Yes, I've always thought a split timeline made the most sense, and now that it is common knowledge that this is the case,I haven;t really stopped to question it much. But the other day, something got me.

First of all, we need to look at how time travel works in Zelda. In terms of time travel, there are two ways people look at it. The Multiverse theory, (in essence, there are an infinite number of universes, each sprouting off every decision we make), this means if you go back in time and change something, it will have no affect on the future. Then there's the other, with only one universe, meaning if you go back in time and change something, you can change the future.

OoT conforms more to the multiverse theory, on a smaller scale. Meaning when Link travelled back, he created another timeline. The adult and child time line co-exist without one interfering with the other. Take for instance how Ganondorf's defeat in TP had no affect on Adult time line's Ganondorf's ToP.

But then, different rules seem to apply in MM. Here, Link can go back in time and actually change the future. If we were to apply the same logic as OoT's time travel uses on MM, then there should be tons of splits going on, but there arn't.

And this brings me to wondering why the child time line has no impact on the adult time line. Shouldn't Ganondorf's execution simply eradicate him from the adult time line?

I'm sort of beginning to get lost here, I'm aware that the change in rules of time travel in MM may be for the sake of game play but I'm just doing a little investigating.