There was one part of this theory that you might be wrong about. Even though there wasn’t any mention of Sonia and Rauru having children, that doesn’t mean that they never had any. It’s possible that they had children long before Zelda traveled back in time, and the children grew old enough where they could’ve took their own path and left Hyrule to figure out what their purpose is in life.
My problem is that the hero shade skills aren't needed to defeat Ganondorf or the twilight. Also this would mean twilight zelda is Sonia's ancestors which is logical with this theory but we could also presume the blood of the goddess is in all desened of hylia which means male desened would also have it even if it doesn't give them power so Sonia maybe a aunt of zelda.
I quite like shadow split idea but you forgot one thing which could strengthen the evidence for a shadow split: Hyrule Historia states that the hero of time and the Hero of twilight are connected by blood so if link "left" the shadow timeline the Hero of Twilight couldnt be born. MM Links disappearance would also mean that the spirit of the hero would also be gone from the shadow timeline (like in the adult timeline) This means that there wouldnt have been a Hero to save Hyrule from the Twilight as well as explain why there is a reincarnation of demises hatred and someone with the blood of the goddess in totks ancient past but no spirit of the hero to defeat Ganondorf. Only after the convergence would the spirit of the hero return to defeat Calamity Ganon
I really liked the video, but was also confused about the part where using the song of time stops the hero of time from existing for TP. I don't see it as an every time the song is used there being a split kind of thing. More so when he travels time and stays. (as he left adult timeline) but here the only way I see it working out for the shadow timeline to make sense is not just that if Majora was successful in Termina's destruction (as stated that likely wouldn't impact Hyrule) but rather if Link had stayed in Termina and not come back to train or even continue the bloodline (probs with Malon) to get TP Link. This was probably meant to be simpler that any of the 3 day cycles where the moon falls Link already left, but those are Termina's terrible fate not Hyrule- eventually it's canon that Link finishes that and returns to Hyrule (possibly even fought in the gerudo hylian conflict during which the arbiter's grounds were constructed) but this theory is saying that when he abandons an instance of Termina using the song of time perhaps he doesn't return to Hyrule either I guess.
Honestly I think an easy fix to that would be for the shadow timeline to just be a Twilight Princess downfall timeline. The Shadow timeline heavily relies on the Twili successfully to take over. The Hero’s Shades existence isn’t entirely necessary for that outcome, neither is Majora’s destruction of Termina. The spirit of the hero appears to be present in A Link to the Past and the other downfall timeline games, so that logic could easily apply to the shadow timeline too.
Weirdly this also explains convergence itself. Why did the timelines converge? Because in some timelines there was no hero spirit and thus time rewrote itself to continue the cycle.
I always think of the convergence as this: All three timelines simultaneously did and did not exist up until the point that all three timelines completely remerged causing splintered and incomplete memories and historical evidence.
Ngl, as an Elder Scrolls lore fan, confusion around the Zelda timeline convergence is really funny. 😂 Makes me feel like the epitome of the, "first time?" meme.
The twili / zonai connections really stood out to me too. There are SO many connections between the depths and twilight covered Hyrule as well, this makes a lot of sense.
If you want an explanation for how Ganondorf broke the Master Sword without having to invoke old Ganondorf's possession of the triforce of power, he didn't. It's tired, it needs time to recharge, we never see it used for two adventures in a row and we have evidence that it sometimes needs to be 'reminded' of its purpose, like in Wind Waker. I would also argue this is no different from it refusing Link initially in Breath of the Wild or not offering its full power without the trial of the sword, until its purpose was renewed it refused to fulfill its duty. However, notably, we see that the Triforce insignia on the blade is not harmed at all (which I would argue represents the blessings of the four goddesses, being bathed in the flames of the golden goddesses and directly blessed by Hylia). Since we never see anything below this point on the sword really damaged, I believe that the heart of the weapon, it being a divine sword created by Hylia, blessed by the four major figures of divinity in Hyrulean lore, is truly unbreakable, and it being "broken" was only a more dramatic version of Fi's classic warning: "Master, the batteries in your Wii Remote are nearly depleted".
This is a great theory! It solves a lot, if not all, of the inconsistency issues I had with TOTK. I really hated how TOTK felt like it was trying to retcon the entire timeline.
Nobody pointing out that the final battle between Link and Demise was outside of space and time and therefore the curse could've always been active even before skyward sword. It's a paradox like link being the chosen hero and the windmill song in OOT
and also I'm pretty sure reincarnation isn't affected by time nor space, which means it'd be possible to have a reincarnation of Demise in the past from his point of view
@@izdisamspareference591 plus he mentions that the first time he came hylians hid under rocks. If tears happens before skyward sword then ganon who even has a demise like form would be that version of him from that time
Arguably yes, but before Skyward Sword there were supposed to be a ton of demons running around causing mayhem and widespread destruction. TotK's memories depict a Hyrule that is a lot tamer than that.
This video randomly popped on my feed and I did not realize you were a smaller content creator until the end... well done, enjoyed the video and theory seemed pretty sound!
I think the Sonia paradox is actually the cause of the convergence. Zelda does have to be a descendant of Raru and Sonia, she not only senses her own bloodline connection to Zelda but Raru's sealing power as well. The only way to stabilize the paradoxed timeline was to merge the timelines together. I've speculated that the reason the BOTW dragons chose to draconify is to unleash enough power to merge the timelines.
My head canon is that BotW and ToTK fall in a fourth timeline, the timeline the hero and zelda left behind at the end of Skyward Sword (the time where Hylia defeated Demise). That would mean that ToTK's past is around the same time of OoT, but with no hero. I think that's why the cutscenes look similar (for example the throne room cutscene where Ganondorf 'surrenders' to Rauru).
Great video. I'm pretty sure the plot holes are just plot holes, but its a lot more fun to say it's because of shadow timelines and weird timeline converging rules. I do like your theory about sonia more or less being that worlds version of zelda rather than being an ancestor. It always confused me that rauru and sonia didn't seem to have any children, but zelda still exists even though sonia died. I love playing totk, but it give me a headache when I think about the story too hard. Anyways am subscribing since I hope to watch more videos with your neat ideas in them.
I feel like you didn't really do enough to disprove the possibility of Sonia having children for this to make sense. I figured that Sonia had a child prior to Zelda time traveling, whom we never meet. Whether it's because the child is in someone else's care (like a royal nanny) or they had grown up enough to travel the vast lands of Hyrule to establish a home elsewhere. Also, if Sonia didn't have any children prior to her death, then wouldn't Zelda fade from existence, due to Sonia dying before her own parents could be born as a result? We clearly see that Zelda persisted for thousands of years as a dragon, so unless being a dragon negates time-paradox invoked erasure, there's no reason as to why Zelda would be able to still be around anymore since she didn't go into an alternate timeline. Her actions in the past clearly have an impact on the future and she's still the same Zelda that went back in time by the end of the game.
she went back to a past war became a major part of that war and nothing changed that event was foundational to her time so that means she was pulled back in time to the present day she did not go back under her own power
It's interesting to note that there's a city in the sky in Twilight Princess as well. I wonder if the Oocca are related in some way to the Zonai? Like some wonky crossbreeding or something
I only responded to this because I think you're cute. Regardless, based on the factual data we have regarding the Zelda continuity - this curiosity will be unfounded and cannot be proven to any extent.
Early in Skyward Sword before Zelda goes back in time, you can look through a crack in the large stone door in the Abandoned Temple to see Zelda’s stasis crystal inferring that she already went back in time before she went back in time in the game. It’s a cycle that keeps going but not a paradox because the people involved can keep moving forward.
because zelda entered the stasis in present day as the original time traveler was impa who is from that era as such the start of the game is the far flung future
@@switchitup3709no you sealed him in the present link is from the future as impa started the time travel scenario by going forward in time to links era you kill him in links time as in the future
@darkdagger5237 it still a paradox. Think about it. If he killed or absorbed in the master sword it changes the future drastically. Which you can't do. So that trips off a new timeline.
The convergence may be the result of the first hyrule Warriors game because if that game is canon, it would make sense for that to be where the timelines convert because that’s the only place where they interact
I've been a proponent of this theory since BotW came out. Royal family there had the wind waker, saw heroes and enemies from all the branches. world map thrown into disarray. Makes sense that a convergence happens after stopping Gannon of Hyrule warriors.
This has been my headcanon too and I think it's so frustrating that Nintendo treats it as non-canon because it makes the timeline convergence into the era of the wild so much more feasible. Maybe the Zelda team is holding out to make their own canon timeline convergence story but other than that I don't really see a reason to exclude it.
I've always loved that theory, Even though I didn't believe it. Hyrule Warriors was a fun game that interacted with different timelines! It's perfect! Unfortunately, I see why Nintendo doesn't want to make the game canon. The story doesn't make quite as much sense as you'd think, and Hyrule returns to normal after the game ends so it can't merge the timelines. But imagine!! The fact that we even have a game this close to explaining potential timeline merging is awesome. This game's existence has spawned one of the coolest timeline theories to date in my opinion. You just have to twist your imagination a little.
With the convergence, the timeline split becomes a dragonbreak from the Elder Scrolls series. The end of Skyward Sword is another example of a dragonbreak at work. Link destroys Demise in the present, Ghirahim kidnaps Zelda and resurrects Demise in the past. Link defeats Demise in the past and seals him in the Master Sword before placing the blade in a pedestal while still in the past. Once they return to the present, the statue of Hylia is still in the sealed grounds (even though a timeline split should have occurred because of Demise’s defeat in the past) and the Master Sword is in the pedestal.
@@darkdagger5237, let’s see this from a story standpoint. Zelda travels to the past, Link follows using a different Gate of Time than she did, Zelda fully powers up the Master Sword before entombing herself in the crystal of maintain the seal on the Imprisoned. Link returns to the future and gets the Triforce. He uses the wish to destroy the Imprisoned. Zelda is freed from the crystal due to Demise’s destruction. Ghirahim kidnaps Zelda and takes her into the past (meaning that there are now two Zeldas in the past, one in the crystal and one that is being used for Ghirahim’s ritual to resurrect Demise). Demise is freed, but Link defeats him and seals him in the Master Sword. At this point in time, the Zelda that is supposed to be in the crystal is gone by the time Link places the Master Sword in the pedestal as the doors to the chamber where the crystal is supposed to be are open in that cutscene. Demise being sealed in the Master Sword is not the same seal as the one that Zelda had to maintain by sealing herself away that Demise periodically escapes from in the form of the Imprisoned because the Master Sword isn’t in the pedestal at the point in time in the past where Zelda seals herself away.
@@brandonbaggaley2317 but if the master sword was there before you forged it you would take it and use it to finish the mission preventing you from ever forging it
Honestly I'd question if the hero of twilight even comes to exist in this timeline, we see in Wind Waker that the spirit of the hero is utterly absent in times of need, and it's not until an entirely unconnected hero arises that the cycle is restored. Doesn't change too much of the theory, but makes the Twili invasion even more one-sided.
I love this theory. The video showed up in my recommended and I'm really glad it did, your videos are really well made and funny, looking forward to seeing more
Man, the 4th timeline is from Skyward sword when Link went back in time. It cause a split. The process to understand this is very simple, the Hylia statue. Link and Zelda and Skyward Sword return to a hyrule with a big Hylia statue. In breath of the wild, not only was that statue tuck away, hylia statue cloes were spread everywhere. This explains why you don't see any of hylia statue in ocarina of time and the other three timelines. The fourth timeline also explains how we have a separate kingdom of hyrule and imprisoning war. A fourth timeline can explain how Rito and Zora can exist at the same time. Simple.
We do have at least some evidence of incursions from the sky in Majora's Mask with the ETs at the farm. The Zonai may be terrestrial in origin, but their appearance to the Hylians would've likely been akin to how ETs would appear to us. I guess the Zonai could qualify as what people are now calling Ultraterrestrials.
There is one thing wrong about the Shadow Timeline split in Majora's Mask. If OoT/MM Link traveled back to the first day, and Termina is destroyed at that moment when he traveled back to Day One, it means TP Link wouldn't be born, because TP Link is related to OoT/MM Link.
you know you've made a good video when I take like a week to write a damn college essay from the thoughts it gave me. esp when you give me permission to share my thoughts! ;P so, while I LOVE the idea of a shadow timeline, I don't feel this specific one quite works. you say it'd be after a failure of twilight princess, but....Sonia has the same blood of the goddess as Zelda does, which means TP Zelda would have had to have a child that survived in order for Sonia to exist (and by that point, it's established that all princesses of Hyrule are named Zelda after SS Zelda, so it makes no sense that that would be lost for Sonia to be Sonia but then it be reestablished for later Zeldas). as well, Rauru is The First King, "at least he was the last time he checked", meaning he-from his own perspective-did not RE-establish anything, but *founded* it. even if there was once a Hyrule kingdom on that land, it wasn't there when he arrived. his Hyrule is his original kingdom, one placed on undeveloped wilderness that he is still in the process of domesticating. otherwise he wouldn't be a "first king", but the king that overthrew a tyrant or saved a dying land. so all Zonai being wiped out so Rauru could reestablish Hyrule wouldn't make sense of there was already a kingdom and people living there that he/his people liberated. and he would have had to be alive to be the one surviving Zonai to establish Hyrule after their fall (but also, the murals seem to depict only Rauru as descending from the heavens, so it seems all his people were already gone save for himself and his sister), and for him to be there and see how dangerous Ganondorf is, I doubt he'd be so chill facing another Ganondorf. plus, that'd be a hell of a fast cycle for another incarnation of Demise to be born basically right on the heels of the death of the last one, as they are basically the same age. and Ganondorf has never really changed the name of Hyrule after taking over, so even as a "we destroyed the last kingdom and established a new one so I am the first king of this land under a new name" doesn't make sense ether. as for the armor, I think that's all Zelda's doing. she told Rauru and Sonia of her knight, a knight who would obviously need good armor to fight a war their king lost. we also know Zelda knows his measurements as she had new armor made for him as a surprise. surely the remaining people would be creating and hiding armor and helpful items in places only such a powerful knight would be able to get to them, to ensure they actually stay there undisturbed until his age when he could retrieve them. another issue is your interpretation of Sonia's comment on a blood connection. in that moment she is chastising Rauru for needing the secret stone as proof, and talking to him (though looking at Zelda) she specifically says she recognizes both "your" (Rauru's) light power and her time power within Zelda, and THEN says she senses "we" (still talking to Rauru) share a blood connection, and THEN speaking to Zelda says she'll tell everyone that Zelda is a "distant relative of OURS" as it's "true, after all". they could not be more clearly telling us Zelda shares blood with the both of them explicitly, not just Sonia. Rauru also states that his kingdom will continue even if he falls. how would that happen? by an heir inheriting the throne. now granted, I haven't seen the direct Japanese translation so I don't know if something changed, but I doubt anything changed enough to alter this point. and yes, it is a little bit odd that we never see this child, but considering Zelda shows us very little of the past even though she's there for a good while, and the importance of keeping your heir hidden from your enemy, it makes at least enough sense for the child to simply not be seen but still exist. and your point that Sonia shows abilities all seen throughout past Zeldas only adds to my own personal theory. which is: it's not pre-skyward sword, but immediately post-skyward sword. possibly a shadow timeline from the time travel there, but I won't even try to theorize on that since the time travel doesn't really make sense even within that game anyway. anyway, it'd make the most sense imo. everyone assumes SS Link and Zelda immediately establish a kingdom, but that doesn't really make sense, and (afaik) is just a fan assumption. SS Zelda is the goddess Hylia, goddess of time, so to me it'd make more sense for her to more be worshiped again, to retake the place of the goddess at the temple. her children then would be priestesses of the temple, which is exactly what Sonia (with power over time) was before she married Rauru and became queen, establishing Hyrule with him. from there, the past plays out as we see it, Zelda draconifies, and the timeline (*singular*) plays out until we get to botw and then the present totk. this particular placement explains why their castle doesn't have the same iconography that we're used to. the triforce is on her body, but the emblem of the triforce and the loftwing is missing. as well, none of them wonder where/who the hero is or attempt to find the triforce or master sword. I believe this may have been done by SS Zelda or a later child believing that if these powerful relics are hidden from knowledge, they will be protected (if Ganondorf doesn't know about the triforce, he won't covet it, which is why he targets the secret stones instead). that's why the triforce is barely displayed (it can be seen above their thrones, but as 3 simple not-even-triangles in the middle so that even most of us who know to look for it didn't recognize it) but it's displayed on her body as proof that it hasn't been forgotten entirely. but she may have been killed too soon before she could impart this info to the others. it isn't until after they're rediscovered and old legends proved true that the things like the triforce and loftwing iconography and the tradition of Zelda's name become cemented. I believe this, as I find a big part of the game's story is "history as you knew it isn't as accurate as you believed it to be". and this was later proven as a true and acceptable possibility via an interview with Aonuma and Fujibayashi here: www.zeldadungeon.net/tears-of-the-kingdom-developers-talk-zelda-timeline-in-new-interview/ "Q: Does the Hyrule we saw in the flashback scenes predate Skyward Sword or does it come after other games in the timeline? HF: Obviously, there's something a little bit clearer in our minds, but of course, it could be that we're wrong as well! I kind of want to pose the idea that, like in real-life history, you define by the artifacts and by the data that you currently have. So within what we have, there might be a correct answer, but it could be a different answer. So, I guess my answer would be that it could be both. Both could be correct. EA: I mean, the Legend Of Zelda is a series of games that focus on the puzzle solving, so this is just another sort of puzzle that the users will have to see if they can solve and think about." and that is exactly what I've thought since totk came out. (putting the rest of my theory in the reply comments bc text limit)
(2) the entire game, with all this Zonai stuff, the whole start of the royal family being formed from the union between a god who descended from the sky and a Hylian is all new to us, it changes the Hyrulian history as we the players knew it. immediately, they challenged the history as we know it. we get to the memories, and we're told of a first king and queen of Hyrule that does not match what we believed and has left us grasping for the truth. and most importantly (imo) Mineru tells Zelda about draconification, an act that is forbidden because the person "loses themselves" to become an immortal dragon. they know this, because history tells them so. then ghost Rauru, knowing Zelda is a dragon now, tells us (who does not yet know about draconification) that her standing before us and giving us her sage power should not be possible (based on his understanding of their history). yet the entire game (as well as botw) we are constantly shown that the dragons are anything but mindless. Dinraal changes her flight pattern to help with a sheikah task for a champion to pilot a divine beast. all things that did not exist when she first draconified. the statues seem able to communicate with their respective dragon, and speak for them/on their behalf. such as Naydra's who informs of us her plight and how to help her with the malice infection. we're told she will take flight once we first strike the infection, and then she dutifully returns to allow us to take a part of her body as a reward for helping her. the fact that she even remembers her spring is also a testament to her mind being intact. and for Zelda herself, she stays around the great sky island because she knows that's where Link will be, and stays to keep an eye on his progress. she's mentally strong enough to project herself into the room to give Link her sage power, and knows that then he is ready for her to remove the cloud barrier (another thing she is strong enough and conscious enough to intentionally do) now that he's ready. she actively tracks him across the land of Hyrule (the teeeeniest spec on the map you'd think she wouldn't even be able to see from her high ass flight path) and keeps track of what memories he's collected, and only once he's seen all of them (and she's there watching him when he sees the last one, she is actively tracking him) does she drop the real last one. yes, this is the developers' way of ensuring you can't see the big reveal early and spoiling everything, but it still happens in universe and therefor is fair game. she also recognizes when it's him collecting the master sword on her head, and no matter where you are when you grab it she specifically goes back to the place she draconified to drop him off. she could have just continued flying wherever she was and just let him jump, but instead she dropped him off and at an emotionally significant location. if not for both of them, at least for her and possibly Fi. then in the final battle she immediately comes running, howling as if calling out for him, and still is able to track him in the air and even juke Dragondorf's bite at speed! as well, Dragondorf also has the presence of mind to continue attacking Zelda and link and even grabbing Link in the room AS he's transforming. like, even in the MIDDLE of a full body transformation from mortal to immortal, he still thought to drag Link out with him as he burst from the ground (and presumably manually maneuvering around the hole and around the castle to get to the sky, unlike Zelda's straight shot up. clearly even when in the act of transforming their mind remains intact. many may think they are simply mindless because they're "just flying around" (what else are they gonna do?) and do not talk/communicate anymore, but even that isn't true. not only do they make plenty of vocalizations, but Zelda tips her head up and down while she flies (in fact I think they all do), but when Link is on her, she stops moving her head as to provide a smoother ride and lower the chances of throwing him off. she, and the other dragons know you're there, and is in fact reacting to your presence. and yes again this is likely a game feature just to make it easier on the player, but again, fair game. so to say the dragons lose themselves is very clearly incorrect. but with so little evidence to work with, it makes sense for them to come to that conclusion, especially since as far as we the players know, Link is the only one actually able to communicate with the statues. all our evidence for the other 3 relies on things not available to them in the past. so, if even the characters in-universe are wrong about their history, why are we holding every game as absolute truth, as we experienced them?
