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I have an interesting theory regarding the Zelda Timeline, and I want to hear what other people think of it. A lot of people may not like it, but it fixes all the contradictions (at least the ones I’m aware of). And with the kinds of movies and such coming out now, I’m surprised no one else has thought of it (if people have, I’m not aware of it).
The main assumption made about the Zelda timeline that really messes things up is the assumption that it is one, single timeline, or continuity. A continuity with timeline splits, but still one universe.
Once we remove that assumption, everything becomes much easier to deal with. And that’s what I’ve done.
I believe we might be dealing with 4 different continuities, if you will.
The first I call The Original Continuity. It begins with the basic creation story we hear about in Ocarina of Time and the manual for A Link to the Past. The Goddesses make everything, and leave behind the Triforce, the Golden Power, and they place it in what became known as the Sacred Realm. The Kingdom of Hyrule was founded, and everyone lived in relative peace. As time went on, people began to search for the Sacred Realm, and people began going missing (presumably finding the Sacred Realm, but never attaining the Triforce).
Then comes along Ganondorf Dragmire, the King of the Gerudo Thieves. He sets out with a whole entourage to find the Sacred Realm and the Triforce. By the time they reach the realm where the Triforce lies, most of his Company is dead or gone. They reach the Triforce, and Ganondorf kills the remaining members of his group, and takes the Triforce for himself, becoming Ganon, the Demon King. He makes his wish on the Triforce to become a mighty king, and his laugh echoes through the world.
The King of Hyrule at the time, already concerned with all his subjects disappearing while hunting for the Triforce, also hears Ganondorf’s laugh, and decides to have the Seven Wise Men, or Seven Sages, to seal the Sacred Realm away from the rest of the world. Ganon doesn’t want that to happen, and sends his army of monsters, (which might be transformed people who hunted for the Triforce? Kind of like the Orcs in Lord of the Rings being twisted, corrupted Elves) and then the Knights of Hyrule battle them, making sure the Seven Sages can complete the seal. This is the Imprisoning War, and Ganon, the Triforce, and monsters are all sealed away. To prepare for combatting Ganon in the future, the Seven Wise Men create the Master Sword. As time goes on, the Seal begins to weaken, allowing Ganon’s influence to grow, including making a Phantom to act as his puppet, Agahnim.
This leads to the events of A Link to the Past. Link gets the Master Sword, travels to the Dark World, destroys Ganon, and wishes on the Triforce to undo everything Ganon did in the game. The Triforce is then kept safe by the Royal Family. Link’s Awakening occurs fairly soon after, while Link is off traveling.
Then, the Triforce summons either this Link, or a new Link, and sends him to the lands of Labrynna and Holodrum, and the Oracle games take place. The events of these games being plotted by the Twinrova sisters, Kotake and Koume, the twin witches who raised Ganondorf, who plot to bring him back. Link stops them from sacrificing Princess Zelda, and Kotake and Koume sacrifice themselves to bring Ganon back. Ganon then returns, but is quite stupid, and is easily destroyed. Peace then comes back to Hyrule.
We then have the events of A Link Between Worlds, which can go either between Link’s Awakening and the Oracle games, or after the Oracle games, depending on whether or not the Link from the Oracle games is the same hero from A Link to the Past, or A Link Between Worlds. Regardless, the events of ALBW occurs, Ganon returns, is fused with Yuga, and claims two of the Hyrulean Triforce pieces, but is defeated. Link and Zelda of this game then wish for the Lorulean Triforce to be restored, and all is well.
That same Link then goes to Hytopia for Tri Force Heroes, but that’s a minor event.
