Disproving the Split

Yes, I know. The first reaction you'll have is "But Aonuma himself said it was true!" Well you know what? He was wrong. It is logically impossible for there to be a split in time. And I'm gonna tell you why, by use of a tangent.
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One of my favorite series of movies is the Back To The Future trilogy. In the movie, Marty goes back in time and accidentally prevents his mother from falling in love with his father. In a picture, which he so conveniently had in his pocket when he travelled back, he and his siblings, due to his mistake, started to disappear. Later, however, he forces his father to pluck up the courage, and everything is made right again; he and his siblings return to the photo.

Now, even when I was young I thought that there must've been something wrong with this. If he had prevented his parents from meeting, and had started to fade from the picture, why had it not been instantaneous? Because he fixed it. But, then, why had the picture faded at all?

I passed it off as a playwriter who just didn't understand time travel.

Later, I played Majora's Mask, and my view on time took another turn. Likewise to a book I had read, The Power of Un, MM used the ability to undo happenings to progress the story. In my mind, it seemed only obvious that the other timelines Link had undone simply stopped existing, and the people of Clocktown only truly lived through the final time, after Link quit his journey.

I thought that made perfect sense, as well as the events in The Power of Un, which seemed to also erase events and start over.
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And now, returning to the topic...

One day, I heard about the Split Timeline Theory. At the time, I shrugged it off, and continued to argue along the lines of there being one single timeline in Zelda. Mainly because I didn't care to take the time and figure out what the split really meant.

But, recently, I did so. The split, in a brief definition...means that the time in which Link defeated Ganondorf was in fact undone, but, as there is no evidence that time is that punctual, in essence that timeline could still exist, while Young Link got his childhood in the true timeline.

I accepted this idea. Accepted it, that is, until three days ago. I awoke in one of my normally weird dreamy states, in which many things seem possible, and the thought of removing the covers in such cold weather is ludicrous. As I lay there, I thought about my fan fiction, which is slowly coming to incorporate more theories on time travel. And it hit me. The truths I had come to find out about time didn't fit with the split.

Here is the fact which disproves the split:

Time travel, if used, cannot change the past. Say, for example, that you travelled back in time to save people from a known disaster. For the sake of argument, a house fire. You know that, in your time, they die. If you went back and saved them, how would you know about it? What would make you travel back? You'd have no reason, thus wouldn't do it. Therefore, if you travelled back, you would be unable to save them, because you already know they're doomed.

Also, as I've complained after reading the short story "A Sound of Thunder", whatever you do while travelling back in time is supposed to happen. The fact that you time travelled is part of future history, is it not? Then why shan't your intervention be part of history already, before you even know you'll do it?

This point sometimes comes as hard to explain, so I don't expect you to get it straightaway.

But, using Zelda finally, look at it this way. Link defeats Ganondorf in the future. He travels back in time, and Ganon's sealed there too. How could that have happened? By sealing him in the past, it is now impossible for Link to face him, or any of the temples, in the future. As we've played through it, we know it all happened. So, apparently, Ganon wasn't sealed in the past, thus...no split.

Visualization:

Split Theory

-------------Adult Link (defeats Ganon)--->TWW (New Link kills Ganon once and for all)--->PH
Young Link<
-------------MM------->TP (New Link kills Ganon once and for all)

The Truth

Young Link (does OOT stuff, goes forward in time)-->MM (three months later, the Link who came back goes to Termina)---->Adult Link (defeats Ganon, travels back to become before mentioned Link)--->Other games.

(Unaided version:

Young Link-->MM--->Adult Link-->Other games)


About Link's running off to Termina, imagine it as you being Doc Brown from BttF, when Marty comes back after you've just sent him ahead. He's gone through other stuff in the future...and came back. Same principle.

Why has Nintendo failed to realize this? Who knows? Though, if they knew, or if someone has told them, they, as you might, will most likely say that the reason for a split is divine intervention. Well, I must say...what purpose would that serve? The point of OOT was to defeat Ganondorf, and by sealing him in the past, they make it absolutely impossible for his sealing to have occured, or for the sages to have died and gained their rank.

The goddesses may have done that, but I see no reason why it would be necessary. If the "Adult timeline" wasn't meant to exist, why work specifically to make it do so? Why split the whole? When you take time to think on it, the Split Timeline Theory wasn't very well thought-up.