(3) if we look at things like Greek Myth, the stories are meant to take place "ages ago, when gods walked the earth" but the lives described are lived the same way as those who who told the stories, as if they couldn't imagine live lived differently. and the past is full of mistakes. Atlantis exists because a Greek man mistook Spain and thought it a new island. many historical maps are hilariously wrong, but they were the best they could make at the time. we only got accurate maps when we were able to look from above. which sure feels familiar, when you think about how maps in Zelda are normally created by like, a magic fish, or a guy floating a few feet in the air on balloons, compared to Link getting shot into the air *to take pictures from above*. this could also explain why totk's past has so many things that relate it to OoT. it could be that the OoT we know is a myth that got lost to time, but what we see in totk is the reality. a Gerudo king, flanked by two witches with the names Kotake and Koume, swears false fealty to the King, who does not heed the warnings of a young woman named Zelda, who will come to be the sage of time. there is also a sage of light named Rauru, and sages from all the main races around Hyrule, even one of the Gerudo, to take down the evil king with the use of special, magical items. with the Zonai forgotten, the sage of spirit was assumed to be and therefor became one of the Sheikah, the race closest to the shadows, and Rauru, vaguely remembered by his owl charm, becomes a Hylian who takes the form of an owl and is otherwise unseen, residing only in a secret world. the details are there, they just got rearranged as the truth was hidden, ether intentionally at the time or eons later after essentially an age long game of telephone. such happens, especially in times of war. it is notoriously hard to keep accurate records when everything is regularly destroyed. and that also allows everything to happen in one single timeline, why everything is known to the era of botw, without the need to come up with how a timeline could possibly converge. it all happened, we just don't know the real details of how. and neither do they, having relegated it all to the "era of myth", where there's so little concrete evidence even THEY don't seem to believe they have a solid understanding of their own history. for all we know, the tradition of naming the daughters of the royal family Zelda is after SS Zelda could actually be for totk's Zelda in honor of her eternal sacrifice to draconify. that certainly would make more sense as a reason to always name the royal women the same thing than anything SS Zelda did. as well, even calling them an "era of myth" means the games are, in universe, *all myths* just like Greek myths, or stories like Beowulf or King Arthur. stories with nuggets of truth, but also very obvious additions or current age propaganda. I think the Zelda team is trying to make the *Legends* of Zelda make sense in the same way actual history does. think about it. we have myths like King Arthur, who we know for a fact existed. they could have even believed him to be a wizard, just as many at the time believed Nostradamus could see the future. the whole wizard thing could have been added later, or could have been something done at that time to help prevent attacks. I mean, who wants to take on a king who can use MAGIC against you? we today know Arthur didn't have a wizard and Beowulf didn't slay a dragon, but only because we know those things aren't real. but in a world where dragon-like creatures absolutely DO exist, the propaganda or added drama (or just outright misunderstandings) aren't as easy to parse. but let's also think about that for a moment. back then, the only iron they had access to in Britain was "bog iron", literally clumps of mud pulled from bogs. this was used to make very poor quality weapons. "pull the sword from the stone and you will become king of Britain" is usually taken as literal, pull a magic sword stuck in a rock and be bestowed the right to be king by the sword's magical choice. OR, it could mean, he who learns to get iron from ore (aka stone) will get weapons good enough to make your people conquerors. it's not unusual for something to be taken more literally than it's meant to be. Indigenous Americans explained to white people they learned to get sap from trees from squirrels, and they were taken at entirely face value, laughed at and brushed off as "silly Indian woo woo religion thinking they can talk to animals"...until they actually witnessed squirrels tap trees for sap themselves. as well, perspective can make the obvious not obvious. many scholarly men assumed a ring of rocks on farm land was religious, not bothering to realize they were too tall for the chicks to escape but low enough for mama to walk over. or knives kept on the rafters must be religious, until moms pointed out that it's a great way to keep them out of reach of little hands. or the hairdresser who was able to recreate ancient woven hairstyles when historians thought it impossible. a shifted perspective changes the entire message/implication, even when no change was made. and for all of human history, there are things left out of instructions or stories that are considered so obvious they go without saying. that is, until a few hundred years have passed and that cultural norm is now lost because no one thought to write it down. as well, "a magic sword from a lake" is also taken as literal. while it could still be propaganda like Merlin, it could also actually refer to the discovery of quenching. somewhere, someone was forging swords with their new stronger iron and accidentally dropped it in water, or stuck it in intentionally because they were tired of waiting for it to cool down, and found that the water (seemingly "magically") made it stronger than non-quenched swords. and someone looking at this story with missing context thinking it literal is no surprise, just as someone of the time thinking the water from that specific lake being magical also tracks.
(4) and when you remember that Greek myths take places ages ago and ages apart yet all kinda exist in the same range of technological advancement, exactly like the Zelda series, it makes sense. I mean, SS and totk could be as far apart in the series as possible, literal millennia, and yet visually side by side they really don't look like even a generation has passed. this is usually blown off as "well their world keeps getting destroyed, they gotta keep starting over" but like, just because your house burns down doesn't mean you forget what a wheel is. the calamity that destroyed them and nearly killed Link the first time didn't send Hylians back to the stone age, they simply lost *some* specific knowledge like stone masonry due to those who mastered it mainly living in ground zero when the calamity hit. but woodworking lived on in the outer towns, far from ground zero. and all those houses were mostly wood even before. they didn't revert, they just picked back up where they left off, more or less. while this could explain some of it, it doesn't explain all of it. that is, unless what we see as a visual in the games is simply that, a visual. the history is (maybe) accurate, but the visual way we took it in was false, both in universe and out, because video games are an inaccurate vehicle for storytelling. loading zones make it impossible for us to know just how much distance is really being traveled, different hardware limitations change what can be done (such as map shapes), and the different art styles alone prove the games are at an absolute minimum visually inaccurate. we know WW Ganondorf is OoT Ganondorf, and we know the world didn't shift from mostly realistic to hyper cartoony, the art style is just that, an individual stylistic choice that we look past for the "real info" aka the lore. so, what if totk is trying to change that? to try and show us Hyrulian history "as it actually was", and cleaning up the confusing timeline as we're constantly bickering because we're taking every little thing as 1:1 accurate? that would explain why, here for the first time, we see a Hylian civilization that *actually* looks ancient. like a budding people. what we see is clearly based on the Mayans, a stone age people who didn't even use wheels. now, clearly, the Zonai Absolutely Did Use Wheels lmao but, this is the most ancient we've seen Hylians, and I think that was a *very* specifically chosen and intentional visual hint. even Skyward Sword, the oldest seen moment in the timeline, makes everyone look like generally modern people. their houses have plumbing and lights and everything you'd expect in a modern society, minus actual modern tech like computers and cellphones. I always found that weird, especially considering how limited their resources should be. it even felt more "modern" than older Zelda games. but what if that visual was entirely wrong, and they actually looked more like Rauru's age? wearing feathered headdresses made from their loftwings, with simple pinned square sheets that wouldn't require too much cloth (of which the materials were surely limited)? but because so much of that time period was hidden away, assumptions were made and visuals (if you think of the games as like, plays or picture books) were simply created in order to tell the stories. and we know it's lost, because we saw none of it in botw, but in totk there's at least one from botw we can find where an outer shell is cracked and fallen off partially, and we can see the smooth white stone under it. they INTENTIONALLY hid all things Zonai to protect it. Zelda mentions that the royal family knew things but kept things so hidden even they forgot the truth, and clearly that was a choice made long in the past. they covered anything Zonai that they didn't ether send skyward or destroy and left it looking like the remains of a violent war-obsessed tribe. just enough for scholars to be satisfied with and for treasure hunters to ignore for more interesting finds, to ensure nothing is disturbed before the fated hero is ready. it may seem like a stretch, but I think it's worth considering, even if just picking it apart helps lead us both to an even better answer. and if you or anyone else actually bothers to read it all, I'd love to hear thoughts/feedback!
I think a convergence theory is obviously the most elegant, as it has been evidenced since BOTW. But I think it’s best possible version lies in stretching it even farther: what if the Zonai’s era of legend is not from another split in the tl (the shadow tl) but another origin of the tl all together? In TOTK the Master Sword seems to be an entirely new concept to both Rauru and Ganondorf (which I’ll grant could also be explained by a twilight apocalypse) but it would also explain the primitive nature of the Hylians, as well as why TOTK Ganondorf has a moment that does not simply call back to, but is the exact same moment that Ocarina Ganondorf has-feigning fealty to Hylain Royalty-what if that is a “canon event” destined to happen in every Ganondorf’s first war against the throne across the multiverse? I think it has a lot of potential in explaining perceived inconsistencies, but I will close with this: we don’t know what the convergence looks like, did it happen all at once, or did artifacts from different tl’s slowly seep into the world that would become the Hyrule of BOTW, and what if some of those artifacts did not fully manifest in the world unitl even TOTK in the upheaval? Great video!! It was well researched and had a lot of good points, nicely done 👍
I think what you're describing matches up well with an alternative version of this theory where the timeline split happens in Skyward Sword instead of Majora's Mask.
I really like your placement, but the possibilities you have shared are actually really solid. I loved the appendix you've added. That's really Cool and provided great ideas and rules that are lore friendly. Thanks for sharing.. interesting and still thinking it through.
I think that the 'sonia has no kids so how Zelda' question is easily answered in the Convergence theory with it just being that there's been enough time for the Blood of the Goddess to be in multiple people and the power just awakens in the one who is the most direct descendant of the original Zelda. Correct me if it's too far of a stretch this is just what I came to the conclusion of with that theory
sonia said that zelda had rarus light power she did not say simply that zelda had light power as such she would have a blood connection to both of them
People assuming there were no kids makes no sense to me. Sure, we never SEE or HEAR about the kids, but they HAD to exist, because literally, the royal bloodline that connects Zelda to Rauru and Sonia could not exist otherwise. The simplest explanation is that for the sake of story brevity and to save time and money, they did not design or mention the child(ren) because they were not pivotal to the plot. If you want a story/lore-satisfactory explanation, something like "a child was had, hidden and raised in secret away from Rauru and Sonia, to keep the royal bloodline alive"- we literally have a similar explanation to how Link was raised in OoT, already, so I don't know how people are too stubborn to think of/accept an answer like that, because it makes far more sense than the literally-genetically-impossible "rauru and sonia had no kids but zelda is descended from them"- that kind of stuff was SUPER common in old-era Kingdoms, and would be especially a lot more relevant of a solution when Zelda already knew of, and told Sonia and Rauru, about her present, in order to change the future...
A while back i had this idea that Zelda going back in time made a split and created the sky islands for skyward sword and TOTK. Didnt put too much thought into it but i think there could be something there. I really dig your theory!
Don’t remember who said this but I head someone suggested that maybe because the time between games in the timeline is so long eventually something that happened in a different timeline happens in another. Don’t remember much more of it but just thought I might mention it
I'm pretty sure technically speaking, everytime Link resets time in Majoras Mask, it creates a new timeline. Considering the fact that when Zelda plays it in Ocarina and sends Link back in time thus creating the mainstream timeline split. I feel as though this detail is extremally overlooked by the developers and community at large.
Each timeline created from an ocarina use in Majora's Mask would be identical though. Each Termina will always be destroyed completely, and each Hyrule will be impacted in the exact same way (excluding the versions of both where Link defeats Majora). That could mean that tens, hundreds, or possibly even thousands of identical Termina-destroyed timelines would exist, ultimately increasing Zelda's odds of landing in one of the many identical Shadow timelines as opposed to one of the main three.
agreed. also, since the timelines would all be identical apart from minor differences, they could possibly merge together relatively quickly (if not instantly), although that is assuming that merging has to do with the degree of difference between each timeline.
@@barbecuesos6242 i think something else that is interesting to note is the time stones from skyward sword. that technology is really really mind boggling to me to begin with, but my point in bringing it up is it kind of demonstrates how time exists in zelda. if you have a time stone tool activated, it will make a certain set radius of an area around it go back to a specific time. this is extremely weird. how does that even work? it implies time is not just a perception of passing but maybe a type of matter or dimension. perhaps timelines in zelda are not so "split" in the sense that they are branching off from each other and growing out in different directions; perhaps timelines in zelda are literally layered on and within each other, all happening simultaneously and can be tapped into by certain technology, which we see with the time stones. how was this ancient race of robots able to do that anyways lol?? but yeah it could explain a merger of timelines into one, which maybe could help explain BotW and TotK. just a guess though. however i do propose that it isn't some kind of entropy or decay of timeline separation. i think there was a force that made that happen deliberately, but explaining that in this comment would be too much for this already long comment
The idea isn't that he abandoned termina. The idea is that when he goes back to the start of the 3-day cycle, the version of termina that he disappears from when he time travels continues on, and without his help, it collapses.
Fun theory! Actually feel this could be split into three (the way the timelines converge, alternate timeline splits and the Zonai-Twili War), the concepts are separate enough they could be pitched on their own.
I really like this idea, because a timeline without games just feels inherently interesting. The convergence stuff makes sense in a way i can't really put into words. Solid theory, I accept it as canon. The only minor thing is that TP Link is meant to be a descendant of Oot and MM Link, but him not existing in the shadow timeline's Twilight Princess shouldn't affect the story much
The first zonai location makes perfect sense, because the zonai could have come into being "before the events of SS" by appearing after demise is destroyed in the past, creating a 4th timeline split at that time
The thing about Arbiter's Grounds is that its a location that has actually existed since prior to OoT and MC for that matter since the Interloper War happens prior to Hyrule's first founding.
There are two problems with your theory 1. The Gerudo were wiped out after Ocarina of Time and there are none to be found in Twilight Princess 2. After the Wind Waker Hyrule was under water and destroyed by the king. Link and Zelda founded new Hyrule far from the original one and Technology thrived in Spirit Tracks 3. The Sheikah went extinct after Twilight Princess. The only one remaining are Impaz and probably the fortune teller from castle town in Twilight Princess
you're incorrect about the ocarina timeline split. the only time the ocarina is used to time travel in oot is at the very end. every other time travel was done using the master sword. additionally, tp link is actually a direct descendant of oot link, meaning that in the shadow timeline, tp link wouldn't exist at all.
One theory had was about what causes a timeline split is in relation to Zelda. And TotK happens to provide the perfect second scenario that's needed to form a correlation between the splits we know of. BOTW and TotK in my mind actually are not in the same timeline, the events were changed to prevent a time-loop. Going by the normal flow of things, Ganon likely would have won in the "original" TotK timeline but Zelda would probably go back in time to change the past, to save the future. It goes something like this... We know there's already a Light Dragon roaming around in the sky even before Zelda has gone back to the past, so there's two Zelda's... And we know that Zelda is both the Sage of Light and the Sage of Time, thanks to Rauru and Sonia's secret stones' hereditary traits passing down to her through the royal bloodline. I've also seen theory videos that align with or changed my thinking/perspective on this matter from what it used to be... Like, Dragons (and the Zonai) are revered like deities, Zelda becomes a Dragon, so the Light Dragon could technically be referred to as Hylia, who was Zelda's previous, divine self... And we know that the Goddess Hylia is the one who chose her Hero, and created the Master Sword- and it was through the Light Dragon's power with which the Master Sword was restored. "History doesn't repeat, but it sure likes to rhyme"...Also, it's heavily implied that the Sealing Power Zelda had was from the Triforce, as that symbol shows up on her hand when she uses the power in BotW (and I think in the scene in TotK where the Master Sword is restored?), so you could also use this as the creation myth lore for the Triforce itself. Funnily enough, I know people hate it, but treating the series as a different telling of the same tale, the same legend, which loses accuracy/changes details over time, also becomes more plausible from this perspective (do remember Fi's words about the Oral Tradition being the least reliable way of retaining information accurately). There are a lot of similarities and coincidences throughout the stories across the series- take the Mirror of the Twilight, and the Dark Mirror. Also, there are similarities between the Zonai and the Minish... Plus, need I mention that there's a similar backstory between the Twili (the Interlopers), the ancient and evil tribe who created Majora's Mask (which honestly, in my mind, can't be a coincidence, since there are design similarities between Midna's Mask and Majora's Mask), and yeah, a lot of the stuff in the series is similar/seems connected... One coincidence is just that, but many no longer is a coincidence.
