ALttP Placement - which Timeline?

Where do you think it goes? With so much of the timeline now set in stone (as follows):

----TWW-PH
----/
OoT
----\
----MM-TP,

the keystone to placing the remaining games seems to be ALttP. Does it go in the Adult (AT) timeline, or the Child (CT) timeline? Does it come before or after FSA? There are key points to be considered:

- ALttP appears to reference OoT as the story of how Ganondorf got the Triforce. This would indicate AT placement, as the events of OoT only took place in the AT. However, TP goes on to indicate that Ganondorf got his mitts on the Triforce in the CT too, although how he managed it is unclear. Furthermore, both OoT Ganon and TP Ganon seize only the ToP, not the whole thing as he is shown to have in ALttP.

- The gaps in ALttP's Imprisoning War seem to be filled in by FSA, however Ganondorf doesn't even appear to get ANY of the Triforce in this game. There is a theory that sealing him with the Four Sword at the end of FSA inadvertently placed Ganondorf in the Sacred Realm, thereby allowing him to seize the whole thing, however this is completely unsubstantiated apart from the shape of the seal (a pyramid) being the same shape as the building in which we find a shattered Four Sword in ALttP, which obviously isn't very conclusive evidence.

- ALttP takes place in a Hyrule that is almost a perfect match with the Hyrule of OoT, suggesting that a flood never took place and ergo suggesting a CT placement. On the other hand, FSA shows the exact same Hyrule as ALttP being an island kingdom surrounded by a sea, and even though it also matches perfectly with OoT Hyrule, it does lend credence to an AT placement.

- ALttP takes place in the same timeline as LoZ and AoL (or so Miyamoto said), and AoL contains towns named after OoT's Sages. Since these Sages were only awakened in the AT, this indicates an AT placement.

- The Dark World appears in FSA, which is utterly confusing. Ganon hasn't gotten any Triforce yet but the Sacred Realm is already the Dark World? Or maybe it's the Twilight Realm (not a popular theory but is at least plausible)? Which brings us to our next point:

- FSA contains a Dark Mirror which is almost definitely (in my eyes) the Twilight Mirror before the idea was expanded upon in TP. However the Twilight Mirror was destroyed at the end of TP, giving us the options:
1. FSA is after TP and they simply constructed a new Mirror after TP
2. FSA is somewhere between OoT and TP, depicting the events that led to Ganondorf being captured in the Child Timeline as referenced by the Sages in TP
3. FSA is in the AT

- The Master Sword and the Temple of Time have been swallowed up by the Lost Woods in TP, creating the Sacred Grove. This suggests that ALttP follows after, in the CT


So that's all the clues I can think of. What do you guys and gals think, and why?

this is so confusing... So I chose "after fsa", that's quite a given, with the trident of power and all. It would seem as if the developers wanted TP to link OoT with ALttP, but there's so much evidence for both of them...

I have no idea, it could go either way. To me, the biggest support fot AT is the Imprisoning War which I believe to be events of OoT. The biggest support for CT is the land of Hyrule.

^ And the sacred grow in TP. I see it as a developer hint, meaning they probably intended for it to be Child Timeline. But yeah, it's almost impossible to know for sure.

I honestly don't think there is a timeline within the games. Each game has their own twist and developers would bore players with the same old (as in having the same kakariko village in EVERY GAME)

but still these games can't be linked except they have the same story but you can't tell by the landscape.

but heyy its always a possiblity!

Originally Posted by Evilsbane

Where do you think it goes? With so much of the timeline now set in stone (as follows):

----TWW-PH
----/
OoT
----\
----MM-TP,

the keystone to placing the remaining games seems to be ALttP. Does it go in the Adult (AT) timeline, or the Child (CT) timeline? Does it come before or after FSA? There are key points to be considered:

It's clearly within the Child Timeline -- at the moment, Hyrule-under-the-sea from The Wind Waker was pretty much laid waste at the end of that game, and King Daphnes' comments after Ganon's death suggest that it will never be resurrected.

Originally Posted by Evilsbane

- ALttP appears to reference OoT as the story of how Ganondorf got the Triforce. This would indicate AT placement, as the events of OoT only took place in the AT. However, TP goes on to indicate that Ganondorf got his mitts on the Triforce in the CT too, although how he managed it is unclear. Furthermore, both OoT Ganon and TP Ganon seize only the ToP, not the whole thing as he is shown to have in ALttP.

Some of the early backstory given to us in Zelda III can't really be taken at literal face-value anymore...the designers, including Miyamoto himself, have since fudged, tweaked, and retconned a great deal of it in later years to suit their own purposes, as far as new Zelda projects were concerned.

Nothing is ever going to match up 100 percent.

