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Page one of this entry can be found at The Legend of Zelda
Commencing with more Wild Mass Guessing
Are actually how the people of Hyrule remember the adventures of the Links. They added in new plotlines, cut out good portions of the dungeons, and filled out the character of Hylia's Chosen Hero to pass off Skyward Sword!Link as his reincarnation. According to Hyrule Historia, only some of the heroes of the games were actually called Link... but just like the storytellers, the manga versions of the games identify each one as Link.
- Tetra did not want to be princess...
- Why put in craploads of NPCs that have no purpose except to show how populated the city is, like Castle Town in TP? For one, I doubt the DS would support the memory. Therefore, I propose that Nintendo only put in NPCs that were going to actually matter in the game, either in side-quests or the plot itself.
- It's very common for video games to have far fewer NPCs than would logically exist in a location. It's a byproduct of having limited space to add every necessary thing into the game world, as well as representing an entire country/island/game setting in a size that the player can traverse without extensive tedious travel from point A to point B. This is by no means unique to Spirit Tracks or the Zelda series — in fact, there's a trope for it.
- Specifically, Link's dreams. Link is a nerdy high school student who dreams in Medieval European Fantasy. In his sleep, he transforms from a nerd into the Hero of Time, football team captain Ganondorf becomes the King of Evil, the rest of the jocks become Moblins/Bulblins for being bullies, and Ganondorf's cheerleader girlfriend (after whom Link lusts) is "Princess" Zelda. Link hears rumors that Ganondorf is an abusive boyfriend to Zelda, which is reflected in the pig transformation. The other characters are based off of Link's friends, classmates, and family.
- Wind Waker took place when Zelda hit puberty and became hysterical, which destroyed his Princess Classic view of her. Twilight Princess was when she finally found her balance again, but another female friend (Midna) temporarily became a bitch because of family problems. Spirit Tracks is him asking Zelda out and her putting him down for still being a nerd after all those years, he should finally decide what he wants to do in his life.
- Let's take this a bit farther and plot Link's life from Ocarina of Time up to Spirit Tracks.
- Ocarina of Time is dreamed when he's just a kid, entering puberty and middle school. Ganondorf is a few years older than he and Zelda are, and he's a big man on campus. Saria is Link's childhood friend, but she's about to move away. Nabooru is an older woman who keeps flirting with Link, so Link is confused. He's a big fan of high fantasy, heroic fantasy, whatever.
- Majora's Mask is a follow-up, Link dealing with other issues that he didn't consider while lusting over Zelda. Note how the Master Sword, a symbol of his undying hatred for Ganondorf, is nowhere to be found. Some of it may be inspired by him doing required community service hours for a church, school, or youth group event. The falling moon symbolizes his fear of the world he enters after the event. Hey, it may even be the transition to high school! Termina is a separate world from Hyrule because Link is, for the moment, not concerned with the Ganondorf/Zelda thing that defines Hyrule.
- The Wind Waker takes place a few years later, probably during Link's freshman year in high school, after Link's sister Aryll starts hanging around with an older man, and a jock at that. Turns out this jock is a prankster who plays a mean trick on the girl. Aryll actually isn't that much younger than her older brother, but he still considers himself her protector, and she is thus rendered a helpless child in his dreams. He dreams about beating the jock (a jumper for the track team, perhaps, given that he is a bird in-dream), and oh look, there's my old Master Sword, Ganondorf is taking Zelda to his senior prom, let's beat up that damn football player who is somehow still dating (and according to rumors, abusing) Zelda! Ganondorf soon graduates from high school, hence Link thinks he'll never need the Master Sword again and leaves it in Ganondorf's head. All taking place in Link's newest obsession, pirates and sea travel!
- Link's thoughts on Ganondorf and Zelda during junior year: "SHE'S STILL GOING OUT WITH HIM?! How the fuck does that work? He graduated, he's enrolled at the local community college, surely he'd want a girl his own age by now, and not to stick around with a younger woman in high school?" This spirals him down into relatively low spirits, leading to his dreams being less colorful than before, but he's still not that depressed. He finds some solace in his kinda-gothic-but-still-fucking-awesome friend Midna. Midna has an older brother, Zant, who attends the same community college as Ganondorf. Link doesn't know whether or not they're friends, but Midna tells him that Zant is causing problems for her family, possibly with drug use and law enforcement. Now that Link has seen Zelda with a black eye, he takes it as confirmation of the long-running abuse rumors. Ganondorf must be behind the Zant incidents too (nevermind that Ganondorf was never anywhere near any drug stronger than beer, and never had a run-in with the cops)! Also in real life, Link begins to take a turn back towards fantasy works, like he was into at the end of elementary school and the beginning of middle school. Thus his dream is restructured around the "twilight realm" of post-graduation and its interference with Hyrule High, while simultaneously playing out like Ocarina of Time due to the similar influences. He plays through Midna's problems and his own, and goes through how his friendship with Midna started because she's become such a heavy influence on his life. Looks like he's going to need that Master Sword back after all...