I think there's a reason Link didn't cause a timeline split every time he traveled back and forth between the past and future but a split did happen when Zelda sent him back. There's one factor that's different. When Link used the ocarina he took it with him. When Zelda sent him back he left it behind. Time follows the ocarina. When it's left behind a timeline splits. The downfall timeline can be explained in the same way. We can speculate that Link originally died when he fought Ganondorf in ocarina of time. When the ocarina is used to time travel you revert to your form you were in at that time which is why he becomes a child in the past. Zelda used the ocarina off screen to send dead Link to the past before he died. This brought him back to life the same way going back 7 years reverts him to a child. However because he left the ocarina behind the downfall timeline continued with out him ever coming to the rescue. Link starts over with memories of his death and is successful in the adult timeline. Zelda sends him back to his childhood and the adult timeline continues without the hero of time. He never shows up in the adult timeline as an adult because he was sent to a different timeline. The point of the story is don't leave the ocarina behind or you'll split the timeline.
yes i was also thinking this! i have a big response to add on to your comment, feel free to read if you'd like and add feedback. this is totally open to criticism and would probably benefit from it: with the ocarina of time, isn't it interesting how, even though link had it, he could never use it change time beyond changing the sky from night to day and vice versa in OoT specifically? if he wanted to go backwards/forward in time, he HAD to go to the temple of time and put the sword back/take the sword. this implies that either link simply didnt know how to do that at command with the ocarina (unlike zelda) or that zelda has a level of authority over time she cant necessarily (?) access without using the ocarina of time. not to mention that zelda doesn't even play the song of time to send link back to childhood; she plays zelda's lullaby. OR! it could mean something else regarding the sacred realm and the goddess of time's power during the events of OoT but i will get to that in a bit in contrast with the role of the song of time in OoT, when it came to majora's mask, he was able to control time to a much greater and very precise degree. he could make time slow down, reset 3 days worth of time (maybe more if he wanted? unsure, there was not a need to go back more than 3 days because majora had to have sealed the giants in order for link to begin saving termina), and even skip 12 hours AS WELL AS hour intervals in the remake but he does that with the song of time. this is weird, right? how can he all of a sudden manipulate time to this degree with that melody when the song of time was only used to create/move/get rid of time blocks in OoT? maybe it has to do with not needing to manipulate time in that way or not knowing how, but i fail to see how that could make sense really. moving blocks around and going back 3 days in time and slowing time down are very different obv. it would also benefit link to be able to manipulate time like that, including in OoT i.e. saving him in a tough battle that could've gotten him killed if he was able to find cover and play it. maybe it has do with the divinity of the goddess of time? maybe her divinity only allowed link domain over moving time blocks in OoT. i see two potential reasons for this: 1. as to ensure he always had the mastersword in the pedestal or was grabbing it from the pedestal depending on if he's going forwards or backwards. kind of a weak reason to me, honestly 2.maybe since ganondorf entered the sacred realm to steal the triforce once link took the sword, he also somehow suppressed the goddess of time's power, making the song of time only able to clear time blocks. this could potentially explain why link learning the song of time AFTER defeating ganon as an adult and returning as a child granted him the ocarina's power to a higher degree than it did before. ganon never went into the sacred realm and suppressed the goddess of time's power, so it granted him a higher ability of time manipulation than previously it's also just worth noting that the act of putting the sword back makes him go back in time being a weird thing. i understand the seal it makes when he takes it out, but he puts it back in to go backwards, yet does not use the ocarina of time at all to do that. perhaps the goddess of time is directly asserting power to him there without even the need for the ocarina, which contradicts the number 2 point i made in the previous paragraph, but maybe her powers there are stronger and we DO know that the mastersword is untouchable by ganon, at least in OoT era, which is why it was used to seal the sacred realm to begin with my point in saying all of this is to continue your idea and to put the goddess of time into question more with everything. she's never physically seen but is absolutely real and powerful, her strength accessible in termina being a huge testament to how wide her rule is. but you know what's even MORE WEIRD about this? as far as i can tell, the goddess of time (at least in these timelines of OoT and MM, unsure if she's talked about in other timelines) is NOT spoken of at all. i could be so wrong about this tho so i'm not going to be too confident about that statement, but from just what i can tell, she is only mentioned in majora's mask. she isnt a goddess the hylians worship in OoT, but is a goddess of those people in termina that they acknowledge. i think when they mention the goddess in ocarina of time, theyre just referring to nayru, farore, and din. you could assert then that the goddess of time only exists for termina, but that isn't the case. link receives the ocarina after going back to zelda after being sent back in time once ganon was defeated. this takes place in hylia obv so it's not just termina that the goddess of time is relevant/has authority in maybe she has a lot more to do with these timeline splits than we realize. i'm certain she expresses herself through zelda, which i know is the reincarnation of hylia, but i do think hylia and the goddess of time are separate entities. maybe she has to do with the convergence and the shadow timelines rather than the timelines running together eventually. makes you wonder what ever happened to the ocarina and other sacred tools of the series. so many reappear in TotK and BotW but not ones such as the ocarina, the goddess harp, etc.
@@bbbbbbbbbbbrbbrb the master sword thing you mentioned is explained in game you use it operate the gate of time between the moment you put the sword back and the moment before you pull the sword zelda however used the ocarina of time to redirect the gate of time to before link and zelda first met causing the two way timeline split the fallen time line branches off before the events of ocarina of time
Termina is probably a dreamspace that exists in Link’s mind, like in Link’s Awakening. If so, nothing that happens in a dream can impact the real world, much less split reality into separate timelines
You COULD gymnastics your way to a pre-curse of Demise Ganondorf if you argued that Denise's curse needed something to cling to and it found the sealed Ganondorf under Hyrule Castle. What that would have caused is Demise's curse leading to a kind of eventual cloning of Ganondorf to give rise to the Ganondorf of OoT, WW, and TP as well as the Ganon of ALttP, the Oracle games, Zelda 1, and Zelda 2. When that Ganon is killed in all three timeliness, the curse would have endlessly cloned Ganondorf, leading to the Ganondorf in FSA and eventually the rise of Calamity Ganon. During all that time, Rauru's seal continued to weaken, eventually allowing the true Ganondorf (the one the curse bonded to) to return for Tears of the Kingdom. Basically: True Ganondorf is just a sorcerer who tried to take over Rauru's Hyrule. Eventually, after the events of Tears, Rauru's Hyrule collapsed (possibly due to the demon invasion) and Hylia created Skyloft. Then, Skyward Sword happens and we get Demises's curse which clings to True Ganondorf giving rise to the Ganon we have known since Zelda 1 and all future Ganons until True Ganondorf is freed in Tears.
Skyward Sword created a timeline split because the final boss battle takes place a thousand years before the rest of the game, meaning it creates a timeline where The Imprisoned doesn't even exist. It seems that the ending cutscene takes place in the original timeline where Demise had been imprisoned for a millenium, and Demise's curse has some sort of transcendent power to be relevant even in a parallel timeline where he wasn't killed until the Triforce and skyloft crashed into his sealing grounds, which is the timeline that the rest of the game takes place in.
We never see any other blood relatives of Sonia in TotK's Zonai era aside from Zelda, but Rauru does have a semi-recurring line whenever the subject of him and Mineru being the last Zonai (or his and Sonia's own deaths) comes up. Namely, he says that he "already took steps to ensure Hyrule would prosper without him and Sonia". Given that iirc, "ensuring (insert country here)'s prosperity" is occasionally used in medieval settings as a euphemism for continuing the royal bloodline I'd say it is possible that the child does exist but Rauru is just being vague about it. Which, while that is lazy storytelling, I probably would do the same thing, maybe even actively try to ensure my hypothetical child is kept safely far away from the likely center of conflict.
I think you did a great job with this theory, that being said it was never confirmed nor denied if rauru and Sonya already had a child witch is also a very possible outcome, but that was the only thing that I had even the slightest problem with. All and all i loved the video and the theory 👍
Good theory but a alternative explanation for the bloodline ending thing Sonia could’ve had a younger sister to take the throne after the events of Totks memorys
Oh man I had always believed that both ss and mm had a ti line split although I never believed that the mm split had any important dominoe effect but when you pointed out that link is just gone in that timeline that gave me a "Oh Shit! He's right!" Moment! Lol
and my take is theory 3 but with really large time frames. hundreds of thousands of years time frames in some instances. and that the convergence occurred due to a conflict of major proportions similar to that of hyrule warriors (which i know is confirmed non canon and even in that game in the end the timelines go back to normal however I believe that it is a viable groundwork to establish my take on the convergence) which left the 3 timelines in utter disrepair so much so that the only viable way to fix it is to reunite the timelines. so the forces of hylia use the triforce to bring forth a new timeline which the damage done can be healed. this new timeline then has a new race come from it to help protect it, the zonai, they watched over the land for quite some time however by some mysterious means they had to take to the skies and would then live an isolated life. generations have passed since this event occured to such a point that some of the original zonai structures have deteriorated away. it is still not clear what made the zonai near extinct but it isnt too important. what is important is that to have a glimmer of hope in saving their kind rauru and mineru went to the surface this is shortly before the founding of hyrule. andd then we get the events of ToTK a few years after with zelda showing up and all the stuff then. the kingdom is saved and goes on to flourish. the sheika developing their own technologies that arent too dissimilar to the zonai. time jump and we get the events of the great calamity 10k years before BoTW then that 10k year gap then BoTW's great calamity and link getting mortally wounded yada yada 100 years nap then like 3-5 years after BoTW is ToTK prologue then like a week or something after that is link waking up on the GSI and the rest of the game.
and the death of queen sonia doesnt necessarily mean the end of the goddess being reincarnated in a mortal form. its entirely possible that just like how link is often times unrelated to other links (barring a few exceptions of course) its possible that they will reincarnate unrelated to the "current" royal bloodline should it bear no heir. its very much likely that after rauru's sacrifice a top advisor or highly respected individual related to rauru (in regards to kingdomy affairs) would then take control of the throne and they bear an heir which restarts the royal bloodline bearing the goddess's power. it isnt hard set that the royal bloodline is the only way the goddess can reincarnate. hell SS zelda kinda proves that point by technically not being royalty at all. it seems more like the goddess chooses to stick within the bloodline but will choose someone outside of it if need be. hell that is even if all the royal families depicted in the games are all apart of the same continuous bloodline that has spanned thousands of years within the established timeline.
I don't think not seeing Sonia and Rauru's children in totk means they don't have any tbh. Even though there's no telling how old they are exactly, they are however both older adults. My guess is the children simply weren't necessary for the developers to tell the story they wanted to, and therefore we never see them. (Not to mention they could already be adults with their own duties to attend to, maybe even beyond Hyrule. 🤔) Adding their kids would also mean designing the half-zonai's, which is additional workload for what's probably minor characters story-wise that could be better spent elsewhere. Doesn't explain why there's not even a mention of their children though, but again i suppose it was never relevant to the story they wanted to tell. (There's also the possibility that Sonia saying she senses the blood-connection could _be_ the implication that they already have children, but i might be stretching a bit.)
Ganondorf says in one memory (#7 I think) that Rauru and Mineru are the last of their kind. If there were half-zonai running around, I would figure that they would have been mentioned.
I have my own timeline theory Skyward Sword: The Master Sword is created and the Triforce is discovered along with the world lost word of Hyrule --------- Tears of the Kingdom flashbacks: Rauru, becomes the Zonai King and he meets Zelda who warns them about Ganon. They fight Ganon and Rauru sacrifices himself to seal Ganon and Zelda becomes a Dragon --------- Breath of the Wild: after thousands of years the surface world is now fully inhabited. The redhead guy from Skyward Sword created the Gerudo at some point and he had good relationship with the hylians. The Calamity happens several times durinh those thousand of years and Hyrule wins each time until they lose and the champions die except for Link and 100 years later, the events of Breath of the Wild happen Tears of the Kingdom: the events of Tears of the Kingdom happen. The sky Islands from Skyward Sword might or might not be related to the ones from this game --------- Minish Cap: the Sky islands are now inhabited and Vaati starts his evil plans but is defeated by Link --------- Four Swords and Four Swords Adventure: Vaati eventually returns until he is defeated. A new version of Ganondorf also appears and is swiftly defeated by Link --------- The Fallout with the Gerudo: at some point, Hyrule cuts all friendly contact with the Gerudo to the point they hate Hyrulians and want to go to war with them. --------- The New Rauru: at some point a baby is born and he is named Rauru in honor of the original Zonai King and he grows up to become the new Sage of light --------- Ocarina of Time: during the Hyrulian Civil war a hylian mother take her baby to the Kokiri forest to be safe from the war, that baby being Link. 10 years later the events of Ocarina of Time take place. Link meets Zelda and he gets the three stones, he pulls out the Master Sword, Ganondorf gains entrance to the sacred realm and then Link gets all the medallions and finally defeats Ganondorf --------- Majora Mask: Link goes to Termina where he has the mission of stopping the mask from destroying this land from being destroyed. Link eventually helps a bunch of people and saves the land and then returns to Hyrule --------- The second Hyrulian civil war: after Zelda warned her father about Ganondorf, the King turns against the Gerudo and Ganondorf decides to attack Hyrule. Link returns to Hyrule and becomes a knight. Link at some point loses his eye and he marries Malon. He and Malon build Ordon Village over the abandoned Kokiri forest and they have several children. Link eventually dies in the lost forest/sacred grove either by a stalfo or by a wolf and he died with regret becoming the hero’s shade --------- Ganondorf’s failed execution: at some point, Ganondorf lost the war and he was sent to Arbiter’s ground which was built over the Spirit Temple from Ocarina of time and his execution fails and he is sent to the Twilight Realm where he meets Zant giving him power. Midna gets exiled by Zant --------- Zelda Twilight Princess: 200 years after the death of the hero of time a new Link lives in Ordon village. There are several decendants of Link and Malon living in Ordon Village, those being Rusl, Colin, Talon, possibly Malo, and Link. The events of Twilight Princess take place and Ganondorf is finally killed once and for all by Twilight Link. Link eventually leaves Ordon either to serve as a knight of Hyrule or for a new adventure
Didn't Queen Sonya say that she can feel Zelda is a relative of Rauru's as well? Also, shouldn't have Rauru been highly alarmed, when a guy named Ganondorf appears to be the Gerudo Chief instead of staying cool and waiting for some sort of peaceful life all together? Othern than that, I am amazed by this theory and I'm sold!
So, slight detail missed, the Hero's Shade refers to the hero in Twilight Princess as his child, and repeatedly references certain skills as only being known within their shared bloodline, meaning, while it is debatable whether or not the Link in Twilight Princess is his literal son, he is at the very least, a direct descendant, so in the shadow timeline, which the hero of time leaves as a child, there is absolutely no way he could have had any kids, being a child himself, as such, it would not be a matter of the hero of twilight failing, it would be a matter of him simply not being born in the first place, as be it his father, grandfather, or prior ancestor, that bloodline never even began in that timeline. Having said that, this is a nitpick it does not necessarily disprove the main premise of the theory, just how the events surrounding that particular sequence unfold. It is also worth noting that when looking at the ways the Twili attack Hyrule in Twilight Princess, it they follow roughly the same strategy that Ganondorf used in Ocarina of Time. It should also be taken into consideration that in the shadow timeline, Ganondorf may not have even been sealed in the Twilight Realm, as it is somewhat implied by the Hero's Shade that he may have helped in the fight against Ganondorf in that timeline as well, and while it could be argued that tipping off the royal family was the main thing, it may not have been enough. In Twilight Princess, one could argue that Ganondorf acquiring the Triforce was likely the result of the timelines starting to converge, further evidenced by the scar on the head of his beast form, matching the place where he got stabbed in the face in beast form in the adult timeline, if the hero of time was not present to help, I suspect it would have taken too long to apprehend Ganondorf, as such the shadow timeline would likely playout very similar to the original downfall timeline, except that the original downfall timeline was likely caused by the time travel required to get the Silver Gauntlets and lens of truth (basically any time you go back in time before beating the game in Ocarina of Time), the one key difference is that in the shadow timeline, none of the sages would get free, whereas in the original downfall timeline, at a bare minimum, at least one sage would get free, possibly as many as 4 or 5, thus the sages could not seal Ganondorf, so instead of getting the resulting events described in a Link to the Past, you get the total annihilation of Hyrule, and unlike the adult timeline, there are no recent fables of any heroes to give people hope for any kind of defeat of Ganondorf, so instead of praying and getting a flood, they simply give up and accept death or enslavement, the Zonai come on scene and put a stop to it after realizing what went down and help the Shiekah to build the Divine beasts in secret, with their combined efforts with what few people are left in Hyrule, they eventually kill Ganondorf, but the Shiekah go mad with power, a civil war breaks out resulting in the birth of the Yiga clan, so they are then driven near extinction and the whole of Hyrule gets set back to the bronze age in the process, getting the events from the Tiers of the Kingdom ancient past with Rauru and Sonya being the first to unify Hyrule as a kingdom under a single banner since the death of the original Ganondorf, but they seemingly forgot about the threat of Ganondorf by that point due to the amount of history lost during the civil war with the Shiekah, so you get Rauru doing the big stupid of going "I'm just gonna watch Ganondorf instead of killing him on account of him basically being Hyrule's version of Satan." I'm sure there's some details I missed as well, but that's kinda how I imagine the shadow timeline playing out.
The thing is Hylia is not referred to as a Time Goddess, she is referred as a Light Goddess. The only time Zelda had confirmed Time Powers was in Ocarina of Time where she played the Ocarina of Time to send Link back. Every other Zelda before and after OoT Zelda had Powers over Light in some form. And how did Ganondorf lose to someone with Stones that don't even grand them infinite durrability?
Majora's isn't the obvious split for this one, it's Skyward Sword. These games are part of (as Nintendo calls it) their "Triforce Trilogy". Originally Demise broke free from his seal and ravaged Hyrule, destroying iconic locations like the springs of power, courage and Wisdom, and the Sheikah nearly go extinct. Eventually he is defeated, but Hyrule is almost unrecognizable from the damage. People lived in scattered tribes, terrified of monsters. The Minish helped them rebuild, as seen in the history explained in Minish cap. Ganon takes longer to emerge as an incarnation of demise in this timeline, and it eventually leads to Ocarina of Time and the main timeline split we know about. Botw and all its history lead off in a 4th timeline branching from Link going back in time and killing Demise in the past. All the springs remain intact, along with other artifacts of the sky kingdom, and the Sheikah tribe thrives (why there are so many). Ganon is incarnated much sooner, because Demise died much sooner. (Shown in the ancient past of Totk) Nintendo, just to reference every game possible, scattered Easter eggs implying alternate versions of other Zelda timeline events occured. (The ancient fight with calamity Ganon may be their version of "A Link to the Past, with the "7 heroines" helping link instead of 7 maidens descended from sages. Fun Easter egg clothes and weapons aren't clues to the timeline, they are red herrings. They only exist to hit our nostalgia button so fans of every Zelda timeline are drawn in. The "imprisoning War" here is clearly an entirely different event from the one referred to in a Link To The Past. It is "this dimensions version" of the imprisoning war, not the one we're familiar with. Botw takes place at the same "time" as the original Legend of Zelda, just in another dimension, and Totk is this dimensions Zelda 2 "Adventure of Link". The devs purposely recreated iconic landscapes seen in the original Zelda game art, and they made a beta testing version of botw in 8bit that looked like classic zelda. They also went out of their way to make as many enemies from that game appear. Nintendo was too lazy on this one to make it fit into one of the already established timelines - they would need to care about story intricacy more. Instead they took the lazy route and decided to branch it off from the timelines earliest point (Skyward Sword) so they could do whatever they wanted without needing to be careful about anything. Ganon in Totk only recognizes links name because Zelda spouts it out every 5 min in the past to everyone she meets and ganon was using his phantom to spy. As a side note - I personally think in the original timeline, the Zonai showed up to find a fully functioning kingdom, and ended up going to war for the Triforce, and were the "dark interlopers" that were banished to the twilight realm and became the twili. It would explain why their architecture and bodies are so similar.
Interesting theory, But I don't think Majora’s Mask would cause a timeline split. First it relies on the assumption that time travel in Termina would affect Hyrule. That is certainly possible, but not confirmed. But even if it did, I still doubt it would cause a split. Putting aside the mess that is the Downfall Timeline, the only reference we have for causing a timeline split is from the end of OoT. Somehow, a split is caused when Zelda sends Link back, but not when Link returns the master sword earlier in the game. I can think of a couple possible explanations for this: 1. The split is caused because Zelda has authority over time due to her lineage. 2. The split has to due with the Triforce. When Link travels back in time, there is never a point in which the status of the Triforce is altered. It's unclear if Link is sent back before or after Ganondorf enters the sacred realm, but either way there are still only 1 of each Triforce piece. The only thing that changes is whether the other pieces went to their owners. When Zelda sends Link back in time, she removes the Triforce of Courage from her own timeline. This resulted in Link's triforce piece taking the place of the original in his timeline, and a shattered version filling the gap in the adult. The Triforce seems to be some sort of universal constant in Zelda, so perhaps the switcheroo resulted in two separate timelines forming around the different versions of the triforce. Neither of these two explanations apply to the time travel in Majora's Mask. Besides, the time travel in MM seems more like rewinding 3 days to me.
This was very cool! Where would the part about Zelda having Rauru’s light powers fit in? (The thing Sonia says along with Zelda having her time power.)
