This is a mind-bending theory, so I'll wait to see if there's interest before getting into some of the Zelda quotes for interpretation.
Demise is called the one who conquered time. What does that mean?
What if, no matter what Hylia does, Demise is able to go back in time and prepare a counter response that reacts to Hylia's plan. But Hylia is able to do the same, and it's a never ending battle of creating new timelines, new time loops, to one up each other?
However, consider the structure of Hylia's plan.
Imagine that when you travel back in time through a time gate, it connects to the next time loop. You start at loop zero, and you go back in time to a past just like your own, but once you enter, it turns into loop+1. Gates always connect to the full history of the next loop, if your "home" time period is the future and you're going to the past. If your "home" time period is the past, when you go to the future, it connects to the previous time loop.
When Zelda goes to the past to become a crystal, she keeps Demise at bay long enough for a new Zelda to go back in time to loop+1 to delay Demise+1. In this way, any changes to Hylia's plan can be implemented in the next timeline. If Hylia is waiting for a hero to be born with an unbreakable soul, and the hero of her generation, her time loop, fails, she can travel to loop+1 and wait in her crystal even longer. Zelda can be born a generation later, to try with a new hero. This new Zelda+1 will visit Skyview Temple and see the previous Zelda crystallized there. This is her Zelda-1.
In fact, let me propose that Impa is the one who provides this information to Hylia.
As Hylia is about to give up her immortality, she must choose when to be born. She tells Impa something like, "If you go to the time when I am reborn to help me there, and you see your older self guarding the crystal of my previous incarnation, check if she's wearing my bracelet. If she is, it means you have entered the final time loop where we win."
"If she is not wearing the bracelet, then you must carefully pay attention to what mistakes are made. After we fail, come back in time and tell me in the next time loop what went wrong."
It's better actually if Impa doesn't know ahead of time, and never makes contact with the Old One.
In any case, what happens in a failure is Impa, who is working with the Link-1 and Zelda-1 from her future, goes back in time to the even more distant past when Hylia lived. This is her Hylia+1, and for Zelda and Link, it would be Hylia+2. CORRECTION: This miscounted a bit. Hylia+1 becomes Zelda+1 so there's no need for Hylia+2. This means Hylia is actually secretly alive in the past time period waiting to hear the results for when she must reincarnate. Alternatively, it isn't Impa, but rather Zelda who communicates this information. So if Demise breaks his seal early, Zelda will wake from her crystal slumber and be able to go back and tell Hylia. The Timegate rules I set forth say that if Zelda goes back, since she's from the future, she will be going to Hylia+1 who is Impa+1's Hylia. Where if Impa went back, it would be Hylia+2.
With Impa's information, changes are made, and Hylia chooses to reincarnate a generation even later. This is how the loop can sustain on and on and buy Hylia time to figure out how to defeat Demise. What happens is you can't change the past too much, you can only create a new time loop to try again, and whenever an old time loop is no longer interacting with the present loop, it's sort of erased. So Hylia can't change Zelda's past. She can't reincarnate before Zelda in her crystal was born, that would be a paradox. The information Hylia has only came to her because a string of past Zeldas failed. So she has to let them all have been born, meaning she has to reincarnate a generation later than last time, in the new loop. This means the reason thousands of years have past between the two time periods is because of how epic and long the time war has been. That hundreds or thousands of generations have past, hundreds or thousands of failed attempts.
In Skyward Sword, when Link uses the Triforce and Zelda awakens, it's actually his Zelda-1. Impa is his Impa+1. Zelda has enough of Hylia's memories to know not to ruin Link's happiness and tell him she's not "his" Zelda. She's also happy because some Zeldas don't wake up.
Ghirahim then brings Zelda-1 back to timeloop+1 where Zelda zero is still sleeping in the crystal.
Here Link defeats Demise+1, and leaves Master Sword zero and Fi zero behind with Impa+1 and Zelda zero. Impa references both the triforce and how she'll destroy the gate behind them.
Thousands of years exist between the past and future, so it's far more likely that the Old One is Impa+1 who travelled most of those thousands of years using the time gate as she destroyed it behind her. This prevents anyone from time loop+1 from going back to make changes in time loop-1. I should say this gives the future an advantage over the past, as should be the case with using time to your advantage.
My theory is that Impa+1 brought a newly crafted Master Sword, Master Sword+1, to timeloop zero, and it's the one we saw at the end of the game. Master Sword zero's Fi goes to sleep. But this could mean that Master Sword+1 and Fi+1 is still awake.
This makes Master Sword+1 and timeloop zero into the BOTW/TOTK timeline. Timeloop+1 with Master Sword zero becomes the OOT/split timeline.
