#skyward sword prequel

[divan-daikon]

finally showing off (one) of my loz ocs yuuuhh mkay so I've spent months making sure this guy was lore accurate enough and I've spent an unhealthy amount of hours just thinking about him and his descendant's role in the story so imma get on with it

(i'm trying to finish the hawkmoth redesign i swear I'm just strugglin)

[ovegakart]

what if hylia was like nine feet tall and thoght link was cute

[sonicasura]

Remorseful Primal Berserker, Lamortmon (Digimon)

Vengeful Reminder, Scar of Vendread (Yu-Gi-Oh)

Snowborne Hatred, Chien Pao (Pokemon)

Wyvern of Malice, Magnamalo (Monster Hunter)

The Cruel Vampire King, Myotismon (Digimon)

[lanayrutower]

going from the hylink depictions in fandom and all the zelda games where link dedicates his life to saving and serving her to the skyward sword prequel manga is wild because you meet the first link, and he's just like. idgaf about hylia (the goddess). you gods are just as pathetic and powerless as we humans whom you supposedly reign above. why are you coming to me to fix your problems. why do we even keep you around. i don't want your stupid sword. the bird is cool, though.

[shadowsageingempress]

Valor: Every single odd number has an “e” in it.

Flower: Listen-

Wild: Not all of them. Thirty and fifty aren’t spelled with the letter e in it…

Breeze: Sweet Hylia…

Twi: … if you can split a number in half evenly, it’s even. Thirty and fifty are odd.

Time: Fifteen plus fifteen equals thirty. Twenty-five plus twenty-five equals thirty.

Midna: Twenty five plus twenty five equals thirty? You sure about that?

Twi: Lord have mercy…

Breeze: Bye.

Twi: *laughing hysterically*

Time: One. Three. Five. Nine. And since everything after that is a variant of these numbers, then all odds have the letter e.

Hourglass: You forgot seven!!

Twi: It just keeps getting worse.

Valor: *laughs* What is going on?!

Wild: You whole ass forgot about eight - a number with an e and is pretty fucking even!

Twi: Why would eight be brought up if it’s even in a conversation about odds??? She said “every single odd number has an ‘e’ in it” not “every single number with an ‘e’ is odd” what the fuck?

Sky: Er, guys. Two is odd and doesn’t have an e. Just saying.

Midna: Did you deadass just try to tell me that two is odd? Throw the whole light world away.

Twi: Two is odd?!?!

Linkle: Wait, what about zero, that’s an odd number, no?

Wild: Okay, but hear me out. Fifty and thirty make up for the fact that they have no e by the way they’re pronounced third-e and fifth-e.

Time: Why do thirty and fifty matter, they’re fucking even!

Warriors: What the actual fuck is happening?

Winds: One is an even number.

Midna: I’m gonna smack you.

Linkle: Negative thirty and negative fifty have an e in them.

Sky: Zero isn’t a number.

Wild: It can’t be divided by two, though, can it?

Warriors: It can??? Zero divided by two is zero??

Wild: I’m a dumb bitch.

Time: Od numbers: One, three, five, seven, nine!

Midna: Od numbers, huh?

Flower: Anything that ends with a zero, two, four six or eight is even and the rest is odd. One, three, seven and nine. Stop freaking out, all of you.

Hourglass: You forgot five!

Warriors: Dude, what about four?

Midna: What about it?????

Warriors: That doesn’t have an ‘e’ in it!

Midna: THAT’S BECAUSE IT’S EVEN?????

Ganondorf: Are you guys okay?!

Ghirahim: I’m fucking sobbing!

Zant: I’m honestly so confused right now.

Tetra: What is going on??

Ganondorf: This is the height of our stupidity. It has to be, or future generations cannot exist.

[thewitchdoctor39]

I’ve been chipping away at this First meets the chain fic for months now, and I finally finished the first chapter during the LU write-a-thon a couple days ago!

[fourswords]

y'know just the fact that hylia had to ask link whether he was going to take revenge on the kingdom that held him in contempt or save it from doom was enough of an eye-opening moment as it was (even though hylia already knew what his answer was going to be):

but genuinely if he hadn't already died and could've heard what hylia said about his imprisonment and suffering being "willed by the heavens" because it was "necessary to transform him into the one fit to wield the master sword" i think he might've just been like Actually. Fuck you guys. Revenge it is. because while link DOES stand with his comrades again after his imprisonment and DOES call them his friends even after their betrayal and DOES pray for their happiness above the clouds with all his heart and DID want to take to the sky with them.....the emphasis on the land itself being what link fights for more than the people is absolutely woven into the story here. when he stands above the crowd of people and promises to always defend the land of hylia, he looks out at the mountains, not down at the crowd, and even says:

"Though people's hearts may change with time, this land's beauty, pride and purity never change. If you have need of me... ...then I will forever fight to defend you."

and the amount of times the destruction of the land is emphasized....

