After the Termina Saga

[Azure Sage]

This post was purely the result of my boredom. I apolagie in advance if, by posting this, I am stealing someone else's thunder.

What happens to Link after he leaves Termina? I know this much:

Spoiler

Link defeats Ganon the Evil King and Zelda and the Six Sages seal him in the Evil Realm, and afterwards Zelda sends him back to regain his lost time. At that point, Navi then leaves Link.

In Majora's Mask, Link then embarks on a quest to find Navi, which is cut short because Skull Kid mugs him.

Spoiler

After Link calls the four giants and then travels to the moon to Fight and defeat Majora. After this, he says farewell to Tatl, the Skull Kid, and Termina.

Obviously, he continues his search for Navi.

I would like to hear some of your ideas on what Link does after he leaves Termina. I think he spends the rest of his life searching for his dear friend, and this makes sense too when you think about it. Link is determined. He's not just gonna give up. He's gonna see this through to the end. Whether he found Navi or not, the fact remains that he did not return to Hyrule, which is why he did not appear when Ganondorf escaped the seal and once again threatened Hyrule, which leads into the Wind Waker timeline.

What do you guys think Link does after Termina?

 

[Locke]

MM leads into TP, not WW. If you don't know what the split timeline is, you can find an explanation by Aonuma on our developer quotes page. Basically, when Link is sent back in time, that creates a new timeline that leads into MM and eventually TP, while the old one that he left continues independently on to WW. The reason there's no hero in WW's backstory is because Link had left the timeline completely.

I posted much of what I think about the time period between MM and TP in a blog entry. I think he did return to Hyrule, refined his skills and studied the ways of the Sheikah, and perhaps even participated in a war. Eventually, he would become the hero's shade and aid TP Link.

And just so you know, those spoiler tags are quite unnecessary in the Theory section. It's a given that spoilers will come up in every thread here, and it gets annoying clicking 'show' so much.

 

[g.narron]

They Really Need To Make The Hero In SS Possibly The Hero Of Time

 

[JuicieJ]

As Locke said, The Wind Waker doesn't follow Majora's Mask. It's in the time that Link left behind. When he went back, the time he left behind still existed -- which is why there was a festival going on in the credits. The people of that time were celebrating the victory over Ganon.

Anyway, I say he just lived a normal life after probably not finding Navi, went to the ranch, married Malon, their descendants moved at some point to where Ordon is, and that's why Link's a rancher with a reincarnation of Epona in Twilight Princess. (Yeah, I know, that's basically fan-fic and has no real basis, but it's just what I imagine happened, as it does make sense, and it's just something to fill in a gap that doesn't really matter to the story itself. Kinda just for fun, I guess. I don't know. But I do know I'm not some theory-happy, fan-fiction-making, sappy Link-lover fanboy who sits around and just makes up stuff for 5 hours at a time for no reason other than to keep himself attatched to the Zelda world.)

They Really Need To Make The Hero In SS Possibly The Hero Of Time

The Hero of Time is the Link from Ocarina of Time. What are you talking about?

....Ohhh, I see. You mean, like, when Sheik said Link even looked like the Hero of Time? Haha, well, that can be confusing. But, Keapora Gaebora said that even he thought the "tales of a boy who could travel across time were a myth," or something like that. With that bit of information, I think it's safe to assume that there were prophecies, or something about the Hero of Time. No statements to really back that up, but it's a logical conclusion with what Keapora Gaebora said, and it fits with what Sheik said.

 

[DekuNut]

You mean, like, when Sheik said Link even looked like the Hero of Time?

Well, Zelda knew Link at the beginning, so since Shiek is still Zelda (in a weird way),
then Sheik would vaguely remember the boy from the forest, whome she believed to be the Hero of Time 7 years before.

 

[An Hero of Time]

We really don't know what happened to him. Though I think one final game starring the Hero of Time is very likely at this point however, seeing as Nintendo will be releasing OoT 3DS in the summer, and that an inevitable MM remake is sure to follow. He'll gain popularity again with fans both new and old, thanks to the 3DS remake. So Nintendo summing up his story with a trilogy wouldn't surprise me very much.

As for the fan theories:

Some believe he got never found his way out of the Lost Woods in time after MM, and eventually became a Skull Kid or a Stalfos, (The Hero's Shade in particular,) which explains why he or his heroic deeds are never mentioned again after MM in the childhood timeline. Others believe that he made it out of the woods just fine and married Malon when he grew older and founded a ranch near Kokiri Forest, which eventually developed into Ordon Village - TP Link being his descendant. Some think he became a warrior and eventually died in battle, or died at his attempts to slay Ganondorf for a second time in the child timeline, which would explain why Ganondorf was weakened just enough for capture and why the Hero's Shade is haunted by past regrets. Then there are those who suspect that he didn't leave Termina, or rather, he was unable to leave Termina at all...

As for Navi, my theory is that Link got over it, stopped searching for her and decided to move on with is life instead. One of the major themes in MM was learning to move on with life and its hardships. He lost a friend (Navi,) but in the end he realized that he had the opportunity to make new friends instead, and thus, befriended the Skull Kid, which is symbolized by the wood carving on the stump during the final ending scene.