Mysteries in Hyrulean History: Dawn of the New Hyrule

The following article contains descriptions of fanmade theories. It

only reflects the opinions of the writer and the architects of said

theories, and not ZeldaInformer as a whole. That said, enjoy the

article!

Many of you may read the title of this article

and wonder, “Since when was there a New Hyrule?” In the spirit of

skepticism I have to admit straight-out that there has been no specific

description of or reference to a successful transition from a flooded

Hyrule Kingdom to a new land in any canonical source to date. The

concept is entirely theoretical and comes from in a few key ideas

introduced over various Zelda installments.

The earliest mention of these ideas appears in The Adventure of Link.

Prior to the start of that game, some unknown writer (who many presume

to be a king) leaves behind a manuscript detailing instructions for a

person whose destiny is to unite the Triforce. This manuscript is in

the protection of the Impa family that serves Hyrulean royalty with the

command that they are to keep it until the time when a “great king will

come.” Given that the world at the time of The Legend of Zelda

is in an “age of chaos” and that the kingdom of Hyrule that we know and

love does not prosper at the time but instead exists as a “little

kingdom” in a much larger region, it would seem that these games

outline an era in need of transition to a new and better age.

The Adventure of Link

also refers to a period “when Hyrule was one kingdom,” a time long

before the game begins when the Triforce was in the custody of the

royal family. One later mention of this time period places it in

continuity with the events that set the stage of A Link to the Past, and Ocarina of Time picks up the slack by saying that the king of Hyrule “unified” the kingdom some years before the story opens.

Another piece of the puzzle surfaced in A Link to the Past.

Its manual describes the descendants of the Hylians as “spreading to

all parts of the world,” presumably to the island regions north of

Death Mountain. These are “new lands,” not part of the original kingdom

seen first in The Legend of Zelda and later expanded upon in

future installments. This mass spreading would seemingly end the period

when Hyrule “was one kingdom,” for Hyrule would now be made up of many

lands outside of the “kingdom,” as seen in The Adventure of Link.

By far the most important element of the idea arises in The Wind Waker.

In this game, the gods buried Hyrule under a great sea in order to stop

the threat of evil. The people are told to flee to the mountaintops to

avoid being destroyed by the floods—and so that they can found a new

country.

Yet all was not lost. For the gods knew

that to seal the people away with the kingdom would be to grant Ganon’s

wish for the destruction of the land. So, before the sealing of the

kingdom, the gods chose those who would build a new country and

commanded them to take refuge on the mountaintops.

Legends

indicate that the gods equated the survival of the people with the

prevention of Ganon’s wish for the destruction of Hyrule. Therefore, we

can say that they spared the people so that through them Hyrule could

survive. The game later refers to this destiny as the fate of the

people to “one day awaken Hyrule.“After it becomes clear that this does

not mean that the floodwaters that cover Hyrule will someday recede,

Tetra takes it upon herself to find this “land that will be the next

Hyrule,” and she sails off in search of it in the final scene.

With all of these elements in mind, it is easy to comprehend a scenario

in which all of these factors play out. The period “when Hyrule was one

kingdom” begins when the king in Ocarina of Time unifies the war-torn country and ends when the kingdom is flooded and fragmented into many islands prior to The Wind Waker. The flood can also explain why the Hylians “rooted themselves in all parts of the world.”

If

the people eventually found a new land as the successor to Hyrule, we

can easily surmise that an age of chaos might emerge like that of The Legend of Zelda as the people await the time when a great king will appear to unite it. This king finally arrives and unites the Triforce in The Adventure of Link, bringing about a new golden age of Hyrule.

The

order in which these events occur finds backing in an early developer

statement regarding the placement of games for the Nintendo

Entertainment System (NES) in the timeline:

Miyamoto: Ocarina of Time is the first story, then the original Legend of Zelda, then Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and finally A Link to the Past.