Originally Posted by Evilsbane

- ALttP takes place in a Hyrule that is almost a perfect match with the Hyrule of OoT, suggesting that a flood never took place and ergo suggesting a CT placement. On the other hand, FSA shows the exact same Hyrule as ALttP being an island kingdom surrounded by a sea, and even though it also matches perfectly with OoT Hyrule, it does lend credence to an AT placement.

I think one can read far too much into certain maps -- we know that the producers have never abided by a consistent, agreed-upon map of Hyrule, ever; and the FSA map of Hyrule in particular totally contradicts what we know the kingdom looks like from the NES Zeldas, A Link to the Past, and Twilight Princess (landlocked, with mountains to the west, and even more territory north of the Death Mountain region).

One solution to this is to not interpret the Four Swords Adventures map literally -- that it's simply a hyperstylized depiction of that specific game's immediately-accessible territories, with the water representing "off-limits" lands that the player cannot get to. Indeed, other games in other franchises have done the same thing, either with clouds or water cordoning off inaccessible zones on related maps.

Originally Posted by Evilsbane

- ALttP takes place in the same timeline as LoZ and AoL (or so Miyamoto said), and AoL contains towns named after OoT's Sages. Since these Sages were only awakened in the AT, this indicates an AT placement.

However, we still see the Sages in *both* the Child and Adult Timelines during Ocarina, past and future alike. The implication is that they were substantially omniscient, and were essentially "outside" of time itself...witness their ability to send Link into any era they wished, as the situation dictated.

Besides which, it then becomes a temporal paradox for the Sages to *not* have been awakened in the past -- else, how could they have affected changes in the future, and managed to overthrow Ganon?

It's quite simple and obvious that A Link to the Past is set in the Child Timeline...it's an essential building-block of the continuity between Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and the NES Zeldas, and future games in the series will very likely follow this philosophy.

One doesn't really need to engage in convoluted mental gymnastics to rationalize its placement -- swinging "Occam's Razor" cuts right through virtually all of the speculative underbrush.

Originally Posted by Chaos Auteur

It's clearly within the Child Timeline -- at the moment, Hyrule-under-the-sea from The Wind Waker was pretty much laid waste at the end of that game, and King Daphnes' comments after Ganon's death suggest that it will never be resurrected.

Yes, that's one reason I think it's in the CT - Aonouma seems to be using TWW/PH as a way breaking away from the old Zeldas.

Originally Posted by Chaos Auteur

Some of the early backstory given to us in Zelda III can't really be taken at literal face-value anymore...the designers, including Miyamoto himself, have since fudged, tweaked, and retconned a great deal of it in later years to suit their own purposes, as far as new Zelda projects were concerned.

Nothing is ever going to match up 100 percent.

I agree with you to a certain degree - the NES games are certainly out-of-date, storyline-wise. Many aspects of those early stories were later blatantly retconned. However, I'm not entirely convinced that ALttP falls into that trap - although OoT was clearly meant to tell of ALttP's backstory, a particular quote from ALttP's manual keeps ringing in my mind:

After vanquishing his own followers, the leader stood triumphant over the Triforce and grasped it with his blood- stained hands. He heard a whispered voice:
"If thou has a strong desire or dream, wish for it..."
And in reply, the roaring laughter of the brigand leader echoed across time and space and even reached the far-off land of Hyrule.

In this sense, it's possible that Ganondorf grasping the Triforce in OoT had far-reaching effects in both timelines, and ALttP might simply be referencing this without necessarily being in the same timeline. And before you tell me that that's only the crappy NOA translation, I'll point out that the reference to his laugh echoing across time and space is in the original japanese manual for ALttP also.

Originally Posted by Chaos Auteur

I think one can read far too much into certain maps -- we know that the producers have never abided by a consistent, agreed-upon map of Hyrule, ever; and the FSA map of Hyrule in particular totally contradicts what we know the kingdom looks like from the NES Zeldas, A Link to the Past, and Twilight Princess (landlocked, with mountains to the west, and even more territory north of the Death Mountain region).

One solution to this is to not interpret the Four Swords Adventures map literally -- that it's simply a hyperstylized depiction of that specific game's immediately-accessible territories, with the water representing "off-limits" lands that the player cannot get to. Indeed, other games in other franchises have done the same thing, either with clouds or water cordoning off inaccessible zones on related maps.

I agree that basing a timeline theory on a gameplay map is a little tenuous but I thought I'd include the argument for completeness' sake. And the maps of Hyrule HAVE been roughly consistent with each other - OoT's map and ALttP's map match up perfectly when rotated. Y'know on the OoT map, where the compass rose has an extra, black spoke, pointing off to the northeast? Rotate the map so that this points north and each part of Hyrule matches with its ALttP counterpart, except the forest, which in ALttP (coincidentally) matches up with Hyrule Castle Town in OoT (imagine that). Then you have ALttP and FSA's maps matching almost perfectly (aside from the sea, which I agree is merely to highlight the fact that it's off-limits), and TP's map being basically an expanded version of OoT's map

Originally Posted by Chaos Auteur

However, we still see the Sages in *both* the Child and Adult Timelines during Ocarina, past and future alike. The implication is that they were substantially omniscient, and were essentially "outside" of time itself...witness their ability to send Link into any era they wished, as the situation dictated.