My argument for that would be this: Hylia was a goddess created by the Golden Goddesses, who were from the heavens. Hylia got light power from them. I'm pretty sure light power is what is used to 'seal' (a kind of imprisonment spell), since we see different incarnations of Zelda do this, and because Rauru does it. Current Zelda would've gotten light power from Hylia's bloodline (as well as from the Minish Cap Zelda, although that is too large a can of worms for a concise explanation). Rauru obviously also has this power, since we see him use it. The reason that Sonia connects Zelda's light power with Rauru's is the source of those powers. Both Hylia and the Zonai originated from the 'heavens', the realm of the gods. It seems to me that the light power is something that is always sourced from the heavens.
My idea for Breath of the Wild was that its timeline inconsistencies were the result of a Time Crash; after all, what happens if you try to make a Triforce out of three Power pieces? Cue Ganon invading the other timelines to fight his own counterparts, and the inevitable triple-Power disaster resulting in the Calamity being born, with the Old Man (at least before I learned the truth) being Ganondorf's remaining humanity shed by the Calamity. There was also the idea for it being a stable time loop of sorts to explain the Downfall timeline's existence, with the Downfall timeline being the canon one and the Lens of Truth being an artefact sent back through time to stop the Hero of Time dying horribly in the Shadow Temple.
Child Timeline I could see Link riding Epona along after a battle with Majors well fought and thinking about the Adult timeline "Oh no! Majora still thrives... Hyrule is next if Termina has fallen... I have to go back!" Combines the Powers of the Fierce Diety and Ocarina of Time to Travel back to the after math of Ocarina of Time in front of his home to begin a journey a new... creating an abandoned Child Shadow timeline.
yes but they would've been made by Hylians who were influenced by the Zonai, since the Zonai ruled them for a while. After all, three of the geoglyphs depict the Zonai and one depicts a secret stone.
Sonia being a zelda fits perfectly because if Ganondorf won in twilight princess then when rauru and the zonai rebuilt hyrule after descending and sealing him they wouldn't necessarily follow the naming convention of all the princesses being named zelda..... so Sonia could be zelda/hylia for the shadow timeline but have a different name, i.e., Sonia.
One small detail to account for, but doesn't affect the theory is that Twilight Princess Link is a direct descendant of OoT Link. I wouldn't say he failed but rather also didn't exist because of OoT Link disappearing.
So this is more based on impressions and the similarity to remote bombs but i wonder if the Minish and the Zonai used to be the same race at some point
There’s no way that Nintendo put this much thought into this. If we ever get an actual explanation, it will be something way simpler, like one of the ideas dismissed right at the start of this video, even if it doesn’t fit perfectly. Nintendo simply covers their bases for any contradictions by saying, “it’s all just legends and open to interpretation.”
The problem with the timeline placement of Breath of the wild and also Tears of the Kingdom is that logically there would be no way for the tales or events of other timelines to be known. Unless the timelines were either connected in some sort of event so that the knowledge of events could be passed down, or through the power of the triforce (wisdom). Although many fans assume that through the power of the triforce memories from previous holders is passed down, as far as I know there is no canon lore to support it. Keep in mind that Ganondorf isn't necessarily the "manifestation of hatred" in tears of the kingdom, or in any game, most people just assume that he is. "This eternal being has conquered time itself. It is the source of all monsters. According to tales passed down through generations. It appears differently in each epoch and to each person who lays on it." - FI Although it could be reasoned that anyone who creates or can control monsters is a servant to demise or has access to his powers, then again, not all creators control everything that they create. "The blood moon" creates monsters.
the theory of the tri-force of wisdom providing timeline information is actually in the Twilight Princess Manga, when Gannon has a conversation with Zelda and they specifically talk about the two other timelines, It's a good read too and apparently TP:HD was suppose to eventually be based off the manga, but the manga took too long so they just went with a texture upscale. so Nintendo probably was writing the intention to explain it and everything else since twilight princess!
Quite an interesting theory. I've been more on the side of BOTW and TOTK falling somewhere after a split that branches from SS. I never really thought about a MM split being a thing since the game is so self contained.
I thought about the SS split possibility for a while, and that may be a good explanation, too. I just couldn't find as much evidence for it as I could for an MM split.
@@barbecuesos6242 impa went to the future set in motion the events of links time including link going back in time so to the imprisoned this is the first attempt so what happens when the imprisoned breaks free of the seal destroys the gate of time and breaks the loop
@barbecuesos6242 I remember playing SS when it came out, and it's always bothered me that time travel caused such a huge impact to the timeline in OoT but not SS. So once BOTW came out and didn't really fit anywhere I developed my own little head cannon that the original timeline came after the future of SS when Zelda and Link stayed on the surface and BOTW (and now TOTK) all came after Demise was defeated in the past. Since Demise was gone, there was no longer a need for the humans to remain in the sky, and the land became safer much faster, so everything develops in a vastly different way. Hyrule was established hundreds (thousands?) of years sooner by a different king and queen who may or may not have any relation to Hylia. Ganondorf makes his appearance much sooner in the timeline and seems much more destructive and chaotic because his consciousness as Demise was never outright destroyed and only sealed in the Master sword as opposed to the future where he was sealed away and eventually morphed into the imprisoned and destroyed to be reborn as a new person with his own goals (i.e. compare WW Ganondorf who talks about wanting whats best for the Gerudo as a motivation while TOTK Ganondorf wants to roll back to a less peaceful time because he thinks Rauru is a coward apparently according to what I'veseen about the more literal Japanese translations of some of the memories). This makes me think that TOTK Ganondorf still is largely Demise wanting to return to how things were before he was stopped by Link and when he grabbed the secret stone this was amplified and perhaps he remembered some of his prior life.
This doesn't quite work. There's evidence of zonai symbology dateing as far back as skyward sword's spirit guardian and the sandship and also in the windwaker temple of the gods. So either the Zonai architecture in some way is truly divine in origin and therefore is present due to godly influence or they predate the construction of most of the skyward sword ruins.
@@barbecuesos6242 seems more likely that ganondorf simply predates Demise. Edit: also the existence of the ancient robots from skyward sword. Or gohdan from windwaker. All this indicates the zonai decending firmly before skyward sword. It also explains their disappearance at the hands of the rise of Demise and his legion of devils. How ganondorf could exist before demise is intriguing but not a plot hole.
Great video! I have been thinking about something. Since Zelda is sent back in time at the start of Totk, wouldn't that create another split? Everything happening in Botw was dependent on Zelda and Link with the master sword, but if she along with the master sword was preoccupied with being a dragon and healing the master sword, none of the events in Botw could happen the way they did in the game. I would love to hear what the people think about this 🔥
I don't know. I suppose it would depend on if time travel used in that way causes a timeline split or not. We see something similar to this in Skyward Sword, where Zelda goes into the past using the Gate of Time and returns to the present later without any obvious timeline split. I don't think that there's any way to prove that there's a split there, but there isn't a clear denial of the existence of a split either.
@@barbecuesos6242 impa went to the future in skyward sword so no time travel to the past took place time split in ocarina of time only when link went back to the past and not between present and future
To me I always thought Tears of the kingdom is some kind of alternate universe ocarina of time, if you really think about it it kinda makes sense, there are a lot of parallels between the 2 games. (Ganondorf pledging loyalty, deku tree getting sick, phantom ganon, Sages, time travel, etc) it just feels like a retelling with a couple of changes thats why alternate universe. Maybe its because the timelines converged and somehow the ocarina story kinda repeated itself idk.
SS time travel is very weird and inconsistent. I would say that it does create a new timeline after Demise is defeated, but not ones where more minor changes are made like planting the tree for example.
There is one problem the Timeline with the succesfull invasion of the Twili there wouldn´t be a Link to begin with because the Heroes Shade is related by blood with the Heroe of Shadows. So it would probably had come a entire new Hero like in Wind Waker but he also could have come after the succesfull invasion.
That may be correct, I'm not sure. I think it would end up playing out the same way, though. Whether or not TP Link is around in TP, he would lose in the shadow timeline
I've seen so many of these timeline theory videos using easter egg cosmetics as evidence for their theories. You just can't do that. That's like saying the Sat Fox universe and the Zelda universe exist together because a whole row of masks in Majora's Mask reference the Star Fox characters. The easter egg cosmetics in TotK were DLC in the BotW. In TotK they decided to give them to all players. It's as simple as that. The creators have made it clear they don't consider the timeline when making these games. I like to think of them as "legends", they're all myths and stories from long ago, so long ago no one can place them. Sometimes story elements get mixed up or things change over time through oral tradition. They're all The Legend of Zelda, told by different people at different times. Sometimes they're connected, sometimes they're not. Anyway, that's how I free myself from worrying about the timeline. Now my new problem is the two most recent games have almost zero legend or story to them...
Hang on, saying Sonia doesnt have children just because we don't see them is like saying she doesn't have any parents just because we don't see them. Or saying the rest of the kingdom of Hyrule doesn't exist because we don't see them during the tear memories. I dont recall her and rauru saying in no uncertain terms "We do not have children." But i am on my second play through, so i may be plain wrong
I really enjoy this theory but my question is what about the war from 10,000 years ago from the tapestry in botw? It couldn’t of take place after the events of Zelda becoming the light dragon if we assume the sword the hero holds in the tapestry is the master sword. I also don’t believe that could of been Sonia and Raru because of the fact it is Calamity Gannon. I don’t think it could of take place before the existence of Sonia and Raru because again it is Calamity Gannon. Where does that battle fall in place?
While some of the connections made are there regarding the Twili and some Zonai stuff, there are... A lot of issues with this theory. First off, and rather minor but still, I've not heard suggestions of those other timeline placements. I heard of the timeline cycle theory before TotK came out, when people speculated the whole timeline would be revealed to loop back to the beginning of Skyward Sword, but I haven't heard that since the game's release. Every placement I've heard that comes before a possible convergence is right after Skyward Sword (Hyrule has not yet been founded and is not founded at the very end of Skyward Sword, so the claim is that this comes after Skyloft is brought to the ground but before Hyrule Kingdom is established) or in the Downfall Timeline, between Ocarina of Time and A Link To The Past, since the backstory of A Link To The Past mentions the Imprisoning War. It doesn't really matter that you mention those other placements as being most popular as it doesn't directly impact the theory, more just a comment on that part. Onto the actual theory, and ignoring my personal pet peeve regarding the Hero's Shade nonsense, while there is time travel involved in Majora's Mask and hypothetically that could lead to another branching timeline, it's kind of implied that every potential branch outside of the three established points are essentially doomed timelines where nothing really happens. After all, there's an infinite number of potential timelines, both from every potential point at which Link can die to every optional side quest to... Countless other things. No, not necessarily every conceivable decision, since I believe it's stated that those all become the same main timeline when the choices are inconsequential and still have the same final result, but that's not necessarily the case for side quests and the like. But even just every possible death gives an infinite number of potential branches. Even your own shadow timeline theory could also just stem from Link dying during the events of Twilight Princess and don't require an earlier split created during Majora's Mask. Or there could even be a split caused by Midna not destroying the Mirror of Twilight. There really isn't any evidence of a split in the timeline. And no, the lacking technology of the Hylians during Rauru's time doesn't count as evidence. Yes, it is evidence of how thorough and lasting whatever destroyed the previous Kingdom was. They clearly lost all of their advancements long enough that they've not only yet to be able to re-establish Hyrule Kingdom, but have forgotten there ever was one. But... Well, there's no evidence what they were experiencing in Twilight Princess would ever lead to that. They became spirits, sure, but as we know from listening to them in that form, they didn't vanish or stop existing or anything. They kept living, continued going about their days, though now dealing with shadow beasts and stuff. We see them interacting with the world around them, even if we can't interact with them. How could a few generations of that lead to the entire Kingdom being wiped out so thoroughly that they forget there was a Hyrule Kingdom long before ever being able to establish a new Kingdom? That suggests a thorough decimation of the populous and likely destruction of all signs of civilization. That requires a full on apocalyptic event that nearly wiped out all life. Not a century of the Twilight and whatever that was causing. I mean seriously, the result of whatever happened was comparable to the impact of the war against Demise and disappearance of Hylia's chosen people leading up to the events of Skyward Sword. Besides, even if we were to assume a branch resulted in there being no Hero's Shade to teach the Hero of Twilight how to use his techniques, the only one that's actually necessary is the Ending Blow, and ignoring the fact we need to learn it to progress right away, the only mandatory usage of it is when you defeat Ganondorf at the very end of the game. No Hero's Shade to teach it means that Link could theoretically go through quite literally everything else, including saving the Light Spirits, getting the Master Sword, getting the Fused Shadow, infusing the Sols into the Master Sword, killing Zant, and even destroying the barrier around Hyrule Castle, everything except the final blow on Ganondorf. And even that's debatable, since it would be hypothetically possible to kill Ganondorf without the Ending Blow if we're talking about unseen possibilities, it's just the only option we as the player are given. Which means there's realistically no guarantee your speculation on the results of this timeline would come to fruition. It's all just speculation. Moving to the point of Sonia feeling the blood connection to Zelda, while it is true we do not have a confirmed explanation... That's that. We do not have a confirmed explanation for why we don't see her have a baby despite it being established that Zelda is her direct descendant. Yeah, it is hypothetically possible that there's a timeline split and convergence with an alternate timeline where Sonia is not murdered by Ganondorf and has a child with Rauru... But it's equally just as possible, if not more likely, she already had a kid with Rauru prior to Zelda's appearance. They married before they founded the Kingdom, and met Zelda after founding the Kingdom. It's implied they had been married for a few years. So there's nothing suggesting they couldn't have had a kid before meeting Zelda and we just never see it. There is clearly a lot more time that passes between Zelda's arrival and Sonia's death than we see, just looking at what's confirmed. It's implied Zelda talks about Link a lot, we know that Zelda and Sonia have enough time together for Sonia to teach Zelda to use her powers, there's definitely a gap in time between Ganondorf introducing himself to Rauru and him killing Sonia, there's also a gap in time between him stealing her Secret Stone and the final conflict where the Sages fail to stop him and Rauru seals him away. With so much unseen time that we can confirm, who's to say that time doesn't include Sonia and Rauru caring for an unseen child? Sure, we never see it, but that really does not mean anything since every possible explanation requires stuff we do not see. So... That should cover the important parts. There are too many possible options for a new timeline to really argue there being one we've not been told of, a split there specifically isn't needed for your speculated timeline to exist, your speculated timeline wouldn't even happen the way you say it would, there is no actual evidence of such a timeline existing, the evidence you gave kind of disproves the theory on its own, there are a number of possible explanations for the connection between Sonia and Zelda. Oh, and the theory still leaves holes in it, namely where the Zonai came from to defeat the Twili, why they defeated the Twili after the collapse of Hyrule only to leave again without helping rebuild, then return again after a long enough period of time that even they forgot Hyrule Kingdom had already existed previously. Oh, and a quick thing regarding the ancient ruins... That's not really much evidence. The ruins are older than the Zonai ruins either way, and at least 10,000 years passed between Rauru's time and BotW, so having the more ancient stuff be... Still more ancient but less so doesn't really make a difference. But as a simple explanation, even in the real world there are many ancient structures that have lasted longer than other, less ancient ones. The pyramids of Giza and the Great Sphinx are both in incredible condition for how old they are, meanwhile the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are... Not, despite the Pyramids being far older. Even more recent things like many structures from the medieval era have collapsed while things like the Colosseum in Rome are still standing. Just because something is less ancient, doesn't guarantee it would be in better condition. Different environmental conditions, different architectural designs and methods, all sorts of things can lead to some things lasting thousands of years while others leave no trace after less than a century.
One major issue with your theory. Terrmina from Majora's Mask already doesn't exist in the normal reality of Zelda, kind of like the island from Link's Awakening.
Sorry, could you explain why that is a problem? First of all, it's never 100% clear if Termina doesn't exist or if it does. Second, just because it's disconnected from the normal world doesn't mean that the things that happen there aren't real to Link. If anything, Termina being disconnected just explains why Majora never shows up in Hyrule if the theory is correct
@@barbecuesos6242 It means that the flow of time is entirely disconnected. Where as LA is a dream world , MM was a nightmare realm. Link repeating the same 3 days over and over doesn't crete an alternate timeline where in he loses to Majora, at least no more so than any other time he starts jumping through alternate realities, such as in A Link Between Worlds, or, funnily enough, Twilight Princess. I would argue even, that it's entirely more likely that this "shadow timeline" is actually a shadow au. A Link Between Worlds establishes this as something possible, and it would explain why BotW/TotK can have such a long timeline, and why Link and Zelda don't appear to have the Triforce bound to them in the same way as our main au representations of the Hero and Goddess. It's also entirely possible that we're both wrong. Only Nintendo can decide.
I actually think two temples of time makes sense and doesn't seem unnecessary bc one temple could be devoted to the past and the other to the future, the two sides of time. Maybe, anyways...
its a little confuseing but it would help explainmost of it and the parlese are quite impresive also i never thought about the whole time ablity in majora mask of makeing a sparate timline
I think a shadow timeline works really well! But this one doesn't work with my theory on the convergence and with the fact that all the timelines of majora seemingly converge at the end of the game (as seen in the end credits). Maybe we could say that if another split happened within the downfall timeline (in which the ocarina is back in Zelda's possession and who knows what she or her successors do with it) maybe the zonai are just that timeline's future version of the twili?
In the original timeline of totk, Sonia doesn't die because Dorf doesn't disguise himself as zelda to kill her BTW. Also please cover how all the dorfs seem to wear a secret stone on their foreheads
wow, I haven't had a video do this well in a long time! Thanks for your time & support
Well it's a good video!
Also do you have a discord server or something? I really like the way you think and would love to chat zelda lore.
its said in the hyrule book its all a dream not real made by the mask
There was one part of this theory that you might be wrong about. Even though there wasn’t any mention of Sonia and Rauru having children, that doesn’t mean that they never had any. It’s possible that they had children long before Zelda traveled back in time, and the children grew old enough where they could’ve took their own path and left Hyrule to figure out what their purpose is in life.
My problem is that the hero shade skills aren't needed to defeat Ganondorf or the twilight. Also this would mean twilight zelda is Sonia's ancestors which is logical with this theory but we could also presume the blood of the goddess is in all desened of hylia which means male desened would also have it even if it doesn't give them power so Sonia maybe a aunt of zelda.
I quite like shadow split idea but you forgot one thing which could strengthen the evidence for a shadow split: Hyrule Historia states that the hero of time and the Hero of twilight are connected by blood so if link "left" the shadow timeline the Hero of Twilight couldnt be born. MM Links disappearance would also mean that the spirit of the hero would also be gone from the shadow timeline (like in the adult timeline) This means that there wouldnt have been a Hero to save Hyrule from the Twilight as well as explain why there is a reincarnation of demises hatred and someone with the blood of the goddess in totks ancient past but no spirit of the hero to defeat Ganondorf. Only after the convergence would the spirit of the hero return to defeat Calamity Ganon
I really liked the video, but was also confused about the part where using the song of time stops the hero of time from existing for TP. I don't see it as an every time the song is used there being a split kind of thing. More so when he travels time and stays. (as he left adult timeline) but here the only way I see it working out for the shadow timeline to make sense is not just that if Majora was successful in Termina's destruction (as stated that likely wouldn't impact Hyrule) but rather if Link had stayed in Termina and not come back to train or even continue the bloodline (probs with Malon) to get TP Link.
This was probably meant to be simpler that any of the 3 day cycles where the moon falls Link already left, but those are Termina's terrible fate not Hyrule- eventually it's canon that Link finishes that and returns to Hyrule (possibly even fought in the gerudo hylian conflict during which the arbiter's grounds were constructed) but this theory is saying that when he abandons an instance of Termina using the song of time perhaps he doesn't return to Hyrule either I guess.
