#yeah no botw/totk in an alternate timeline.

[waywardsalt]

when i played persona 5 royal for the first time i felt that it was a great palette cleanser after the dogshit of totk, and now i gotta say elden ring fits a similar bill, and also does certain things better anyways

[blueskittlesart]

So my first LoZ game was TOTK. I got it as a gift and I just recently obtained BOTW. After watching the Echoes of Wisdom trailer, I have a few questions and figured considering the document u could prolly answer.

Are the Rito a staple of the game? They don't appear to be in EoW.

Are Sidon, Riju, Yunobo, and Tulin/Teba similar staples? Do their tribes appear without them, the characters changing?

What are Deku? Are they korok alternatives?

Finally, where do u think the game would fall on the timeline?

Thank you so much.

omg yaaay i havent talked at length about zelda lore/theories in a while lets go

Rito are a relatively new addition to the franchise. the only games which feature them are wind waker (2002) and its sequels, and botw (2016) and its sequels. the canonical explanation for why the rito just showed up is that they evolved in the thousands of years between wind waker and the game that came before it on the timeline. Based on the general vibe of eow i've seen in the trailers, it looks like it probably comes before wind waker on the timeline or exists in a different timeline entirely. so i think the rito probably haven't evolved yet. because the rito haven't been around since the very beginning like other races in the games, the devs seem to have more freedom to pick and choose whether they want them around, so i wouldn't exactly call them a staple race in the way that zora and gorons are.

While the RACES of hyrule are staples of the franchise, the specific champions we see in botw/totk are not. those characters don't reincarnate the way link, zelda, and ganon do, so they only exist within that one specific link's time. So while we'll definitely zee zora and gorons in eow, we almost definitely aren't going to see any familiar characters.

Deku are a race of forest spirit-adjacent. things. their first appearance was in oot iirc. the great deku tree, as you may remember from botw/totk, is a very old, very powerful forest spirit who rules over the forest. in oot, deku scrubs were usually hostiles you had to either fight or negotiate with, and in mm, link could become a deku scrub via a kind of terrifying mechanic we don't have to get into here. based on the eow trailer, in this version of hyrule the deku scrubs are korok/kokiri substitutes. the race that lives in the forest is one of the most inconsistent pieces of overarching zelda lore, so yeah tldr you can just assume theyre basically koroks.

the timeline question is. well. before the most recent trailer I was almost completely convinced that it was going to be on the alttp timeline, somewhere after link's awakening. but that was based solely on the vibes and the bare glimpses of the hyrule map we got in the first trailer. now that we've gotten a much more extensive look at the map and the races of hyrule, I think it's a little more likely that the game takes place sometime before oot. the map looks similar enough to minish cap while featuring races and regions that made their debut in oot, so I think that it makes sense for the game to fall somewhere in between the two, and I think that a lot of the choices they made sort of lend themselves to the game being a transition between minish cap/4 swords and oot. the crack theory is that it takes place AFTER botw/totk, purely because of how visually similar bind looks to ultrahand and the appearance of certain races being super similar to botw/totk, but i think the pre-oot theory is MUCH more likely.

[embyrinitalics]

Hail, whump queen! Do you have any thoughts or head canons about the end of TotK?

Ah! You're too kind. 😌 Though I usually feel more like a whump jester than a whump queen. 😅

Mmkay, so. I have Complicated Feelings toward TotK. I had fun while playing it, but trying to reconcile it as a sequel to BotW left me with a bad aftertaste (WHERE IS KASS), and as a result I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about the story or the ending or what came afterwards.

But what I HAVE spent a lot of time thinking about is How The Heck Does TotK Make Any Sense, and I have a timey-wimey cockamamie theory at which you are all sure to HOOT.

You know how there was always a sky full of floating islands and this mind-bogglingly huge underworld above and below Hyrule for thousands of years and everyone just never noticed. That really bugged me from day one. And whenever it gets brought up people are always just like "Oh yeah, it was the Upheaval."

What is that even supposed to mean? Ganondorf lifted the castle into the air and now the sky is filled with islands and we have giant chasms leading to an underworld? How is "it was the Upheaval" an explanation of anything?