As I'm sure people will flock to this thread merely by the nature of the title, I will try to stay on whenever I can to continue arguing my case, though I hope that becomes unnecessary. If you believe you have a shred of proof against mine, I will hear you out, and, if it is credible, I may agree and lay off the theory. But understand when I tell you that I have all the confidence in the world that there is nothing that will change my mind.

With dearest wishes that this doesn't become too heated...go ahead and reply.

-Sekal

This is why it's best to just play each game as a story unto itself, without coming up with crazy theories to justify them all happening.

And for one thing, it really turned me off when you said Aonuma was "wrong," with a period, like you know more about it than he does. However illogical it may be, the artist has absolute control over his art.

*trumpet fanfare*
"Make way for Hombre de Mundo, Man of World! He'll save the day... won't he?"

Your argumnets are good. However, they way way you interpret the series creates a paradox (like the house on fire you mentioned) called the grandfather paradox. If you travel back in time and kill your granpa, you won't get born, but then you won't go back in time, so wou will get born and kill him, but then you won't get born, but then... etc.

So in order to avoid this paradox, some cleaver guy way back when came up with the idea that time splits, creating 2 unierses that are exactly the same, except one of them is going to change due to mr. time traveler.

So when Link travel back in time, another timeline is created, in which he makes sure Ganondorf doesn't get the triforce. Ganondorf gets it anyway, somehow, and ends up in the Twilight Realm.

By having a split timeline, you can indeed go back in time and change stuff without creating a paradox.

Short answer: It's much easier that way.



Also, there are plenty of evidence that TP and WW can't come in the same timeline. Like Ganondorf not recognizing Link in TP, but in WW. And that he never was sealed in the sacred realm in TP, but was in WW... or that he died in TP, but just got released from his seal in WW. And that the Triforce of courage split when OoT Link left teh future, but wasn't put together until WW.

*people applause, then everybody focuses on Sekal to see what he's going to say. Drumm roll*

well written theory, but ultimatly, Auonuma is right, and there is a split timeline, because its kind of his and Shigeru game; so they make whatever they want the truth. And also, what you say might not be true, because we don't know the true rules of time travel, so for all we know, splits in time could exist.

I'm sorry, But I feel that I must at least say this... For the sake of the fallen...

Anybody here like Terminator? I do, and I have paid an almost religious amount of attention to the Timeline:

Okay, everyone knows how, on a Thursday in the May of 1984, Kyle Reese and "Terminator: 800 Series, Cyberdyne Systems Model-101" are sent back in time for seperate missions, To Destroy(T-800 CSM-101) and Protect(Reese) Sarah Connor.

Now, we also know that Judgement Day occurs(T-2) on the date of August 29, 1997.

Here's where the first MAJOR FLAW shows...

Sarah Connor was impregnated in May(the fifth month of 1984), add the usual 9 months, and John Connor will have been born in Febuary 1985. John was 13 in T-2, so add 13 years to 1985, and what, pray tell, is the year? 1998, WELL PAST THE TIME JUDGMENT DAY was supposed to occur.

Also add in the fact that in T-3, Sarah Connor died of Leukemia in 1997, so she wouldn't have been in T-2 to begin with...

Now, I know that, while it is true that for some odd reason, it ends up being unnoticed, but that is a SERIOUS FLAW if I've ever seen one.

Just because the 'writer/maker' says so doesn't neccessarily make it fact, take a good look at the comic book industry...

^ Another thing that bugs me about Terminator. In Terminator 3, they say they couldn't locate John Connor, because he was hiding...

Couldn't they just have sent an terminator further back in time? When they knew where he was? Stupid...

Sekal... you act as if you know the true extent of time traveling, and its consequences, when really there's barely anything to prove upon written stories and movie films.

But I think you forget the one time traveling deal in OOT that isn't very similar to that of BTTF, or Terminator. Link didn't "directly" time travel, as his body would age itself 7 years difference each time he went to the Past or Future. The future had occured because Link DID actually sleep for those 7 years, and when he did return to the Past via the Master Sword, he was a Child again, meaning that his body only returned to a point in time before the Sword was liften. In that time though, the future still existed, just without the prescense of Link in it.

But had similar time traveling physics to that of BTTF occured, we'd see 2 Link's running around Hyrule then.

You need to remember that Zelda is fantasy, and can therefore defy the laws of time traveling. But you need to consider that OOT didn't use the same sort of time traveling we normally see from movies and such.

During Ocarina of Time, Link was put into a sort of stasis for seven years. Therefore, he did not travel in time. But..he did use the Ocarina to go back and forth after that.

Oh, and you cannot disprove the Split Timeline Theory. It's canon.