Honestly I think an easy fix to that would be for the shadow timeline to just be a Twilight Princess downfall timeline.
The Shadow timeline heavily relies on the Twili successfully to take over. The Hero’s Shades existence isn’t entirely necessary for that outcome, neither is Majora’s destruction of Termina.
The spirit of the hero appears to be present in A Link to the Past and the other downfall timeline games, so that logic could easily apply to the shadow timeline too.
That actually supports the theory, explaining the mysterious lack of a Link during the past events of TOTK.
You're probably right, that does make a little bit more sense
Weirdly this also explains convergence itself. Why did the timelines converge? Because in some timelines there was no hero spirit and thus time rewrote itself to continue the cycle.
I always think of the convergence as this: All three timelines simultaneously did and did not exist up until the point that all three timelines completely remerged causing splintered and incomplete memories and historical evidence.
Ngl, as an Elder Scrolls lore fan, confusion around the Zelda timeline convergence is really funny. 😂
Makes me feel like the epitome of the, "first time?" meme.
The twili / zonai connections really stood out to me too. There are SO many connections between the depths and twilight covered Hyrule as well, this makes a lot of sense.
i wonder if Majoras Mask took Place in the Depths.
If you want an explanation for how Ganondorf broke the Master Sword without having to invoke old Ganondorf's possession of the triforce of power, he didn't. It's tired, it needs time to recharge, we never see it used for two adventures in a row and we have evidence that it sometimes needs to be 'reminded' of its purpose, like in Wind Waker. I would also argue this is no different from it refusing Link initially in Breath of the Wild or not offering its full power without the trial of the sword, until its purpose was renewed it refused to fulfill its duty. However, notably, we see that the Triforce insignia on the blade is not harmed at all (which I would argue represents the blessings of the four goddesses, being bathed in the flames of the golden goddesses and directly blessed by Hylia). Since we never see anything below this point on the sword really damaged, I believe that the heart of the weapon, it being a divine sword created by Hylia, blessed by the four major figures of divinity in Hyrulean lore, is truly unbreakable, and it being "broken" was only a more dramatic version of Fi's classic warning: "Master, the batteries in your Wii Remote are nearly depleted".
This is a great theory! It solves a lot, if not all, of the inconsistency issues I had with TOTK. I really hated how TOTK felt like it was trying to retcon the entire timeline.
Nobody pointing out that the final battle between Link and Demise was outside of space and time and therefore the curse could've always been active even before skyward sword. It's a paradox like link being the chosen hero and the windmill song in OOT
and also I'm pretty sure reincarnation isn't affected by time nor space, which means it'd be possible to have a reincarnation of Demise in the past from his point of view
@@izdisamspareference591 plus he mentions that the first time he came hylians hid under rocks. If tears happens before skyward sword then ganon who even has a demise like form would be that version of him from that time
@@izdisamspareference591 also he mentions no one person was brave enough to oppose him. There was no hero in Raru's time. At least not one alive
Arguably yes, but before Skyward Sword there were supposed to be a ton of demons running around causing mayhem and widespread destruction. TotK's memories depict a Hyrule that is a lot tamer than that.
ok however the gerudo literally did not exist when skyward sword was around. its implied they evolve from the hylians
This video randomly popped on my feed and I did not realize you were a smaller content creator until the end... well done, enjoyed the video and theory seemed pretty sound!
I think the Sonia paradox is actually the cause of the convergence. Zelda does have to be a descendant of Raru and Sonia, she not only senses her own bloodline connection to Zelda but Raru's sealing power as well. The only way to stabilize the paradoxed timeline was to merge the timelines together. I've speculated that the reason the BOTW dragons chose to draconify is to unleash enough power to merge the timelines.
My head canon is that BotW and ToTK fall in a fourth timeline, the timeline the hero and zelda left behind at the end of Skyward Sword (the time where Hylia defeated Demise). That would mean that ToTK's past is around the same time of OoT, but with no hero. I think that's why the cutscenes look similar (for example the throne room cutscene where Ganondorf 'surrenders' to Rauru).
Great video. I'm pretty sure the plot holes are just plot holes, but its a lot more fun to say it's because of shadow timelines and weird timeline converging rules. I do like your theory about sonia more or less being that worlds version of zelda rather than being an ancestor. It always confused me that rauru and sonia didn't seem to have any children, but zelda still exists even though sonia died. I love playing totk, but it give me a headache when I think about the story too hard.
Anyways am subscribing since I hope to watch more videos with your neat ideas in them.
I feel like you didn't really do enough to disprove the possibility of Sonia having children for this to make sense. I figured that Sonia had a child prior to Zelda time traveling, whom we never meet. Whether it's because the child is in someone else's care (like a royal nanny) or they had grown up enough to travel the vast lands of Hyrule to establish a home elsewhere.
Also, if Sonia didn't have any children prior to her death, then wouldn't Zelda fade from existence, due to Sonia dying before her own parents could be born as a result? We clearly see that Zelda persisted for thousands of years as a dragon, so unless being a dragon negates time-paradox invoked erasure, there's no reason as to why Zelda would be able to still be around anymore since she didn't go into an alternate timeline. Her actions in the past clearly have an impact on the future and she's still the same Zelda that went back in time by the end of the game.
she went back to a past war became a major part of that war and nothing changed that event was foundational to her time so that means she was pulled back in time to the present day she did not go back under her own power
It's interesting to note that there's a city in the sky in Twilight Princess as well. I wonder if the Oocca are related in some way to the Zonai? Like some wonky crossbreeding or something
i saw a theory where someone said maybe they were just like pets of the zonai that got left behind and everyone thought they built the place 😭😭
@@jiographicI like that theory because I’ve also thought that but I’ve never heard anyone else talk about it haha
It's extremely unlikely.
I only responded to this because I think you're cute.
Regardless, based on the factual data we have regarding the Zelda continuity - this curiosity will be unfounded and cannot be proven to any extent.
@@LordxPhantom 😬 yikes
Early in Skyward Sword before Zelda goes back in time, you can look through a crack in the large stone door in the Abandoned Temple to see Zelda’s stasis crystal inferring that she already went back in time before she went back in time in the game. It’s a cycle that keeps going but not a paradox because the people involved can keep moving forward.
because zelda entered the stasis in present day as the original time traveler was impa who is from that era as such the start of the game is the far flung future
It is a paradox. You killed Demise in the past.
@@switchitup3709no you sealed him in the present link is from the future as impa started the time travel scenario by going forward in time to links era you kill him in links time as in the future
@darkdagger5237 it still a paradox. Think about it. If he killed or absorbed in the master sword it changes the future drastically. Which you can't do. So that trips off a new timeline.
@@switchitup3709its the same seal as the one from the start of the game also the bracelet already proves that time did not split
The convergence may be the result of the first hyrule Warriors game because if that game is canon, it would make sense for that to be where the timelines convert because that’s the only place where they interact
I've been a proponent of this theory since BotW came out. Royal family there had the wind waker, saw heroes and enemies from all the branches. world map thrown into disarray. Makes sense that a convergence happens after stopping Gannon of Hyrule warriors.
This has been my headcanon too and I think it's so frustrating that Nintendo treats it as non-canon because it makes the timeline convergence into the era of the wild so much more feasible. Maybe the Zelda team is holding out to make their own canon timeline convergence story but other than that I don't really see a reason to exclude it.
I've always loved that theory, Even though I didn't believe it. Hyrule Warriors was a fun game that interacted with different timelines! It's perfect! Unfortunately, I see why Nintendo doesn't want to make the game canon. The story doesn't make quite as much sense as you'd think, and Hyrule returns to normal after the game ends so it can't merge the timelines. But imagine!! The fact that we even have a game this close to explaining potential timeline merging is awesome. This game's existence has spawned one of the coolest timeline theories to date in my opinion. You just have to twist your imagination a little.
I just like the idea of more than just the three timelines. Most games contradict each other so rounding them into smaller groups works better.
With the convergence, the timeline split becomes a dragonbreak from the Elder Scrolls series. The end of Skyward Sword is another example of a dragonbreak at work. Link destroys Demise in the present, Ghirahim kidnaps Zelda and resurrects Demise in the past. Link defeats Demise in the past and seals him in the Master Sword before placing the blade in a pedestal while still in the past. Once they return to the present, the statue of Hylia is still in the sealed grounds (even though a timeline split should have occurred because of Demise’s defeat in the past) and the Master Sword is in the pedestal.
the seal on the imprisoned is the seal placed on the defeated bringer of demise
@@darkdagger5237, let’s see this from a story standpoint. Zelda travels to the past, Link follows using a different Gate of Time than she did, Zelda fully powers up the Master Sword before entombing herself in the crystal of maintain the seal on the Imprisoned. Link returns to the future and gets the Triforce. He uses the wish to destroy the Imprisoned. Zelda is freed from the crystal due to Demise’s destruction. Ghirahim kidnaps Zelda and takes her into the past (meaning that there are now two Zeldas in the past, one in the crystal and one that is being used for Ghirahim’s ritual to resurrect Demise). Demise is freed, but Link defeats him and seals him in the Master Sword. At this point in time, the Zelda that is supposed to be in the crystal is gone by the time Link places the Master Sword in the pedestal as the doors to the chamber where the crystal is supposed to be are open in that cutscene.
Demise being sealed in the Master Sword is not the same seal as the one that Zelda had to maintain by sealing herself away that Demise periodically escapes from in the form of the Imprisoned because the Master Sword isn’t in the pedestal at the point in time in the past where Zelda seals herself away.
@@brandonbaggaley2317 but if the master sword was there before you forged it you would take it and use it to finish the mission preventing you from ever forging it
Honestly I'd question if the hero of twilight even comes to exist in this timeline, we see in Wind Waker that the spirit of the hero is utterly absent in times of need, and it's not until an entirely unconnected hero arises that the cycle is restored. Doesn't change too much of the theory, but makes the Twili invasion even more one-sided.
I love this theory. The video showed up in my recommended and I'm really glad it did, your videos are really well made and funny, looking forward to seeing more
This theory is excellent and the first one I’ve seen that’s able to wrap up a lot of the lore inconsistencies in TOTK in a satisfying way
Man, the 4th timeline is from Skyward sword when Link went back in time. It cause a split. The process to understand this is very simple, the Hylia statue. Link and Zelda and Skyward Sword return to a hyrule with a big Hylia statue. In breath of the wild, not only was that statue tuck away, hylia statue cloes were spread everywhere. This explains why you don't see any of hylia statue in ocarina of time and the other three timelines. The fourth timeline also explains how we have a separate kingdom of hyrule and imprisoning war. A fourth timeline can explain how Rito and Zora can exist at the same time. Simple.
We do have at least some evidence of incursions from the sky in Majora's Mask with the ETs at the farm. The Zonai may be terrestrial in origin, but their appearance to the Hylians would've likely been akin to how ETs would appear to us. I guess the Zonai could qualify as what people are now calling Ultraterrestrials.
There is one thing wrong about the Shadow Timeline split in Majora's Mask. If OoT/MM Link traveled back to the first day, and Termina is destroyed at that moment when he traveled back to Day One, it means TP Link wouldn't be born, because TP Link is related to OoT/MM Link.
you know you've made a good video when I take like a week to write a damn college essay from the thoughts it gave me. esp when you give me permission to share my thoughts! ;P
so, while I LOVE the idea of a shadow timeline, I don't feel this specific one quite works. you say it'd be after a failure of twilight princess, but....Sonia has the same blood of the goddess as Zelda does, which means TP Zelda would have had to have a child that survived in order for Sonia to exist (and by that point, it's established that all princesses of Hyrule are named Zelda after SS Zelda, so it makes no sense that that would be lost for Sonia to be Sonia but then it be reestablished for later Zeldas). as well, Rauru is The First King, "at least he was the last time he checked", meaning he-from his own perspective-did not RE-establish anything, but *founded* it. even if there was once a Hyrule kingdom on that land, it wasn't there when he arrived. his Hyrule is his original kingdom, one placed on undeveloped wilderness that he is still in the process of domesticating. otherwise he wouldn't be a "first king", but the king that overthrew a tyrant or saved a dying land. so all Zonai being wiped out so Rauru could reestablish Hyrule wouldn't make sense of there was already a kingdom and people living there that he/his people liberated. and he would have had to be alive to be the one surviving Zonai to establish Hyrule after their fall (but also, the murals seem to depict only Rauru as descending from the heavens, so it seems all his people were already gone save for himself and his sister), and for him to be there and see how dangerous Ganondorf is, I doubt he'd be so chill facing another Ganondorf. plus, that'd be a hell of a fast cycle for another incarnation of Demise to be born basically right on the heels of the death of the last one, as they are basically the same age. and Ganondorf has never really changed the name of Hyrule after taking over, so even as a "we destroyed the last kingdom and established a new one so I am the first king of this land under a new name" doesn't make sense ether.
as for the armor, I think that's all Zelda's doing. she told Rauru and Sonia of her knight, a knight who would obviously need good armor to fight a war their king lost. we also know Zelda knows his measurements as she had new armor made for him as a surprise. surely the remaining people would be creating and hiding armor and helpful items in places only such a powerful knight would be able to get to them, to ensure they actually stay there undisturbed until his age when he could retrieve them.
another issue is your interpretation of Sonia's comment on a blood connection. in that moment she is chastising Rauru for needing the secret stone as proof, and talking to him (though looking at Zelda) she specifically says she recognizes both "your" (Rauru's) light power and her time power within Zelda, and THEN says she senses "we" (still talking to Rauru) share a blood connection, and THEN speaking to Zelda says she'll tell everyone that Zelda is a "distant relative of OURS" as it's "true, after all". they could not be more clearly telling us Zelda shares blood with the both of them explicitly, not just Sonia. Rauru also states that his kingdom will continue even if he falls. how would that happen? by an heir inheriting the throne. now granted, I haven't seen the direct Japanese translation so I don't know if something changed, but I doubt anything changed enough to alter this point.
and yes, it is a little bit odd that we never see this child, but considering Zelda shows us very little of the past even though she's there for a good while, and the importance of keeping your heir hidden from your enemy, it makes at least enough sense for the child to simply not be seen but still exist. and your point that Sonia shows abilities all seen throughout past Zeldas only adds to my own personal theory.
which is: it's not pre-skyward sword, but immediately post-skyward sword. possibly a shadow timeline from the time travel there, but I won't even try to theorize on that since the time travel doesn't really make sense even within that game anyway.
anyway, it'd make the most sense imo. everyone assumes SS Link and Zelda immediately establish a kingdom, but that doesn't really make sense, and (afaik) is just a fan assumption. SS Zelda is the goddess Hylia, goddess of time, so to me it'd make more sense for her to more be worshiped again, to retake the place of the goddess at the temple. her children then would be priestesses of the temple, which is exactly what Sonia (with power over time) was before she married Rauru and became queen, establishing Hyrule with him. from there, the past plays out as we see it, Zelda draconifies, and the timeline (*singular*) plays out until we get to botw and then the present totk. this particular placement explains why their castle doesn't have the same iconography that we're used to. the triforce is on her body, but the emblem of the triforce and the loftwing is missing. as well, none of them wonder where/who the hero is or attempt to find the triforce or master sword. I believe this may have been done by SS Zelda or a later child believing that if these powerful relics are hidden from knowledge, they will be protected (if Ganondorf doesn't know about the triforce, he won't covet it, which is why he targets the secret stones instead). that's why the triforce is barely displayed (it can be seen above their thrones, but as 3 simple not-even-triangles in the middle so that even most of us who know to look for it didn't recognize it) but it's displayed on her body as proof that it hasn't been forgotten entirely. but she may have been killed too soon before she could impart this info to the others. it isn't until after they're rediscovered and old legends proved true that the things like the triforce and loftwing iconography and the tradition of Zelda's name become cemented.
I believe this, as I find a big part of the game's story is "history as you knew it isn't as accurate as you believed it to be". and this was later proven as a true and acceptable possibility via an interview with Aonuma and Fujibayashi here: www.zeldadungeon.net/tears-of-the-kingdom-developers-talk-zelda-timeline-in-new-interview/
"Q: Does the Hyrule we saw in the flashback scenes predate Skyward Sword or does it come after other games in the timeline?
HF: Obviously, there's something a little bit clearer in our minds, but of course, it could be that we're wrong as well! I kind of want to pose the idea that, like in real-life history, you define by the artifacts and by the data that you currently have. So within what we have, there might be a correct answer, but it could be a different answer. So, I guess my answer would be that it could be both. Both could be correct.
EA: I mean, the Legend Of Zelda is a series of games that focus on the puzzle solving, so this is just another sort of puzzle that the users will have to see if they can solve and think about."
and that is exactly what I've thought since totk came out.
(putting the rest of my theory in the reply comments bc text limit)
(2) the entire game, with all this Zonai stuff, the whole start of the royal family being formed from the union between a god who descended from the sky and a Hylian is all new to us, it changes the Hyrulian history as we the players knew it. immediately, they challenged the history as we know it. we get to the memories, and we're told of a first king and queen of Hyrule that does not match what we believed and has left us grasping for the truth. and most importantly (imo) Mineru tells Zelda about draconification, an act that is forbidden because the person "loses themselves" to become an immortal dragon. they know this, because history tells them so. then ghost Rauru, knowing Zelda is a dragon now, tells us (who does not yet know about draconification) that her standing before us and giving us her sage power should not be possible (based on his understanding of their history).
yet the entire game (as well as botw) we are constantly shown that the dragons are anything but mindless. Dinraal changes her flight pattern to help with a sheikah task for a champion to pilot a divine beast. all things that did not exist when she first draconified. the statues seem able to communicate with their respective dragon, and speak for them/on their behalf. such as Naydra's who informs of us her plight and how to help her with the malice infection. we're told she will take flight once we first strike the infection, and then she dutifully returns to allow us to take a part of her body as a reward for helping her. the fact that she even remembers her spring is also a testament to her mind being intact.
and for Zelda herself, she stays around the great sky island because she knows that's where Link will be, and stays to keep an eye on his progress. she's mentally strong enough to project herself into the room to give Link her sage power, and knows that then he is ready for her to remove the cloud barrier (another thing she is strong enough and conscious enough to intentionally do) now that he's ready. she actively tracks him across the land of Hyrule (the teeeeniest spec on the map you'd think she wouldn't even be able to see from her high ass flight path) and keeps track of what memories he's collected, and only once he's seen all of them (and she's there watching him when he sees the last one, she is actively tracking him) does she drop the real last one. yes, this is the developers' way of ensuring you can't see the big reveal early and spoiling everything, but it still happens in universe and therefor is fair game. she also recognizes when it's him collecting the master sword on her head, and no matter where you are when you grab it she specifically goes back to the place she draconified to drop him off. she could have just continued flying wherever she was and just let him jump, but instead she dropped him off and at an emotionally significant location. if not for both of them, at least for her and possibly Fi. then in the final battle she immediately comes running, howling as if calling out for him, and still is able to track him in the air and even juke Dragondorf's bite at speed!
as well, Dragondorf also has the presence of mind to continue attacking Zelda and link and even grabbing Link in the room AS he's transforming. like, even in the MIDDLE of a full body transformation from mortal to immortal, he still thought to drag Link out with him as he burst from the ground (and presumably manually maneuvering around the hole and around the castle to get to the sky, unlike Zelda's straight shot up. clearly even when in the act of transforming their mind remains intact.
many may think they are simply mindless because they're "just flying around" (what else are they gonna do?) and do not talk/communicate anymore, but even that isn't true. not only do they make plenty of vocalizations, but Zelda tips her head up and down while she flies (in fact I think they all do), but when Link is on her, she stops moving her head as to provide a smoother ride and lower the chances of throwing him off. she, and the other dragons know you're there, and is in fact reacting to your presence. and yes again this is likely a game feature just to make it easier on the player, but again, fair game.
so to say the dragons lose themselves is very clearly incorrect. but with so little evidence to work with, it makes sense for them to come to that conclusion, especially since as far as we the players know, Link is the only one actually able to communicate with the statues. all our evidence for the other 3 relies on things not available to them in the past.
so, if even the characters in-universe are wrong about their history, why are we holding every game as absolute truth, as we experienced them?
