Geographical 'Canon' versus Developer Intent Issues

I find the fact that FSA is an island canonical evidence. Along with the disappearing land between tMC and FSA as evidence. I'm sure there are a couple more I'm not thinking of.

By the way, isn't everyone on ZU a Lex/Erimgard clone?

I sure hope I'm not.
I'd say pretty much the same as Smertios "Sometimes lex sounds hypocrite, but he is a good theorist too. The same for erimgard..." except I wouldn't say that Erimgard is a hypocrite.

Originally Posted by Som

I'd say pretty much the same as Smertios "Sometimes lex sounds hypocrite, but he is a good theorist too. The same for erimgard..." except I wouldn't say that Erimgard is a hypocrite.

I didn't mean erimgard is hypocrite, I meant he is a good theorist too

Man, I'll never forgive Miyamoto for this butchering, though. FSA's story would have made so much more sense, without directly contradicting ALttP. Kind of ironic that the entire reason for the change was because it was too confusing BEFORE, but he just made it far more confusing for all of us. Plus, the original story seems potentially kickass. I've always been against an IW game as I figured it would be too much like OoT, but FSA was such an amazing idea to do it with, considering how different it was. We had this closely-related near prequel to ALttP, it was such a perfect time to do this, and it got screwed up.

Quoted for truth.

Lex doesn't deserve that respect, you know. He deliberately lies, misleads, takes just about anything and anyone (theorists, developers, characters, EVERYTHING) out of context and knowingly, intentionally twists their words, all to attack other people or suit his timeline. He doesn't care about truth, he cares about making himself appear to be right. When he's losing a debate, he'll throw in a random distraction that's got nothing to do with Zelda in order to claim he's providing some kind of real life example (and I quote, "real flood myths"). When forced to stay on the point, he just runs away and brings up the argument again in a couple of months, pretending none of it ever happened.

I don't want to be inflammatory, I just thought I should let you know that Lex's behaviour as a timeline theorist does not lend itself to respect. He's honestly disgusted me with some of the things he's done to purposely mislead people. He constantly applies double standards to what does and doesn't count, even within the same goddamn text, in a hypocritical way, that's not a sign of a good theorist.

I find the fact that FSA is an island canonical evidence. Along with the disappearing land between tMC and FSA as evidence. I'm sure there are a couple more I'm not thinking of.

This is what's starting to annoy me. I post something containing clear evidence to disprove an idea. A few posts later, someone posts "I believe this idea" that was just disproved, but with no further justification. First on Miyamoto, now this? You know, the water around FSA's map isn't even geographical evidence, it's artistic evidence, which is far weaker.

^ Well you do play on a beach, so there kinda has to be a sea there, you know.

There's a sea referenced around Hyrule in virtually every Zelda game at some point, though. Doesn't mean it surrounds everything. TMC disproves that.

Lex doesn't deserve that respect, you know. He deliberately lies, misleads, takes just about anything and anyone (theorists, developers, characters, EVERYTHING) out of context and knowingly, intentionally twists their words, all to attack other people or suit his timeline. He doesn't care about truth, he cares about making himself appear to be right. When he's losing a debate, he'll throw in a random distraction that's got nothing to do with Zelda in order to claim he's providing some kind of real life example (and I quote, "real flood myths"). When forced to stay on the point, he just runs away and brings up the argument again in a couple of months, pretending none of it ever happened.

I don't want to be inflammatory, I just thought I should let you know that Lex's behaviour as a timeline theorist does not lend itself to respect. He's honestly disgusted me with some of the things he's done to purposely mislead people. He constantly applies double standards to what does and doesn't count, even within the same goddamn text, in a hypocritical way, that's not a sign of a good theorist.

Alot of the time: Yes he does.

Alot more of the time though, I find that he can be a very resourcefull theorist.

Yeah, he's just selective about which resources he lets you guys in on, rather than being responsible and telling you everything that happens or has been found which you should be aware of. Erimgard at least attempts to post some of those new things. Lex just manipulates them.

Did I forget to mention that in his lies, he's now attacking three fluent Japanese speakers, one of whom is native, saying his interpretation of FSA's Japanese is superior, despite him having no knowledge of the language whatsoever?