Aonuma echoed the sentiment that The Legend of Zelda and The Adventure of Link took place after the events of Ocarina of Time, saying: “Each of the races has a character fated to become one of the sages later on. We named them after towns in The Adventure of Link so it would appear that the towns had been named after them.”

At

first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much beyond these linking plot

concepts to point to the birth of a new Hyrule, but fear not, fair

theorists—the way this chain of events will play out is not a total

mystery! There are a number of elements in play that add up to explain

to us how a New Hyrule could come about.

In The Wind Waker,

the Kokiri tribe has evolved into plant-like forms known as Koroks who

travel to the many islands of the great sea to grow trees. While we do

not know how they took on these forms, we do know that it allows them

to travel on the winds to fulfill this duty. This sacred transformation

appears to have happened in order for them to accomplish this feat. But

what is the significance of them spreading forests to the other

islands? It turns out that it extends beyond a simple obsession with

gardening.

Every year after the Koroks perform this

ceremony, they fly off to the distant islands on the sea and plant my

seeds in the hopes that new forests will grow. Forests hold great

power—they can change one tiny island into a much larger island. Soon,

a day will come when all the islands are one, connected by earth and

grove. And the people who live on that great island will be able to

join hands and, together, create a better world.

It

would seem that the planting of these trees directly relates to the

future of the post-flood world. The Deku Tree’s plan falls in line with

many similar divine plans to restore the world through supernatural

means that appear in other flood myths. Most of these inevitably result

in a supernatural being drawing the floodwaters off or the survivors

founding new lands on far-off islands. While we cannot be sure which

flood myths inspired Wind Waker‘s, we see references to many of

these common threads, and we can guess that something in that same vein

will spring from the Deku Tree’s efforts.

The use of seeds to

rebuild a new land is consistent with a metaphor that appears again at

the very end of the game. Daphnes, the King of Red Lions, after making

his wish on the Triforce and sending the child Link and Zelda back to

the ocean above, muses that he has “scattered the seeds of the future.”

This idea is highly similar to an Indian flood myth about a man named

Manu who survived a great flood not unlike the one in Wind Waker and restored the earth with “seeds of life.”

Even

if Link and Tetra never find a new land to make their “Hyrule,” the

Deku Tree’s plan will still build a new country upon which the people

can prosper in harmony. This land may very well be the mechanic that

brings about the “awaken[ing] of Hyrule” by the people of the Great Sea.

Many

dispute the idea that a new Hyrule could spring from the Deku Tree’s

efforts, saying that there is no evidence that his work ever takes

place. However, three games show an increase of land over what was

previously ocean.

In Four Swords Adventures, a top-view

of Hyrule shows that the land consists of small island-like landforms

divided by narrow straits. Also of interest is that this map is nearly

identical in many respects to the A Link to the Past map,

featuring many of the same locations. That era of Hyrule, however, does

not feature such an extreme division of the land by waterways—it is a

novelty of Four Swords Adventures. It would seem the world designers reflected the process of islands coming together in the later game.

The state of Hyrule as we see it in Four Swords Adventures (and A Link to the Past,

by extension) differs from accounts of the Hyrule known to exist at the

time of the Imprisoning War—the era in which the Hylians are prominent,

known in theorizing to be true during Ocarina of Time. In A Link to the Past, the narrator describes the Imprisoning War-era Hyrule as a land “surrounded by mountains and forests.” The Adventures-age Hyrule to the contrary has nothing but ocean on all sides. Either we must consider the A Link to the Past

description as outdated or inaccurate, or an event like the flood must

have occurred that surrounded Hyrule with water instead of mountains

and forestland.

Another example of the spread of land appears outside Hyrule, in the land of Labrynna from Oracle of Ages.

Labrynna’s eastern portion, which is a forestland, extends considerably

into the sea in the 400-year span over which the game takes place so

that the continent merges with one of the offshore islands. The other

islands in the southern sea also expand slightly, and the forests in

general are much thicker. You can see the extent in the mini-map

comparison below:

While The Wind Waker was only in the planning stages at this time, Oracle of Ages

still shows that the growth of land is a reality and not merely

hypothetical, and thus is still an important piece of evidence for the

theory that the Deku Tree’s plan was successful.