- For Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, Ganondorf is finally out of the picture, having graduated from community college, moved to a 4-year college farther away, and most importantly, left Zelda alone. This is Link's senior year in high school, but his obsessions with fantasy and Zelda alike have led him to be immature, hence the freshman-year Dream Link from The Wind Waker is still our hero in one, and a Link the same age as him is in the other. I haven't played Phantom Hourglass, can't offer anything there, but it's pretty clear with this interpretation why Spirit Tracks begins with the final exam for Dream Link's future career. But after the world-ending transition to high school in Majora's Mask, it's nowhere near as scary; rather, it's the future, after graduation, that is the adventure. Anjean may be Link's new boss at his part-time job, which will be full-time over the summer before Link goes off to college. It's a pretty popular job for high school students and those who didn't go away for college, possibly McDonald's, which is why Alfonso (older than Link, probably younger than Ganondorf, sort of Link's best older male friend) is working there. Zelda is still the Princess, the object of Link's desire. Can't offer much more on Spirit Tracks right now, since I'm still not finished (damn you Assassin's Creed II!), but I'll be back to finish this part after the ending.
- Who's betting that Link and Zelda will go off to the same college and meet Ganondorf there for Zelda Wii? This Triforce connection thing that Link dreamed about between the three might have some basis in fact. To explain how this would happen: perhaps Zelda wanted to get back with Ganondorf, and coincidentally, Link could only get into a low-level university like the one dumb cheerleader Zelda and dumb jock Ganondorf got into because he spent too much time obsessing over fantasy, marine navigation, and eventually trains.
- I'll take a stab at it. In Skyward Sword, Link goes off to college and finds that he's going to the same school as Zelda. He is initially intimidated by his dorm-mate, a former high school football player named Groose, but the two eventually become friends. Link and Zelda initially spend a lot of time together due to having known each other, but she eventually moves on and starts dating an emo/goth guy named Ghirahim. This prompts Link to start hating him just as much as Ganondorf, symbolized by the making of a new Master Sword. As the year goes on, Link starts falling behind in school and getting in trouble for his constant harassment of Ghirahim, who is growing more and more annoyed at Link's refusal to give up on Zelda. He gets in trouble with the school for both of these, and these struggles are symbolized by his fight against The Imprisoned (which obviously must be in league with Ghirahim). He is bailed out of trouble by Groose on a couple of occasions, but doesn't learn very well.
- Also, the CD-I games are Acid Reflux Nightmares.
- As follower of the Reincarnation theory, I prefer to think that the last game's Princess Zelda died shortly before this game and that awakening the original one was only possible because the body wasn't an empty shell at the time.
- Actually, that makes a hell of a lot more sense. But it also seems a bit cold. One Zelda dies so they just wake up the spare. It really sucks to be her sometimes.
- Original theory is supported by the fact that the ending theme of Zelda 2, when you wake Zelda up. Every game after it uses Zelda's Lullaby as Zelda's theme, with one exception: The Minish Cap, which used the credits music from The Adventure of Link. Considering that this game is often considered to be the first in the series, well...
- It's also possible, even allowing for the reincarnation theory, that this particular Zelda isn't a reincarnation. The "true" Zelda is the one in the backstory, who was put to sleep and whose soul was thus held in stasis. After that, it became tradition to just use the name for the princesses of the royal family, so that the one in the original game happens to share the same name but isn't actually the same reincarnated soul.
- Well, there was that wanted poster with what looked like Giant Floating Eyeball Vaati on it in OoT's shooting gallery. Vaati was probably waiting around in disguise until he got his hand on something powerful enough to achieve world domination. In retrospect, it's probably a good thing the Skull Kid stole the mask before Vaati could use it. Note that the Mask Salesman seems disappointed at the end when the mask's power is gone.