Did I forget to mention that in his lies, he's now attacking three fluent Japanese speakers, one of whom is native, saying his interpretation of FSA's Japanese is superior, despite him having no knowledge of the language whatsoever?

................

I don't want to hear anymore. Not only for myself but for his Fiance, take it to PMs.

^ because I'm sure Kassi is very concerned about Lex's theorizing activities.

Originally Posted by Impossible

Doesn't mean it surrounds everything. TMC disproves that.

In the case of FSA, seing as how there is an ocean (of unknown size) present and seing as how the map shows an ocean (which, you're right - could be an artistic way of presenting it) - I'm gonna assume the ocean is actually there and surrounds Hyrule in FSA, unless something contradicts that.

^ because I'm sure Kassi is very concerned about Lex's theorizing activities.

I mean for Imp's protection because she'll hunt him down if she learns about him calling Lex a-erm......-some things that I can't say here- On LA.

This is what's starting to annoy me. I post something containing clear evidence to disprove an idea. A few posts later, someone posts "I believe this idea" that was just disproved, but with no further justification. First on Miyamoto, now this? You know, the water around FSA's map isn't even geographical evidence, it's artistic evidence, which is far weaker.

I haven't read all the posts yet. I read the OP and then made my post. Didn't think there might be someone disproving it as evidence.

Obviously I disagree with you on that. I don't think it was made for artistic evidence. They could have easily added more land.

Originally Posted by Impossible

There's a sea referenced around Hyrule in virtually every Zelda game at some point, though. Doesn't mean it surrounds everything. TMC disproves that.

There is no sea mentioned in any of the two games that are confirmed to take place in Hyrule in the CT: OoT and TP. Also, in the confirmed arch, which is
...../-TWW/PH
OoT
.....\MM-TP
, the only time we see an ocean is in TWW, and we have an explanation to why such thing exists.

We have no evidence for an ocean in Hyrule before the flood, so, what you call artistic evidence is solid evidence for FSA to follow in the AT. As for TMC background images, I have to say that in-game maps should be more valid than those, considering they contradict themselves at least once. I'm tired of explaining this over and over again...

Smertios, the next time you ignore my posts and evidence, I'm going to do the same for you. I've had enough of this, you keep repeating yourself while ignoring all the counter points. You don't have to explain anything over and over: I know your argument, start responding to mine. You've completely ignored my points about FSA and TMC. And while I agree that the backgrounds (which are also in-game) should be disregarded, that's not the attitude people like you are taking to artistic details. TMC itself never once makes a single attempt to hint at an ocean in any way that would be logical if a post-TWW placement were intended.

You're applying evidence in completely the wrong way. What I'm saying is, in 2001, there was no flood, one Hyrule, no complications. LA's Japanese manual references an ocean, and implies that there would have to be one in any case. LoZ and AoL show an ocean. OoX implies one in the ending. There was explicitly only one Hyrule at this time, so this clearly applies to ALttP (given the LA connection) and OoT (given the ALttP and LoZ connection). You can't retroactively force fit these elements that ALWAYS existed in Hyrule to your timeline. Not a single one of these games has anything in the story to indicate that they were intended to be placed in a new Hyrule. Why the **** wouldn't the games ever even have a single line, anywhere, referencing this possibility? They've had enough chances.

Part of the problem is that you refuse to accept the assumptions and speculation that are inherent in the timeline you're arguing. You treat everything as a given already, and can only see things from that perspective, which of course is going to make that timeline seem better than anything else. If you assume things to be true that actually aren't even remotely hinted at a single time in any game released since TWW, yeah, sure it works - but I would seriously ****ing question if the developers have regularly functioning brains for this to be the case. If you take evidence from TWW out of context and pretend that's all the evidence that exists, of course it works. But that's not exactly convincing, just misleading.

Originally Posted by Impossible

Smertios, the next time you ignore my posts and evidence, I'm going to do the same for you. I've had enough of this, you keep repeating yourself while ignoring all the counter points. You don't have to explain anything over and over: I know your argument, start responding to mine. You've completely ignored my points about FSA and TMC. And while I agree that the backgrounds (which are also in-game) should be disregarded, that's not the attitude people like you are taking to artistic details. TMC itself never once makes a single attempt to hint at an ocean in any way that would be logical if a post-TWW placement were intended.

