Zelda Producer Eiji Aonuma Doesn't Really Care About the Series' Chronology
The Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma has said he doesn't really care about the series' chronology while reflecting on Tears of the Kingdom.
Which makes perfect sense - none of the previous producers have. Mostly, they've just used their stock characters and locations, and made a game that they thought would be fun out of them. There's a couple of games that qualify as 'direct sequels' (Ocarina -> Majora's, Wind Waker -> Hourglass) but even then, it doesn't benefit you much to have played the preceding one. Would be weird to try and twist the games into a chronology that strikes me mostly as 'fanon' anyway.
Nintendo did try that, though, and mixed it around again whenever they felt like it. "New research uncovered that..." blah blah. Better off if they don't bother anymore.
This seems fine. I don't understand the desire to have an overarching chronology anyway. It's pretty clear each game is its own world with little connection to the other series beyond recycling some of the same concepts.
It makes more sense lore-wise to just think of them as entirely separate universes with some direct sequels. Majora's Mask is a direct sequel that takes place in a canonically different dimension anyway so they already introduced the concept.
The majority if the reason it's significant is that Nintendo MADE it significant, by releasing that "official" timeline tying all the gamrs together. Then, the made BotW with a whole bunch of direct and indirect references to this timeline, and events in previous games. Then TotK threw pretty much all of that in the garbage.
It's interesting in the same way people pieced together a story for all of the Pixar movies. But they are just fan theories that are kinda interesting.
We know lol
Yeah I don’t think fans ever thought it was important or even a bad thing.
We’re just having fun trying to make it fit. But it’s for fun, not like we truly believe there really is a timeline that makes any sense.
Ackshually I have in my hands a copy of the OFFICIAL hyrule historia, sir.
This is news? We knew this decades ago.
Let it all be an actual legend with many oral retellings of the same event that may or may not have ever happened.
Alternatively, Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom are the only "true" stories, and all others are legends inside it.
BotW and TotK arent even the "true" stories, the in game plot of BotW gets tossed aside and picked over as convenient in TotK.
Honestly I dont know why they made them related sequels if they didnt want them to share the same world and plot.
I always thought they were parallel universes or the same one on an endless time loop with infinite variations
I prefer to think it as it is named - A Legend. In that each timeline is a different take to narrate that Legend.
That would make a ton of sense as the legend (beat Ganon) is the same but details and setting change
But I couldn’t help chuckle at mental image of some grandpa telling his kid the legend (the tears of the kingdom version) of making a weaponzied hover bike torturing koroks
That would make a ton of sense as the legend (beat Ganon) is the same but details and setting change
But I couldn’t help chuckle at mental image of some grandpa telling his kid the legend (the tears of the kingdom version) of making a weaponzied hover bike torturing koroks
I always thought it was reincarnation of a group of ideal, godlike people
I don’t think I’ve met a true Zelda fan that cares much about the grand timeline(s), or even argues they make sense
You are correct. The Hyrule Historia outlines the game and the split in Ocarina of Time:
Neither did Miyamoto though?
No shit…
A creator could see chronology as a limitation, or an opportunity.
The hero of time clearly did a lot in the time between MM and TP (where he appears as the Hero's Shade). There's an opportunity to create a game about the hero of time after MM, where he returns to Hyrule, and learns those special skills that he later passes on to the hero of twilight.
Or just come up with something new. Whatever.
Who does?
The "timeline" was a big debate in the Zelda fandom/community for a long time until the Hyrule Historia book introduced an "official timeline" that featured a split three-way timeline centered around Ocarina of Time as the source of the split. That was released after Skyward Sword. Breath of the Wild had some discussion about where it fits but wasn't really seen as too big a deal, then Tears of the Kingdom all but straight up ignored the "timeline" and introduced a new "canon" founding of the Kingdom of Hyrule, which while I've long stopped paying attention to the fandom, I could imagine the timeline debate starting all over again. TLDR: some people take video game lore really seriously.
As a proud owner of that wonderful book, I get it. But people need to chill; trying to stick to a chronology, an IP almost 40 years old, seriously? That shit would prevent the series to reinvent itself. I think it's for the best if we all forget about that. It was nice for a while, tho.
