[Article] Placement of the Oracle games

[Uncle Meat]

Placement of the Oracle games
by Uncle Meat
ver. 1.1





In this article I will do my best to show why I think the Oracle games should be placed last in the timeline, regardless of the timeline you believe in.

The Oracle games are notorious for their lack of connection to the story-lines of other Zelda titles. Many don't even consider them to be a part of the official Zelda story-line. Whether or not they are meant to be considered canonical, it is always interesting to try to figure out their placement with the given evidence.

The setting in the beginning of both of the games is as follows: The Complete Triforce is resting within Hyrule Castle. The Triforce tells Link to accept a quest in the faraway lands of Labrynna and Holodrum. Link is sent to these places to rescue two Oracles and restore peace to the lands. It later turns out that Ganondorf's surrogate mothers Koume and Kotake are planning to revive the monster Ganon by sacrificing princess Zelda.

An important story-line element is the Triforce birthmark on Link's left hand which appears in only one other game under the circumstances where Link is not in the possession of a triforce piece. This game is no other than Adventure of Link, the sequel to the original Legend of Zelda. This detail would already suggest that the Link in the Oracle games and the Link form original games are the same person. This is backed up by the fact that at the end of AoL Link has assembled the complete Triforce in Hyrule Castle and the pieces are floating in the air in the exact same formation in both games.

A more debatable detail is the fact that the revived Ganon wields the Trident of Power, a weapon that's origins are explained in Four Swords Adventures. The same weapon has also appeared in A Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, the BS remake of Legend of Zelda and in the original artwork that was done for the 1986 release of the original Zelda. Many would place all of these games post FSA if they are to be placed in the same timeline.

Obviously the complete concept of the Trident of Power wasn't developed until FSA's release. Flagship's development team isn't exactly known for it's preciseness when it comes to story-line consistency either. This is why some have chosen to ignore the whole issue with the Trident. But there shouldn't be any reason to assume that the games would lie to us. Also, this logic could be applied to so many reoccurring story-line elements that doing so would make all timeline theorizing impossible. In any case this point only goes to show that the Oracles should take place after the all Four Sword games or in a different timeline all together.

While these are important clues they do not specifically exclude many possible placements. The one thing that I think sets the two games in their place can be found by looking at the development process and the developers' original intentions for the the duo. These details are often overlooked in the name of in-game content being more reliable than all other sources. I believe that in the case of the Oracles one must look at all available information as equally as possible due to the lack of in-game material.

Flagship had originally planned to make a trilogy of Zelda games that was to be called The Triforce Trilogy. The original intention was to recreate the first two Zelda games and make a third game to complete the original story-line. The name of the Trilogy was later changed to The Mystical Seed trilogy. The idea was to have three games that the player could connect via passwords to access additional gameplay and a secret ending. The problem was that the linking between the three titles became too complex and eventually was scrapped as it was impossible to program.

Flagship made the difficult decision to drop the third title and focus on the remaining two. It is unknown how far they were in development at the time. The cut was announced to the non-japanese gaming world late July 2000 which means that they were probably nearing completion since the games were released in February 2001. We can only assume that what was supposed to become a game of its own was used to make the two remaining games longer and add additional side-quests.

The story-lines of the two games had to be rewritten since the idea of a remake trilogy wasn't the plan anymore. This is probably one of the reasons behind the lack of timeline connectivity in the games. Some traces of the original intentions are still present especially in Oracle of Seasons. Similar Dungeon design and matching bosses being the most obvious connections. OoS is chronologically the first Oracle game, this is shown in the story of the Pirates in the game.

The plot of the missing game would have to have been in a world where Hyrule is at peace, the whole Triforce is kept safe in the Hyrule Castle and Ganon is dead. The setting matches perfectly with the plot of the Oracles. Since the plan to make a trilogy had failed, the people at Flagship probably used the only original story they had worked on and adapted it to both of the Oracle games forming a quadrilogy instead.

By the end of Adventure of Link the plan to revive Ganon by sacrificing Link has failed and peace has returned to Hyrule. Link has claimed the missing Triforce of Courage and brought it to Hyrule Castle and awoken the legendary sleeping princess Zelda. The quadrilogy would make a lot of sense story-wise too, Ganon's supporters have a new plan to resurrect him outside of Hyrule where Link cannot interfere. But then the goddesses step in and send Link to put a stop to it.

As for the Triforce, it is most commonly assumed that it returns to the Sacred Realm after granting the wish to the one who claims it. Now, we know for sure that at the end of AoL the Triforce is in Hyrule, but we can't say the same for ALttP. The wish was made in the Sacred Realm, which is the only place we ever see the triforce in.

Now I'm going to tackle some of the points that are most commonly used against this theory. The first one is that Impa who appears in LoZ and AoL cannot be the same because she does not know Link in the beginning of the game. This argument ignores the fact that there are multiple Impas, in fact there is a whole family (see footnotes). The Impa in the Oracles is also very different looking.

The second argument is that the Oracles fit seamlessly between Link's Awakening and Legend of Zelda and go along well with the myth of the sleeping princess Zelda which was described in the backstory of AoL. I consider this placement almost as likely as the post AoL one. The same pieces of evidence work for both choices just as well. It's solely because of the original intentions of the developers and the birthmark that I consider the latter more likely. The backstory of AoL also still fits in it's place even if there Oracles are placed elsewhere.

The third point is that Zelda does not recognize Link in the linked Oracles game (for Zelda's words see footnotes). Now if we assume that the Triforce birthmark makes Oracles Link the same as AoL Link the Zelda could be either the sleeping princess or the one from the original Zelda. In either case it is possible that she has not seen Link in a long while and just wants a confirmation. There's also the possibility that these are a different generation of Link and Zelda.

So in conclusion I would say that even though there aren't any points to disprove the post LA placement, the post AoL placement is way more likely because of the development history and some details.


Footnotes

Proof that there is a whole line of Impas and not just one, a quote from the AoL manual:

"There was a door in the North Castle called 'the door that does not open.' Only the descendants of the Impa family who served the king knew how to open the door."

Zelda's words to Link when they meet in the linked game:

Thank you for rescuing me. My name is Zelda. You are Link, right? I knew it at first glance.

Two links that include information about the development of the Oracles:

IGN: Zelda's Tri-Force Down To Two

pocket.ign.com: Legend of Zelda: Mystical Seed of Power

[MDK]

Incredibly well written, and the article addresses a rather controversial issue in the Zelda universe, taking a very logical approach, which succeeds enormously. An excellent effort in its entirety, especially considering that English is not your first language. Well done, Uncle Meat.

[Uncle Meat]

Why thank you MDK I'm glad you liked it.

[the_Predator]

So uhm... Where are the footnotes? <.<

[Uncle Meat]

Oopsie! Forgot to add the footnotes to the 1.1 version. I'll get them for you in a jiffy.

EDIT: Got 'em!

[the_Predator]

Tank you. ^^ Although I got school 15 minutes. Ah darn I'll read them later. <.<