By Hylian Dan

PART ONE

A few years ago, while I was replaying The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, I reached the top of Stone Tower and took another look at the strange scenery there before moving on. The gigantic pointing blood-stained hand again caught my attention. It seemed so strange, so ominous, like there was some cryptic meaning behind it that I just couldn’t place. But this time, something clicked in my mind.

I understood the significance of that pointing hand, the meaning that had always eluded me before. Now I wanted to know why it was there.

What secrets has the game been hiding all this time?

Timeline. It’s a dangerous word to us around the Zelda fansites, one of the most highly debated factions of the Zelda franchise. Many timelines have been cast into the wind, and most have died fast. The two main basic timelines are, the split timeline, and the straight line (as I call it). Each name precedes its description, and each have their minor flaws. I’ve set out to create a timeline that works; at this point it’s rough. I’ll be using facts from both memory and from replaying games. So, let’s begin…

Shigeru Miyamoto once stated in a Nintendo Power interview that the Zelda team’s primary goal for Majora’s Mask was to “present something which is very mysterious”. The game invites the player to act as a detective, to investigate the secrets and troubles of the people of Termina, and of Termina itself, and to heal them in the end. Though the central story of a troubled imp using a cursed mask to try to cause the moon to crash into Termina may seem fairly straightforward, many subtle details in the game add layers of darkness and complexity to this tale.

Timeline theorists. They’re all over the place, and although I’m not particularly fond of that topic, I’ll readily admit that they are one reason why discussions surrounding Zelda keep going long after the hype around a game has died down. An increasingly popular view among timeline theorists is that there is more than one universe with a land called Hyrule. Essentially, the proponents of this theory suggest that the Hero of Time isn’t really traveling through time but is world making, creating parallel worlds of Hyrule, which then branch off and have separate histories. What’s the reason for this view’s increasing popularity? An interview with Aonuma and Miyamoto. But does the interview really support the notion that Link is world-making rather than time-traveling?

In the beginning, Zelda was rather, well, one-dimensional. She was a princess that needed rescued, very much like the Mario games. And that is really almost all we have to say about her at the dawn of the Zelda franchise, despite the very title of that franchise. True, Zelda was brave to stand up to the prince, but there isn’t much more to go on (especially since the comics aren’t a valid source at all). It shouldn’t be a big surprise, however, because the story simply wasn’t as important then as it is now. In the beginning of Link to the Past, she gets to show a bit more character, as she and Link travel through Hyrule Castle. And Link to the Past is an indicator of the general trend in gaming-the greater emphasis on plot. However, the characters are usually there to be props for the plot or the gameplay. When we get to Link’s Awakening, we find the characters starting to take a greater importance in the story. But it isn’t until the advent of Ocarina of Time that characterization became fully integrated into the story.

The world knew nothing of the boy without a fairy. And yet, as The Wind Waker put its, he came as if from nowhere, and shook the foundations of the world, conquering the darkness. But “after battling evil and saving Hyrule,” he “crept away from the land that had made him a legend.” And so, “done with the battles he once waged across time, he embarked on a journey. A secret and personal journey.” We all know this as the introduction to Majora’s Mask. That was the last game on the Nintendo 64. Now that we have witnessed the rise of the Hero of Winds, a major question arises in our minds. “What really happened to the Hero of Time?” Did he return from Termina? Did he, like Odysseus of Greek fame, return to his homeland, or was he trapped forever in a parallel world?

Clearly, the story told in The Wind Waker is heavily linked with the past games, especially Ocarina of Time. It emphasizes its connections with other Zelda games not only through dialogue but also through remixed music. Unforunately however, many people have some major misconceptions about precisely how The Wind Waker is connected with Ocarina of Time. These major misconceptions mostly have to do with how the Waker of the Wind and the Hero of Time are related. For those of you who have not played the game yet, never fear, I will attempt to debunk the misconceptions without spoiling any real plot points specific to The Wind Waker.

A popular idea among many Zelda fan sites is that there is not just one hero named Link, but that there are actually multiple heroes named Link, spread throughout the various Zelda games. For many years, I was one of the biggest skeptics of that idea. I always found it to be quite incredibly, well, stupid. I still find most of the arguments supporting the multi-Link theory to be completely flawed, but I am now a convert to the idea. Read on to see why.