But then I was thinking about how the game begins with time travel, and how Zelda has always been fast and loose with their time travel rules, and how maybe "the Upheaval" is just what people call it because it's all they can see to blame it on, but what they're really referring to is "the moment Zelda went back in time."

There's a couple different time travel options, right? You have alternate timelines, like Ocarina of Time, where you create multiple branches when you go back and forth in time and change things. You have the Back to the Future type, where there's only one timeline, but only the time-traveler notices things have changed. You have Dr. Who, which has no rules whatsoever except for when it does.

Tears of the Kingdom presents itself as more of a predestination paradox type time travel, which is more Star Trek-y. Ganondorf recognizes Link and Zelda beneath the castle before she ever goes back in time and there is a mural of her turning into the Light Dragon in the catacombs, implying that she has already done what she's about to do. If that's so, then she and Mineru have also sent the islands into the sky in preparation for Link's future, and basically everything that he discovers after his awakening has been there all along, unbeknownst to everyone.

OR HAS IT?!?

I think the game isn't a predestination paradox at all. I think, prior to their jaunt beneath the castle, there are no islands in the sky, nor Dragon fly-through routes through Hyrule's underbelly, nor any of the new, inexplicable things that crop up between BotW and TotK.

I think that when Zelda traveled back in time, she altered history. During the events of BotW there were no sky islands and no Light Dragon and no geoglyphs. But unlike in Back to the Future, when Zelda alters history everyone is aware that things have changed. They just don't know why. They blame the "sudden appearance" of sky islands and a Light Dragon and geoglyphs and everything else on the strange event they could all see happen at Hyrule Castle: the Upheaval.

Now maybe I'm just a dumb-dumb and this was what we were supposed to think all along? But I didn't get that during my play-through. O_o

BUT WAIT, you may be thinking. If that's the case, how did Ganondorf recognize Link and Zelda beneath the castle in the intro, and how was there already a mural of her turning into the Light Dragon down there? And I'll give ya another one! How do we see the Light Dragon flying around the Great Sky Island when Link still has the decayed Master Sword in his possession?!

SO THIS IS THE HOOTABLE PART.

Things don't change when Zelda goes back in time. Things change when Zelda picks up the Secret Stone.

The stone itself is a magical magic-amplifying device, and rather than the instant Zelda warps backwards being the time-altering event, I think that it was the moment she touched (and "activated," if you will) the stone and it's timey-wimey powers that the timeline began altering.

At that point she is existing in a midst of a magically-created spacetime paradox bubble, wherein time no longer functions linearly for her. She exists as the princess beneath the castle, as the time traveler in the past, and as the dragon in the sky simultaneously. All of the events that are currently happening (from our perspective), have happened (in Hyrule's past), and will happen (in Link's future), are all swirling and altering the timeline at once. This is why Ganondorf already knows her name, and why she exists as the Light Dragon in the sky despite Link not having sent back the Master Sword yet.

BUT WAIT, you may exclaim. WHAT ABOUT THE MURAL.

Ok so. This is a cop out, but listen. We don't ACTUALLY see the contents of the mural. It's covered up until later. So. It might not have been an image of the Light Dragon at all. PERHAPS.

...

Look. I know this whole theory is riddled with holes and I don't think this is what the developers intended at all and I'm not even sure I really believe it myself. But if I had to write a fic and I needed the events I see in the game to make sense, this might be a route I would take. Just so my brain would stop hurting.

So! That's totally not what you asked but there you have it. 😂

Thanks for writing in!

[cwazytvthings]

Just some more Totk thoughts:

I love the game and I love exploring but I'm finding it hard to complete. Not because it's difficult or anything, the gameplay is fantastic. The reason why It feels hard to complete is because I'm not vibin with the story. It's been out for what two months now? And I'm just playing at a snail's pace because I can't get into what we were given.

