Time plot confusion

Hi all! I just finished skyward sword and, dont worry I wont post spoilers, I happened to notice (Obviosly) that link is an adult. This got me confused because, I heard from somewhere that this game is at the beggining of the zelda timeline (Dont know if thats true). So if this game was at the beggining of the timeline, where did young link from Ocarina of Time come from?

Most of the Zelda games are hundreds or thousands of years apart, and most of the Links aren't the same person.

If you've played WW, Ganondorf says to Link "You are the Hero of Time, reborn", meaning that the Link in WW is not the same Link as the one in OoT, but perhaps connected and reincarnated spirit to defeat Ganondorf.

As Eternal Legend said, most of the Links aren't the same person ( the only time they are being WW/PH and OoT/MM ) The timeline is the order all of the games occur chronologically ( which has been made official ) So, despite the age of a particular game's Link, their placement in the timeline still stands, and Skyward Sword is indeed the first game in the timeline.
-----------------
Also, Oot child Link is either Skyward Sword Link's descendant or is a young boy who posses the Spirit of the Hero, as is the case with all of the Links.

s
p
o
i
l
e
r

The original Link reincarnates, and they are all descendants of the original.

Originally Posted by kymeric

s
p
o
i
l
e
r

The original Link reincarnates, and they are all descendants of the original.

We do not know if they are all descendants of the original, but simply that they all share the unbreakable spirit of the hero. This can be interpreted in multiple ways, all the Links can be a spiritual descendent, a blood descendent, or simply a random hero who has the spirit worthy of being the next successor to the previous Link.

Arent all Hylians descended from the first Link and Zelda? Theyd have to be related then.

Originally Posted by kymeric

Arent all Hylians descended from the first Link and Zelda? Theyd have to be related then.

HoW isn't related to HoT, its stated in WW when KoRL is talking to Jabun. Also all hylians decend from Skyloftians who came down to the surface.

Oh, I completely forgot some of the Link's were either re-encarnated or shared the same courage. Thanks!

Originally Posted by kymeric

Arent all Hylians descended from the first Link and Zelda? Theyd have to be related then.

I suppose if you're tracking back thousands of years then mathematically everyone's going to have some kind of bloodline to the original Zelda.

Each generation tracking backwards has 2 parents (ignoring siblings) and then each parent having 2 parents and etc giving us 2 to the power n (n being the number of generations being tracked back). For argument's sake say you can typically put 3-4 generations into 100 years (basically saying each generation reproduces at the age of 25-33 which I think is a fair average), scale up by 10 to get 1,000 so you're looking at 30-40 generations. Taking just the lower threshold you get 1,073,741,824 which is probably larger than the entire Hylian population anyway. (Just remember kids, every relationship you have has some level of incest to a very small degree)

BUT RATHER THAN GET BOGGED DOWN WITH MATHS

I always just thought of each Link/Zelda to be spiritual reincarnations as opposed to just biological descendants. It separates them from other members of the same bloodline more. Anyone can be a biological descendant, doesn't mean they're necessarily bound by the same fate.

That's how I've always liked to think of it anyway. :3