that they are wrong. At least, this is what I have normally seen. I have seen some cinematic universe vans get vitriol; I wonder if it's something about the visual nature of these things.
This is also interesting; particularly the book versus game part. In reality they are both as much set in stone, being that they are both set once published. We have also seen, mostly minor, content added/changed for re-released games. I'm not saying that you are wrong for your hierarchy of content. I have a similar take. I just think it's interesting that we think one form is more malleable than another, when they are actually about the same.