I really wished they delved more into the sheikah tech instead of leaving basically none of it behind. Including the sheikah monks, divine beasts, ancient flames... they're just all gone. They had so much left untold, like if we don't get a dlc I'm going to be really disappointed. I also can't stand the heavy focus on Link and Zelda because it always leads to a ship war. Like, link is supposed to mirror the player yet I feel so disconnected from him. I also dislike how the cliche, "Zelda is strong because she needs to love someone." Like why couldn't we just get a strong female character who attained her power from realizing she is more capable than what her father thought?

Also don't get me wrong, Zelink is cute but It takes away from the story when everybody is basically shipping "you" and Zelda lmao. In my opinion, Link is the player, and it just throws a lot of stuff off when people are telling you to go save your girl. Botw and Totk did this and that's where I feel like I'm old school and just kinda want Link's "love interests" to be anonymous. (I.e. ocarina of time, twilight princess.) I'm a major story person so yeah, this game's plot bothered me a lot. Might honestly just go back and replay wind waker or oot, hell might even replay Botw. I genuinely miss the ancient sheikah stuff. And as I've said before, Totk feels like a disconnected story atm.

Like it feels as though it takes place in an alternate timeline because yeah, time passed but damn, no way y'all moved a whole Sheikah tower for the heck of it; Sheikah technology should have at least been preserved in a museum somewhere no matter how dangerous one might have previously thought it was. Also don't get me started on Ganondorf. I've also said this before; his story is lackluster. Boss fight is cool af but story... it's so empty.

Sorry ik this is an incoherent ramble and mostly just personal biases but yeah, just wish the story was a little stronger. Everything feels absolutely thrown off.

I seriously enjoy every other side plot over the main one 💀

[galaxyofhair]

There is no Zelda Timeline

So, first of all--I get it, sort of a spicy way to start off the post but give me some time to explain what I mean:

I recently started seeing some lore videos pop up for TOTK, and I am enjoying them so far as they concern the events specific to TOTK and BOTW--but inevitably there are more and more videos beginning to theorize how TOTK impacts and fits into the larger Zelda Timeline published in the Hyrule Historia

So I used to write articles about Legend of Zelda that explored all of the different important themes and the philosophy behind it’s design in preparation for what was essentially a super-powered fanfiction sequel idea that I had. I had planned to write out my idea and then present it to the world on this gaming journalism site I was writing for.

Without getting too far into the details of that great hubris which has cursed my life--one of the things that I learned from researching the development of LoZ is this: 

So like, you know how every game in the Zelda series, with a few exceptions, feels largely disconnected from every other game? I assume we all do because it’s like, one of the main struggles of the series for the fans is the collective cognitive dissonance we all share as we try to cobble these games together into a single continuity. We WANT--and I do mean WE, myself included--to believe that these stories can all exist together to create a larger, more interesting connective narrative.

The alternative sucks too, but it’s been a long time since I’ve heard somebody put actual words to this rather than dancing around it: The alternative is that every new game of a new style is disconnected, and we really just let Nintendo reboot this series like 10 different times like it’s fucking Final Fantasy.

Aonuma has said a bunch of similar, but somewhat contradictory things on the subject. In an interview in 2017 he said,

“We published a book with the timeline, but we definitely got comments from users saying, ‘Is this really accurate? I think this should be this way. It’s different.’ And history is always kind of imaginative. It’s left to the person who writes the book. So that’s how we approach it as well. It’s not necessarily that we come up with a game and think, ‘Oh, this is where it fits in the timeline.’ Honestly, lately, we’re kind of scared to say exactly where things are in the timeline for that reason. But we like to leave things to the imagination most of the time.”

http://nintendoeverything.com/nintendo-on-its-approach-to-the-zelda-timeline-understands-fans-appreciation-for-it/

This interview would clearly indicate that they just don’t think about the timeline because these games are designed with the gameplay first, the immediate story second, and the larger timeline doesn’t even make onto the list of concerns until the game is already out.