You're applying evidence in completely the wrong way. What I'm saying is, in 2001, there was no flood, one Hyrule, no complications. LA's Japanese manual references an ocean, and implies that there would have to be one in any case. LoZ and AoL show an ocean. OoX implies one in the ending. There was explicitly only one Hyrule at this time, so this clearly applies to ALttP (given the LA connection) and OoT (given the ALttP and LoZ connection). You can't retroactively force fit these elements that ALWAYS existed in Hyrule to your timeline. Not a single one of these games has anything in the story to indicate that they were intended to be placed in a new Hyrule. Why the **** wouldn't the games ever even have a single line, anywhere, referencing this possibility? They've had enough chances.

Next time you decide to come up on a theorizing forum out of nowhere posting your idea like that, please do us all a favor and make a quick search in the forum and try to see if this hasn't been discussed in the forum, because i'm tired of explaining the same things over and over again.

I can easily accept when noobs do that, because they have no idea how theorizing is like, but when a vet from a different forum comes arguing that he knows everything about how people theorize on this forum and that we are stubborn because we can't understand that his theory is the only absolute truth (and yes, this is what you've been doing), this really starts to piss me off. Just take one hour of your precious life to read a few threads from, idk, maybe 2 or 3 pages from now and notice that this has been argued several times already.

Anyway, replying to your argument, obviously, there wasn't any flood before TWW came out. So, does that mean there was an ocean in Hyrule? Well, yes and no. IMO, the AT looked like this before TWW:
OoT-LttP/LA-OoX-LoZ/AoL
Also obviously, there was an indication that an ocean started to exist at a determined point of the timeline.

The split was pretty much confirmed already, and we had the games divided into 2 groups:

1. games with an ocean (LoZ, AoL, LA, OoS, OoA) and
2. games without an ocean (OoT, LttP)

I didn't add MM because it was in a different dimension. Well, at least that's what most people think.

The first thing that comes to mind is that these groups should be placed in different timeines. I really started to consider this was the idea at some point, after I read the interview in which Miyamoto confirmed the split:
...../-(OoX/LA)-LoZ/AoL-(OoX/LA)
OoT
.....\MM-LttP

or

................../-OoX/LA-LoZ/AoL
OoT/MM-LttP
..................\[YT]

Then came TWW. The game had an explanation to why an ocean existed in some games, but not in others. And this is without even considering the GDT's quote on making landmasses bigger. Ther was a flood, therefor there was an ocean. This is an obvious connection. But there wasn't an ocean in LttP. So, the first idea would be that it should come before the flood, right? Keep in mind that OoT was still the SW.

...../LttP-[flood]-(OoX/LA)-TWW-LoZ/AoL-(OoX/LA)
OoT
.....\MM

This would make a lot of sense. OoT would still be the SW, everything would have been explained. But then FSA came out.

Ignoring the connections between FSA and LttP is probably the worst mistake a theorist can make. But wait, there is an ocean in FSA too. And, "strangely" enough, the official artwork of that game is identical to TWW's! So obviously the last assumption was wrong. LttP had to come after FSA and, therefore, after the flood.

So the AT got the form it has today, imho:
...../-TWW/[PH]-FSS-LttP/(LA)-OoX-LoZ/AoL
OoT
.....\MM-[TP]

TMC is a different case.

Anyway, I don't use any other evidence but FSA (which you preferred to ignore, making your timeline biased, sorry to say) to prove the GDT's plan success. Land clearly grows from FSA to LttP, there is absolutely no way you can run from that...

I can easily accept when noobs do that, because they have no idea how theorizing is like, but when a vet from a different forum comes arguing that he knows everything about how people theorize on this forum and that we are stubborn because we can't understand that his theory is the only absolute truth (and yes, this is what you've been doing), this really starts to piss me off.