(3) if we look at things like Greek Myth, the stories are meant to take place "ages ago, when gods walked the earth" but the lives described are lived the same way as those who who told the stories, as if they couldn't imagine live lived differently. and the past is full of mistakes. Atlantis exists because a Greek man mistook Spain and thought it a new island. many historical maps are hilariously wrong, but they were the best they could make at the time. we only got accurate maps when we were able to look from above. which sure feels familiar, when you think about how maps in Zelda are normally created by like, a magic fish, or a guy floating a few feet in the air on balloons, compared to Link getting shot into the air *to take pictures from above*.
this could also explain why totk's past has so many things that relate it to OoT. it could be that the OoT we know is a myth that got lost to time, but what we see in totk is the reality. a Gerudo king, flanked by two witches with the names Kotake and Koume, swears false fealty to the King, who does not heed the warnings of a young woman named Zelda, who will come to be the sage of time. there is also a sage of light named Rauru, and sages from all the main races around Hyrule, even one of the Gerudo, to take down the evil king with the use of special, magical items. with the Zonai forgotten, the sage of spirit was assumed to be and therefor became one of the Sheikah, the race closest to the shadows, and Rauru, vaguely remembered by his owl charm, becomes a Hylian who takes the form of an owl and is otherwise unseen, residing only in a secret world. the details are there, they just got rearranged as the truth was hidden, ether intentionally at the time or eons later after essentially an age long game of telephone. such happens, especially in times of war. it is notoriously hard to keep accurate records when everything is regularly destroyed. and that also allows everything to happen in one single timeline, why everything is known to the era of botw, without the need to come up with how a timeline could possibly converge. it all happened, we just don't know the real details of how. and neither do they, having relegated it all to the "era of myth", where there's so little concrete evidence even THEY don't seem to believe they have a solid understanding of their own history. for all we know, the tradition of naming the daughters of the royal family Zelda is after SS Zelda could actually be for totk's Zelda in honor of her eternal sacrifice to draconify. that certainly would make more sense as a reason to always name the royal women the same thing than anything SS Zelda did.
as well, even calling them an "era of myth" means the games are, in universe, *all myths* just like Greek myths, or stories like Beowulf or King Arthur. stories with nuggets of truth, but also very obvious additions or current age propaganda. I think the Zelda team is trying to make the *Legends* of Zelda make sense in the same way actual history does.
think about it. we have myths like King Arthur, who we know for a fact existed. they could have even believed him to be a wizard, just as many at the time believed Nostradamus could see the future. the whole wizard thing could have been added later, or could have been something done at that time to help prevent attacks. I mean, who wants to take on a king who can use MAGIC against you? we today know Arthur didn't have a wizard and Beowulf didn't slay a dragon, but only because we know those things aren't real. but in a world where dragon-like creatures absolutely DO exist, the propaganda or added drama (or just outright misunderstandings) aren't as easy to parse.
but let's also think about that for a moment. back then, the only iron they had access to in Britain was "bog iron", literally clumps of mud pulled from bogs. this was used to make very poor quality weapons. "pull the sword from the stone and you will become king of Britain" is usually taken as literal, pull a magic sword stuck in a rock and be bestowed the right to be king by the sword's magical choice. OR, it could mean, he who learns to get iron from ore (aka stone) will get weapons good enough to make your people conquerors. it's not unusual for something to be taken more literally than it's meant to be. Indigenous Americans explained to white people they learned to get sap from trees from squirrels, and they were taken at entirely face value, laughed at and brushed off as "silly Indian woo woo religion thinking they can talk to animals"...until they actually witnessed squirrels tap trees for sap themselves. as well, perspective can make the obvious not obvious. many scholarly men assumed a ring of rocks on farm land was religious, not bothering to realize they were too tall for the chicks to escape but low enough for mama to walk over. or knives kept on the rafters must be religious, until moms pointed out that it's a great way to keep them out of reach of little hands. or the hairdresser who was able to recreate ancient woven hairstyles when historians thought it impossible. a shifted perspective changes the entire message/implication, even when no change was made. and for all of human history, there are things left out of instructions or stories that are considered so obvious they go without saying. that is, until a few hundred years have passed and that cultural norm is now lost because no one thought to write it down. as well, "a magic sword from a lake" is also taken as literal. while it could still be propaganda like Merlin, it could also actually refer to the discovery of quenching. somewhere, someone was forging swords with their new stronger iron and accidentally dropped it in water, or stuck it in intentionally because they were tired of waiting for it to cool down, and found that the water (seemingly "magically") made it stronger than non-quenched swords. and someone looking at this story with missing context thinking it literal is no surprise, just as someone of the time thinking the water from that specific lake being magical also tracks.
(4) and when you remember that Greek myths take places ages ago and ages apart yet all kinda exist in the same range of technological advancement, exactly like the Zelda series, it makes sense. I mean, SS and totk could be as far apart in the series as possible, literal millennia, and yet visually side by side they really don't look like even a generation has passed.
this is usually blown off as "well their world keeps getting destroyed, they gotta keep starting over" but like, just because your house burns down doesn't mean you forget what a wheel is. the calamity that destroyed them and nearly killed Link the first time didn't send Hylians back to the stone age, they simply lost *some* specific knowledge like stone masonry due to those who mastered it mainly living in ground zero when the calamity hit. but woodworking lived on in the outer towns, far from ground zero. and all those houses were mostly wood even before. they didn't revert, they just picked back up where they left off, more or less. while this could explain some of it, it doesn't explain all of it.
that is, unless what we see as a visual in the games is simply that, a visual. the history is (maybe) accurate, but the visual way we took it in was false, both in universe and out, because video games are an inaccurate vehicle for storytelling. loading zones make it impossible for us to know just how much distance is really being traveled, different hardware limitations change what can be done (such as map shapes), and the different art styles alone prove the games are at an absolute minimum visually inaccurate. we know WW Ganondorf is OoT Ganondorf, and we know the world didn't shift from mostly realistic to hyper cartoony, the art style is just that, an individual stylistic choice that we look past for the "real info" aka the lore. so, what if totk is trying to change that? to try and show us Hyrulian history "as it actually was", and cleaning up the confusing timeline as we're constantly bickering because we're taking every little thing as 1:1 accurate? that would explain why, here for the first time, we see a Hylian civilization that *actually* looks ancient. like a budding people. what we see is clearly based on the Mayans, a stone age people who didn't even use wheels. now, clearly, the Zonai Absolutely Did Use Wheels lmao but, this is the most ancient we've seen Hylians, and I think that was a *very* specifically chosen and intentional visual hint. even Skyward Sword, the oldest seen moment in the timeline, makes everyone look like generally modern people. their houses have plumbing and lights and everything you'd expect in a modern society, minus actual modern tech like computers and cellphones. I always found that weird, especially considering how limited their resources should be. it even felt more "modern" than older Zelda games. but what if that visual was entirely wrong, and they actually looked more like Rauru's age? wearing feathered headdresses made from their loftwings, with simple pinned square sheets that wouldn't require too much cloth (of which the materials were surely limited)? but because so much of that time period was hidden away, assumptions were made and visuals (if you think of the games as like, plays or picture books) were simply created in order to tell the stories. and we know it's lost, because we saw none of it in botw, but in totk there's at least one from botw we can find where an outer shell is cracked and fallen off partially, and we can see the smooth white stone under it. they INTENTIONALLY hid all things Zonai to protect it. Zelda mentions that the royal family knew things but kept things so hidden even they forgot the truth, and clearly that was a choice made long in the past. they covered anything Zonai that they didn't ether send skyward or destroy and left it looking like the remains of a violent war-obsessed tribe. just enough for scholars to be satisfied with and for treasure hunters to ignore for more interesting finds, to ensure nothing is disturbed before the fated hero is ready.
it may seem like a stretch, but I think it's worth considering, even if just picking it apart helps lead us both to an even better answer. and if you or anyone else actually bothers to read it all, I'd love to hear thoughts/feedback!
I think a convergence theory is obviously the most elegant, as it has been evidenced since BOTW.
But I think it’s best possible version lies in stretching it even farther: what if the Zonai’s era of legend is not from another split in the tl (the shadow tl) but another origin of the tl all together?
In TOTK the Master Sword seems to be an entirely new concept to both Rauru and Ganondorf (which I’ll grant could also be explained by a twilight apocalypse) but it would also explain the primitive nature of the Hylians, as well as why TOTK Ganondorf has a moment that does not simply call back to, but is the exact same moment that Ocarina Ganondorf has-feigning fealty to Hylain Royalty-what if that is a “canon event” destined to happen in every Ganondorf’s first war against the throne across the multiverse?
I think it has a lot of potential in explaining perceived inconsistencies, but I will close with this: we don’t know what the convergence looks like, did it happen all at once, or did artifacts from different tl’s slowly seep into the world that would become the Hyrule of BOTW, and what if some of those artifacts did not fully manifest in the world unitl even TOTK in the upheaval?
Great video!! It was well researched and had a lot of good points, nicely done 👍
I think what you're describing matches up well with an alternative version of this theory where the timeline split happens in Skyward Sword instead of Majora's Mask.
Great video! Really enjoyed a fresh new take on the timeline.
I really like your placement, but the possibilities you have shared are actually really solid. I loved the appendix you've added. That's really Cool and provided great ideas and rules that are lore friendly. Thanks for sharing.. interesting and still thinking it through.
I think that the 'sonia has no kids so how Zelda' question is easily answered in the Convergence theory with it just being that there's been enough time for the Blood of the Goddess to be in multiple people and the power just awakens in the one who is the most direct descendant of the original Zelda. Correct me if it's too far of a stretch this is just what I came to the conclusion of with that theory
sonia said that zelda had rarus light power she did not say simply that zelda had light power as such she would have a blood connection to both of them
People assuming there were no kids makes no sense to me. Sure, we never SEE or HEAR about the kids, but they HAD to exist, because literally, the royal bloodline that connects Zelda to Rauru and Sonia could not exist otherwise. The simplest explanation is that for the sake of story brevity and to save time and money, they did not design or mention the child(ren) because they were not pivotal to the plot. If you want a story/lore-satisfactory explanation, something like "a child was had, hidden and raised in secret away from Rauru and Sonia, to keep the royal bloodline alive"- we literally have a similar explanation to how Link was raised in OoT, already, so I don't know how people are too stubborn to think of/accept an answer like that, because it makes far more sense than the literally-genetically-impossible "rauru and sonia had no kids but zelda is descended from them"- that kind of stuff was SUPER common in old-era Kingdoms, and would be especially a lot more relevant of a solution when Zelda already knew of, and told Sonia and Rauru, about her present, in order to change the future...
Thank you for the great content you definitely deserve more views!! 🥰
A while back i had this idea that Zelda going back in time made a split and created the sky islands for skyward sword and TOTK. Didnt put too much thought into it but i think there could be something there. I really dig your theory!
Don’t remember who said this but I head someone suggested that maybe because the time between games in the timeline is so long eventually something that happened in a different timeline happens in another. Don’t remember much more of it but just thought I might mention it
I'm pretty sure technically speaking, everytime Link resets time in Majoras Mask, it creates a new timeline. Considering the fact that when Zelda plays it in Ocarina and sends Link back in time thus creating the mainstream timeline split. I feel as though this detail is extremally overlooked by the developers and community at large.
Each timeline created from an ocarina use in Majora's Mask would be identical though. Each Termina will always be destroyed completely, and
each Hyrule will be impacted in the exact same way (excluding the versions of both where Link defeats Majora).
That could mean that tens, hundreds, or possibly even thousands of identical Termina-destroyed timelines would exist, ultimately increasing Zelda's odds of landing in one of the many identical Shadow timelines as opposed to one of the main three.
agreed.
also, since the timelines would all be identical apart from minor differences, they could possibly merge together relatively quickly (if not instantly), although that is assuming that merging has to do with the degree of difference between each timeline.
@@barbecuesos6242 i think something else that is interesting to note is the time stones from skyward sword. that technology is really really mind boggling to me to begin with, but my point in bringing it up is it kind of demonstrates how time exists in zelda. if you have a time stone tool activated, it will make a certain set radius of an area around it go back to a specific time. this is extremely weird. how does that even work? it implies time is not just a perception of passing but maybe a type of matter or dimension. perhaps timelines in zelda are not so "split" in the sense that they are branching off from each other and growing out in different directions; perhaps timelines in zelda are literally layered on and within each other, all happening simultaneously and can be tapped into by certain technology, which we see with the time stones. how was this ancient race of robots able to do that anyways lol?? but yeah it could explain a merger of timelines into one, which maybe could help explain BotW and TotK. just a guess though. however i do propose that it isn't some kind of entropy or decay of timeline separation. i think there was a force that made that happen deliberately, but explaining that in this comment would be too much for this already long comment
This theory doesn't work just for the simple fact that Link would have NEVER abandoned termina. Cool idea though
The idea isn't that he abandoned termina. The idea is that when he goes back to the start of the 3-day cycle, the version of termina that he disappears from when he time travels continues on, and without his help, it collapses.
@@barbecuesos6242 ooohhhhh!!!! My high little mind is now blown
Fun theory! Actually feel this could be split into three (the way the timelines converge, alternate timeline splits and the Zonai-Twili War), the concepts are separate enough they could be pitched on their own.
I really like this idea, because a timeline without games just feels inherently interesting. The convergence stuff makes sense in a way i can't really put into words. Solid theory, I accept it as canon. The only minor thing is that TP Link is meant to be a descendant of Oot and MM Link, but him not existing in the shadow timeline's Twilight Princess shouldn't affect the story much
Thanks! If I'm right about this theory, I really hope the upcoming movie is set in the new timeline.
The first zonai location makes perfect sense, because the zonai could have come into being "before the events of SS" by appearing after demise is destroyed in the past, creating a 4th timeline split at that time
Pretty solid ideas! I could go with this one for sure.
The thing about Arbiter's Grounds is that its a location that has actually existed since prior to OoT and MC for that matter since the Interloper War happens prior to Hyrule's first founding.
There are two problems with your theory
1. The Gerudo were wiped out after Ocarina of Time and there are none to be found in Twilight Princess
2. After the Wind Waker Hyrule was under water and destroyed by the king. Link and Zelda founded new Hyrule far from the original one and Technology thrived in Spirit Tracks
3. The Sheikah went extinct after Twilight Princess. The only one remaining are Impaz and probably the fortune teller from castle town in Twilight Princess
you're incorrect about the ocarina timeline split. the only time the ocarina is used to time travel in oot is at the very end. every other time travel was done using the master sword. additionally, tp link is actually a direct descendant of oot link, meaning that in the shadow timeline, tp link wouldn't exist at all.
This would be interesting to explore in the next Zelda game. They can tell more stories about how or when the Zonai first came down to Hyrule.
Thats the best theory I have heard in years 👌 thanks for finding a solution to that contradicting lore.
Thank you 🙌
It’s my new head canon 👌👌
One theory had was about what causes a timeline split is in relation to Zelda. And TotK happens to provide the perfect second scenario that's needed to form a correlation between the splits we know of. BOTW and TotK in my mind actually are not in the same timeline, the events were changed to prevent a time-loop. Going by the normal flow of things, Ganon likely would have won in the "original" TotK timeline but Zelda would probably go back in time to change the past, to save the future.
It goes something like this... We know there's already a Light Dragon roaming around in the sky even before Zelda has gone back to the past, so there's two Zelda's... And we know that Zelda is both the Sage of Light and the Sage of Time, thanks to Rauru and Sonia's secret stones' hereditary traits passing down to her through the royal bloodline.
I've also seen theory videos that align with or changed my thinking/perspective on this matter from what it used to be... Like, Dragons (and the Zonai) are revered like deities, Zelda becomes a Dragon, so the Light Dragon could technically be referred to as Hylia, who was Zelda's previous, divine self... And we know that the Goddess Hylia is the one who chose her Hero, and created the Master Sword- and it was through the Light Dragon's power with which the Master Sword was restored. "History doesn't repeat, but it sure likes to rhyme"...Also, it's heavily implied that the Sealing Power Zelda had was from the Triforce, as that symbol shows up on her hand when she uses the power in BotW (and I think in the scene in TotK where the Master Sword is restored?), so you could also use this as the creation myth lore for the Triforce itself.
Funnily enough, I know people hate it, but treating the series as a different telling of the same tale, the same legend, which loses accuracy/changes details over time, also becomes more plausible from this perspective (do remember Fi's words about the Oral Tradition being the least reliable way of retaining information accurately). There are a lot of similarities and coincidences throughout the stories across the series- take the Mirror of the Twilight, and the Dark Mirror. Also, there are similarities between the Zonai and the Minish... Plus, need I mention that there's a similar backstory between the Twili (the Interlopers), the ancient and evil tribe who created Majora's Mask (which honestly, in my mind, can't be a coincidence, since there are design similarities between Midna's Mask and Majora's Mask), and yeah, a lot of the stuff in the series is similar/seems connected... One coincidence is just that, but many no longer is a coincidence.
I think there's a reason Link didn't cause a timeline split every time he traveled back and forth between the past and future but a split did happen when Zelda sent him back. There's one factor that's different. When Link used the ocarina he took it with him. When Zelda sent him back he left it behind. Time follows the ocarina. When it's left behind a timeline splits.