We assume Impa+1 must do the following things after the victory:
This also explains why there's two timelines. The loops themselves loop onto the next. The way I think of it, they're part of the causality that created the last time loops, but by changing the past they are in a way erased. Only in the memories of Hylia or the spirit of Demise do the defunct timeloops continue to mean something.
However, it was necessary for both the last timeloop, and the one before it, to both exist for the looping to finally stop. It's more like neither gets erased. Timeloop+1 never sends a Zelda and Link back, which would erase timeloop zero, but then there aren't even time gates or a Zelda and Link (+2) for timeloop+1, so they obviously can't erase timeloop+1 either. Neither do they create a timeloop+2. I hope I typed that correctly, the premise is clear in my mind.
Something that supports this timeloop theory is Zelda's dialogue to Link in the past. My interpretation of what she's saying is she's speaking as Zelda and as Hylia at the same time. She's speaking as if this is her natural reaction to these events, but she's also speaking knowing of Hylia's memories and knowing that there's a wider plan or maybe even that this has all happened before.
Key in her dialogue is a very confusing reference to two separate plans. One with Link and Fi, the other where she's a mortal so she can wish on the Triforce. But then she only talks about Link's plan.
So my sense is that Link is Hylia's lynchpin. The factor in Demise and Hylia's time war that will finally tip the scales.
What Skyward Sword is then, is a set of carefully laid dominos, learned by trial and error of many time loops, to make Link into something strong enough to defeat Demise.
As if Hylia had gotten as far as wishing on the Triforce herself to send the sealing island down onto Demise, but then Demise sends Ghirahim to abduct her (Zelda). No matter how the plan was changed, Demise would win each time.
So Hylia finally needs to place the whole burden on the chosen hero. To make him worthy to wish on the Triforce himself, and to be present in the final scheme of Demise. Demise always anticipated Hylia's moves and took her seriously.
Link was something he wasn't expecting.
Make sense?
Also, I might have the timelines swapped.
Maybe the Finale timeline with Master Sword+1, Link and Groose, and Zelda-1 is the OOT timeline.
With Demise defeated early in timeloop+1, with Zelda zero and Master Sword zero, there are thousands of years for the
There's no reason why the Triforce can't be sealed away in the Golden Realm in the Island-falls-kills-Demise timeline.
At the same time, Impa's words that she'll send the Triforce where no man will find it would mean that maybe the BOTW Triforce is like, under the pond at Kakariko village or in Impa's attic or something. Lorule and LttP imply, along with OOT frankly, that the Triforce was sealed in the Sacred Realm, but in a way where the Royal Family could have access to it.
And of course the sloppy Downfall Hyruleans just toss the Triforce around like a football.
So maybe I have the timelines reversed. There are arguments both way.
CORRECTION: The way it probably works, when you go back in time you create a new time loop, this doesn't change your own loop's past, but it does erase the loop before because it is now a paradox if they try to change the past because it will change you and counteract your changing of the past. The paradox is "what change to the past should I choose?" Think of it like time chooses to settle paradoxes like this by favoring what the newest version is. The way Hylia keeps track of past loops is through her memories to Zelda. This is why Hylia has to be born in a later generation, because even if the old time loops are erased, the "memory file" is passed on to the new Zelda first. So Zelda has to get the full history up until her time, then experience the results of her new effort, then give that to the next Zelda. It's like a baton being past, and while the handoff is occurring, the old timeloop does still exist (not erased yet) so this makes the handoff possible, but then later the old timeloop is overwritten.
The logic of this is very much the kind of thing to think about if you were programming a recursive algorithm and you need to ask where in the lines of code do you place the memory update. It has to be somewhere where the two relevant iterations are still active, but then you can go and deactivate an old iteration and create a new one.
So, for this reason, Hylia has to be born into the next generation each time so there's an "older Zelda" to get the information from.
Even though, by the time we get to Skyloft, none of those other battles with Demise have ever happened, they were erased. But to Hylia and Zelda, the ALL happened.
This is also what the crystal does. It's a way to keep Demise sealed without any gaps in the loop as Hylia tries out different strategies.
Demise is called the one who conquered time. What does that mean?
What if, no matter what Hylia does, Demise is able to go back in time and prepare a counter response that reacts to Hylia's plan. But Hylia is able to do the same, and it's a never ending battle of creating new timelines, new time loops, to one up each other?
However, consider the structure of Hylia's plan.
Imagine that when you travel back in time through a time gate, it connects to the next time loop. You start at loop zero, and you go back in time to a past just like your own, but once you enter, it turns into loop+1. Gates always connect to the full history of the next loop, if your "home" time period is the future and you're going to the past. If your "home" time period is the past, when you go to the future, it connects to the previous time loop.