The Royal Family, with the full Triforce in their possession, rules over Hyrule and brings on a long, prosperous Golden Age for many generations. The last Golden Age King of Hyrule has two children, a son, who is a Prince, and Princess Zelda. The King sees that his son isn’t mature enough and righteous enough to be trusted with the full Triforce, so he then removes the Triforce of Courage and hides it within the Great Palace, where only he, the Sheikah, and his daughter Princess Zelda know of its presence. The King dies, and the Prince becomes the new King, but only inherits the Triforces of Power and Wisdom. With an evil sorcerer advising him (probably a Ganon cultist), the Prince interrogates Princess Zelda and tries to get her to divulge where the Triforce of Courage is. She won’t, and the Sorcerer uses his power to put her to sleep, before dying (presumably from the strain of his spell). The Prince has Zelda placed in a hidden chamber in the North Palace, sees the error of his ways and rules as a good king with the last two Triforce Pieces.
From then on, the Kingdom of Hyrule suffers a decline over time, and eventually, Ganon returns. With an army of monsters, Ganon takes the Triforce of Power, but the newest Princess Zelda splits the Triforce of Wisdom and hides it, before being captured. This starts of the story of the Original Legend of Zelda from ’86, which ends with Ganon being destroyed.
Several years later, the newest Link is charged by Impa to find the Triforce of Courage and awaken the Princess Zelda from the end of the Golden Age, all while avoiding being killed and sacrificed to bring back Ganon. Thus the events of The Adventure of Link occur, Princess Zelda is awakened, and all is well with Hyrule.
The End.
Next, we come to the Classic Continuity. It begins the same, with the Goddesses making everything, and leaving behind the Triforce. The Triforce is specifically handed over to the Goddess Hylia, to rule as the steward of the Goddesses Creation. Soon, the Demon King Demise rises from the ground with his Monsters, and tries to take the Triforce. This is the Ancient Battle, where Hylia seals Demise into the Sealing Grounds, and the Hylians are all sent up into Skyloft.
Years pass, and then Hylia is incarnate into a mortal Hylian, Zelda. The events of Skyward Sword occur, and Link, the Hero of the Sky, destroys Demise with the Master Sword, forged from the Goddess Sword, but not before Demise pronounces a curse, creating a cycle where his hatred returns to battle a new hero and a decendant of the Goddess Hylia.
Later, the Kingdom of Hyrule is established by decendants of the first Zelda, and some time after, an uprising occurs by people who, with dark magic, wish to take the Triforce. These people, the Interlopers, are sealed by the Light Spirits in a realm of perpetual twilight, and are forgotten. Meanwhile, the first group of Seven Sages seal the Triforce into the Sacred Realm, with the Sage of Light, Rauru, remaining with the Triforce to keep it safe.
Many years later, a civil war occurs. During this Civil War, the mother of the Hero of Time, the first Link within the cycle, brings Link to the Kokiri Forest while wounded, and dies. Link is raised among the Kokiri. The King of the Gerudo, Ganondorf, desires to take the lands of Hyrule for himself, and tries to take the Triforce from the Sacred Realm. Link is sent by the Deku Tree to try and stop Ganondorf, and Ocarina of Time takes place.
After the game is complete, this timeline splits. In one split, the Hero of Time returns back to his original time and warns everyone about Ganondorf’s intentions. Ganondorf is then captured and sentenced to be executed. However, since the Hero of Time went back in time with the Triforce of Courage in his possession (since the Triforce is not affected by time), the Triforce is split in the Sacred Realm and Ganondorf unwittingly obtains the Triforce of Power. He survives his execution and is sealed into the Twilight Realm.
The Hero of Time then goes on his journey to find the fairy Navi, and is pulled into the events of Majora’s Mask. After many years of his life pass, the Hero of Time dies and becomes the Hero’s Shade.
Some time later, Ganondorf eventually influences Zant, a rejected claimant for the Twili Throne, to escape the Twilight Realm and take over Hyrule. Twilight Princess occurs, and the Hero of Twilight defeats Ganondorf, thus ending this branch of the Classic Continuity.
In the other branch, the Kingdom of Hyrule the Hero of Time left behind continued on, and Ganondorf eventually broke free of his seal with the Triforce of Power, and attempted to take over again. Without the Hero of Time to stop Ganon, the people of Hyrule pleaded with the gods to help them. The gods then flooded Hyrule, with the survivors of Ganon’s destruction taking refuge on the mountain peaks, which became islands.