The downfall timeline can be explained in the same way. We can speculate that Link originally died when he fought Ganondorf in ocarina of time. When the ocarina is used to time travel you revert to your form you were in at that time which is why he becomes a child in the past. Zelda used the ocarina off screen to send dead Link to the past before he died. This brought him back to life the same way going back 7 years reverts him to a child. However because he left the ocarina behind the downfall timeline continued with out him ever coming to the rescue. Link starts over with memories of his death and is successful in the adult timeline. Zelda sends him back to his childhood and the adult timeline continues without the hero of time. He never shows up in the adult timeline as an adult because he was sent to a different timeline. The point of the story is don't leave the ocarina behind or you'll split the timeline.
yes i was also thinking this! i have a big response to add on to your comment, feel free to read if you'd like and add feedback. this is totally open to criticism and would probably benefit from it:
with the ocarina of time, isn't it interesting how, even though link had it, he could never use it change time beyond changing the sky from night to day and vice versa in OoT specifically? if he wanted to go backwards/forward in time, he HAD to go to the temple of time and put the sword back/take the sword. this implies that either link simply didnt know how to do that at command with the ocarina (unlike zelda) or that zelda has a level of authority over time she cant necessarily (?) access without using the ocarina of time. not to mention that zelda doesn't even play the song of time to send link back to childhood; she plays zelda's lullaby. OR! it could mean something else regarding the sacred realm and the goddess of time's power during the events of OoT but i will get to that in a bit
in contrast with the role of the song of time in OoT, when it came to majora's mask, he was able to control time to a much greater and very precise degree. he could make time slow down, reset 3 days worth of time (maybe more if he wanted? unsure, there was not a need to go back more than 3 days because majora had to have sealed the giants in order for link to begin saving termina), and even skip 12 hours AS WELL AS hour intervals in the remake
but he does that with the song of time. this is weird, right? how can he all of a sudden manipulate time to this degree with that melody when the song of time was only used to create/move/get rid of time blocks in OoT? maybe it has to do with not needing to manipulate time in that way or not knowing how, but i fail to see how that could make sense really. moving blocks around and going back 3 days in time and slowing time down are very different obv. it would also benefit link to be able to manipulate time like that, including in OoT i.e. saving him in a tough battle that could've gotten him killed if he was able to find cover and play it.
maybe it has do with the divinity of the goddess of time? maybe her divinity only allowed link domain over moving time blocks in OoT. i see two potential reasons for this:
1. as to ensure he always had the mastersword in the pedestal or was grabbing it from the pedestal depending on if he's going forwards or backwards. kind of a weak reason to me, honestly
2.maybe since ganondorf entered the sacred realm to steal the triforce once link took the sword, he also somehow suppressed the goddess of time's power, making the song of time only able to clear time blocks. this could potentially explain why link learning the song of time AFTER defeating ganon as an adult and returning as a child granted him the ocarina's power to a higher degree than it did before. ganon never went into the sacred realm and suppressed the goddess of time's power, so it granted him a higher ability of time manipulation than previously
it's also just worth noting that the act of putting the sword back makes him go back in time being a weird thing. i understand the seal it makes when he takes it out, but he puts it back in to go backwards, yet does not use the ocarina of time at all to do that. perhaps the goddess of time is directly asserting power to him there without even the need for the ocarina, which contradicts the number 2 point i made in the previous paragraph, but maybe her powers there are stronger and we DO know that the mastersword is untouchable by ganon, at least in OoT era, which is why it was used to seal the sacred realm to begin with
my point in saying all of this is to continue your idea and to put the goddess of time into question more with everything. she's never physically seen but is absolutely real and powerful, her strength accessible in termina being a huge testament to how wide her rule is. but you know what's even MORE WEIRD about this?
as far as i can tell, the goddess of time (at least in these timelines of OoT and MM, unsure if she's talked about in other timelines) is NOT spoken of at all. i could be so wrong about this tho so i'm not going to be too confident about that statement, but from just what i can tell, she is only mentioned in majora's mask. she isnt a goddess the hylians worship in OoT, but is a goddess of those people in termina that they acknowledge. i think when they mention the goddess in ocarina of time, theyre just referring to nayru, farore, and din. you could assert then that the goddess of time only exists for termina, but that isn't the case. link receives the ocarina after going back to zelda after being sent back in time once ganon was defeated. this takes place in hylia obv so it's not just termina that the goddess of time is relevant/has authority in
maybe she has a lot more to do with these timeline splits than we realize. i'm certain she expresses herself through zelda, which i know is the reincarnation of hylia, but i do think hylia and the goddess of time are separate entities. maybe she has to do with the convergence and the shadow timelines rather than the timelines running together eventually. makes you wonder what ever happened to the ocarina and other sacred tools of the series. so many reappear in TotK and BotW but not ones such as the ocarina, the goddess harp, etc.
@@bbbbbbbbbbbrbbrb the master sword thing you mentioned is explained in game you use it operate the gate of time between the moment you put the sword back and the moment before you pull the sword zelda however used the ocarina of time to redirect the gate of time to before link and zelda first met causing the two way timeline split the fallen time line branches off before the events of ocarina of time
Termina is probably a dreamspace that exists in Link’s mind, like in Link’s Awakening. If so, nothing that happens in a dream can impact the real world, much less split reality into separate timelines
You COULD gymnastics your way to a pre-curse of Demise Ganondorf if you argued that Denise's curse needed something to cling to and it found the sealed Ganondorf under Hyrule Castle.
What that would have caused is Demise's curse leading to a kind of eventual cloning of Ganondorf to give rise to the Ganondorf of OoT, WW, and TP as well as the Ganon of ALttP, the Oracle games, Zelda 1, and Zelda 2.
When that Ganon is killed in all three timeliness, the curse would have endlessly cloned Ganondorf, leading to the Ganondorf in FSA and eventually the rise of Calamity Ganon.
During all that time, Rauru's seal continued to weaken, eventually allowing the true Ganondorf (the one the curse bonded to) to return for Tears of the Kingdom.
Basically: True Ganondorf is just a sorcerer who tried to take over Rauru's Hyrule. Eventually, after the events of Tears, Rauru's Hyrule collapsed (possibly due to the demon invasion) and Hylia created Skyloft. Then, Skyward Sword happens and we get Demises's curse which clings to True Ganondorf giving rise to the Ganon we have known since Zelda 1 and all future Ganons until True Ganondorf is freed in Tears.
wow, your ending, you arte the first person ive heard, claiming, to want to have a coinversation on a topic, cheers top you
Cool and very well thought out idea!
Skyward Sword created a timeline split because the final boss battle takes place a thousand years before the rest of the game, meaning it creates a timeline where The Imprisoned doesn't even exist. It seems that the ending cutscene takes place in the original timeline where Demise had been imprisoned for a millenium, and Demise's curse has some sort of transcendent power to be relevant even in a parallel timeline where he wasn't killed until the Triforce and skyloft crashed into his sealing grounds, which is the timeline that the rest of the game takes place in.
imprisoned exists because you defeat the bringer of demise that's the same seal
We never see any other blood relatives of Sonia in TotK's Zonai era aside from Zelda, but Rauru does have a semi-recurring line whenever the subject of him and Mineru being the last Zonai (or his and Sonia's own deaths) comes up. Namely, he says that he "already took steps to ensure Hyrule would prosper without him and Sonia".
Given that iirc, "ensuring (insert country here)'s prosperity" is occasionally used in medieval settings as a euphemism for continuing the royal bloodline I'd say it is possible that the child does exist but Rauru is just being vague about it.
Which, while that is lazy storytelling, I probably would do the same thing, maybe even actively try to ensure my hypothetical child is kept safely far away from the likely center of conflict.
makes sense
I think you did a great job with this theory, that being said it was never confirmed nor denied if rauru and Sonya already had a child witch is also a very possible outcome, but that was the only thing that I had even the slightest problem with. All and all i loved the video and the theory 👍
Good theory but a alternative explanation for the bloodline ending thing Sonia could’ve had a younger sister to take the throne after the events of Totks memorys
Wouldn't it make more sense that the convergence would work much like a dragonbreak in the elder scrolls series, where all eve ts transpired some how?
think about what happened in oracle and apply that to what a convergence would do unparaleled devistation
Very well thought out!
Oh man
I had always believed that both ss and mm had a ti line split although I never believed that the mm split had any important dominoe effect but when you pointed out that link is just gone in that timeline that gave me a "Oh Shit! He's right!" Moment! Lol
and my take is theory 3 but with really large time frames. hundreds of thousands of years time frames in some instances. and that the convergence occurred due to a conflict of major proportions similar to that of hyrule warriors (which i know is confirmed non canon and even in that game in the end the timelines go back to normal however I believe that it is a viable groundwork to establish my take on the convergence) which left the 3 timelines in utter disrepair so much so that the only viable way to fix it is to reunite the timelines. so the forces of hylia use the triforce to bring forth a new timeline which the damage done can be healed. this new timeline then has a new race come from it to help protect it, the zonai, they watched over the land for quite some time however by some mysterious means they had to take to the skies and would then live an isolated life. generations have passed since this event occured to such a point that some of the original zonai structures have deteriorated away. it is still not clear what made the zonai near extinct but it isnt too important. what is important is that to have a glimmer of hope in saving their kind rauru and mineru went to the surface this is shortly before the founding of hyrule. andd then we get the events of ToTK a few years after with zelda showing up and all the stuff then. the kingdom is saved and goes on to flourish. the sheika developing their own technologies that arent too dissimilar to the zonai. time jump and we get the events of the great calamity 10k years before BoTW then that 10k year gap then BoTW's great calamity and link getting mortally wounded yada yada 100 years nap then like 3-5 years after BoTW is ToTK prologue then like a week or something after that is link waking up on the GSI and the rest of the game.
and the death of queen sonia doesnt necessarily mean the end of the goddess being reincarnated in a mortal form. its entirely possible that just like how link is often times unrelated to other links (barring a few exceptions of course) its possible that they will reincarnate unrelated to the "current" royal bloodline should it bear no heir. its very much likely that after rauru's sacrifice a top advisor or highly respected individual related to rauru (in regards to kingdomy affairs) would then take control of the throne and they bear an heir which restarts the royal bloodline bearing the goddess's power. it isnt hard set that the royal bloodline is the only way the goddess can reincarnate. hell SS zelda kinda proves that point by technically not being royalty at all. it seems more like the goddess chooses to stick within the bloodline but will choose someone outside of it if need be. hell that is even if all the royal families depicted in the games are all apart of the same continuous bloodline that has spanned thousands of years within the established timeline.
I don't think not seeing Sonia and Rauru's children in totk means they don't have any tbh. Even though there's no telling how old they are exactly, they are however both older adults.
My guess is the children simply weren't necessary for the developers to tell the story they wanted to, and therefore we never see them. (Not to mention they could already be adults with their own duties to attend to, maybe even beyond Hyrule. 🤔)
Adding their kids would also mean designing the half-zonai's, which is additional workload for what's probably minor characters story-wise that could be better spent elsewhere.
Doesn't explain why there's not even a mention of their children though, but again i suppose it was never relevant to the story they wanted to tell.
(There's also the possibility that Sonia saying she senses the blood-connection could _be_ the implication that they already have children, but i might be stretching a bit.)
(Also, last minute crackpot theory: What if the Twili _BECAME_ the Zonai?)
Ganondorf says in one memory (#7 I think) that Rauru and Mineru are the last of their kind. If there were half-zonai running around, I would figure that they would have been mentioned.
I have my own timeline theory
Skyward Sword: The Master Sword is created and the Triforce is discovered along with the world lost word of Hyrule
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Tears of the Kingdom flashbacks: Rauru, becomes the Zonai King and he meets Zelda who warns them about Ganon. They fight Ganon and Rauru sacrifices himself to seal Ganon and Zelda becomes a Dragon
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Breath of the Wild: after thousands of years the surface world is now fully inhabited. The redhead guy from Skyward Sword created the Gerudo at some point and he had good relationship with the hylians. The Calamity happens several times durinh those thousand of years and Hyrule wins each time until they lose and the champions die except for Link and 100 years later, the events of Breath of the Wild happen
Tears of the Kingdom: the events of Tears of the Kingdom happen. The sky Islands from Skyward Sword might or might not be related to the ones from this game
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Minish Cap: the Sky islands are now inhabited and Vaati starts his evil plans but is defeated by Link
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Four Swords and Four Swords Adventure: Vaati eventually returns until he is defeated. A new version of Ganondorf also appears and is swiftly defeated by Link
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The Fallout with the Gerudo: at some point, Hyrule cuts all friendly contact with the Gerudo to the point they hate Hyrulians and want to go to war with them.
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The New Rauru: at some point a baby is born and he is named Rauru in honor of the original Zonai King and he grows up to become the new Sage of light
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Ocarina of Time: during the Hyrulian Civil war a hylian mother take her baby to the Kokiri forest to be safe from the war, that baby being Link. 10 years later the events of Ocarina of Time take place. Link meets Zelda and he gets the three stones, he pulls out the Master Sword, Ganondorf gains entrance to the sacred realm and then Link gets all the medallions and finally defeats Ganondorf
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Majora Mask: Link goes to Termina where he has the mission of stopping the mask from destroying this land from being destroyed. Link eventually helps a bunch of people and saves the land and then returns to Hyrule
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The second Hyrulian civil war: after Zelda warned her father about Ganondorf, the King turns against the Gerudo and Ganondorf decides to attack Hyrule. Link returns to Hyrule and becomes a knight. Link at some point loses his eye and he marries Malon. He and Malon build Ordon Village over the abandoned Kokiri forest and they have several children. Link eventually dies in the lost forest/sacred grove either by a stalfo or by a wolf and he died with regret becoming the hero’s shade
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Ganondorf’s failed execution: at some point, Ganondorf lost the war and he was sent to Arbiter’s ground which was built over the Spirit Temple from Ocarina of time and his execution fails and he is sent to the Twilight Realm where he meets Zant giving him power. Midna gets exiled by Zant
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Zelda Twilight Princess: 200 years after the death of the hero of time a new Link lives in Ordon village. There are several decendants of Link and Malon living in Ordon Village, those being Rusl, Colin, Talon, possibly Malo, and Link. The events of Twilight Princess take place and Ganondorf is finally killed once and for all by Twilight Link. Link eventually leaves Ordon either to serve as a knight of Hyrule or for a new adventure
Didn't Queen Sonya say that she can feel Zelda is a relative of Rauru's as well? Also, shouldn't have Rauru been highly alarmed, when a guy named Ganondorf appears to be the Gerudo Chief instead of staying cool and waiting for some sort of peaceful life all together? Othern than that, I am amazed by this theory and I'm sold!
So, slight detail missed, the Hero's Shade refers to the hero in Twilight Princess as his child, and repeatedly references certain skills as only being known within their shared bloodline, meaning, while it is debatable whether or not the Link in Twilight Princess is his literal son, he is at the very least, a direct descendant, so in the shadow timeline, which the hero of time leaves as a child, there is absolutely no way he could have had any kids, being a child himself, as such, it would not be a matter of the hero of twilight failing, it would be a matter of him simply not being born in the first place, as be it his father, grandfather, or prior ancestor, that bloodline never even began in that timeline. Having said that, this is a nitpick it does not necessarily disprove the main premise of the theory, just how the events surrounding that particular sequence unfold. It is also worth noting that when looking at the ways the Twili attack Hyrule in Twilight Princess, it they follow roughly the same strategy that Ganondorf used in Ocarina of Time. It should also be taken into consideration that in the shadow timeline, Ganondorf may not have even been sealed in the Twilight Realm, as it is somewhat implied by the Hero's Shade that he may have helped in the fight against Ganondorf in that timeline as well, and while it could be argued that tipping off the royal family was the main thing, it may not have been enough.
In Twilight Princess, one could argue that Ganondorf acquiring the Triforce was likely the result of the timelines starting to converge, further evidenced by the scar on the head of his beast form, matching the place where he got stabbed in the face in beast form in the adult timeline, if the hero of time was not present to help, I suspect it would have taken too long to apprehend Ganondorf, as such the shadow timeline would likely playout very similar to the original downfall timeline, except that the original downfall timeline was likely caused by the time travel required to get the Silver Gauntlets and lens of truth (basically any time you go back in time before beating the game in Ocarina of Time), the one key difference is that in the shadow timeline, none of the sages would get free, whereas in the original downfall timeline, at a bare minimum, at least one sage would get free, possibly as many as 4 or 5, thus the sages could not seal Ganondorf, so instead of getting the resulting events described in a Link to the Past, you get the total annihilation of Hyrule, and unlike the adult timeline, there are no recent fables of any heroes to give people hope for any kind of defeat of Ganondorf, so instead of praying and getting a flood, they simply give up and accept death or enslavement, the Zonai come on scene and put a stop to it after realizing what went down and help the Shiekah to build the Divine beasts in secret, with their combined efforts with what few people are left in Hyrule, they eventually kill Ganondorf, but the Shiekah go mad with power, a civil war breaks out resulting in the birth of the Yiga clan, so they are then driven near extinction and the whole of Hyrule gets set back to the bronze age in the process, getting the events from the Tiers of the Kingdom ancient past with Rauru and Sonya being the first to unify Hyrule as a kingdom under a single banner since the death of the original Ganondorf, but they seemingly forgot about the threat of Ganondorf by that point due to the amount of history lost during the civil war with the Shiekah, so you get Rauru doing the big stupid of going "I'm just gonna watch Ganondorf instead of killing him on account of him basically being Hyrule's version of Satan."
I'm sure there's some details I missed as well, but that's kinda how I imagine the shadow timeline playing out.
The thing is Hylia is not referred to as a Time Goddess, she is referred as a Light Goddess.
The only time Zelda had confirmed Time Powers was in Ocarina of Time where she played the Ocarina of Time to send Link back.
Every other Zelda before and after OoT Zelda had Powers over Light in some form.
And how did Ganondorf lose to someone with Stones that don't even grand them infinite durrability?
Majora's isn't the obvious split for this one, it's Skyward Sword. These games are part of (as Nintendo calls it) their "Triforce Trilogy". Originally Demise broke free from his seal and ravaged Hyrule, destroying iconic locations like the springs of power, courage and Wisdom, and the Sheikah nearly go extinct. Eventually he is defeated, but Hyrule is almost unrecognizable from the damage. People lived in scattered tribes, terrified of monsters. The Minish helped them rebuild, as seen in the history explained in Minish cap. Ganon takes longer to emerge as an incarnation of demise in this timeline, and it eventually leads to Ocarina of Time and the main timeline split we know about. Botw and all its history lead off in a 4th timeline branching from Link going back in time and killing Demise in the past. All the springs remain intact, along with other artifacts of the sky kingdom, and the Sheikah tribe thrives (why there are so many). Ganon is incarnated much sooner, because Demise died much sooner. (Shown in the ancient past of Totk) Nintendo, just to reference every game possible, scattered Easter eggs implying alternate versions of other Zelda timeline events occured. (The ancient fight with calamity Ganon may be their version of "A Link to the Past, with the "7 heroines" helping link instead of 7 maidens descended from sages. Fun Easter egg clothes and weapons aren't clues to the timeline, they are red herrings. They only exist to hit our nostalgia button so fans of every Zelda timeline are drawn in. The "imprisoning War" here is clearly an entirely different event from the one referred to in a Link To The Past. It is "this dimensions version" of the imprisoning war, not the one we're familiar with. Botw takes place at the same "time" as the original Legend of Zelda, just in another dimension, and Totk is this dimensions Zelda 2 "Adventure of Link". The devs purposely recreated iconic landscapes seen in the original Zelda game art, and they made a beta testing version of botw in 8bit that looked like classic zelda. They also went out of their way to make as many enemies from that game appear. Nintendo was too lazy on this one to make it fit into one of the already established timelines - they would need to care about story intricacy more. Instead they took the lazy route and decided to branch it off from the timelines earliest point (Skyward Sword) so they could do whatever they wanted without needing to be careful about anything. Ganon in Totk only recognizes links name because Zelda spouts it out every 5 min in the past to everyone she meets and ganon was using his phantom to spy. As a side note - I personally think in the original timeline, the Zonai showed up to find a fully functioning kingdom, and ended up going to war for the Triforce, and were the "dark interlopers" that were banished to the twilight realm and became the twili. It would explain why their architecture and bodies are so similar.
Interesting theory, But I don't think Majora’s Mask would cause a timeline split.
First it relies on the assumption that time travel in Termina would affect Hyrule. That is certainly possible, but not confirmed. But even if it did, I still doubt it would cause a split.
Putting aside the mess that is the Downfall Timeline, the only reference we have for causing a timeline split is from the end of OoT. Somehow, a split is caused when Zelda sends Link back, but not when Link returns the master sword earlier in the game. I can think of a couple possible explanations for this:
1. The split is caused because Zelda has authority over time due to her lineage.
2. The split has to due with the Triforce. When Link travels back in time, there is never a point in which the status of the Triforce is altered. It's unclear if Link is sent back before or after Ganondorf enters the sacred realm, but either way there are still only 1 of each Triforce piece. The only thing that changes is whether the other pieces went to their owners. When Zelda sends Link back in time, she removes the Triforce of Courage from her own timeline. This resulted in Link's triforce piece taking the place of the original in his timeline, and a shattered version filling the gap in the adult. The Triforce seems to be some sort of universal constant in Zelda, so perhaps the switcheroo resulted in two separate timelines forming around the different versions of the triforce.
