The Zelda timeline doesn’t matter

Last week, Polygon provided a definitive overview of The Legend of Zelda’s ludicrously Byzantine timeline and where both Breath of the Wild and the forthcoming Tears of the Kingdom fell on it. But we also pointed it out The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Creating a champion‘s claim that “Hyrule’s recurring periods of prosperity and decline have made it impossible to tell which legends are historical facts and which are mere fairy tales.” It makes the chronology (or even the reality) of all previous games suspect.

Of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom‘s release is fast approaching, let’s return to the question of where it fits in the timeline of The Legend of Zelda series. We know that Tears of the Kingdom happens shortly afterwards Breath of the Wildwhich falls at the end of one of three possible timelines.

After we’ve thoroughly broken down Link’s adventures across all 20 main games from the series’ nearly 40-year run, it might sound silly to ask: but what if it doesn’t matter?

Maybe not. Like, not at all.

A princess, a champion and a big bad guy

The earliest game in the Zelda chronology is Heavenward swordbut the Hyrule creation myth begins with a story from Ocarina of Time.

Image: Nintendo

In it, the Great Deku Tree explains that the world was created when the three Golden Goddesses Din, Nayru, and Farore came to the chaos of pre-creation and introduced some stability. (If those names sound vaguely familiar, it’s because they’re repeated Breath of the Wild‘s three dragons.)

Their work done after creating the world, the Golden Goddesses simply left, but not before creating the Triforce – the Triforce of Power was created by Din, the Triforce of Wisdom by Nayru, and the Triforce of Courage by Farore. The entire Triforce was guarded by another, non-Golden Goddess named Hylia, who continued to linger in the world they had created.

Image: Nintendo

Our next bit of history comes from Fi, the spirit that lives in the Goddess Sword (and later the Master Sword) during The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and from the manga The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword by Akira Himekawa (which you can read at that link through Kotaku) which was published in the Hyrule History.

While Hylia hung around keeping the Triforce safe, a Demon King named Demise appeared with an army attempting to claim the Triforce for himself. With the help of a Hylian hero named Link, Hylia gathered her people and sent them to a floating island in the sky – the island of Skyloft we see in Heavenward sword. (What this says about her opinion of the Gorons, Mogmas, Zora, or any other race we see on the surface world is a topic for another day.)

Image: Akira Himekawa/Dark Horse Comics

The goddess Hylia and the hero Link (not Link van Heavenward sword, but the much earlier manga Link) were ultimately victorious in the battle against Demise, but Link died in the process. A grieving Hylia told him (well, told his corpse):

I will make sure that your gentle, heroic spirit will live on forever. And I… I will lay off my divinity. The next time we meet, I want to stand before you as a simple human being. When the land of Hylia is in danger… we will be reborn.

Shedding her godhood has resulted in Hylia being reborn as Heavenward sword‘s (non-princess) Zelda a millennium or so later.

At the end of Heavenward swordDemise (in his proto-Ganon form) has some last words that echo Hylia’s promise:

You stand as a paragon of your kind, human, though this is not the end. My hatred never ends. It is born again in an endless cycle. I will rise again! Those like you, those who share the blood of the goddess and the spirit of the hero, are forever bound by this curse. An incarnation of my hatred will one day follow your kind and condemn them to wander forever through a blood-soaked sea of ​​darkness!

It’s a bit melodramatic and has a great monologue villain energy, but what he’s saying rings true. There’s a princess with the blood of the goddess Hylia, a champion with the heroic spirit of the original Link, and a Big Bad incarnation of some power-hungry evil (usually Ganon), and all three are engaged in battle for eternity.

Image: Nintendo

Yes, we can point to different versions of Zelda and Link throughout history, but their roll are what really matter. (There are words like “hero’s journey” and “archetype” that I deliberately avoid here. Joseph Campbell’s work, despite its personal anti-Semitism And published misogyny, can be applied to Zelda’s storytelling, much like how it influenced stories like Star Wars. And Carl Jung, whose work was often racist And bigoted, is also included. But all that – and its inherent problems – would take thousands more words to go into here.)

What’s in a name?

After Heavenward swordthe people of Skyloft went back to the surface world, where Zelda’s bloodline established a (seemingly permanent) monarchy that ruled over a kingdom they called Hyrule.

Image: Nintendo

Every daughter in the bloodline of the Hyrulean monarchy, going back to that first Zelda, was (and will be) called Zelda. In Hyrule Historywe learn that “Princesses were repeatedly given the name Zelda, a name that came from the historical legends.” The manual that came with it Zelda 2: Link’s adventure adds that a prince of Hyrule “ordered that every female child born into the royal household should be named Zelda.” While in a practical sense that seems like it could get super confusing in a rush, in a poetic sense it serves to tie each Zelda back to the Zelda of Heavenward sword and the goddess Hylia.

Whenever there is an existential threat to Hyrule, current Zelda always has a champion by her side named Link by default. Until Breath of the Wildlet every game in the Zelda series you choose your own name or accept the default setting. The hero’s name didn’t really matter – it could be Link or (depending on your maturity level when you played) Fart – what mattered was that the hero embodied the heroic spirit of that original Link, just as the goddess Hylia promised.

Image: Nintendo

Each game has a version of a Princess Zelda and a Champion Link who are (re)incarnations of the goddess and her champion, appearing when Evil gets too serious about taking over the world – two people who roll of princess and champion against each new incarnation of evil. And that happens in one story – a story of Make a champion‘s “Age of Myth.”

The Age of Myth

Mythology (including creation myths) is a narrative way for humans to make sense of the world around them and provide neat answers to existential questions. And I think we can take the same from the Hylians in the Zelda series. Creation and foundational myths are often messy and contradictory and hand-waving. The characters in those stories – culture and folk heroes – have equally smooth histories. Think of characters like Gilgamesh, Baba Yaga, Hercules/Heracles, the Monkey King, Anansi or King Arthur.

Image: Nintendo

If we accept Breath of the Wild‘s treatment of everything before it as myth, it explains those contradictions and multiple timelines of the official Zelda chronology. In fact, any timeline can be equally true, as all myths are as true as they need to be, as long as they tell the story.

So, what story do all those myths tell the people of Hyrule? They say that sometimes evil appears, but when it does, they can look at a princess with the blood of a goddess who embodies (the Triforce of) wisdom, as well as her champion with a heroic spirit who embodies (the Triforce of). courage. According to the law of Hyrule, that princess’s name will be Zelda and, depending on the game options, that hero’s name will probably be Link (or maybe Fart). They’ve done incredible things in the past – incredible things in places they never dreamed of – and they’ll be there when we need them again.

Image: Nintendo

At this point, we know our current Link and Zelda pretty well. Some of us have spent over 1000 hours wandering Hyrule with different versions of Link. And there’s something more…certain about a Link whose name can only Being link. We met him, along with Calamity Ganon, during Breath of the Wild.

And we’ll learn even more about the timeless battle they play in Tears of the Kingdom.