In Tingle’s Freshly-Picked Rosy Rupeeland

(a spin-off title produced by Vanpool for the DS), we see a region set

in an obviously post-flood world in which the Deku Tree has brought

some of the islands of the great sea so close together that bridges

span the gaps, rather like in Four Swords Adventures. These clusters are whole continents rather than individual islands.

Various

landmark names from Hyrule also appear, such as the Lon Lon Meadows,

the Deku Tree’s forest, and the Mountain of Death. You can see the

continent on which the Deku Tree resides below:

Some

dispute whether the game is part of the series’ canon, since Vanpool is

a separate entity from Nintendo’s main development teams. If it is

canon, however, we would see a strong suggestion that names and places

from Hyrule survived the flood. It seems equally clear that in the time

since Wind Waker, the Deku Tree would have increased the scope of the lands surrounding his grove considerably. In Oracle of Seasons and Ages, it is possible that the Maku Trees, who are similar in many respects to the Deku Tree, contribute to this endeavor as well.

Already I have appealed to the final line of The Wind Waker,

where Daphnes declares triumphantly that he has “scattered the seeds of

the future.” We know that he made a wish on the Triforce that

presumably will accomplish three things: it will “wash away this

ancient land of Hyrule”, “drown [Ganondorf] with Hyrule”, and cause a

“ray of hope [to] shine on the future of the world.”

Each other Triforce wish in the history of the Zelda series has accomplished the desires of its holder in some tangible way. In The Adventure of Link, Link’s wish awakens the sleeping princess in the North Castle. In A Link to the Past,

Ganon’s wish to rule the world transforms the Sacred Realm into a

reflection of his desires, leaving him to find a way to conquer Hyrule

in order to fulfill his wish. At the end of the game, Link’s wishes

presumably restore the land and all affected by Ganon’s wrath,

including Link’s uncle and the king of Hyrule. Thus, it would only make

sense for the Triforce to fulfill Daphnes’s wishes in an equally

tangible way.

The first part of his wish comes to pass

immediately—floodwaters begin to pour into the previously-sealed Hyrule

in order to finally erase what remains of it. The second part Link

fulfills through the outcome of his battles with Ganon, which turn out

favorably and leave Ganondorf dead and defeated. But what of the third

part of that wish? Certainly it will take some time to fulfill Link and

Tetra’s hopes for a new land, but the Triforce surely must have done

something to assist them.

The theory that follows herein operates under the assumption that the “Sleeping Zelda” story told in The Adventure of Link

has already occurred prior to Wind Waker. This theory presupposes three

main points: that the “first generation” Princess Zelda is the

incarnation of Zelda that we saw in Ocarina of Time, that the prince of the Sleeping Zelda story is Daphnes, the King of Red Lions from The Wind Waker,

and that he inherited the same “part” of the Triforce that we see him

hold in the game. In short, it presumes that the two halves of the Adventure of Link backstory, the Sleeping Zelda and the story of the scroll, are mutually exclusive.

For more information on the early Sleeping Zelda theory, read “The Sleeping Zelda and the Timeline.”

There is one other place in the series that references explicitly the idea of a “light of hope,” and that is the backstory of The Adventure of Link. Read the following excerpt from the Adventure of Link manual, which displays a portion of the ancient scroll given to Link by Impa:

I pray that you will then become the light of hope for Hyrule.

This

is the very last line of the scroll, left behind specifically for the

person who will become that “light of hope.” While it may be but a

surface connection, the scroll-writer shares many similarities with

Daphnes that add to the comparison. He is a member of the Hyrulean

royal family, has knowledge of an ancient Hylian tongue, acknowledges

that the Triforce crest indicates worthiness to inherit a Triforce

piece, possesses the Triforce of Courage, and most importantly, wishes

for hope for future generations. It seems fitting that Daphnes is the

scroll-writer from the Adventure of Link backstory.