- Regarding his motivation behind sending Link to recover the mask, Vaati assumed that the successor to the same hero that defeated him in The Minish Cap would be powerful enough to get it back. He has no particular love for Link and is only maintaining the "Believe in yourself" support to get what he wants. Note especially that Vaati goes into a Villainous Breakdown upon realizing Link didn't get the mask back. And "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you" combined with laughter sounds suspiciously like he's gloating over Link's failure.
- The only time we see him in his original form is when he's about to pass through the Minish Door before it closes, meaning he'll never see Link again. It's not implausible for someone to act much differently than they normally do under circumstances like those.
- Well, footage starring Beedle the Skytown shopkeeper has surfaced, so it's not out of the question.
- Not quite so. Niko hasn't appeared outside of the Wind Waker sequence, where he's always the same individual. Beedle himself has however become a much more recurring character.
- Link's Adventure has little dialogue, and what dialogue is there is badly translated, but it sure looks like Link and Zelda are making out at the end.
- Makes sense, as it's currently the last game in its respective timeline. I'd say the same for Spirit Tracks. Maybe a future game will have a backstory with a previous Link as king, or something along those lines...
- Skyward Sword strongly implies that together they found the Royal Family of Hyrule - and the possibility of the various Links being descended from a cadet branch of the Royal Family would explain quite a lot, including why they're so often close to Zeldas from an early age.
- This troper remembers seeing a comic where Link asks them that as they're dying, and the answer is, "two hundred years of community service goes a long way".
- I know that comic. For anyone who's interested: here.
That's the reason we have those dog things instead in Twilight Princess — no wars in the recent enough past.
- The thing that makes this worse is that there are real life armor from the Dark Ages sized perfectly for teenagers or younger. This could be closer to the truth than Nintendo would want to admit.
- Actually, they never assumed Link was a soldier. He had a sword and shield on his back, quite obviously real, so he's considered an adult. Also, this is TERMINA, not HYRULE. Termina is a parallel world, and is far from identical to Hyrule. Besides that, Young Link was NOT treated as an adult in Ocarina of Time as a child. In fact, the soldier guarding Death Mountain's gate laughs at Link and Zelda's hero business. He opens the gate because, y'know, the PRINCESS basically said, "Link's my hero, let him through". And even then, he gives Link advice. Nobody knew there was anything wrong on Death Mountain anyway, so it should've been safe for a little kid to meet the pacifistic Goron people. And the only one who knew Link went to Zora's Domain and inside Jabu-Jabu was the King, who not only has had his little girl in and out of Jabu-Jabu multiple times without injury, likely figure that if Link was mature enough to take the letter to him, he was mature to to simply retrieve the princess, who, again, has been in and out of Jabu-Jabu multiple times, WHILST YOUNGER than LINK. Also, Link has NEVER been a soldier, except in Hyrule Warriors. He's always getting involved by Chronic Hero Syndrome and a few royals, who usually know what they're doing, or he's just someone they managed to contact who's willing to help.
First assuming that The Minish Cap happens after Ocarina of Time it's logical that the Picori Blade is just another name for the Master Sword, as they are visually identical (at least in the flashback).After being upgraded into the Four Sword, it goes on to become a prison for Ganon in Four Swords Adventures.Ganon, being Ganon, obviously breaks free from this prison, and reduces the Four Sword back to the White Sword seen in TMC, and it is in this form that it is given to Link in the original The Legend of Zelda.
- So why does Link not split into four different people every time he draws it?
- The Minish Cap occurs two games before Ocarina of Time.
- Except the games with lynels take place after most, if not all, of the later games. Lynels appear throughout the Downfall Timeline, right until the end, and in Breath of the Wild, which happens a long time after all the games.
- The Lynels are still alive. Link just left one Lynel alive on each screen so that they couldn't fully respawn, so now there's just a few left.
- This might be jossed. His model appears in Phantom Hourglass as a Shipyard Worker, which occurs shortly after Wind Waker, and the Bridge Worker might be a descendant of that guy. [1]
- That assumes that the folks at Nintendo planned this out way in advance, which seems very unlikely.
The magical explantion is, if they're his real mother as Twinrova, bearing the physical embodiment of Demise's Curse drove them mad; if they're just adoptive, being in close proximity to him during his formative years infected them with the curse to ensure that nurture wouldn't overcome nature.
The non-magical explanation is that they were in their right minds the entire time, and were simply committing atrocities in an attempt to make their angry and emotionally disturbed son happy.
- Well, they are good guys in the evidently Ganonless alternate world of MM.