Much later, Ganondorf awakes at the bottom of the ocean, comes to the surface, and attempts to find the last two Triforce pieces. The Wind Waker takes place, Ganondorf is destroyed and left behind under the sea. A new landmass is eventually discovered, and the Kingdom of New Hyrule is established. A new Demon King, Malladus, is sealed away under the Spirit Tracks by the Locomo Tribe, the natives of this new land, and peace reigns for a time. However, the Spirit Tracks eventually start to disappear, triggering the events of Spirit Tracks. And this ends the last branch of the Classic Continuity.
The End.
The third continuity is one that I felt made more sense than integrating it into one of the other continuities. This is the Four Swords Continuity. It too, begins similarly to the others, with the Goddesses descending upon chaos and creating the world. However, this time we are not sure whether or not they left behind a Triforce. It’s possible they did, seeing how the Triforce symbol is on shields and architecture in this world, however in this continuity the Triforce symbol could very well be merely a symbol of the Golden Goddesses. We just don’t know.
Some time after creation, monsters appear and attack the people of the world. The Minish, also called the Picori, a diminutive race of powerful magic, gift the Hero of Men the Picori Blade, which he then uses to defeat the monsters and bring back peace.
Many years later, a Minish named Vaati, who is fascinated by evil power, takes possession of the Mage’s Cap and becomes human, and tries to find the Light Force, a magical item of great power. The events of Minish Cap play out, Vaati becomes an evil creature, and Link, the Hero of the Minish, forges the Four Sword and seals Vaati into it.
Much later, Vaati returns and sets about kidnapping maidens, before being defeated by an unknown hero who seals him into the Four Sword (we hear about this in the prologue crawl of Four Swords). A new Link eventually pulls the Four Sword and free’s Vaati, who kidnaps the new Princess Zelda. The new Link defeats Vaati and seals him away again during this game, Four Swords.
More time passes, and (once again) Ganondorf, the King of the Gerudo living in the Desert of Doubt, enters the Pyramid, takes the Evil Trident, and becomes Ganon, the King of Evil. After a Shadow version of the new Link tricks Link into pulling the Four Sword and freeing Vaati, the events of Four Swords Adventures take place. Vaati is destroyed, and Ganon is sealed into the Four Sword. This ends the Four Swords Continuity.
The End.
And now we come to the last Continuity, and the most recent one. This I call the Rebirth Continuity. Here, we have presumably the same origins of the world. The Goddesses decend and create everything, including the Goddess Hylia. Once their creation is complete, they leave behind some kind of Triforce. The exact nature of this version of the Triforce is as of yet unknown, but we do know it exists.
One of the creations of the Goddesses, and the race presumably with the closest connection to Goddess Hylia, is the Zonai. With their powerful magic, they can create all kinds of devices and items, such as the Secret Stones. Additionally, with their advanced magic, it is possible the Zonai were able to glimpse into other Continuities and view the events that took place. This is how they created items such as the Hero of Time Set, the Biggoron’s Sword, the Classic Set, and other items and clothing we can obtain in Tears of the Kingdom, and the Zonai, upon coming down to the Surface, most likely shared stories of the events of different Continuities, which is how this Rebirth Continuity has legends of the other worlds. The Zonai eventually descended upon the world of Hyrule, and Rauru, the Zonai King, became the first King of Hyrule. He and his Hylian Queen Sonia possessed Secret Stones, which amplified their abilities.
Ganondorf, the King of the Gerudo (again), resented the boring, peaceful world King Rauru had made. He wished for a world where he would rule absolute, and where heroes would constantly come to face him in glorious battle for all eternity (this is hinted at in all the language translations of Tears of the Kingdom except English). After feigning friendship (and being aware of Rauru’s suspicion), Ganondorf tricked them and killed Queen Sonia, taking her Secret Stone and becoming the Demon King. Rauru then assembled this continuities version of the Seven Sages, including himself and Princess Zelda from the future, and went to defeat Ganondorf. They ultimately failed, but not before Rauru sacrificed himself to seal Ganondorf in the Depths.