However, to throw some cold water on that thought train, Aonuma later gave a slightly different answer: “When we start to work on a new Zelda, we of course think about all this timeline stuff. Nintendo has a lot of IPs today. And Shigeru Miyamoto asks that we do our best to keep the timeline coherent. So we do it. But honestly, when we start to think of a new Zelda, respecting the timeline is a constraint for us. We would like to be free to imagine whatever we want without having to worry about the timeline. Being able to create while still keeping Zelda's essence, and bring new things to the table. Except now when we think of a new idea, we have to wonder "OK, but where does it fit in the timeline ?" and it instantly becomes very complicated ! And sometimes, we can't do these new ideas because it wouldn't fit in the timeline ! So, for the creative teams, it's an hindrance. Yeah, we published a timeline in a book but among our staff, we would like to be able to stop thinking about it...”

Keep in mind, this quote was translated from French by this Reddit post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/truezelda/comments/6rtbh7/aonuma_on_how_they_view_the_timeline_when_making/

While Aonuma is definitely expressing some frustration and even a hint of disdain for the timeline, it does clearly indicate that they’re thinking about it. This was also in 2017.

On the one hand, it is clear that the Timeline was a subject of debate inside Nintendo for a time: They published the Hyrule Historia and gave the timeline an official stamp, they published Skyward Sword and attempted to give the series an origin story, they made BOTW and filled it with references and items from older games.

But is this really a studio thinking about their series as a large interconnected universe, or is it just fan service and another rebooted game? I’ll admit, this is the part of the post where the proof ends and my opinion begins: I don’t think they actually think about the timeline when they make these games. TOTK is filled with plenty of details that seem to prove they could barely stand having to design around BOTW’s story.

While Skyward Sword proved to be a... semi-effective prequel to the series, making it plausible that games like OoT, MM, WW, and TP might all be connected--but it too suffered from some odd inconsistencies. Are we ever going to acknowledge the mirror Hyrule? Lorule? The Twilight Realm? Are Zora and Rito still related?

But TOTK then turns around and retells most of that story--retelling Ganondorf’s origin story, the origin of the sky islands--it just doesn’t fit. TOTK literally cannot exist in the same timeline as SS because it would imply the Ganondorf existed as the demon king before Demise started the cycle of reincarnation (for Ganon and Ganondorf).

And I don’t have a source for this but Aonuma’s answer to where BOTW lies on the timeline has changed once or two from “YOU decide!” to “IDK, on all of them I guess?”

I do love these games, but I’m at the point where I feel like Nintendo has won, just wearing us down--there is no Zelda timeline, the timeline published in the Hyrule Historia was just a bit of fan service--and then the immediate next game that they did rebooted the series AGAIN. Right now the timeline, loosely, is BOTW ---> TOTK.

I don’t want to come out here trying to assassinate the Legend of Zelda series---but I do want folks to give it a hard look and ask yourselves: How long can Nintendo keep rebooting this series before it finally dies? How long before they accept that they need a continuity to keep fans interested? Do fans of the series even want continuity?

I eventually abandoned my fanfiction project after coming to the realization that Zelda is a mirrored puddle, the width of a lake. It can fool you into believing that great beasts must swim in the depths below--but dip your finger in and an inch down you touch concrete.

I think about the story I wanted to write once in a while---and lately I’ve been working on adapting it into an original project. I think I’m still a fan of the Zelda series, even if it does frustrate me. I think eventually, something will have to give---though for the moment I won’t bother speculating what.

[skyloftsword]

In Defense of Tears of the Kingdom's Story

Hi, I just wanted to put this out because while there is a lot of valid criticisms about the story (even if I disagree with most of them personally), I've seen a bunch of people act like it isn't a sequel to BotW at all or barely feels connected. There are also other aspects that I want to talk about in here as well, but that's the big one I want to address because too many people seem to have missed the plethora of BotW references. If you still dislike the story after this though, that's totally fine, opinions are opinions. Anyways, spoilers of course.

Ok here's the elephant in the room, yes, Tears of the Kingdom is DEFINITELY a sequel to Breath of the Wild. The intro segment makes this very clear that Breath of the Wild had to have happened in order for this game to happen. Zelda talks about how after the Calamity, the castle went into neglect, which over time caused gloom to appear all over Hyrule. The Calamity caused Rauru's seal on Ganondorf to become extremely weakened only to finally fail when Link and Zelda see Rauru's hand and Ganondorf.

