The Hylia - The Split Timeline

Home | Features | The Split Timeline

At The Hylia Public Forums, there exists a place called the Book of Mudora, wherein some of the most vicious, and simultaneously funny timeline debates take place. However, of all the controversial debates to grace that small forum, one debate seems to out-controverse them all, and that is the debate about the existence a split timeline.

Some people will swear by the split timeline, others will deny it with a vengeance. The existence of two Legend of Zelda timelines is best defended by the ending of Ocarina of Time, in which we see Link return to his childhood, and continue on with his adventures in Majora’s Mask. However, we also see that, by the end of Ocarina of Time, in the future, the characters are throwing a huge party. Now, the ridiculous notion held by pro-OoTPTTATTL(Ocarina of Time Proves That There are Two Time Lines)ers is that, because these characters throw parties, they must still exist. However, I would like to remind those people that none of the Zelda characters exist. They’re just video games lol. Mario and his buddies threw parties. Hell, they threw six, maybe seven of them. Do they exist?

Now I do believe in multiple timelines in The Legend of Zelda series, but not because of what Ocarina of Time has stated, and I do not believe that there are two timelines stemming from the same game, that’s ridiculous. No, I believe that each game or two games is its own timeline, its own reality. Think about it: In Ocarina of Time, everyone was 64-bit and in 3D. In Wind Waker, they were all cartoons, had big heads, and little, cone-shaped bodies. Now, is there even a slight possibility that these stories took place in the same reality? Did the goddesses come down from the sky after Ocarina of Time and deform and cel-shaded all the people in the world? No, that’s crazy, and therefore, the two games take place in separate realities, different worlds, with their own timelines.

The same goes for the other games, Legend of Zelda through A Link to the Past. Do any of them look 3D or cel-shaded? No. Now, at this point one may think, “You’re basing your theory of the existence of multiple realities in the Zelda universe on the fact that the graphics for the various games look different? The games are just made differently, you idiot,” but this is not so. From Ocarina of Time and on, and even in Link’s Awakening, we were given the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of Link, a life long inhabitant of any given reality, and what does he see? He sees exactly what we see. So now one would think, “Well, you’ve proven beyond any doubt that the worlds in which the games take place look exactly like what we see on our screens, but how do you know that they’re each in a separate reality, or have their own timeline?” which is a good question. One which can be answered with three simple words: Wizard. Of. Oz.

At the start of the movie, we join Dorothy in Kansas. Since this is Kansas, the beginning of the movie obviously took place in the reality we call home. Now at this point, everything was in black and white, and that’s when the tornado hit. The tornado landed Dorothy in the Land of Oz, and, suddenly, everything was in color. When the Oompa-Loompas came out to greet Dorothy, what did they say? They said that a house had been dropped on the wicked witch who could do the curly foot thing. Did they say anything about a tornado? No. Did they even have a record of a tornado hitting Kansas? No, because there was no Kansas in Oz, thus proving that Oz took place in a separate reality from ours, and that it had its own timeline and history, thus proving that the Legend of Zelda also contains split realities with their own timelines, and that Ganondorf, Zelda, and Link are just popular names that extend throughout them.

So when you get right down to it, both sides are wrong, and this is clearly the correct answer to the split timeline question: There is not just one timeline, but there are not two, either. There are several, contained within our Gamecubes (Wind Waker, Four Swords, Twilight Princess), Gameboys (Oracles, Link’s Awakening, Tingle Tuner), N64s (Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask), and our PSPs (shame on you, you ROM downloading son of a guns).

- New Hyrule is a Senior Moderator at The Hylia public forums.