First of all, I'd like to say that this thread will obviously contain a lot of spoilers for
The Wind Waker. That being said, if there are spoilers related to games released afterwards (ie,
Phantom Hourglass) I'd like to respectfully ask that those be hidden in Spoiler Text.
Anyway, here are my thoughts on the placement of The Wind Waker.
First off, I'd like to say that I think the timeline was very straightforward before TWW came out. AoL was a direct sequel to LoZ. ALttP was a prequel taking place long before. LA was a sequel to ALttP. OoT was a prequel to ALttP. MM went into an alternate direction after OoT. And the Oracle games fit nicely between ALttP and LA.
Now The Wind Waker comes along and throws a big monkey wrench into the spokes. But I think it ends up falling between ALttP and LoZ. Here are my reasons.
TWW obviously places it in the Adult Timeline since it describes the events of OoT's Adult Timeline ending in the backstory during the intro. Not to mention the stainglass windows showing the sages. Let's just get that out of the way.
Now, Ganon appears in TWW. This pretty much automatically puts it after ALttP. Why? Because Ganon was sealed in the Dark World at the end of OoT and was still there in ALttP. My theory suggests that Ganon was able to return from the Dark World because Past Link killed him with the silver arrows. And then in the Oracle series, Twinrova revived him. Basically I'm suggesting that he survived the final battle in the Oracle series, and waited to return to Hyrule when there was no hero to stop him.
Okay, I'm prepared for the instant problem here, too. Ganon has the Triforce of Power in TWW, but he lost it after the end of ALttP. But don't forget that the Oracle games show the Triforce in Hyrule Castle. And in TWW, Ganon's forces were frozen in time after attacking said castle. I'm suggesting that Ganon stole the Triforce of Power from Hyrule Castle when he returned, but the other two pieces were kept out of his grasp by the king.
Another problem is that it seems to imply that TWW is the first time Ganon returned to Hyrule. But this isn't really a problem since he was killed in The Dark World in ALttP and the Oracle games take place outside of Hyrule altogether. So it still fits in that regard.
Finally, I really think the geography of Hyrule supports my theory.
Image:Hyrule.gif - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In Ocarina of Time, Hyrule had the castle in the middle, surrounded by desert, forest, a lake, and a mountain.
Image:LttPMap.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
While things in ALttP were shuffled around a bit, its basically got the same features. Castle in the middle, surrounded by desert, forest, lake, mountain. Now look at the map of the 8-bit games.
Image:Hyrulemap.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Totally different. Looks kind of flooded out, doesn't it? Hyrule was destroyed and completely flooded at the end of The Wind Waker. My theory operates under the assumption that at some point, the Great Sea dried up or disappeared somehow, leaving the Hyrule we see in the original LoZ.
Of course, any theory that doesn't place TWW at the very end pretty much has to assume The Great Sea dries up somehow.
Anyway, that's my theory. I know I'm not exactly a novelist, so I don't know how coherent my arguments are here. So if there are any questions on what I meant, I'd be happy to elaborate on any points. Other than that, I hope I've made some sense, and possibly allowed some of you to look at TWW's placement in a new way.