Spoiler Ending of Phantom Hourglass

[Skull_Kid]

Yes, he can clearly be the Wind Fish, specially if you put LA and PH on different timelines.

 

[MEMESAREAWESOME]

I don't think it is a dream as you see Linebeck at the end and in spirit tracks there is a desendant of Linebeck who is a treasure collector

 

[DuckNoises]

No, the Ocean King is the Wind Fish from Link's Awakening! Don't you see the similarity in design and purpose of the character and situation?

He teleported you into his dimension, in Phantom Hourglass, to help him get his power back, then he returned you to your dimension.
But in Link's Awakening, Link went into the dimension accidentally and had to wake the Wind Fish up to go back to his dimension. Time is just messed up in the Wind Fish/Ocean King's world.

There is absolutely nothing to imply this in the games. Honestly, the only reason they are similar is because the developers spent little time developing the plot and used a blatant (and rather irrelevant, imo) homage to end the game. The games have almost nothing in common in terms of themes or background story, apart from both involving ships and traveling the ocean; there is no "surreal" motif for almost all of PH. LA is one of the most isolated games in the series in terms of plot; the only game with confirmed connection to LA is ALttP, and perhaps OoX, depending on your point of view.

Also, please try to avoid Link's Awakening, as it's a bit of a touchy subject in terms of spoilers.

More importantly, before this thread starts heading in the direction of the Wind Fish being the Ocean King debate, there have already been several threads on the matter.

 

[linebyline]

Honestly, the more I think about this the less it makes sense. My guess--and it's basically just a guess--is that it's just not that hard to slip between the Great Sea that used to be Hyrule and the one in the Realm of the Ocean King. (That, or he actually brought his entire realm to Hyrule at the end of the game.)

These are the people we see travelling between the two realms in PH:
-Link and Tetra
-The Ocean King and the three fairy spirits
-Linebeck
-Beedle (though this is uncommented on and it may just be an alternate Beedle a la Termina. Actually, that throws off my entire theory, as we'll see below.)

But in Spirit Tracks we see descendants of other inhabitants of the Ocean King's Realm:
-Jolene: The operator of the [Something]-Em-All minigame whose name excapes me.
-The mechanic who repairs your crane and swaps out ship parts: The bridge builder.
-Phantoms: Phantoms.
-The mailman: The mailman with a much less ridiculous uniform.
-The Anouki: Possibly the same tribe ("We used to live on an island") but probably descendants.
Though these could easily be Termina-style alternates. (Hey, WW-Link and Tetra used to live on islands, too--doesn't mean they came from the Ocean King's realm.) Which would mean that their appearance has nothing to do with Linebeck in the ending of PH.

Ultimately, whether they're alternates or descendants, I'm chalking Spirit Tracks' recycled character designs up to laziness: There are plenty, many having little to do with alternate realms (e.g. Alfonzo, Link and Zelda, Linebeck, Beedle, and I think I saw Snot Kid.)

Also, I think I just remembered something that may largely invalidate my theory: Didn't the Ocean King say that he and the fairy spirits had to return to their realm? Made it seem kinda permanent. Then again, after what they pulled with Midna, I don't know what to think.

So never mind. Lesson: I should be sleeping right now instead of doing Zelda theory.