When Zelda goes to the past to become a crystal, she keeps Demise at bay long enough for a new Zelda to go back in time to loop+1 to delay Demise+1. In this way, any changes to Hylia's plan can be implemented in the next timeline. If Hylia is waiting for a hero to be born with an unbreakable soul, and the hero of her generation, her time loop, fails, she can travel to loop+1 and wait in her crystal even longer. Zelda can be born a generation later, to try with a new hero. This new Zelda+1 will visit Skyview Temple and see the previous Zelda crystallized there. This is her Zelda-1.
In fact, let me propose that Impa is the one who provides this information to Hylia.
As Hylia is about to give up her immortality, she must choose when to be born. She tells Impa something like, "If you go to the time when I am reborn to help me there, and you see your older self guarding the crystal of my previous incarnation, check if she's wearing my bracelet. If she is, it means you have entered the final time loop where we win."
"If she is not wearing the bracelet, then you must carefully pay attention to what mistakes are made. After we fail, come back in time and tell me in the next time loop what went wrong."
It's better actually if Impa doesn't know ahead of time, and never makes contact with the Old One.
In any case, what happens in a failure is Impa, who is working with the Link-1 and Zelda-1 from her future, goes back in time to the even more distant past when Hylia lived. This is her Hylia+1, and for Zelda and Link, it would be Hylia+2. CORRECTION: This miscounted a bit. Hylia+1 becomes Zelda+1 so there's no need for Hylia+2. This means Hylia is actually secretly alive in the past time period waiting to hear the results for when she must reincarnate. Alternatively, it isn't Impa, but rather Zelda who communicates this information. So if Demise breaks his seal early, Zelda will wake from her crystal slumber and be able to go back and tell Hylia. The Timegate rules I set forth say that if Zelda goes back, since she's from the future, she will be going to Hylia+1 who is Impa+1's Hylia. Where if Impa went back, it would be Hylia+2.
With Impa's information, changes are made, and Hylia chooses to reincarnate a generation even later. This is how the loop can sustain on and on and buy Hylia time to figure out how to defeat Demise. What happens is you can't change the past too much, you can only create a new time loop to try again, and whenever an old time loop is no longer interacting with the present loop, it's sort of erased. So Hylia can't change Zelda's past. She can't reincarnate before Zelda in her crystal was born, that would be a paradox. The information Hylia has only came to her because a string of past Zeldas failed. So she has to let them all have been born, meaning she has to reincarnate a generation later than last time, in the new loop. This means the reason thousands of years have past between the two time periods is because of how epic and long the time war has been. That hundreds or thousands of generations have past, hundreds or thousands of failed attempts.
In Skyward Sword, when Link uses the Triforce and Zelda awakens, it's actually his Zelda-1. Impa is his Impa+1. Zelda has enough of Hylia's memories to know not to ruin Link's happiness and tell him she's not "his" Zelda. She's also happy because some Zeldas don't wake up.
Ghirahim then brings Zelda-1 back to timeloop+1 where Zelda zero is still sleeping in the crystal.
Here Link defeats Demise+1, and leaves Master Sword zero and Fi zero behind with Impa+1 and Zelda zero. Impa references both the triforce and how she'll destroy the gate behind them.
Thousands of years exist between the past and future, so it's far more likely that the Old One is Impa+1 who travelled most of those thousands of years using the time gate as she destroyed it behind her. This prevents anyone from time loop+1 from going back to make changes in time loop-1. I should say this gives the future an advantage over the past, as should be the case with using time to your advantage.
My theory is that Impa+1 brought a newly crafted Master Sword, Master Sword+1, to timeloop zero, and it's the one we saw at the end of the game. Master Sword zero's Fi goes to sleep. But this could mean that Master Sword+1 and Fi+1 is still awake.
This makes Master Sword+1 and timeloop zero into the BOTW/TOTK timeline. Timeloop+1 with Master Sword zero becomes the OOT/split timeline.
We assume Impa+1 must do the following things after the victory:
- Wake up Zelda zero and tell her they won, she's awake in the past because Link defeated Demise terrifically in battle. But, now Zelda zero must remain in this past of timeloop+1 because Zelda-1 has taken her place.
- Seal the Triforce (as she said she would) maybe with Zelda's or Hylia's help. This supports the presence of the Triforce in the Golden Realm in the OOT timeline, so maybe the Triforce isn't sealed in the Sacred Realm in BOTW.
- Tell Hylia it's over and she may reincarnate whenever she pleases. This is the OOT timeline, and it's thousands of years before Skyward Sword's events. Although, she probably chooses just to reincarnate at the same time she did before, but this time she just lives as a normal girl and never learns that she's Hylia. Or, maybe Zelda zero is allowed to sleep long enough to wake to meet Link in a world where Zelda+1 was never born, and build a relationship with him. Maybe this Hylia never actually takes a mortal form.