Time goes on, and the seal Rauru placed on Ganondorf slowly erodes, allowing more of Ganondorf’s power to leak out. This leaking power manifests itself several times in history as Calamity Ganon. 10,000 years before Breath of the Wild, the Sheikah craft incredible technology to help automate the process of beating Ganon, while the Princess Zelda and the Ancient Hero (who is either part Zonai, or wears the Hero’s Aspect to become one, kind of like the Fierce Deity Mask) defeat Calamity Ganon.
10,000 years later, all that Sheikah Tech is dug up and turned back on, ready to face the return of Calamity Ganon (which is most likely a new creation of Ganondorf’s power leaking out of Rauru’s now-weak seal). The current Princess Zelda can’t access the power of the Triforce inside her soul, and Calamity Ganon returns to corrupt the Sheikah machines, causing the Great Calamity. Zelda eventually accesses the Triforce and seals Ganon in Hyrule Castle, waiting for Link to awaken from the Shrine of Resurrection and return to weaken Ganon. Breath of the Wild takes place, and Calamity Ganon is destroyed.
Several years later, Zelda and Link descend below Hyrule Castle to investigate the origins of Gloom, a toxic substance, and find the sealed Ganondorf, held there by the thin, fragile remains of Rauru’s Seal. The Seal breaks, Zelda obtains Rauru’s Secret Stone, and is brought back in time to Hyrule’s Founding, where she helps King Rauru fight Ganondorf as the Sage of Time. In the present, Ganondorf returns and hides underground to regain his full strength, and the Master Sword is shattered. The Master Sword is sent back in time to Zelda, who then consumes her Secret Stone to become the Light Dragon and bathe the Master Sword in Light to heal it for thousands of years. In the present Tears of the Kingdom occurs, and Link, the Hero of the Wild, destroys Ganondorf, and peace returns to the world.
The End.
This Theory, kind of like a Multiverse idea, seems to explain practically all the confusing lore contradictions, such as the origin of the Master Sword. Another thing to note, is that things that may be in one continuity could also be in another, but not confirmed. For instance, the Minish in the Four Swords Continuity could also be present in the Classic Continuity, for instance. Demise could also exist in the Original and Rebirth Continuities as well. We just don’t know. There’s a lot of leeway with this theory, but it seems to make the most sense.
What do you all think about it? Does this sound plausible to you? Let me know, I’m interested to test the validity of this theory. Thanks!
The main assumption made about the Zelda timeline that really messes things up is the assumption that it is one, single timeline, or continuity. A continuity with timeline splits, but still one universe.
Once we remove that assumption, everything becomes much easier to deal with. And that’s what I’ve done.
I believe we might be dealing with 4 different continuities, if you will.
The first I call The Original Continuity. It begins with the basic creation story we hear about in Ocarina of Time and the manual for A Link to the Past. The Goddesses make everything, and leave behind the Triforce, the Golden Power, and they place it in what became known as the Sacred Realm. The Kingdom of Hyrule was founded, and everyone lived in relative peace. As time went on, people began to search for the Sacred Realm, and people began going missing (presumably finding the Sacred Realm, but never attaining the Triforce).
Then comes along Ganondorf Dragmire, the King of the Gerudo Thieves. He sets out with a whole entourage to find the Sacred Realm and the Triforce. By the time they reach the realm where the Triforce lies, most of his Company is dead or gone. They reach the Triforce, and Ganondorf kills the remaining members of his group, and takes the Triforce for himself, becoming Ganon, the Demon King. He makes his wish on the Triforce to become a mighty king, and his laugh echoes through the world.
The King of Hyrule at the time, already concerned with all his subjects disappearing while hunting for the Triforce, also hears Ganondorf’s laugh, and decides to have the Seven Wise Men, or Seven Sages, to seal the Sacred Realm away from the rest of the world. Ganon doesn’t want that to happen, and sends his army of monsters, (which might be transformed people who hunted for the Triforce? Kind of like the Orcs in Lord of the Rings being twisted, corrupted Elves) and then the Knights of Hyrule battle them, making sure the Seven Sages can complete the seal. This is the Imprisoning War, and Ganon, the Triforce, and monsters are all sealed away. To prepare for combatting Ganon in the future, the Seven Wise Men create the Master Sword. As time goes on, the Seal begins to weaken, allowing Ganon’s influence to grow, including making a Phantom to act as his puppet, Agahnim.