"Wicked desire assaulted the world's surface, staining it the color of obsidian... ...and the mountains, the plains, and all that flowed pure on the earth were ruthlessly scoured by fire."

and when the demon king strikes link down and goes on to continue his rampage before hylia eventually seals him away, link doesn't think even once of the people until the red loftwing appears and link asks him if he would show their people to the skies. instead, he thinks this:

"My hometown... The beautiful air... The mountains... The rivers... ...reduced to this. Will this be the last thing I ever see?"

like. he stands with the people even after all they've done to him. he acts as their figurehead. their pawn that they cast aside to torture and rot and only dragged back out because lord dagianis died and they finally decided that a hero was needed again. he fights with them. he calls them his friends despite everything. he hopes for their happiness. but first and foremost, it's the land itself that he fights for, not the people living on it. not really. when he says "people's hearts may change with time" he kind of even acknowledges that—it's a verbal slight against them and all of their fickleness concerning him and his imprisonment and his freedom the instant they were in danger again (same as when he said "It was you—my own people—who said you had no need for a powerful hero. And now that it's convenient for you, you want me to fight?"). and maybe nothing would've changed if he'd heard his suffering was ordained by the gods. maybe his love of the land still would have won over his hatred of the people and the gods doing what they did to him and he still would have fought just the same. but i honestly would not have blamed this dude one bit if he'd just decided to be like "Fuck This. Fuck All Of You." and dipped. he's suffering more than jesus out here

[itti-the-mouse]

If you're allowed to Unironically Block people for thinking Ocarina of Time is a better choice than Majora's Mask, then i'm allowed to Unironically Block you for thinking Skyward Sword is anything other than the absolute worst the series has to offer. Bye.

[vampire-wizard-solidarity]

people who make theories about totk without even mentioning the calamity 10k ago from botw’s intro are kind of wild to me. like. totk is a direct sequel to botw. why would you think they’d introduce a whole new plot with new lore completely disconnected from botw instead of using the clear setup mysteries from botw. some of you are clearly treating this as a a completely new instalment instead of a continuation of botw bc ur so obsessed with ‘the timeline’ or larger zelda lore that it’s difficult to acknowledge that the zelda series never really cared much for continuity nor exploring larger series lore in detail.

[charcoaldustonmyfingers]

Zonai Skyward Sword AU!

Hey, It’s been awhile!

Anyways, I recently replayed SS after being absolutely enamored by Echoes of Wisdom, so I thought I’d doodle a bit more about it :)

It’s tough thinking of comics for this AU, since there’s not a lot of lore surrounding the zonai that’s all that concrete, but I do hope to expand it sometime! I did give some thought to the Loftwings though.

I think it might be cool if they were a little more prehistoric/dinosaur looking, though I tried to keep them as similar to their in game counterparts as I could. I like to think they’re cared for like the Sky Bisons of ATLA, and they get to choose a partner for life as children.

I also love the idea that Link’s loftwing has the same spirit as Epona, and that she has reincarnated with him as his eternally loyal friend. No one knows where the crimson Loftwing came from, only that she appeared to Link one day and never left his side.

It takes a little from the prequel comic to SS, where Hylia’s Loftwing pledged its loyalty to the Hero.

[yiga-hellhole]

"the zelda timeline is bullshitted and fake and-" wind waker and phantom hourglass and spirit tracks are all direct sequels of each other. the games themselves say this. adventure of link is a direct sequel to LOZ. the games and guidebooks that came with it say this. link to the past was made as a prequel to explain how the triforce came to be in the state it was in in LOZ. the games and guidebook say this. ocarina of time was then made as a prequel to this game. also links awakening, as per in-game story and guidebooks, is the same link as the one from alttp. but then majoras mask was made as a sequel to ocarina of time, even if it conflicted with the events of link to the past, which suggests the whole time travel thing had some consequences. twilight princess, with the execution of ganondorf and the literal hero of time teaching you the way of the sword, is then pretty safely assumed to follow some time after ocarina of time. the oracle games feature twinrova attempting to resurrect their son, but summon ganon instead, telling us that it AT LEAST has to take place after ocarina of time and before LOZ. skyward sword pretty solidly establishes itself as the very beginning of hyrule, so has to happen before everything else.

its literally only the handheld games and the actual timespans where the timeline wobbles. the vast majority of it makes perfect sense. timeline haters simply have only actually played 2 games at best (one of which being botw) and then read some salty tumblr posts.

[ultimateinferno]

I made a previous post about the nature of the Zelda timeline, but thinking back, how it all came together is very amusing.