There

are two problems with the theory, however. First, it does not seem that

Daphnes could have written the scroll after obtaining the entire

Triforce, even though the scroll-writer claims he has hidden the

Triforce already at the time of the writing. Also, someone worthy of

inheriting the Triforce of Courage does exist in Daphnes’s time—Link,

the Hero of Winds. To understand how this theory can stand in the face

of these two apparent inconsistencies, we must examine Daphnes’s

motives throughout the course of The Wind Waker.

First

of all, Daphnes does not pose the idea of uniting the hidden Triforce

of Courage until after he restores Zelda’s Triforce piece. While this

serves a gameplay function in that the gateway to Hyrule is cut off

until Link reunites the missing shards and restores the Master Sword,

Daphnes’s sudden interest in the Triforce of Courage seems rather odd

if he aims at keeping the Triforce pieces from Ganon’s reach.

In

the Sleeping Zelda story, the prince, who I conclude as being Daphnes

himself, coveted the hidden Triforce of Courage, which in my theory was

not in the Great Palace at that time but instead scattered across

Hyrule. His desire for the Triforce led him to question his sister,

Zelda, as to its location. This theory presumes that among Daphnes’s

motives for seeking out the Triforce of Courage, he hopes to seize a

chance to use a wish on the Triforce to put an end to Ganondorf once

and for all.

Opponents of this theory may say: “But there’s no

evidence that Daphnes planned to use the Triforce!” But the fact of the

matter is that Daphnes’s appearance at the top of Ganon’s Tower is too

calculated for him not to have planned it. He emerges stealthily and at

just the right moment. Was this mere coincidence? Such a prospect seems

doubtful. No, Daphnes intended to seize the Triforce all along.

His

reunion of the Triforce parts indicates it, as when separated the

Triforce stands a much better chance at avoiding capture by Ganon. His

historically apparent interest in Triforce lore points to it. His

eagerness to touch the golden triangles when Ganondorf brings them

together again all but confirms it. And if Daphnes could have

preplanned his seizure of the Triforce, he could have prewritten the

scroll, long before these events played out—indeed, he must have,

since his wish on the Triforce will lead him to his doom.

As

for the other stumbling block—we see that Daphnes reacts with surprise

when Link gains the Triforce mark on his hand: “Oh! What is this?

There, on your hand—the Triforce piece now dwells within you!” This

fact combined with his previously-declared belief that Link is not the

hero seems to suggest that while he intended for Link to collect the

Triforce of Courage, he did not predict that Link would be able to gain

the Triforce mark. Thus, he may not have believed that Link would be

worthy of controlling the powers of the Triforce.

This leaves

room for Link to be an exception to the indication of the scroll,

prewritten by the time the two of them approach Hyrule, that that no

one who could use the Triforce emerged before the scroll writer carries

out his plan.

Besides, looking at the greater context of the Zelda II

manual, it seems that the scroll writer was unable to find someone

worthy of using the entire Triforce, which was what prompted him to

hide away Courage. He wanted to prevent someone other than the worthy

one, who was of right age and upbringing, from gathering the three

parts together. Link is not of age and The Wind Waker only indicates his worthiness to possess the Triforce of Courage, not the True Force to govern all.

How does The Wind Waker connect to The Adventure of Link,

then? I propose that Daphnes’s wish works in tandem with the scroll’s

description of how someone will use the Triforce in the future. The

pieces of Power and Wisdom, as the scroll indicates, he leaves behind

for others, and they later fall into the hands of the Royal Family in The Legend of Zelda

and are the object of the conflict in that game. Likewise, Daphnes

hides the Triforce of Courage in the Great Palace to keep it hidden

until the prescribed time.

Some may argue that the new land

could not have been known of by Daphnes at the time of the scroll’s

writing, or if he does know of it, that he would not refer to it as

“Hyrule” when describing the hiding-place of the Triforce of Courage.