Not to mention the people remembering Link, yeah a lot of people forgot who Link was, but like do you think those people have any braincells? Bolson is tricky but to be fair, to him Link is just a customer. As for Link not being recognized by those that Zelda met in person, I don't think they'd care about a knight of the princess more than the princess who suffered for 100 years especially since he's always behind her. This even works for those who had side quests considering that most of the ones in BotW were really just small things. But the people who SHOULD remember Link DO remember him and even more remember him as well.

Also the Divine Beasts are mentioned several times, we just don't know where they went... However we can infer that the Sheikah have the ability to snap them in and out of existence thanks to Maz Koshia's arena in BotW's DLC. I highly doubt they'd want those things around anymore especially since they started breaking down in the True Ending of BotW. As for Guardians, they've been scrapped and used for stuff like Towers. The Shrines and Towers destroyed by Hudson's company. There are also things like Mipha Court, Kohga and the Character Profiles that prove BotW happened.

Now onto the timeline placement. At the end of one of the three timelines post-dragonbreak, all of the events from BotW and TotK, INCLUDING the Zonai coming down and the Imprisoning War, take place after the original Hyrule fell or got destroyed by the dragonbreak. Society starts to reform with all the races that are in BotW/TotK, eventually the Zonai come down and live peacefully with everyone, something happens to most of the Zonai, possibly warring with Ganondorf already, Rauru and Sonia then come together and form the new Hyrule Kingdom. They call it Hyrule and not New Hyrule because that sounds dumb probably. Then the events of the Dragon Tears happen, then like 100k years pass where the intro of Tears of the Kingdom happens, which is around 4-6 years after the end of Breath of the Wild. The events of Tears of the Kingdom happen and then the ending, which I will explain next.

The ending of Tears of the Kingdom is NOT a Deus Ex Machina, it is explained entirely in game. I highly doubt the Zonai ever tried to do an amplified Recall on a draconified person. So basically, according to the 6th memory/4th Dragon Tear, other stone users/Sages can amplify a stone's power even more by lending their power. Sonia and Rauru lent Link their power to boost his Recall to bring Zelda back, restore Link's body back to normal and to return Rauru's arm to him.

Update 1: Okay so people are saying this is an alternate timeline created by Zelda going back in time. This literally would contradict so much its insane how anyone could think of this incompetent idea. Zelda going back in time was FATE. She was always destined to go back in time in an endless cycle. There is no start, Zelda being the Sage of Time means she is out of time's restrictions. The murals that were blocked off at the beginning of the game prove this by showing Zelda becoming a dragon. The Light Dragon was always there in BotW above the sky barrier, which we've seen the dragons go through in that game.

Anyways I'll add more to this post later if I can think of anything else I want to address.

[justasmallbloginabigklainefandom]

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH

Also, my last shrine was the first proving grounds shrine I ever unlocked, but I noped out of it when I still had 3 hearts. It was the one where I could use those Zonai devices that attack enemies. I admit I also got killed this time, but hey I did do it on my second try!

I also didn’t know what the Ancient Hero’s Aspect really looked like, because I wanted to avoid spoilers, and if you want to do the same, stop reading now.

But yeah I knew that the Ancient Hero was another species, cause I did see a tail on, for example, YouTube thumbnails, but I didn’t know that the Ancient Hero was a Zonai. What does this mean? I thought that the Calamity Ganon happened AFTER Raaru and the Sages imprisoned Ganon. Which means that all Zonai disappeared after the Imprisoning War. So how can the Ancient Hero be a Zonai? This means that Calamity Ganon was even before Sonia and Raaru founded Hyrule, since there were more Zonai on the surface before that. Although, isn’t the Ancient Princess a... well... princess? How can there be a princess before a kingdom?