Neither of these two explanations apply to the time travel in Majora's Mask. Besides, the time travel in MM seems more like rewinding 3 days to me.
yet another reason why fans of the zelda franchise are better story writers than the real story writers
The new official timeline appears to show that just the adult and child timeline converged.
This was very cool! Where would the part about Zelda having Rauru’s light powers fit in? (The thing Sonia says along with Zelda having her time power.)
My argument for that would be this:
Hylia was a goddess created by the Golden Goddesses, who were from the heavens. Hylia got light power from them. I'm pretty sure light power is what is used to 'seal' (a kind of imprisonment spell), since we see different incarnations of Zelda do this, and because Rauru does it. Current Zelda would've gotten light power from Hylia's bloodline (as well as from the Minish Cap Zelda, although that is too large a can of worms for a concise explanation). Rauru obviously also has this power, since we see him use it.
The reason that Sonia connects Zelda's light power with Rauru's is the source of those powers. Both Hylia and the Zonai originated from the 'heavens', the realm of the gods. It seems to me that the light power is something that is always sourced from the heavens.
My idea for Breath of the Wild was that its timeline inconsistencies were the result of a Time Crash; after all, what happens if you try to make a Triforce out of three Power pieces? Cue Ganon invading the other timelines to fight his own counterparts, and the inevitable triple-Power disaster resulting in the Calamity being born, with the Old Man (at least before I learned the truth) being Ganondorf's remaining humanity shed by the Calamity.
There was also the idea for it being a stable time loop of sorts to explain the Downfall timeline's existence, with the Downfall timeline being the canon one and the Lens of Truth being an artefact sent back through time to stop the Hero of Time dying horribly in the Shadow Temple.
Child Timeline I could see Link riding Epona along after a battle with Majors well fought and thinking about the Adult timeline
"Oh no! Majora still thrives... Hyrule is next if Termina has fallen... I have to go back!"
Combines the Powers of the Fierce Diety and Ocarina of Time to Travel back to the after math of Ocarina of Time in front of his home to begin a journey a new... creating an abandoned Child Shadow timeline.
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The Geoglyphs were actually drawn by ancient hylians after zeldas draconification
Actually they were the Anchient Sheikahs, according to Impa saying that her Ancestors made them
@@Chris-gx1ei sheikahs are hylians tho
yes but they would've been made by Hylians who were influenced by the Zonai, since the Zonai ruled them for a while. After all, three of the geoglyphs depict the Zonai and one depicts a secret stone.
i hate the timeline theories but yours had me reconsider, GG!
Sonia being a zelda fits perfectly because if Ganondorf won in twilight princess then when rauru and the zonai rebuilt hyrule after descending and sealing him they wouldn't necessarily follow the naming convention of all the princesses being named zelda..... so Sonia could be zelda/hylia for the shadow timeline but have a different name, i.e., Sonia.
One small detail to account for, but doesn't affect the theory is that Twilight Princess Link is a direct descendant of OoT Link. I wouldn't say he failed but rather also didn't exist because of OoT Link disappearing.
totally possible! I didn't think of that at first
So this is more based on impressions and the similarity to remote bombs but i wonder if the Minish and the Zonai used to be the same race at some point
There’s no way that Nintendo put this much thought into this. If we ever get an actual explanation, it will be something way simpler, like one of the ideas dismissed right at the start of this video, even if it doesn’t fit perfectly. Nintendo simply covers their bases for any contradictions by saying, “it’s all just legends and open to interpretation.”
The problem with the timeline placement of Breath of the wild and also Tears of the Kingdom is that logically there would be no way for the tales or events of other timelines to be known. Unless the timelines were either connected in some sort of event so that the knowledge of events could be passed down, or through the power of the triforce (wisdom). Although many fans assume that through the power of the triforce memories from previous holders is passed down, as far as I know there is no canon lore to support it.
Keep in mind that Ganondorf isn't necessarily the "manifestation of hatred" in tears of the kingdom, or in any game, most people just assume that he is.
"This eternal being has conquered time itself. It is the source of all monsters. According to tales passed down through generations. It appears differently in each epoch and to each person who lays on it." - FI
Although it could be reasoned that anyone who creates or can control monsters is a servant to demise or has access to his powers, then again, not all creators control everything that they create. "The blood moon" creates monsters.
the theory of the tri-force of wisdom providing timeline information is actually in the Twilight Princess Manga, when Gannon has a conversation with Zelda and they specifically talk about the two other timelines, It's a good read too and apparently TP:HD was suppose to eventually be based off the manga, but the manga took too long so they just went with a texture upscale. so Nintendo probably was writing the intention to explain it and everything else since twilight princess!
@@Wolf_Kann Let me clarify, that manga is not canon. Just how the "Hyrule Warriors" games are not.
Quite an interesting theory. I've been more on the side of BOTW and TOTK falling somewhere after a split that branches from SS. I never really thought about a MM split being a thing since the game is so self contained.
I thought about the SS split possibility for a while, and that may be a good explanation, too. I just couldn't find as much evidence for it as I could for an MM split.
@@barbecuesos6242 impa went to the future set in motion the events of links time including link going back in time so to the imprisoned this is the first attempt so what happens when the imprisoned breaks free of the seal destroys the gate of time and breaks the loop
@barbecuesos6242 I remember playing SS when it came out, and it's always bothered me that time travel caused such a huge impact to the timeline in OoT but not SS. So once BOTW came out and didn't really fit anywhere I developed my own little head cannon that the original timeline came after the future of SS when Zelda and Link stayed on the surface and BOTW (and now TOTK) all came after Demise was defeated in the past. Since Demise was gone, there was no longer a need for the humans to remain in the sky, and the land became safer much faster, so everything develops in a vastly different way. Hyrule was established hundreds (thousands?) of years sooner by a different king and queen who may or may not have any relation to Hylia. Ganondorf makes his appearance much sooner in the timeline and seems much more destructive and chaotic because his consciousness as Demise was never outright destroyed and only sealed in the Master sword as opposed to the future where he was sealed away and eventually morphed into the imprisoned and destroyed to be reborn as a new person with his own goals (i.e. compare WW Ganondorf who talks about wanting whats best for the Gerudo as a motivation while TOTK Ganondorf wants to roll back to a less peaceful time because he thinks Rauru is a coward apparently according to what I'veseen about the more literal Japanese translations of some of the memories). This makes me think that TOTK Ganondorf still is largely Demise wanting to return to how things were before he was stopped by Link and when he grabbed the secret stone this was amplified and perhaps he remembered some of his prior life.
@@Gmfrk948 check the time travel scenerio again in sky ward sword the first time jump is when impa travels to the future
This doesn't quite work. There's evidence of zonai symbology dateing as far back as skyward sword's spirit guardian and the sandship and also in the windwaker temple of the gods. So either the Zonai architecture in some way is truly divine in origin and therefore is present due to godly influence or they predate the construction of most of the skyward sword ruins.
the zonai supposedly descended from the heavens, so yes, their architecturue would have some 'godly influence'.
@@barbecuesos6242 seems more likely that ganondorf simply predates Demise. Edit: also the existence of the ancient robots from skyward sword. Or gohdan from windwaker. All this indicates the zonai decending firmly before skyward sword. It also explains their disappearance at the hands of the rise of Demise and his legion of devils. How ganondorf could exist before demise is intriguing but not a plot hole.
Great video! I have been thinking about something. Since Zelda is sent back in time at the start of Totk, wouldn't that create another split? Everything happening in Botw was dependent on Zelda and Link with the master sword, but if she along with the master sword was preoccupied with being a dragon and healing the master sword, none of the events in Botw could happen the way they did in the game. I would love to hear what the people think about this 🔥
I don't know. I suppose it would depend on if time travel used in that way causes a timeline split or not. We see something similar to this in Skyward Sword, where Zelda goes into the past using the Gate of Time and returns to the present later without any obvious timeline split. I don't think that there's any way to prove that there's a split there, but there isn't a clear denial of the existence of a split either.
@@barbecuesos6242 impa went to the future in skyward sword so no time travel to the past took place time split in ocarina of time only when link went back to the past and not between present and future
To me I always thought Tears of the kingdom is some kind of alternate universe ocarina of time, if you really think about it it kinda makes sense, there are a lot of parallels between the 2 games. (Ganondorf pledging loyalty, deku tree getting sick, phantom ganon, Sages, time travel, etc) it just feels like a retelling with a couple of changes thats why alternate universe. Maybe its because the timelines converged and somehow the ocarina story kinda repeated itself idk.
SS time travel is very weird and inconsistent. I would say that it does create a new timeline after Demise is defeated, but not ones where more minor changes are made like planting the tree for example.
There is one problem the Timeline with the succesfull invasion of the Twili there wouldn´t be a Link to begin with because the Heroes Shade is related by blood with the Heroe of Shadows.
So it would probably had come a entire new Hero like in Wind Waker but he also could have come after the succesfull invasion.
If Ganondorf is reborn to fight the Zonai then why isn't Link also reborn? I thought they both have to be there based on what Demise says
That's a fair question! I don't have a solid answer for that at this point. Maybe he was defeated early on.
Where is thumbnail Ganondorf from?
Twilight Princess
@@barbecuesos6242 I couldnt find it on google. Twilight Princess HD or OG doesn't have that official art, was it a promo?
I think without oot link TP link doesn't exist. I may be mistaken, wasn't to link related to oot link and Malon?
That may be correct, I'm not sure. I think it would end up playing out the same way, though. Whether or not TP Link is around in TP, he would lose in the shadow timeline
I've seen so many of these timeline theory videos using easter egg cosmetics as evidence for their theories. You just can't do that. That's like saying the Sat Fox universe and the Zelda universe exist together because a whole row of masks in Majora's Mask reference the Star Fox characters. The easter egg cosmetics in TotK were DLC in the BotW. In TotK they decided to give them to all players. It's as simple as that. The creators have made it clear they don't consider the timeline when making these games. I like to think of them as "legends", they're all myths and stories from long ago, so long ago no one can place them. Sometimes story elements get mixed up or things change over time through oral tradition. They're all The Legend of Zelda, told by different people at different times. Sometimes they're connected, sometimes they're not. Anyway, that's how I free myself from worrying about the timeline. Now my new problem is the two most recent games have almost zero legend or story to them...
Hang on, saying Sonia doesnt have children just because we don't see them is like saying she doesn't have any parents just because we don't see them. Or saying the rest of the kingdom of Hyrule doesn't exist because we don't see them during the tear memories.
I dont recall her and rauru saying in no uncertain terms "We do not have children." But i am on my second play through, so i may be plain wrong
I really enjoy this theory but my question is what about the war from 10,000 years ago from the tapestry in botw? It couldn’t of take place after the events of Zelda becoming the light dragon if we assume the sword the hero holds in the tapestry is the master sword. I also don’t believe that could of been Sonia and Raru because of the fact it is Calamity Gannon. I don’t think it could of take place before the existence of Sonia and Raru because again it is Calamity Gannon. Where does that battle fall in place?
While some of the connections made are there regarding the Twili and some Zonai stuff, there are... A lot of issues with this theory.
First off, and rather minor but still, I've not heard suggestions of those other timeline placements. I heard of the timeline cycle theory before TotK came out, when people speculated the whole timeline would be revealed to loop back to the beginning of Skyward Sword, but I haven't heard that since the game's release. Every placement I've heard that comes before a possible convergence is right after Skyward Sword (Hyrule has not yet been founded and is not founded at the very end of Skyward Sword, so the claim is that this comes after Skyloft is brought to the ground but before Hyrule Kingdom is established) or in the Downfall Timeline, between Ocarina of Time and A Link To The Past, since the backstory of A Link To The Past mentions the Imprisoning War. It doesn't really matter that you mention those other placements as being most popular as it doesn't directly impact the theory, more just a comment on that part.
Onto the actual theory, and ignoring my personal pet peeve regarding the Hero's Shade nonsense, while there is time travel involved in Majora's Mask and hypothetically that could lead to another branching timeline, it's kind of implied that every potential branch outside of the three established points are essentially doomed timelines where nothing really happens. After all, there's an infinite number of potential timelines, both from every potential point at which Link can die to every optional side quest to... Countless other things. No, not necessarily every conceivable decision, since I believe it's stated that those all become the same main timeline when the choices are inconsequential and still have the same final result, but that's not necessarily the case for side quests and the like. But even just every possible death gives an infinite number of potential branches. Even your own shadow timeline theory could also just stem from Link dying during the events of Twilight Princess and don't require an earlier split created during Majora's Mask. Or there could even be a split caused by Midna not destroying the Mirror of Twilight. There really isn't any evidence of a split in the timeline.
And no, the lacking technology of the Hylians during Rauru's time doesn't count as evidence. Yes, it is evidence of how thorough and lasting whatever destroyed the previous Kingdom was. They clearly lost all of their advancements long enough that they've not only yet to be able to re-establish Hyrule Kingdom, but have forgotten there ever was one. But... Well, there's no evidence what they were experiencing in Twilight Princess would ever lead to that. They became spirits, sure, but as we know from listening to them in that form, they didn't vanish or stop existing or anything. They kept living, continued going about their days, though now dealing with shadow beasts and stuff. We see them interacting with the world around them, even if we can't interact with them. How could a few generations of that lead to the entire Kingdom being wiped out so thoroughly that they forget there was a Hyrule Kingdom long before ever being able to establish a new Kingdom? That suggests a thorough decimation of the populous and likely destruction of all signs of civilization. That requires a full on apocalyptic event that nearly wiped out all life. Not a century of the Twilight and whatever that was causing. I mean seriously, the result of whatever happened was comparable to the impact of the war against Demise and disappearance of Hylia's chosen people leading up to the events of Skyward Sword.
Besides, even if we were to assume a branch resulted in there being no Hero's Shade to teach the Hero of Twilight how to use his techniques, the only one that's actually necessary is the Ending Blow, and ignoring the fact we need to learn it to progress right away, the only mandatory usage of it is when you defeat Ganondorf at the very end of the game. No Hero's Shade to teach it means that Link could theoretically go through quite literally everything else, including saving the Light Spirits, getting the Master Sword, getting the Fused Shadow, infusing the Sols into the Master Sword, killing Zant, and even destroying the barrier around Hyrule Castle, everything except the final blow on Ganondorf. And even that's debatable, since it would be hypothetically possible to kill Ganondorf without the Ending Blow if we're talking about unseen possibilities, it's just the only option we as the player are given. Which means there's realistically no guarantee your speculation on the results of this timeline would come to fruition. It's all just speculation.
Moving to the point of Sonia feeling the blood connection to Zelda, while it is true we do not have a confirmed explanation... That's that. We do not have a confirmed explanation for why we don't see her have a baby despite it being established that Zelda is her direct descendant. Yeah, it is hypothetically possible that there's a timeline split and convergence with an alternate timeline where Sonia is not murdered by Ganondorf and has a child with Rauru... But it's equally just as possible, if not more likely, she already had a kid with Rauru prior to Zelda's appearance. They married before they founded the Kingdom, and met Zelda after founding the Kingdom. It's implied they had been married for a few years. So there's nothing suggesting they couldn't have had a kid before meeting Zelda and we just never see it. There is clearly a lot more time that passes between Zelda's arrival and Sonia's death than we see, just looking at what's confirmed. It's implied Zelda talks about Link a lot, we know that Zelda and Sonia have enough time together for Sonia to teach Zelda to use her powers, there's definitely a gap in time between Ganondorf introducing himself to Rauru and him killing Sonia, there's also a gap in time between him stealing her Secret Stone and the final conflict where the Sages fail to stop him and Rauru seals him away. With so much unseen time that we can confirm, who's to say that time doesn't include Sonia and Rauru caring for an unseen child? Sure, we never see it, but that really does not mean anything since every possible explanation requires stuff we do not see.
So... That should cover the important parts. There are too many possible options for a new timeline to really argue there being one we've not been told of, a split there specifically isn't needed for your speculated timeline to exist, your speculated timeline wouldn't even happen the way you say it would, there is no actual evidence of such a timeline existing, the evidence you gave kind of disproves the theory on its own, there are a number of possible explanations for the connection between Sonia and Zelda. Oh, and the theory still leaves holes in it, namely where the Zonai came from to defeat the Twili, why they defeated the Twili after the collapse of Hyrule only to leave again without helping rebuild, then return again after a long enough period of time that even they forgot Hyrule Kingdom had already existed previously.
Oh, and a quick thing regarding the ancient ruins... That's not really much evidence. The ruins are older than the Zonai ruins either way, and at least 10,000 years passed between Rauru's time and BotW, so having the more ancient stuff be... Still more ancient but less so doesn't really make a difference. But as a simple explanation, even in the real world there are many ancient structures that have lasted longer than other, less ancient ones. The pyramids of Giza and the Great Sphinx are both in incredible condition for how old they are, meanwhile the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are... Not, despite the Pyramids being far older. Even more recent things like many structures from the medieval era have collapsed while things like the Colosseum in Rome are still standing. Just because something is less ancient, doesn't guarantee it would be in better condition. Different environmental conditions, different architectural designs and methods, all sorts of things can lead to some things lasting thousands of years while others leave no trace after less than a century.
One major issue with your theory. Terrmina from Majora's Mask already doesn't exist in the normal reality of Zelda, kind of like the island from Link's Awakening.
Sorry, could you explain why that is a problem?
First of all, it's never 100% clear if Termina doesn't exist or if it does. Second, just because it's disconnected from the normal world doesn't mean that the things that happen there aren't real to Link. If anything, Termina being disconnected just explains why Majora never shows up in Hyrule if the theory is correct
@@barbecuesos6242 It means that the flow of time is entirely disconnected. Where as LA is a dream world , MM was a nightmare realm. Link repeating the same 3 days over and over doesn't crete an alternate timeline where in he loses to Majora, at least no more so than any other time he starts jumping through alternate realities, such as in A Link Between Worlds, or, funnily enough, Twilight Princess.
I would argue even, that it's entirely more likely that this "shadow timeline" is actually a shadow au. A Link Between Worlds establishes this as something possible, and it would explain why BotW/TotK can have such a long timeline, and why Link and Zelda don't appear to have the Triforce bound to them in the same way as our main au representations of the Hero and Goddess.
It's also entirely possible that we're both wrong. Only Nintendo can decide.
what abaut hyrule warriors?
I'm pretty sure Nintendo said that game wasn't canon
What about the wind tribe from minish cap. There is also the whole ending where if you take too long Zelda light force gets taken from her
that would be the downfall timeline leading into the rest of the four swords trilagy instead of ocarina of time
I actually think two temples of time makes sense and doesn't seem unnecessary bc one temple could be devoted to the past and the other to the future, the two sides of time. Maybe, anyways...
its a little confuseing but it would help explainmost of it and the parlese are quite impresive also i never thought about the whole time ablity in majora mask of makeing a sparate timline
great vid
I think a shadow timeline works really well! But this one doesn't work with my theory on the convergence and with the fact that all the timelines of majora seemingly converge at the end of the game (as seen in the end credits).
Maybe we could say that if another split happened within the downfall timeline (in which the ocarina is back in Zelda's possession and who knows what she or her successors do with it) maybe the zonai are just that timeline's future version of the twili?
w video, gained a sub.
My big theory is that the zonai come from the interlopers. Thus why they have such similar cultures.
I had a theory that the robots in skyward sword where related to zonai and the weird bird things
In the original timeline of totk, Sonia doesn't die because Dorf doesn't disguise himself as zelda to kill her BTW. Also please cover how all the dorfs seem to wear a secret stone on their foreheads