Stupid school comp...now I have to do this over. Apologies for shortness.

First of all, I understand that it's the creator's freedom to make it what he wants. I'm merely saying that, as with Terminator, the timeline of the Zelda series is wrong.
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To Hombre, I didn't mean the other games come after. I meant other stuff happens afterwards. The timeline is messed up. That's what I mean. I'm not saying that both TP and TWW happen, I'm just saying that time continues after OOT's events.
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As for the grandfather paradox, I meant to say it's impossible. If you go back in time, whatever you do back there was supposed to happen. Very simple concept, but I guess I didn't explain it right.

I also didn't say that Link's first time travel was direct. I understand that the first time was stasis. Every time after, however, he travelled to the moment after he pulled it out, or forward to moment after he stabbed it back in.

To Thunderous, your first point couldn't be more true. As for me saying he was wrong, I'm just being blunt. I mean that the timeline he created was wrong.

And I don't think I'm omniscient on time travel, lol.

-Sekal

dont you have a kinda grandfather paradox in OOT with the windmill guy. (or is it the necessity paradox one?)

he says a nasty little boy came into the windmill one day and played a song that messed it up, he teachs you the song he played, but the windmill guy only knows it because you played it in the windmill as a child.

its like in BTTF when marty is playing johnny be goode, he knows it becuase of whats his face, but whats his face only knows it because marty played it at the dance.

but are you really time traveling in OOT, cause it says link was a sleep for 7 years, if he was to travel 7 years into the future shouldnt he still be the same age?

i am 22 now if i was to time travel 7 years into the future i would still be 22. but if i was to sleep for 7 years, (and not in cryostasis), that would make me 29.

this is what weirds me out every now and again, is it really time traveling? or is it age progression/regression.

As for the grandfather paradox, I meant to say it's impossible. If you go back in time, whatever you do back there was supposed to happen. Very simple concept, but I guess I didn't explain it right.

if History says a certain artifact went missing, and you were to go back in time and steal it, it would only be missing in the first place becuase you stole it.

First of all, I understand that it's the creator's freedom to make it what he wants. I'm merely saying that, as with Terminator, the timeline of the Zelda series is wrong.

lol yeh terminator, dont forget about the fact that Kyle Reese is younger than future John Conner. so when kyle goes back in time to 1984 he hasnt even been born yet.

I used to think time had to progress to judgement day without any time traveling then people were send back and this changed history. Course this would mean the Johns father was someone other than Kyle originally. but that cant happen as that messes up a lot of the plot.

its 7/11/07 (for me today) so i could travel back to any point prior to this, as time has progressed as far as 7/11/07, but get weirded out (or misunderstand/misinterpret) when say my future self comes back in time from a date much after 7/11/07 and does stuff, as history hasnt progressed to the point from which my future self came in time.

im probably confusing people/getting off topic, so ill stop.

if someone who has creative control over LOZ says there is a split dispite any evidence to the contrary, then doesnt that mean ther is a split? they decide whats canon and waht isnt

NO, OoT was a Predestination Paradox.

The Windmill Guy got is p'd off because Link played the song, and Link played the song because the Windmill Guy got p'd off and taught it to him.

Also, Note than you can't enter the Well in the Adult time, because Link had already gone back and taken the Lens.

Past, Present, and Future, It is all set in stone.

So you havn't really disproved the split, just that OoT and (I guess) Oracles are Ages is messed up when it comes to time traveling. But we knew that already

Originally Posted by Sekal

The Truth

Young Link (does OOT stuff, goes forward in time)-->MM (three months later, the Link who came back goes to Termina)---->Adult Link (defeats Ganon, travels back to become before mentioned Link)--->Other games.

Doesn't this create an infinite loop?

I'm confused.

i don't agree completely with Sekal.But i do agree with him that the split is actually not true. in fact, i heard that Aunoma has changed his mind on Zelda facts before, and i think i heard someone on here say that Aunoma actually changed his mind and said that there was no split. (sorry i dont know the exact source).

Originally Posted by Elfen Lied

but are you really time traveling in OOT, cause it says link was a sleep for 7 years, if he was to travel 7 years into the future shouldnt he still be the same age?

i am 22 now if i was to time travel 7 years into the future i would still be 22. but if i was to sleep for 7 years, (and not in cryostasis), that would make me 29.

this is what weirds me out every now and again, is it really time traveling? or is it age progression/regression.

Yeah, I forgot...I'm guessing that every time he directly time travels, his body is also changing along with the world.