What Kind of Place is Lorule?

When Nintendo announced “A Link to the Past 2”, and even when it was called A Link Between Worlds, I think most of us assumed the second world was just the Dark World (or at least, I did!), considering that it looked exactly the same and had the same enemies and the same music. When Nintendo said it would have a kingdom, I also assumed it would have been established later by either good or evil people who found themselves there. Ever since they called it Lorule though — and showed us a parallel version of Zelda named Hilda — I assumed that wasn’t the case and it was just a new dimension.

There were however two interesting comments on the last mailbag that got me thinking:

While I don’t think either of these are necessarily true, they certainly are interesting thoughts. Lorule’s resemblance to the Dark World — and the fact that A Link Between Worlds is a direct sequel to A Link to the Past — would seem to indicate they are still the same. The fact that Ganon is still relevant in this game and is served by Yuga, who would appear to mess around with Lorule, is another connection. Hilda is of course the odd one out then, but there are many possible explanations for why she exists. Perhaps we might learn of what existed in the Sacred Realm prior to it being transformed into the Dark World?

As for it being Termina… this is probably less likely, and Hilda herself being a parallel of Zelda is the only actual hint that this might be true, but it’s nonetheless an interesting thought. The fact that it doesn’t resemble Termina at all doesn’t mean a ton and it might actually be used to mislead us from realizing what Lorule really is. Seeing Termina in a completely different way on another timeline would be fascinating. What if it’s even what happened to Termina after the moon fell with no one to stop it? This idea makes Ganon’s presence confusing, though.

In the end both are just theories and they each have a number of things that seem to imply it’s just a new world… but even then it’s interesting to speculate as to its nature. Is it a straight-up alternate dimension that has no particular relationship with Hyrule? Is it like Termina and there are — or were — parallels of its people? Or is Hilda just a special unique case and doesn’t indicate there are other parallels? There are a lot of possibilities and it’s interesting to think about.

I think at this point, I really just don’t know and can’t decide on what I think it’s going to be one way or the other, but I’m very interested in what you guys think! What kind of place is Lorule? What’s your theory or speculation on the matter? Tell me in the comments!