This is just insulting bull****. How am I stating that my theory is the only truth? I never even ****ing posted my theory or argued for it. I explicitly stated half a dozen times that I don't give a **** about proving my own theory here, and outlined exactly what it is I'm actually doing. I like how I'm committing some kind of crime in your eyes just by proposing that alternative arguments be considered. I'm trying to help you so that your arguments won't be complete crap and incapable of addressing current arguments for the alternative - because right now, too many people are stuck in the ZU bubble where far too much goes unquestioned. Don't be an ass and make assumptions about what I'm doing so you can attack me without reading my posts. If I wanted everyone to see my theory as absolute truth, ZU is the last place on earth I would go. All I want is for other people to stop talking about theories as though they are now proven fact, simply because nobody on this forum has argued otherwise, or given all of the counterarguments, for such a long time. Whether that's my theory or me being devil's advocate makes no difference.

The fact is, this is YOU being defensive for that exact reason - you believe your theory to be the absolute truth, and simply because I'm questioning your methods and logic, and your twisted misuse of evidence (this was true in 1998, so it's true now!), you keep insisting over and over that there's something I don't understand. The fact is, I know damn well what you're saying. I've read it enough times before. I've read you repeat it five times because you refuse to adapt your points in any way to respond to the issues being raised with it (again, this is the reason why I'm here, to actually bring those issues up for a change). You are proving everything I've said about ZU posters with your attitude towards that.

Anyway, I don't use any other evidence but FSA (which you preferred to ignore, making your timeline biased, sorry to say) to prove the GDT's plan success.

I didn't ignore it, are you ****ing blind? You accuse me of not going back through the last few months of topics, yet you can't even read all the posts in THIS topic? And I'm the biased one? It looks like you got about one sentence into my last post and just stopped reading, because the rest of your post was just continuing to parrot the same points and doing exactly what I just criticised you for doing. I told you. I'm not going to put up with your stupid attacks when you won't even read my posts or acknowledge the existence of evidence outside of your own theory. Apparently the moment you see any of it, your eyes stop working.

</Enraged rant>

That's it, by the way. Read my posts, or you can go straight on ignore. In fact, if your next post doesn't at least acknowledge my posts regarding FSA, instead of once again lying and accusing me of ignoring it, don't bother posting it. Or, you can just go on living in your fantasy world where artistic details are the absolute top priority indicator of the timeline and of creator intent, and nobody should even DARE to think of discussing story-related evidence for a change to see if anything can actually be learned about the storyline. From the story.

Originally Posted by Impossible

This is just insulting bull****. How am I stating that my theory is the only truth? I never even ****ing posted my theory or argued for it. I explicitly stated half a dozen times that I don't give a **** about proving my own theory here, and outlined exactly what it is I'm actually doing. I like how I'm committing some kind of crime in your eyes just by proposing that alternative arguments be considered. I'm trying to help you so that your arguments won't be complete crap and incapable of addressing current arguments for the alternative - because right now, too many people are stuck in the ZU bubble where far too much goes unquestioned. Don't be an ass and make assumptions about what I'm doing so you can attack me without reading my posts.

Fun fact number 1: I did read your posts

Fun fact number 2: You said that ZUers are stubbron for not acknowledging things a few times in different threads

Fun fact number 3: By provinding arguments to why you don't believe the GDT's plan worked you are supporting the theory that it didn't work. Later (well, actually earlier) you came and said that people from ZU are stubborn and copycats. This is what i'm talking about.

The fact is, this is YOU being defensive for that exact reason - you believe your theory to be the absolute truth, and simply because I'm questioning your methods and logic, and your twisted misuse of evidence (this was true in 1998, so it's true now!), you keep insisting over and over that there's something I don't understand. The fact is, I know damn well what you're saying. I've read it enough times before. I've read you repeat it five times because you refuse to adapt your points in any way to respond to the issues being raised with it (again, this is the reason why I'm here, to actually bring those issues up for a change). You are proving everything I've said about ZU posters with your attitude towards that.

No, the reason you are here is to start another war, and I'm just full of that...
I'm on the defensive because you decided to attack all canonical evidence that i use to support my timeline. I never claimed it was the absolute truth or that people are stubbron for not accepting what I say.

And no, i don't believe the intent ever changed, from a timeline point of view...