Now "The fans care more about the timeline than Nintendo does" and "Nintendo never developed the games with a timeline in mind" are both true. However, that doesn't mean "all Zelda games are wholly unrelated and irrelevant to each other." Unfortunately, the reality of the matter is that Nintendo developed each game with one other game in mind and only one other game, and so by pure proxy all games naturally fall into a timeline despite the fact the people putting Echoes of Wisdom together didn't give Spirit Tracks much thought.

It's sort of a "proof by induction" kind of deal. Adventure of Link was deliberately written as a sequel to Zelda 1. A Link to the Past was developed as a prequel to Zelda 1. Links Awakening as a sequel to ALttP. Ocarina of Time as a prequel to ALttP (fleshing out backstory in its manual). Majora's Mask was a clear sequel to OoT. For the first 15-ish years a Prequel-Sequel pairing pattern was followed. When Oracles and Four Swords games were done, they didn't fit super neatly with the "main timeline," but they were also not made by Nintendo (they're Capcom games save for Four Swords Adventures but that springboarded off of Capcom's Zeldas).

Then, continuing, Wind Waker explicitly recounts Ocarina of Time in its prologue. Twilight Princess explicitly discusses Ocarina of Time's child ending after Arbiter's Grounds. Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks both explicitly refer to Wind Waker. Then, along comes Skyward Sword, the game developed with the entire Zelda franchise in mind. Paired with Hyrule Historia, giving us the modern timeline we know.

A Link Between Worlds is an explicit follow-up to A Link to the Past. Triforce Heroes is its funky little sibling. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are the only ones that are truly unmoved by the other games. Hell, TotK is pretty unmoved by BotW too. All things considered, they're close to the exception rather than the rule.

The nature of the Zelda Timeline is neither super developed and rigid in its structure like more straightforward game franchises, nor is it apathetic of its kin, like Mario or Final Fantasy. It's a sprawling web where time and again, the developers take a dangling thread from one game to weave their own tapestry until at the end of it they made a fucked up, hyperbolic quilt with 5 squares to a vertex. You can't actually cut it out as they're pretty securely interwoven, but it's not going to lay flat either.

[ovegakart]

a meme i put wayy too much effort into

[appeypie]

refs for my skyward sword prequel thing that ive been thinkin about for a whileee...

most of the details are in my head but there's a little bit about them on my artfight page ^_^

[lanayrutower]

this is who he is to me.

Variant:

[imgibbon]

On the Zelda Timeline

First of all.... fuck the Historia lol. It's just. Wrong. It ignores in-game statements, manuals, interviews where developers stated their intent, the works. That timeline is full of it lol.

But anyway, listen, the Zelda timeline isn't "complicated" or "obtuse" and each game is NOT "just a retelling of the same legend"

Damn near every game in the franchise that's been released is very clear about where it lies with relation to at least one other game.

from the top:

The Legend of Zelda (LoZ) - the first one, we're starting here.

The Adventure of Link (AoL) - a direct sequel LoZ, featuring the same Link.

A Link to the Past (LttP) - a prequel to LoZ, from "before Hyrule was a unified kingdom".

Link's Awakening (LA) - a sequel to LttP, featuring the same Link.

Ocarina of Time (OoT) - a prequel to LttP, portraying events from its backstory.

Majora's Mask (MM) - a direct sequel to OoT, following the same Link.

Oracle of Seasons (OoS) and Oracle of Ages (OoA) go one after the other in either order, but take place in between LttP and LA. This is stated Developer Intent as per interviews, and why they open with Link approaching the Triforce from the end of LttP and ending the linked campaign with Link on the boat from the beginning of LA. I'm going to list Seasons first and Ages second just because that's their sku order.

so at this point the timeline is very straightforward and looks thusly: OoT, MM -> LttP, OoS/OoA, LA -> LoZ, AoL

now, continuing on...

Four Swords (FS) comes out attached to an expanded port of Link to the Past which has new content. Said new content includes a temple dedicated to FS', er, Four Sword, which has been corrupted and is in Ganon's hands. FS is said to take place prior to LttP and is "potentially the earliest in the timeline", but exact placement is unclear at time of release.

The Wind Waker (WW) - this presents our first (and only) timeline split. It explicitly takes place after the future of OoT where the final boss fight against Ganon took place, the Hero of Time disappearing afterwards (because Link then travelled into the past and experienced the events of MM) At this time we do not know which timeline split off from OoT that LttP, and everything after it, follows on from.