This leads to the events of A Link to the Past. Link gets the Master Sword, travels to the Dark World, destroys Ganon, and wishes on the Triforce to undo everything Ganon did in the game. The Triforce is then kept safe by the Royal Family. Link’s Awakening occurs fairly soon after, while Link is off traveling.
Then, the Triforce summons either this Link, or a new Link, and sends him to the lands of Labrynna and Holodrum, and the Oracle games take place. The events of these games being plotted by the Twinrova sisters, Kotake and Koume, the twin witches who raised Ganondorf, who plot to bring him back. Link stops them from sacrificing Princess Zelda, and Kotake and Koume sacrifice themselves to bring Ganon back. Ganon then returns, but is quite stupid, and is easily destroyed. Peace then comes back to Hyrule.
We then have the events of A Link Between Worlds, which can go either between Link’s Awakening and the Oracle games, or after the Oracle games, depending on whether or not the Link from the Oracle games is the same hero from A Link to the Past, or A Link Between Worlds. Regardless, the events of ALBW occurs, Ganon returns, is fused with Yuga, and claims two of the Hyrulean Triforce pieces, but is defeated. Link and Zelda of this game then wish for the Lorulean Triforce to be restored, and all is well.
That same Link then goes to Hytopia for Tri Force Heroes, but that’s a minor event.
The Royal Family, with the full Triforce in their possession, rules over Hyrule and brings on a long, prosperous Golden Age for many generations. The last Golden Age King of Hyrule has two children, a son, who is a Prince, and Princess Zelda. The King sees that his son isn’t mature enough and righteous enough to be trusted with the full Triforce, so he then removes the Triforce of Courage and hides it within the Great Palace, where only he, the Sheikah, and his daughter Princess Zelda know of its presence. The King dies, and the Prince becomes the new King, but only inherits the Triforces of Power and Wisdom. With an evil sorcerer advising him (probably a Ganon cultist), the Prince interrogates Princess Zelda and tries to get her to divulge where the Triforce of Courage is. She won’t, and the Sorcerer uses his power to put her to sleep, before dying (presumably from the strain of his spell). The Prince has Zelda placed in a hidden chamber in the North Palace, sees the error of his ways and rules as a good king with the last two Triforce Pieces.
From then on, the Kingdom of Hyrule suffers a decline over time, and eventually, Ganon returns. With an army of monsters, Ganon takes the Triforce of Power, but the newest Princess Zelda splits the Triforce of Wisdom and hides it, before being captured. This starts of the story of the Original Legend of Zelda from ’86, which ends with Ganon being destroyed.
Several years later, the newest Link is charged by Impa to find the Triforce of Courage and awaken the Princess Zelda from the end of the Golden Age, all while avoiding being killed and sacrificed to bring back Ganon. Thus the events of The Adventure of Link occur, Princess Zelda is awakened, and all is well with Hyrule.
The End.
Next, we come to the Classic Continuity. It begins the same, with the Goddesses making everything, and leaving behind the Triforce. The Triforce is specifically handed over to the Goddess Hylia, to rule as the steward of the Goddesses Creation. Soon, the Demon King Demise rises from the ground with his Monsters, and tries to take the Triforce. This is the Ancient Battle, where Hylia seals Demise into the Sealing Grounds, and the Hylians are all sent up into Skyloft.
Years pass, and then Hylia is incarnate into a mortal Hylian, Zelda. The events of Skyward Sword occur, and Link, the Hero of the Sky, destroys Demise with the Master Sword, forged from the Goddess Sword, but not before Demise pronounces a curse, creating a cycle where his hatred returns to battle a new hero and a decendant of the Goddess Hylia.