I didn't ignore it, are you ****ing blind? You accuse me of not going back through the last few months of topics, yet you can't even read all the posts in THIS topic? And I'm the biased one? It looks like you got about one sentence into my last post and just stopped reading, because the rest of your post was just continuing to parrot the same points and doing exactly what I just criticised you for doing. I told you. I'm not going to put up with your stupid attacks when you won't even read my posts or acknowledge the existence of evidence outside of your own theory. Apparently the moment you see any of it, your eyes stop working.

You know, the water around FSA's map isn't even geographical evidence, it's artistic evidence, which is far weaker.

This sounds like ignoring evidence for me...

Or, you can just go on living in your fantasy world where artistic details are the absolute top priority indicator of the timeline and of creator intent, and nobody should even DARE to think of discussing story-related evidence for a change to see if anything can actually be learned about the storyline.

See, this is what I was talking about. You prefer to accept that some evidence is better than others and that is what creates biased theories. You are just likee veryone else from ZL, coming and attacking ZUers as if we were an evil community trying to take over the universe, geez...

Well, it looks like you still haven't read my point about FSA and would rather attack me for bringing up a different idea of timeline principles and questioning you up there in your ivory tower. So we're done here. It's amazing how you "read my posts", but blatantly lied about their contents, even after I asked you, twice, to read what I said about FSA. Writing several major posts about it and about geography as a whole apparently counts as nothing to you.

Some evidence isn't better than others because of bias or which theory they support, some evidence is better than others because it can be shown to be deliberate as part of the main story, representative of creator intent, and is not contradicted by other evidence of intent. You can't seriously believe that non-story cameos and Easter eggs have the exact same level of significance and value as huge evidence in the text of the main story - keeping in mind when you read that sentence that "story" is the name of the thing we're trying to work out. It doesn't mean you're forbidden from using them, it's just incredibly biased to pretend that they're the strongest pieces of evidence in the game, as you have with FSA and TWW. I'm not telling you that evidence x counts and evidence y doesn't, I'm telling you that all evidence should be judged fairly IN CONTEXT, not pulled out of context and blown out of proportion.

Of course, you applied that exact same fallacy to this debate itself, by taking something I said out of context in order to misleadingly make the false claim that I had ignored evidence, when in fact, I responded to it fully, and didn't merely disregard it with that one sentence - that sentence was the conclusion of the argument, responding to someone who hadn't read it yet. You have no excuses at this point, I explicitly told you this twice and you kept lying and refusing to acknowledge the existence of those posts. The fact is, you've used several of Lex's "techniques" in this topic (quoting out of context, using that quote to suggest I hadn't actually countered something I had, ignoring a point after I repeatedly asked for a response to it). I have no patience for him, or for anyone else pulling the same stunts.

Of course, I make some actual good and important points, quick, everyone let this topic die as quickly as possible. I'd actually like people to read my explanation of geography's logical relevance, and where it logically doesn't work.

I hate the idea of people treating FSA's map as "undeniable" evidence, when really, it's just the opposite. Why should I be forced to accept something when it's impossible to prove the validity or relevance of it? It's an isolated point. We CAN'T base timelines on isolated points, this is the same problem that comes out of the Deku Tree theory. TWW is a whole game, not just one quote. Is the rest of the game consistent with the Deku Tree's quote? If not, why wouldn't it be, since that's supposedly what Nintendo wanted us to believe? These questions have to be asked.

Evidence that FSA's map is story-related or intent-related? So far, 0. It's inconsistent with all other story elements of the game that do not point to this same idea. The Zelda storywriters are not overly inconsistent within a game when they hint at timeline placements - if they want to hint at it, they will do it properly and there will be text including it.

Evidence that it was artistic? Well, it's self-evident, for one, as it wasn't made by storywriters and there's no way to show that map differences are story related. But there's also the actual evidence of the water being there in much earlier screenshots when FSA was a CT IW.

So what conclusion am I supposed to draw? That non-story evidence surpasses story evidence when trying to analyse a story? It's like having a discussion of the themes and deep meaning of a literary novel, and then having someone come in an argue that the author meant something completely different because of the thickness of the pages. It's in the book, that doesn't mean it's intent or was even done by the author.

I'd argue with you but I agree, so...