[Article]Collaboration of LoZ Time Traveling

[the_Predator]

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.

[Mr. Lexxi Aileron]

You said: "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? Isn't this what happens? Doesn't Link arrive back in the past, with the world exactly as it was on the First Day, aside from Link himself? There's no need for those histories to continue to exist (necessarily), since none of those histories are continued anyway. All that matter is that Link experienced those histories. Their deletion has no bearing on whether or not Link, who is existing across histories, experienced events across histories.

It could be the same history through which he is traveling and literally restarting, or he could be moving to a different one (instead of simply rewriting the last).

After all, an alternate history only requires a point of change, not that the former history remains actualized.

Still, this is your look at time travel, and it is good and well thought-out.

[the_Predator]

Thanks. And I forgot to point out, I meant that if Link was to literary restart / rewind the timeline wouldn't he lose his dungeon items / boss masks etc? The world does reset, yes, but Link's key items are left untouched. Imagine him rewinding the history he just experienced, you'd see him move his steps back in 52x speed just as if you're rewinding a VCR tape... At least that's how I see it.
The dungeons are also left untouched but that is most probably just to make the game playable...

[Mr. Lexxi Aileron]

That's how time travel works anyway. Someone leaves one history and moves to another, taking things/memories/etc. from the one history with them. Whether the one history continues to exist doesn't matter once he arrives in the new history; whether the one history actually becomes the new history doesn't matter for the same reason.

[Leminnes]

Did you mean to not put a poll on it, t_P?

[the_Predator]

True. Then it would be possible to remove the Timeline B in the MM graph and just "bend" the connection lines to the Day 1 on the same timeline. It's still a one way trip either way.
EDIT: Ups damn I forgot the poll >.< Sorry... Can you be so kind and add it please? <.<
EDIT2: Thank you! <3

[MDK]

Predator, I had meant to say earlier my thoughts on MM Time Travel.

It makes use of a time-related instrument, as does OOA, but in this case, playing the Song of Time seems to call out to the so-called Goddess of Time, who then intervenes, returning Link to the first day, slowing down the flow of time or speeding it up, and fast-forwarding as many as twelve hours in an instant, depending on Link's manipulation of the song's notes. As such, it is perhaps the only form of time travel in which a deity is directly involved.

I say this because of the several mentions of this Goddess of Time in the game's text (most notably Zelda's). These brief mentions don't seem to affect the game in any other way, so why bother mentioning her at all if not for the reasons I outlined above? Your thoughts...

[the_Predator]

True, there are a lot of mentions of it in the game, and it is very well possible... Even the fact that Link can slow down the "movement speed of a timeline" or jump 12 hours forward all add up to the conclusion that it's that deity doing it. But what big difference does it make who is responsible for an event when the focus is on the event itself?

EDIT: Ok now bedtime... Sleep now, debate later. -.- Stupid 4 AM articles >.<

[mmmmm_PIE]

On OoA:
We know that an entire Labrynnan History exists without the Maku Tree. Link expeiences the future of this History near the begining of the game. And yet, if we examine the events in just one timeline, there is no oppertunity for the tree to die. How is this possible?
Also, why 400 years? The precise length of time is never given...


On OOT:

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.

Could you elaborate on your examples here? More specifically, can you show that the future existed in "State A" before Link cahnged anything in the child line, and then in "State B" after the change, as a result of the change.

[the_Predator]

Well as for OoA, I really haven't played the game that much and I based that part on the help I got from MDK and Uncle Meat.

As for the OoT part... If I remember correctly the den in Kakariko village is drained the adult time after Link drains it as a child. If that info is wrong as I don't remember it by heart just cancel the Kakariko den part. But even so, the song that Link played to the dude in the windmill. He shows obvious reaction to it in the adult time.
In the spirit temple Link did many things as a Kid, most significantly removing the Gauntlets from the temple and if you look at them as a key item requested by Naboru rather then just a gameplay element then it fits in.
Also, the magic beans are also a very significant proof of that as you plant them with young Link and they sprout at adult Link's time.

[mmmmm_PIE]

The den ("the well" for us crazy talkin' North Americans) is drained from the moment you enter the adult timeline. Nothing changes to reflect Link's actions.
The majority of the Spirit Temple cannot be explored by adult Link until child Link has already made alteration. We do not know what state it exists in when the adult timeline begins, and we do not know if Link can change its future by changing te past.
We'll come back to the Magic Beans, which are a key factor in this argument.

You mentioned the Wind Mill man; this rather interesting fellow teaches Link the Song of Storms in the adult timeline... but Link teaches him the song of storms in the Child Timline. Something we must determine here; who knew the song first? Where did it come from?

[MDK]

Originally Posted by mmmmm_PIE

Also, why 400 years? The precise length of time is never given...

Yes it is, PIE!

Maku Tree:
"When I grow up,
I'll marry you!"
That's what you
said, Link.
Four hundred
years I waited.
But...

I generally avoid being specific unless I'm absolutely certain I can prove I'm right. I wouldn't feed Predator false info.

[the_Predator]

PIE: About the windmill man, it's not so much about who learned the song first but the fact that after Link plays it to him in the child period he shows significant reaction to it in the adult period.

[mmmmm_PIE]

Lolz, sorry MDK. I've always misread that passage. Directly above, the MT says "hundreds of years", and I suppose I superimposed and got "for hundreds of years"... :embrsd:

tP: The real issue is that the Windmill man shows signifigant reaction to the song in the adult period before Link plays or teaches the song to him in the child period.

[the_Predator]

True, but it's still the fact that he changes his reaction in the adult timeline based on what Link does in the child timeline. It seems like I forgot most of this part in OoT. :S
But there is always the issue of Naboru. We can't really tell if she got abducted by Koume and Kotake in the adult timeline if Link didn't got the glove in the child timeline but she most probably gave up and went back to the fortress.