- Create the Master Sword+1. The sword's purpose of defeating Demise is no longer necessary, so it doesn't have to be part of the hero's quest. Link zero is already the hero, and it will be going back to his timeloop. So Zelda and Impa simply craft it for him.
- Destroy the time gate and then go back to Impa+1's timeloop-1, where Link and Groose and Zelda-1 are. She goes back to before the main events.
This also explains why there's two timelines. The loops themselves loop onto the next. The way I think of it, they're part of the causality that created the last time loops, but by changing the past they are in a way erased. Only in the memories of Hylia or the spirit of Demise do the defunct timeloops continue to mean something.
However, it was necessary for both the last timeloop, and the one before it, to both exist for the looping to finally stop. It's more like neither gets erased. Timeloop+1 never sends a Zelda and Link back, which would erase timeloop zero, but then there aren't even time gates or a Zelda and Link (+2) for timeloop+1, so they obviously can't erase timeloop+1 either. Neither do they create a timeloop+2. I hope I typed that correctly, the premise is clear in my mind.
Something that supports this timeloop theory is Zelda's dialogue to Link in the past. My interpretation of what she's saying is she's speaking as Zelda and as Hylia at the same time. She's speaking as if this is her natural reaction to these events, but she's also speaking knowing of Hylia's memories and knowing that there's a wider plan or maybe even that this has all happened before.
Key in her dialogue is a very confusing reference to two separate plans. One with Link and Fi, the other where she's a mortal so she can wish on the Triforce. But then she only talks about Link's plan.
So my sense is that Link is Hylia's lynchpin. The factor in Demise and Hylia's time war that will finally tip the scales.
What Skyward Sword is then, is a set of carefully laid dominos, learned by trial and error of many time loops, to make Link into something strong enough to defeat Demise.
As if Hylia had gotten as far as wishing on the Triforce herself to send the sealing island down onto Demise, but then Demise sends Ghirahim to abduct her (Zelda). No matter how the plan was changed, Demise would win each time.
So Hylia finally needs to place the whole burden on the chosen hero. To make him worthy to wish on the Triforce himself, and to be present in the final scheme of Demise. Demise always anticipated Hylia's moves and took her seriously.
Link was something he wasn't expecting.
Make sense?
TOTK shows a similar premise. There's a Zelda dragon, and a Zelda+1. Each time loop matches the last, so there are no changes between them, so time is totally sealed from manipulation.
Also, I might have the timelines swapped.
Maybe the Finale timeline with Master Sword+1, Link and Groose, and Zelda-1 is the OOT timeline.
With Demise defeated early in timeloop+1, with Zelda zero and Master Sword zero, there are thousands of years for the
Zonai to show up and do things, until finally BOTW timeline catches up to OOT's point in time. One thing that this allows is for the last Hylia, who no longer needs to reincarnate on Skyloft, can reincarnate later. This means that BOTW Zelda could possibly be the final reincarnation of Hylia, meaning Hylia was involved in the final defeat of the Demon King, using a sealed time loop.
At the same time, Impa's words that she'll send the Triforce where no man will find it would mean that maybe the BOTW Triforce is like, under the pond at Kakariko village or in Impa's attic or something. Lorule and LttP imply, along with OOT frankly, that the Triforce was sealed in the Sacred Realm, but in a way where the Royal Family could have access to it.
And of course the sloppy Downfall Hyruleans just toss the Triforce around like a football.
So maybe I have the timelines reversed. There are arguments both way.
CORRECTION: The way it probably works, when you go back in time you create a new time loop, this doesn't change your own loop's past, but it does erase the loop before because it is now a paradox if they try to change the past because it will change you and counteract your changing of the past. The paradox is "what change to the past should I choose?" Think of it like time chooses to settle paradoxes like this by favoring what the newest version is. The way Hylia keeps track of past loops is through her memories to Zelda. This is why Hylia has to be born in a later generation, because even if the old time loops are erased, the "memory file" is passed on to the new Zelda first. So Zelda has to get the full history up until her time, then experience the results of her new effort, then give that to the next Zelda. It's like a baton being past, and while the handoff is occurring, the old timeloop does still exist (not erased yet) so this makes the handoff possible, but then later the old timeloop is overwritten.
The logic of this is very much the kind of thing to think about if you were programming a recursive algorithm and you need to ask where in the lines of code do you place the memory update. It has to be somewhere where the two relevant iterations are still active, but then you can go and deactivate an old iteration and create a new one.
So, for this reason, Hylia has to be born into the next generation each time so there's an "older Zelda" to get the information from.
Even though, by the time we get to Skyloft, none of those other battles with Demise have ever happened, they were erased. But to Hylia and Zelda, the ALL happened.
This is also what the crystal does. It's a way to keep Demise sealed without any gaps in the loop as Hylia tries out different strategies.
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