- This is definitely an interesting idea. The one thing that would need explaining, though, is this — why do the ocean and forest areas switch around? In ST, the ocean is to the east of the forest, while in MM, it's to the west. The placement of Ikana as the "Desert" area, the Goron Shrine as the "Fire" area, and Snowhead as the "Snow" area all make sense, as does Clock Town being related to Tower of Spirits, but the forest and ocean have moved. Interestingly, one could probably recover the great layout with just two adjustments — Ikana Castle = Tower of Spirits, and there's more ocean to the east of the MM map, along with more desert beyond the stone towers. This makes the "Fire" area of ST align with the Stone Towers, rather than the Goron Shrine. Clock Town has no obvious equivalent in this case.
- The Wind Waker actually confirms this in the case of Tingle. Using the Tingle Tuner in the Tower of the Gods, you can find pieces of a legend about Tingle (specifically the story of Tingle from Majora's Mask).
- To say nothing of Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland.
- The Wind Waker actually confirms this in the case of Tingle. Using the Tingle Tuner in the Tower of the Gods, you can find pieces of a legend about Tingle (specifically the story of Tingle from Majora's Mask).
- No, at the end of Skyward Sword there's just the Master Sword. At the beginning of the game Link removes the Goddess Sword from Skyloft, and it never returns (because you're using it to beat the game).
- Level 4 — sits in the middle of the overworld and has a gold/blue motif, just like ALttP's Hyrule Castle.
- Level 2 — lies to the far east, might be the East palace although the color scheme is off.
- Level 8 — East Palace's Sacred Realm counterpart, manifest in the light world (similar colors)
- Level 7 — Misery Mire, Manifest in the light world
- Level 3 — possibly the Defeat Timeline's equivalent of the pyramid from Four Swords Adventure (BS Zelda depicts this location as a pyramid)
- It's generally established in Hyrule Historia that anything grassland turns to dense forest if it isn't inhabited for awhile, and the desert is kind of indecisive (a plot point in Skyward Sword.) Though the above connections might not all be accurate, it isn't a stretch to assume some might be recycled locations.
- Corollary: This was a power play by an evil Link. After all, the gods' chosen hero and the last of the Knights of Hyrule would be the natural choice for the next king, yes?
- Ganondorf is not "out to menace Link or Zelda specifically" either. The curse is so vague Malladus could be part of it too.
- This could be jossed as of Breath of the Wild, which is implied to possibly take place long after The Wind Waker in the timeline.
- We know from Breath of The Wild that when there is no king, the Gerudo are led by a hereditary chieftain but we are never told how they gained their position. Maybe the chieftain lineage descends from the former kings and when a new king is born, the chieftain or the intended heiress marries the king, therefore when the king dies, his daughter would become the chieftain, therefore justifying the chieftain lineage's power by connecting it to royalty.
Specifically, their blood descendants. He very specifically says, "all those who share the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero." Not 'or'. 'And'. Now, that could just include them both for brevity's sake, but Link and Zelda have serious chemistry in that game, and Zelda asks Link to stay and build Hyrule with her on the surface, which he visibly assents to. We know that all the Zeldas are in a direct line of blood descent, inheriting the magic/incarnation of Hylia. We also know that, Wind Waker and beyond excepted, there is a link between a number of Links, if not all of them - and even then, the Hero of Winds is implied to be the ancestor of the Hero of Trains. The Hero of Twilight is explicitly a direct descendant of the Hero of Time, for instance. Additionally, Link has an unusual affinity for magic for an otherwise mundane guy, he often shares a few visual traits with his contemporary Zelda, and in a surprising number of cases, he and Zelda grew up together. It's perfectly reasonable to consider that the Links descend from a cadet branch of the Royal Family; close enough to be perfectly reasonable companions for/close to a Princess from childhood, though not close enough to be a political threat. Add some further intermarriage down the generations on occasions when there's chemistry between the two, and they become closer still: both carry 'the blood of the goddess' and 'the spirit of the hero'.
Examples of Incarnations who theoretically shouldn't exist: ALBW Link(Gramps is heavily implied to be the Hero from A Ltt P), the Zelda from the first game(AoL Zelda exists alongside her), and WW Link(the Hero of Time was sent to the Child Timeline).
These examples would seemingly contradict the idea of reincarnation, but ALBW and WW reinforce it by saying the Triforce of Courage lies within the heart of the Hero Eternal, and WW Ganondorf directly stating that Link is the Hero of Time reincarnated. The universe can seemingly copy souls when a character is too old, in an enchanted sleep, or is missing from the timeline.