Four Swords Adventures (FSA) - a direct sequel to FS, featuring the same Link & Zelda, and firmly takes place between OoT and LttP (and by extension, means FS does as well). Stated Developer Intent was to better portray events from LttP's backstory and explain how the Four Sword wound up in Ganon's control. It also, for the first time, shows the rise of a new incarnation of Ganon, firmly splitting the OoT Ganon and LttP Ganon as separate beings.

The Minish Cap (MC) - Very firmly the earliest chronological game at the time of its release. Just, comes before everything else in the list at present.

Twilight Princess (TP) - takes place after OoT, but on the MM side of the split, carrying over characters and plotlines from MM and the ending of OoT where Link went back to being a child and warned the kingdom of Ganon's actions. Also sets up stuff for FSA and LttP. This firmly establishes that LttP takes place on the MM half of the timeline split.

so, to take a look at things now, timeline looks like this: MC -> OoT {timeline splits} - OoT, MM -> TP -> FS, FSA -> LttP, OoS/OoA, LA -> LoZ, AoL - OoT -> WW

coincidentally, the next couple of releases would be WW split games heh

Phantom Hourglass (PH) - a direct sequel to WW, featuring the same Link & Zelda

Spirit Tracks (ST) - a sequel to Phantom Hourglass, taking place a few generations later

Skyward Sword (SS) - the new earliest chronological game in the timeline, taking place before even MC

A Link Between Worlds (LBW) - sequel to LttP taking place some generations later but with some returning long-lived characters

Hyrule Warriors (HW) - officially "non-canon", but it takes place some time after TP, Ganon's spirit having been sealed away and the next incarnation not able to be born until he breaks free, so prior to FSA.

Tri Force Heroes (TFH) - a direct sequel to LBW featuring the same Link.

so the timeline looks thus at this point in time: SS -> MC -> OoT {timeline splits} - OoT, MM -> TP -> HW -> FS, FSA -> LttP, OoS/OoA, LA -> LBW, TFH -> LoZ, AoL - OoT -> WW, PH -> ST

Hyrule Warriors Legends - an expansion of HW that adds a new story which sees the WW branch of the timeline, from WW through ST, being pulled in to the TP one. Again, "non-canon", but this serves as a convenient spot to point at if one wanted to argue that the two timelines converged again at some point

Why is that convenient? Well, because the next release was

Breath of the Wild (BotW) - references events of OoT, and takes place 10,000 years after the last time "The Calamity" Ganon ravaged the lands of Hyrule. Also seems to reference, among other things, events of both TP and WW, which would suggest that it takes place after both of them at once, which is contradictory... unless the timelines merged back into one at some point.

But really, this is where Nintendo makes a clean break. BotW is either its own standalone thing, or it takes place so far out from prior entries that putting it on a timeline doesn't matter. For reference, that timescale irl is equivalent of looking at when the Ice Age was wrapping up with respect to present day.

From here on out things are less defined, if at all, with relation to pre-BotW games, and are more just in a BotW aesthetic if they're not placed relative to BotW itself.

Cadence of Hyrule (CoH) - another "non-canon" entry, and a crossover one at that. No stated placement, but, the game features a young Ganon who doesn't have the Triforce of Power who grows up, turns into his big beast form, and ravages Hyrule before being defeated, which conveniently is the backstory for the original LoZ, so one could arguably put it prior to it but after LBW, making it the origin story of the Ganon who appears in the original Famicom games.

Age of Calamity (AoC) - yet another "non-canon" entry, but is seemingly a prequel to BotW that branches a new timeline split (lol) by way of actually being a sequel to BotW via the use of time travel.

Tears of the Kingdom (TotK) - a direct sequel to BotW that, surprise, involves time travel that involves possibly overwriting large swathes of Hyrule's history, back to and possibly even including OoT, if you subscribe to BotW being in the same timeline continuity as prior entries. I don't really want to think about the implications of that lol.

anyway, so the timeline either looks like this: SS -> MC -> OoT {timeline splits} - OoT, MM -> TP -> HW -> FS, FSA -> LttP, OoS/OoA, LA -> LBW, TFH -> CoH -> LoZ, AoL - OoT -> WW, PH -> ST {unconnected} BotW, AoC, TotK

or, if you believe in timeline unification, this: SS -> MC -> OoT {timeline splits} - OoT, MM -> TP -> HW - OoT -> WW, PH -> ST -> HW {timeline merges} FS, FSA -> LttP, OoS/OoA, LA -> LBW, TFH -> CoH -> LoZ, AoL -> -> -> BotW, AoC, TotK

Echoes of Wisdom (EoW) comes out in just under three weeks. We have no idea when it will take place. Does it really matter where? No, of course not. None of this really does, but the developers working on the games clearly put a lot of time and effort into these sorts of things and I think it's neat to acknowledge that work and be able to lay everything out like this.

Anyway yeah thanks for coming to my TED Talk