5 Things That Make no Sense in Zelda

Our friends over at LegendZelda.net have just reached their first birthday. After just 12 months online, their website has grown to become one of the most well known Zelda sites in the community and much of it has to do with their frequent article posting. In their most recent article, the author speaks about 5 things in Zelda that don’t make sense. You can check out the article by clicking here.

Some of the things on his list really make me scratch my head as well and there aren’t clear answers given within the games. The author speaks of the Kokiri from Ocarina of Time. Throughout much of the game we constantly hear that Kokiri are not allowed to leave the forest or they could die, yet in the end credits, Kokiri can be seen in the ending… outside of Kokiri Forest. The author also mentions the evolution of the Zora into the Rito during The Wind Waker. Why would the Zora, a water based race, need to evolve into a flying based race when the great catastrophe is a great flood. They are water creatures, so shouldn’t a flood make it easier for them to travel, rather than leading them to grow wings and fly?

However, the number one thing on his list is the Zelda Timeline. While I can see why he would put such an item on the list, the author’s reasoning is a bit head-scratching. In particular, within the article the author writes the following quote in regards to the Timeline.

“Nintendo obviously had no plans of having an official timeline when they began making the first several games, however fans began speculating and trying to piece things together which has caused Nintendo to put in more effort in recent years with creating games that seem to follow some kind of a timeline.”

Now, what bothers me with this quote is that when looking at the timeline, the early games are hardly the issue. In fact, the early games connected to one another nicely and it wasn’t until the later games that the timeline started becoming a bit confusing. When the second Zelda title came out, Adventure of Link, it was well known that it was a direct sequel to the original Legend of Zelda. Then when A Link to the Past came out, it was being presented as a distant prequel to the first two games. While Link’s Awakening is undoubtedly a side-story and has little connection to the first three games, it was being represented as a sequel to a Link to the Past. Then of course Ocarina of Time was released and it was clearly the first game in the timeline. When Majora’s Mask hit, it was a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time. All in all, when there were only six games in the series, the timeline was rather set. There really wasn’t much of an issue and each game, as it was released, had connected to the previous games.

The only real confusion in the timeline during this early period was some of the mis-leading quotes from the Nintendo folks, including translation issues, as well as the infamous Miyamoto Order timeline. Nevertheless, I don’t think this made the timeline all too confusing as it was still rather straight forward when only looking at the game releases. There certainly are things to be said about the timeline that do not make sense, but I don’t think the early games and how they were treated at release were the issue.

Be sure to check out the full article over at LegendZelda.net.