Nintendo actually releases Zelda timeline

Myrmidon

http://gamerant.com/legend-of-zelda-timeline-ts-122881/

Welp, off to ride the flying pigs into a frozen hell.

Nyktos

Old news is old.

Myrmidon

I hadn't heard of it!

Gelzo

I only found out about it yesterday.

I didn't expect a timeline split into three. Remind me again how the fans even managed to guess that there were even more than one?

I think some people are complaining about plot holes or something.

ClockworkUniverse

Remind me again how the fans even managed to guess that there were even more than one

Ocarina of Time's ending features time travel, and Wind Waker features a universe wherein Link never showed up again after OOT.

Nyktos

It was confirmed ages ago that Twilight Princess and Wind Waker are in different timelines.

ClockworkUniverse

^That was what everyone figured when OOT first came out. But then Wind Waker came out, and its premise was "Link vanished from the universe to go back in time, and when Ganondorf returned, he didn't come back."

TheConductor

The whole idea of their being a time line split is stupid. That's all I have to say on the matter.

ClockworkUniverse

Exceedingly so. But, well, that's hardly the weirdest continuity ever.

Gelzo

In the context of fiction I don't think it's all that absurd to have branching timelines. I view it more as "this is what happens if this happens from this perspective" and not deciding to say only one is canon, than an explicit claim that they all simultaneously "exist".

But then, I never am able to remember all the minutiae. There may well be something I missed that makes this particular case absurd.

TheConductor

I'm not against the concept of branching timelines, the encyclopedia I'm writing depends on them, but when there's no need to add them it just needlessly complicates things. 

ClockworkUniverse

Yeah, it's less that there are branching timelines and more that it's perhaps the clumsiest execution of the concept I've seen.

MillerCross

I think that this is more because people wanted something to connect all the games rather than because the connection was there beyond a few references and injokes.

Gelzo

I find it more disturbing to my suspension of disbelief that the biology and geography of the world changes between games at such a fast rate.

ClockworkUniverse

^^It's more than that. For quite some time (the first six releases), the games all were connected. Then, because nobody seemed to care, they stopped bothering. And then people suddenly started caring...clumsy retcon time!

Malkavian

As far as I'm concerned the games could all be completely alternate universes with no bearing on each other and it wouldn't impact my enjoyment of the series.

Bee

Meh.  I've seen weirder timelines.

Icalasari

I'm still wondering what causes Ganondorf winning to split the time line

I understand that the sending Link back after the battle messes up time, but Ganondorf winning? Shouldn't that mean that EVERY game where he is the big bad ends up in a time line split?

Gelzo

I don't think it's that it splits the timeline, it's just that different things happen if Ganondorf wins. The games taking place in different timelines represent events whose occurrence is dependent on the outcome. This means the branch is a little more mundane so to speak, but it doesn't have to be all that confusing. You could very well say that there is a timeline split whenever he makes a grab for power just as you could with any other historical event in the series, it's just that those "what if"s aren't touched upon in the series by the games we've seen so far.

I guess it's up for interpretation though. Zelda lore seems to me to be pretty vague.