These contenders will call to mind the line spoken by Daphnes at the

end of Wind Waker that says: “That land will not be Hyrule. It will be YOUR LAND!”

While

this theory fundamentally disagrees with their interpretation and

application of the quote, these are valid points—however, Daphnes

clearly intends to aid his people in founding a new country. This, to

him, as Wind Waker itself states, would effectively be the

reawakening of Hyrule for the future generation. Regardless of whether

that new land would literally be Hyrule, the unified kingdom blessed by

the gods as the resting place of their power, he clearly believes that

everything he has done has been the best for his country and for his

people.

Even though Hyrule cannot exist as that “one country”

due to the coming of the floodwaters, it will live on in the Hyrulean

descendants. The Adventure of Link refers to the time of the

Sleeping Zelda and the era in which Hyrule was one land as ancient

history regardless—why should the fact that Hyrule’s unity is no more,

after all, mean that its legacy must die as well?

Secondly, it

does not seem to hold that Daphnes is forbidding his descendants from

naming the new land they discover after their fatherland. To the

contrary, it seems that he is refusing Tetra’s request for him to come

with them to the new Hyrule because it will not be his Hyrule, but

instead theirs. His time is done—he will not share in their future. He

has lived bound to the past and wishes to die with it. Even in the end,

he will stay with his homeland as a captain goes down with his ship.

Thus, it would seem his declaration that “that land will not be Hyrule”

is merely poetic rather than dogmatic.

The end result of The Adventure of Link nicely fulfills the wish Daphnes sets forth in The Wind Waker.

Although the Hero of Winds could not rescue the ancient land from its

burial in the past, a future hero will become the “ray of hope” he

yearns for, and use the Triforce to guide the kingdom into a new golden

age. This future hero will become a “great king,” as the scroll he

receives is supposed to be set aside “until a time that a great king

will come.”

Impa’s final words to Link sum up my thoughts on the

subject: the Triforce will be the vehicle to “bring back the peaceful

Hyrule” for a new generation, and it is for this reason that the

scroll-writer left it behind.

This

theory is, of course, a rather radical one in terms of its attempts to

reconcile the timeline in ways never really pursued by most of the

mainstream fanbase. It defies convention when it comes to geographical

connections and its general timeline order—even the creator quotes it

uses for justification do not have much footing amongst the vast

majority of theorists. Thus, there is much opposition to its

interpretations. The most prevailing disputes are as follows:

Daphnes

wished for Hyrule to be “erased” and beseeched his descendants to move

on from the past—a “New Hyrule” is in direct conflict with this wish

It

is certainly true that he asked the gods to “erase Hyrule,” but look at

the effects—water poured into the space Hyrule occupied at the bottom

of the sea. Proponents of this view often extend the context of his

wish far beyond this, though, saying that with Daphnes’s wish, all

traces of Hyrule ceased to exist. But is there any evidence that this

applies to anything on the Great Sea? I see none.

If Daphnes’s

wish for them to live for the future was really a plea to abandon all

ties to the past, not just the nostalgic longing he and Ganondorf

shared but the traditions and legacy of their ancestors, then it makes

little sense, for instance, for Link to continue wearing the

traditional garb of the hero in Wind Waker‘s direct sequel. For

this, as well as for all of the other similar cases of recycled

elements of typical Hyrule culture, I find that this interpretation of

Daphnes’s wish does not hold. He was not commanding his descendants to

let go of Hyrule completely, traditions and all, but to avoid repeating

his mistakes of obsessing about the past.

While the 2D games do

often make references to Hyrule’s history, they only do so to frame the

context for Hyrule’s present, not as nostalgic longings for an age gone

by. Nothing in these games directly violates that particular message of

The Wind Waker—they only conflict with an overly-literal

interpretation. We should avoid reading any quote too internally as we

can miss its greater meaning.

