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Comment by cyphar | Hacker News Reader

While I agree in spirit and think that was true for most of the games when written, there has been an official timeline published by Nintendo[1,2] since 2011 (and the idea was apparently around internally since 2002).

I would be surprised if it did not have some impact on the writing of the games, though of course there is (as of yet) no explicit reference to the timeline in the games.

[1]: https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda_timeline [2]: https://zelda.nintendo.com/about/

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Yeah, I think it was a huge mistake and restraint to reveal an official timeline. But it's something they did and something to accept happens.

And then something to question once again when Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom cannot make its mind up about such a timeline. somehow being so far in the future that all timelines converge and all history is lost. Basically disregarding the idea of a timeline altogether. ToTK can't even commit to really being a chronological sequel to BOTW if you break down details in the game.

Maybe.

History can be rewritten.

The history written today adds intrigue and lore.

Sure but the Nintendo timeline is just another retelling of the legends of Zelda, an unreliable meta story of a past (or future) that is lost to time

At this point you could just make up any reality you want and it would be equally as valid if we’re going to take the creators’ input as simple apocrypha.

Was the timeline an artistic idea of the creator or a reaction by a brand to fulfill a customer service request?

An artistic idea of the creator. They have a simple relation to at least another. For example, it is not a retcon that "Zelda 2" is a sequel to "Zelda".

Art is subjective, after all.

Truly the worst part of it.

If it had any impact on the writing, then it certainly wasn’t present for BotW/TotK. Taking the various branches and smashing them together just for sake of references (despite the incompatibilities) showed to me that they really weren’t worried about the timeline internally and didn’t consider where or how the games fit together.

The official timeline was already a botched version of the fandom’s timeline, and the fandom continues to come up with far more interesting variations of the timeline that answers far more than the official does.

I mean, the official doesn’t even interface with the split timeline created by Skyward Sword, or how both Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons can happen in either order. Also it’s just poorly designed; the “Hero Defeated” section is not a timeline but an alternative universe. There is no canonical ending to Ocarina of Time featuring Ganondorf’s victory in the game itself (unlike LoZ II’s ending card), meaning those games cannot be attributed to that scenario without changing it from a timeline to a separate universe entirely.

This has zero canon justification, but I saw a theory on Reddit suggesting that the "Hero Defeated" ending of OoT was the natural result, but Link's wish on the Triforce at the end of LttP changed history to allow Link to defeat Ganon in OoT, creating the two victorious timelines in that game. It was a neat idea.

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