And the Zelda Wiki states that Raaru and Sonia founded Hyrule after the events of Skyward Sword, which means that it was pre-split. Now, I actually don’t care about that, to be honest. I prefer to think that since Breath of the Wild takes place soooooo long after everything else up to the point that all the event pre-BOTW have faded into myth, that Raaru and Sonia founded this particular version of Hyrule AFTER everything that happened in the timeline. They just genuinely believe they’re the first. I know that Nintendo also said that the timeline is flexible, so I am using my wild card here.

But there is still a definite connection between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Aka, whenever Sonia and Raaru founded Hyrule on the ““official”“ timeline doesn’t matter, but there is a timeline that spans the lore of BOTW and TOTK (and also an alternative timeline that includes Age of Calamity), so did Calamity Ganon happen BEFORE or AFTER Sonia and Raaru founded the kingdom? I though it was after, aka the Imprisoning War happened and then years later, Calamity Ganon happened, and then 10.000 years after that, BOTW happens and finally around 5-6 years after that, TOTK happens. But the Ancient Hero makes it seem like it might’ve happened before.

[galaxyofhair]

BOTW/TOTK 3?

So since this is around the time was stragglers in the TOTK craze are starting to beat the game and spoiler tags are becoming less common--the question that continues to haunt me is “What’s next?”

Obviously some Spoilers for TOTK but I think my previous post sorta busted that door in.

On the one hand: 

DLC. I feel like there’s plenty of DLC opportunities for TOTK and I really hope it isn’t just another challenge mode with a motorcycle at the end.

But the big question I am thinking of is: Will BOTW/TOTK get a third game?

Points to Yes: 

Because like, that’s the obvious next step right? Most of the time a highly successful sequel like TOTK immediately begets an often disappointing third--and there’s plenty of clues in TOTK that point to what a third game might cover: The mysterious underground race that Josha discovers who are never named, the fact that Zelda’s time powers are forcing everyone to re-evaluate whether or not depictions of other Zelda’s are actually just her, the revelation that the ancient hero of the Calamity wasn’t Hylian--much like the barebones Zonai ruins of BOTW, it feels like TOTK is priming us for another lost civilization to explore and I would love it if the next game actually involved travelling back 10k+ years to different eras.

There’s a ton of creative directions you could take a third game, and since it seems like the developers are building a new canon for themselves based on the building blocks of older games my hunch is that a third game would have to include some sort of LttP style mechanic where Link travels into an alternative Hyrule throughout the story.

It would give the developers yet another chance to re-use the map of Hyrule--which I support for the most part--and it would be a really creative way to solve puzzles despite the time shenanigans.

Points to No: 

Could this end up as a Duology? Yeah, absolutely. For one thing--how do they top this?! Are they going to have vehicle building and mech riding in one game and then just... not in the next game? A BIG factor that points away from a threequel is the massive corner the developers have both written and designed themselves into. This game is ridiculously big, and ridiculously complex. Obviously it’s not impossible--Link can always get another maguffin that gives him a similar or even the same set of powers, and they can always (maybe) put the zonai devices back into the game (maybe supplementing them with Shiekah devices?) But at the end of the day the shear scale and complexity combined with the self contained nature of the game means that a threequel isn’t a necessity, and it would be expensive to make.

It goes without saying that even if a threequel got made, it’ll be a minute before we even hear about it’s development. Realistically another top-down game will come out between now and then (LttP remake would be cool and popular I think).

But even in the event that Nintendo decide they want another full 3D game with adult link, they might also decide that the monumental task of replicating and building upon the immense complexity of TOTK just isn’t worth it and the that the wiser investment will be to update the engine, and reboot all over again with a new hyrule, a new Link/Zelda, and a new story that isn’t restricted by two games worth of canon. It sounds incredulous--but it happened to OoT and MM. OoT and MM were wildly successful, but when it came to upgrading to the Gamecube’s tech the developers hit the bit reset button.

Conclusion:

Obviously this is all speculation upon speculation, so only time and updates from Nintendo will tell. If Nintendo decide to not make a threequel and they instead reboot it would have incredible ramifications on how we think of Zelda canon (I think the Timeline is/would be caput)--and if they DO do a threequel it would be a monumental conclusion to the new series they’ve built for themselves. In the meantime, I am going to build more Korok rockets, ciao!