No one knows anything about Hyrule by the time of The Wind Waker

Those

who make this claim usually specifically point out that knowledge of

Hyrule’s history and language, as well as of the Triforce, is absent

from the Great Sea. Given this, the fact that stories of Hyrule’s

history, monuments adorned with the Hyrulean script, and people with

knowledge of the Triforce all exist in A Link to the Past indicates to them that that game, at least, cannot take place after The Wind Waker.

Rather

than make a hypothetical case about how this knowledge still could have

existed, I will let the quotes speak for themselves:

This

is but one of the legends of which the people speak […] Long ago, there

existed a kingdom where a golden power lay hidden. It was a prosperous

land blessed with green forests, tall mountains, and peace. […] The

memory of the kingdom vanished, but its legend survived on the wind’s

breath…

[…] I can understand some of the great Valoo’s language.

[…]

this one guy told me that what was actually buried beneath that weird

rock was a chart to this shard of something called Triforce.

It

seems clear that there are a number of “legends of which the people

speak,” and that even though no one still lives who remembers Hyrule,

these stories still “survived.” There are at least a few people on the

Great Sea who can understand the Hylian tongue, with Medli as a prime

example. And someone seems to know quite a lot about the Triforce,

including where the shards of the piece of Courage rest. To say with

such certainty that no knowledge of these subjects survived on the

Great Sea is incredibly ignorant of indications throughout the game.

Let

us not forget also that even though no one remembered the Sages by

title, they still hold positions of esteem on the Great Sea: the Earth

Sage serves as Valoo’s attendant, and the Wind Sage plays for the Deku

Tree’s annual ceremony. If the tradition of the Sages survived until Wind Waker, others likely did as well.

Hyrule in the 2D games is the same land as Hyrule in Ocarina of Time

If Twilight Princess, which most certainly is the most updated depiction of Ocarina-era

Hyrule, is of any indication, this allegation is entirely

circumstantial. Many of the trademarks of the 2D games, including a

northwestern “Lost Woods,” a twin-peaked Death Mountain, a swamp dotted

with ancient ruins and so on are completely absent from Twilight Princess—Death Mountain, at least, directly contradicts its depiction in the classics and the Four Sword games.

While Hyrule in Ocarina of Time was clearly based on that of A Link to the Past, many games have come and gone and the only clear impact Ocarina has had on future 2D games’ world maps has been the inclusion of Lon Lon Ranch and Castle Town in The Minish Cap and Four Swords Adventures.

The different series of temples and shrines in the 2D Hyrule as

compared to the ones exclusive to the 3D one seem more likely as new

shrines built in a new age, one perhaps ushered in by the flood.

Twilight Princess seems to demonstrate a retcon of Ocarina‘s original attempted geographical continuity with A Link to the Past due to its extreme departure from the traditional Hyrule layout. While it borrows a lot from A Link to the Past, these elements usually have an “alternate universe” twist, rather like how Majora’s Mask took place in a parallel world. For example, the “sanctuary” in A Link to the Past was a cathedral-style church, and Twilight Princess

also has a “sanctuary,” but one that draws inspiration from Native

American tribal dwellings, not Christian churches. Even so, this retcon

might also apply to the 2D games’ settings as well, not just that of Ocarina of Time.

However,

theorists that hold that Hyrule remains the same tend to bring up the

Master Sword pedestal being in the forest as absolute evidence for A Link to the Past following Twilight Princess.

It is certainly a keen application of the reference, although this

placement forces them to ignore the equally sound reference to Maze

Island found in Phantom Hourglass. In this case it may be that

one or both geographical references are cameos with no relation to the

story. Regardless, it is difficult to make any argument about a

geographical connection that cannot go both ways.

Miyamoto’s statements hold no water, as he often contradicts himself and doesn’t care about the storyline anyway

This is probably one of the oldest arguments in Zelda

timelining history, and refers primarily to the two quotes pointed out

as support for the order of events leading to the founding of the New

Hyrule. Essentially, growing opinion among the various Internet Zelda

communities has led to the conclusion that Miyamoto is not an official

source on storyline because the storyline is not something he considers

important. The idea is based more or less on the following quote from a

2003 Superplay interview:

Miyamoto: For every Zelda

game we tell a new story, but we actually have an enormous document

that explains how the game relates to the others, and bind them

together. But to be honest, they are not that important to us.

