Good evening, here in this article I will try to elaborate the time traveling in Majora's Mask, Oracle of Ages and last but not least Ocarina of Time. Time traveling added a whole new aspect of gameplay to these Zelda games but the principle on which that time traveling works differs in each of the games. I will try to explain them one by one and draw a conclusion in the end.
Part I: Majora's Mask
First of all let's look at the basic structure and work procedure of the time traveling Majora's Mask.
-Link starts at the dawn of the first day.
-Link lives trough a maximum of 3 days in the timeline.
-Link goes back to the dawn of the first day by means of a magical tune, The Song of Time.
-Link uses an instrument for traveling back in time.
Now that the basics are placed down lets review it in more detail. As we know going back in time in MM results in most of the things you did in your previous session is reverted. The stone in front of the ranch, the Goron city being frozen etc. Based upon these facts it is possible to assume that Link was just rewinding time back to the first day. Like this:
But if you look at it again it is obvious that such a thing is impossible. Why? Because if Link was to rewind time he'd undo everything he did in that session, including dungeon items, bosses defeated etc. So the only explanation left is that he is actually jumping to another parallel timeline identical to the previous one. Jump could also imply that he actually creates this new timeline on the same timeplane (I apologize if my terminology is wrong). That would look like this:
Also remember that no matter in which point on the timeline, if Link goes back in time he will always end up on the dawn of the first day. Link's time travel is fixed to a common period in time and it will always transport Link to that very point. This would look similar to this:
So far so good. Now for the most peculiar thing. Once Link goes back in time, he is unable to return to the point from which he came in the previous timeline. There can be several reasons for that:
1. The previous timeline ceases to exist once he leaves.
2. The means by which he travels (The Song of Time) is only a "one way passage" and is only meant to travel to the past.
3. The previous timeline gets destroyed because the moon clashes (This isn't really possible as the world would still be physically present, don't really know why I added this point...)
The first point isn't really to plausible as Link isn't that much of a powerful entity to make such a huge disturbance by leaving a timeline. The second one is the most plausible one though and the one I personally prefer. And the last important thing to note, although on the first glance it might appear rather insignificant... Link goes back to Day 1 exactly the way he is, he doesn't get any younger. Although it's hard to tell this since it's just 3 days, I'm quite sure that is the case because of the in game texts never never suggesting that Link would get younger as it's the case in OoT.
And so, after taking all these things into consideration we get the final look of the MM time travel graph.
Onward to the next part!
Part II: Oracle of Ages (Thanks to MDK and Uncle Meat for help on this section)
This is going to be a bit more tricky as there are more things to consider. But basically it is even more simple then the MM traveling. Here are the basics:
-Link uses an instrument for time traveling
-Link travels 400 years to the past or the future depending on where he is.
Now, it is also obvious that the things which happen in the past actually have an effect on the future. This implies that the time travel occurs on one timeline and it is a both way path. Another thing to consider is that if Link goes to the past in one given moment, and spends there 10 days then returns to the future, he would not return to the spot at which he went back to the past, but he'd return to a spot which is 10 days later on the timeline. As shown on this graph (Read the red text first and move clockwise):
By considering the wormholes there is not much change as they connect 2 points in time which are 400 years apart from each other. Although some quotes in the game says "Drift back to your own time" which would imply that Link always gets sent back to the moment from which he went to the past, but that is not the case as we see Nayru in the intro going to the past from point X in the future. But once she returned to the future she did not return to point X. So the above diagram can be considered the final form of the OoA time traveling. The time travel connects 2 points in the same timeline separated 400 years from each other.
Moving on!
Part III: Ocarina of Time
Now for the most complicated part. Just as it was the case in the previous 2, I will start by laying down the basics.
-Link pulls out the Master Sword
-Link is "stored" in the sacred realm for 7 years
-Link wakes up after 7 years
-Link uses a different object for time traveling
After looking at this one might ask "But where is the time travel here?". True, there hasn't been any actual time traveling yet. The actual time travel occurs when Link places the Master Sword back and goes 7 years back. This will be significant later but for now let's leave it at this.
Now for the more detailed stuff. As we know that things done in the Child period do affect things in the Adult period mostly seen in Kakariko's village den and in the Spirit Temple. So just like OoA above it would suggest this being on a single timeline. That is not the case though because in OoA, things done in the past reflect on the future, but in the end of OoT, the door of time is sealed and the past to which Link returned didn't had any effect anymore to the future which he saved. That created the popular split in the timeline.
Now imagine Link does something in the Adult period. If he went back to the Child period and then back the thing he did will still be there. So that means that the time travel in OoT is not fixed to a certain point but it's similar to the OoA traveling. As shown in the graph below:
Now after Link draws the Master Sword again in the Child period, we'd move the orange line along with the whole Adult Period to the point where Link draws the MS again. Remember that the actual timeline split happens at the very end of OoT when the door of time is sealed. The actual split on that graph shown would be just the Child and Adult period continuing to move on but without a way to connect to either of them as them. The orange line" would disappear.
Now take all those things into account here's the final form of the time traveling graph in OoT.
(The yellow arrows represent the movement of the orange line and the Adult Period)
PartIV: The big bang
Now here I will collapse all 3 time travels into one "thing". Now look at the time travels again. Each 2 of them have something in common let's see it.
OoT + MM - Only time travel to the past.
OoT + OoA - Always moving a predetermined distance on the timeline (7 and 400 years respectively), actions in the past reflect on the future,
MM+ OoA - Using instruments for traveling, not aging while traveling.
So in the end, here is what it comes down to:
I'm sure this reminds you on a very well known object from the LoZ universe...
So this is it, while writing it I found some problems and evidence against my own thoughts so I had to change approach but I think it came out ok in the end.
Special thanks to MDK for helping me out.