You probably know The Legend of Zelda... or do you?
The classic game series is a Nintendo staple, and with the huge presence the Switch console has had during its lifespan (the Switch 2 is just around the corner when writing this), many gamers know the postapocalyptic, magic-techy, cellshaded version of Hyrule that TLOZ: Breath of the Wild (and its sequel TLOZ: Tears of the Kingdom) presented. This entries have shaped how many Zelda fans imagine this fantasy games, the world they take place in and the characters that live the stories. Many curious gamers may have wanted to know what happened before this, and maybe, they tried the TLOZ: Skyward Sword remake that came out for the system, or even some other past entries thanks to the Nintendo Classics program. They surely were surprised to see that this games have many similarities, yes, but also many differences with the most modern iteration. Even between the past ones there are countless discrepancies in designs and lore.
I must admit I am not the most experienced fan, as I don't own a Switch and have only played TLOZ: Twilight Princess (one of my favorite games) on the Wii. Total sin, I know, as in that console (to my knowledge) I could play TLOZ: SS, TLOZ: Wind Waker, and I think that TLOZ: Ocarina of Time and TLOZ: Majora's Mask are also playable in a collection. I want to play this games, as I have watched plenty of videos and YouTube essays about them, I just haven't gotten around to it. In any case, when TLOZ: BotW was about to come out, I knew that Link wasn't my Link, the Link I had come to know, love and see myself reflected on in our adventures with Midna. I expected this, as I knew that two Zelda games sharing a continuity "correctly", or at least the way we usually expect sequels and prequels to work, is the exception, not the rule. The only major exceptions which feature strong connections that I know of (the Child Timeline) are:
- TLOZ: SS is the start of the story un thus every other entry is a sequel. The lore it establishes never gets contradicted, that I know of
- The original TLOZ and it's direct sequel Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (I guess they gave up on connecting them after that, amirite?), which share a Link, simmilarly to:
- TLOZ: OoT is followed (at least) by TLOZ: MM (depending on how you interpret the game, some people theorize it's a dream or a metaphor for grief), and then TLOZ: TP, in which the Hero of Time Link, the one in the previous two, has become the Hero's Spirit and teaches the "current Link", the Hero of Twilight, how to swordfight (confirmed in Hyrule Historia)
- TLOZ: BotW is followed TLOZ: TotK, and both of them supposedly serve as a merging of the three branching timelines (keep reading to know what I'm talking about) originating from TLOZ: OoT
Fans have speculated to no avail, and this "canonicity" issue has caused headaches to even the game creators themselves. Official timelines have been released at least two different times (that I know of), and sometimes they contradict each other, not to mention they both use branching timelines (or parallel universes, however you want to think about it) that separate depending on what happens in the ending of TLOZ: OoT to fit all of the games. I personally subscribe to the maybe ridiculous, but brilliant timeline made by Brian David Gilbert in an episode of his Unraveled series (check it out, it's both super ingenious and hilarious). But, this got me thinking, and one day, out of the blue (not really, I was watching Hero's Purpose, I think), a thought appeared in my mind. Simple and sweet, but satisfactory in this canonicity regard, at least to me: I thought about the name of the series, "The Legend of Zelda"... What if the entire series are just that, a legend?
Explaining what I mean by this
Legends, myths, folk stories, they usually share an aspect: they are shared by word of mouth. What does this imply? Well, this means that details (or sometimes major story beats) usually get lost or modified depending on who is telling the story. This is not the best example, but think about most Disney adaptations. The original tales usually are much more brutal or grimm, even Pinocchio changed many things to be more family friendly. And well, we only know of this differences because the originals were written down, and the adaptations are movies, so we can compare. Imagine what tales that originated and mutated without this "records" have gone through. There's an entire branch of historical research dedicated to find this modifications in popular tales (citing Wikipedia, I know, not the most reliable. Maybe Harvard is a better source), and pinpoint where, when and how they happened. Some of you might suspect where I'm going with this: What if the TLOZ series' games were, as the name implies, versions of the same legend? This to me makes a lot of sense, as the main characters always share names, a general design or physical characteristics, and the most basic lore, like the Triforce, or even places like Lake Hylia are usually the same too. Also, not always, but most times, the story follows a usual medieval fairy tale structure: a hero (Link) must save a kingdom from an evil monster/villain (usually Ganon or Ganondorf, but the series has featured other antagonists), and this usually is acomplished, at least in part, by rescuing a princess (the titular Zelda). This is to say, in most games, the "big story beats" are the same, the main characters behave in similar ways, and the main "gizmos", like the Triforce or the Master Sword, are also the same.
At this point, this little idea of mine became my headcanon as I thought about it more (I still love BDG's timeline), and I wrote down the idea to write this very article in the (then) future. I recognise this is a pretty open and "permissive" theory, but I think this generality can also be a feature. The creators have gone on record saying that:
if we [the development team] get too into the weeds or too detailed in that placement, it results in kind of creating restraints for our creativity; the process of creating new ideas becomes restricted because we're so tied up and trying to make this fit into a very specific spot in the timeline. We do consider it, but not to an extent where we feel that our development process feels restricted or constrained.They don't get too commited to making any game fit in the timeline, especially if that means restricting their creativity. I interpret this as prioritizing good and creative gameplay and storytelling over fitting previously established lore. I read this interview after thinking about my theory, and it may be confirmation bias, but this statement feels really close to the reasons a storyteller might add, delete or emphasize aspects of a story to add some new meaning to it or make the original one stronger.
As I said, maybe this theory isn't satisfactory to you, but I hope this article made you discover some Zelda fan pieces that I love, the games that came before the Switch, or at least made you think about the beautiful mess that is the Zelda continuity, and the nature of folklore and storytelling. And hey, that's just a theory: a GAaa
... whoops! Wrong part of the internet XD