Many often deeply misinterpret this statement, as a previous interview from 1998, which touches on the same subject, indicates:

Miyamoto: I

don’t think that a story alone can make a game exciting. I’m afraid

that people think that I ignore story lines or that I don’t feel that

the story has any value. My first priority is whether the game play is

interesting. What I mean by that is that a player is actively involved

in the game. The story is just one of the ways to get players

interested, like the enemies or puzzles. If you just want a good story,

you should pick up a novel or see a movie. In a game, you might meet a

character, but you don’t find out his story until later, after you do

something that reveals the truth about him. It’s all up to the player.

You only get that sort of experience with the interactive

entertainment. Of course, the scenario, characters and graphics are all

important, but it’s this active attitude that is the most important element. (emphasis mine)

As

one can plainly see, Miyamoto does not want us to misunderstand him as

thinking storylines are not important. He is just more concerned with

the overall game experience and how the storyline affects that

experience. If anything, his attitude influences the way stories play

out rather than ignores them. He is just as authoritative when it comes

to the timeline as Eiji Aonuma, and we have seen him take an active

role in the development of the story in games as late in the series’

history as Four Swords Adventures.

Oftentimes these theorists will also evoke the box text from A Link to the Past,

which by some interpretations paints that game as a prequel to the

original NES games, in conflict with Miyamoto’s statement that it is

after. The box says that the “predecessors of Link and Zelda” are about

to face an evil threat. While this may, of course, indicate A Link to the Past‘s

prequel status—its backstory giving the fable of creation certainly

fits that description—the packaging for most Nintendo games comes from

marketing teams, not development teams, and thus is not necessarily an

official source for storyline.

These same theorists, if they

accept such sources as canonical, run into the conundrum of having a

more recent game description for Ocarina of Time label it as the first game chronologically—a big problem for most of them as they tend to place The Minish Cap in that place. It has become something of a “meme” among some theorists to refer to arguments using the A Link to the Past box flavor text as finding their basis in “a official box!” rather than in the people responsible for creating the games.

The Wind Waker

represents the end of the period “when Hyrule was one kingdom” and the

spread of the Hylian descendants to all parts of the world in the Great

Flood. It creates a need to “bring back” the peaceful unity of Hyrule

and offers a scenario where someone intends to use the Triforce to give

hope to the future rather than to correct present evils.

When

the gods sealed Hyrule away beneath the waves, they sent the

inhabitants to the mountaintops so that the kingdom would not be

forever lost, but would instead survive vicariously through its people.

They intended for the people one day to awaken Hyrule’s peace through

the building of a new country, and the Deku Tree set hard at work to

unite the islands in order to realize this dream. The united islands

will some day become the “next Hyrule,” a new land that carries on the

legacy of the old.

The King of Red Lions used the Triforce to

wish for hope for that future and erased the land of the past from its

stasis at the bottom of the sea, encouraging them to live for that

future instead of trying to resurrect the past as Ganondorf had. To

ensure that the people could secure this future, he left behind the

Triforce for a future “great king” to use to bring peace to the new

land. Since it takes a special sort of person to use the Triforce, he

hid one of the parts away in a temple so that no one could misuse it.

Only a worthy one could use the keys that opened the temple and restore

the Triforce.

This theoretical course of events offers a

possible modern context for the classic games, replacing the original

context with one that reflects storyline developments in effect since Ocarina of Time.

The classic games can now take place in that “new Hyrule,” the fruit of

Daphnes’s wish for the future and the Deku Tree’s union of the Great

Sea islands.

However, this is just one of many possible

conclusions about the direction of the series. The developers usually

leave endings open to connect to other games, so until the release of

the official timeline, we can only speculate which connections are the

strongest.