Besides which, it then becomes a temporal paradox for the Sages to *not* have been awakened in the past -- else, how could they have affected changes in the future, and managed to overthrow Ganon?

It's quite simple and obvious that A Link to the Past is set in the Child Timeline...it's an essential building-block of the continuity between Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, and the NES Zeldas, and future games in the series will very likely follow this philosophy.

One doesn't really need to engage in convoluted mental gymnastics to rationalize its placement -- swinging "Occam's Razor" cuts right through virtually all of the speculative underbrush.

The Sages are present in most games since ALttP, but the OoT Sages appear only in OoT, with pictures of them appearing in stain-glass windows in TWW and their names appearing in AoL. Link awakened them all as an adult and so we can't know for sure whether he also needed to do so after the Child Ending. I presume their predecessors - bar Rauru - were killed by Ganon in the AT (he seems to have a thing for killing Sages - TWW and TP - and pursuing their descendants - FSA and ALttP), making it necessary for Link to awaken new ones, so whether the Sages in TP are actually the original Sages or different Sages entirely is also up for debate. In this case, a temporal paradox would not occur since after the timeline splits, what happens in one wouldn't affect the other.

I believe ALttP fits best in the Child Timeline. There are the connections in TP, for one. And, especially if we add the trial scene from TP, it fits perfectly with the Japanese Imprisonning War story. According to the Japanese version of the legend Ganon himself wasn't imprisonned in the Dark World. But that's exactly what happens in the Adult Timeline.

It's clearly within the Child Timeline -- at the moment, Hyrule-under-the-sea from The Wind Waker was pretty much laid waste at the end of that game, and King Daphnes' comments after Ganon's death suggest that it will never be resurrected.

A certain quote by the Deku Tree says otherwise.

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

A certain quote by the Deku Tree says otherwise.

The Deku Tree can only create new land, not bring back old land. Even if the new land appeared where Hyrule had once been, Hyrule would be buried under it.

Well then its a different hyrule in the games afterwards.

Also MC links to WW with a book called the "truimph forks" and the the sky temple being above water.

Originally Posted by hazard

Well then its a different hyrule in the games afterwards.

Also MC links to WW with a book called the "truimph forks" and the the sky temple being above water.

1- A different Hyrule with the exact same landmarks in the exact same places?
2- The presence of the phrase 'Triumph Forks' doesn't prove two games to be in the same timeline any more than the presence of Tingle does.
3- So oceans didn't exist before the flood? Then where does Zora's River flow?

Originally Posted by Evilsbane

3- So oceans didn't exist before the flood? Then where does Zora's River flow?

And -- as we see in the NES Zeldas, there are indeed oceans on Hyrule's coasts; the later games in the series from ALttP onward simply didn't allow us to access them.

The Child Timeline, after Twilight Princess.

But, anyways, TP was designed in a way that bridged OoT's Hyrule with aLttP's Hyrule, by ways of the Kakariko by Death Mountain going to ruin (so that the Kakariko in aLttP is a new one, far to the west) and the deterioration of the Temple of Time (explaining aLttP's lonely pedestal).

So both of them go in the same timeline.

Originally Posted by SvenHudson

The Child Timeline, after Twilight Princess.

But, anyways, TP was designed in a way that bridged OoT's Hyrule with aLttP's Hyrule, by ways of the Kakariko by Death Mountain going to ruin (so that the Kakariko in aLttP is a new one, far to the west) and the deterioration of the Temple of Time (explaining aLttP's lonely pedestal).

So both of them go in the same timeline.

Exactly. The Old Kakariko in the east decayed to the point where -- by the time period of ALttP -- it is abandoned entirely, with the "new" Kakariko Village from Zelda III getting established in the west.

Indeed, the precedent for this goes all the way back to The Adventure of Link, where Old Kasuto was abandoned in the face of increasing monster attacks, with the townsfolk journeying eastward and building a brand new town in the woods.

And you'd have to think that -- being literally right on the slopes of monster-infested Death Mountain -- the Old Kakariko villagers would've finally reached a point where caution and safety demanded a more secure environment in which to live.

Another interesting theory I've seen bandied about is that the Hidden Village in TP (located very proximally to Hyrule Castle and the capital) is eventually resettled and rebuilt by the Old Kakariko refugees from the east, becoming the green, sylvan "new" Kakariko from ALttP.

Personally, I want the explanation for why Hyrule Castle Town becomes nonexistent between TP and ALttP, but wish in one hand, and...