Later, the Kingdom of Hyrule is established by decendants of the first Zelda, and some time after, an uprising occurs by people who, with dark magic, wish to take the Triforce. These people, the Interlopers, are sealed by the Light Spirits in a realm of perpetual twilight, and are forgotten. Meanwhile, the first group of Seven Sages seal the Triforce into the Sacred Realm, with the Sage of Light, Rauru, remaining with the Triforce to keep it safe.
Many years later, a civil war occurs. During this Civil War, the mother of the Hero of Time, the first Link within the cycle, brings Link to the Kokiri Forest while wounded, and dies. Link is raised among the Kokiri. The King of the Gerudo, Ganondorf, desires to take the lands of Hyrule for himself, and tries to take the Triforce from the Sacred Realm. Link is sent by the Deku Tree to try and stop Ganondorf, and Ocarina of Time takes place.
After the game is complete, this timeline splits. In one split, the Hero of Time returns back to his original time and warns everyone about Ganondorf’s intentions. Ganondorf is then captured and sentenced to be executed. However, since the Hero of Time went back in time with the Triforce of Courage in his possession (since the Triforce is not affected by time), the Triforce is split in the Sacred Realm and Ganondorf unwittingly obtains the Triforce of Power. He survives his execution and is sealed into the Twilight Realm.
The Hero of Time then goes on his journey to find the fairy Navi, and is pulled into the events of Majora’s Mask. After many years of his life pass, the Hero of Time dies and becomes the Hero’s Shade.
Some time later, Ganondorf eventually influences Zant, a rejected claimant for the Twili Throne, to escape the Twilight Realm and take over Hyrule. Twilight Princess occurs, and the Hero of Twilight defeats Ganondorf, thus ending this branch of the Classic Continuity.
In the other branch, the Kingdom of Hyrule the Hero of Time left behind continued on, and Ganondorf eventually broke free of his seal with the Triforce of Power, and attempted to take over again. Without the Hero of Time to stop Ganon, the people of Hyrule pleaded with the gods to help them. The gods then flooded Hyrule, with the survivors of Ganon’s destruction taking refuge on the mountain peaks, which became islands.
Much later, Ganondorf awakes at the bottom of the ocean, comes to the surface, and attempts to find the last two Triforce pieces. The Wind Waker takes place, Ganondorf is destroyed and left behind under the sea. A new landmass is eventually discovered, and the Kingdom of New Hyrule is established. A new Demon King, Malladus, is sealed away under the Spirit Tracks by the Locomo Tribe, the natives of this new land, and peace reigns for a time. However, the Spirit Tracks eventually start to disappear, triggering the events of Spirit Tracks. And this ends the last branch of the Classic Continuity.
The End.
The third continuity is one that I felt made more sense than integrating it into one of the other continuities. This is the Four Swords Continuity. It too, begins similarly to the others, with the Goddesses descending upon chaos and creating the world. However, this time we are not sure whether or not they left behind a Triforce. It’s possible they did, seeing how the Triforce symbol is on shields and architecture in this world, however in this continuity the Triforce symbol could very well be merely a symbol of the Golden Goddesses. We just don’t know.
Some time after creation, monsters appear and attack the people of the world. The Minish, also called the Picori, a diminutive race of powerful magic, gift the Hero of Men the Picori Blade, which he then uses to defeat the monsters and bring back peace.
Many years later, a Minish named Vaati, who is fascinated by evil power, takes possession of the Mage’s Cap and becomes human, and tries to find the Light Force, a magical item of great power. The events of Minish Cap play out, Vaati becomes an evil creature, and Link, the Hero of the Minish, forges the Four Sword and seals Vaati into it.
Much later, Vaati returns and sets about kidnapping maidens, before being defeated by an unknown hero who seals him into the Four Sword (we hear about this in the prologue crawl of Four Swords). A new Link eventually pulls the Four Sword and free’s Vaati, who kidnaps the new Princess Zelda. The new Link defeats Vaati and seals him away again during this game, Four Swords.
More time passes, and (once again) Ganondorf, the King of the Gerudo living in the Desert of Doubt, enters the Pyramid, takes the Evil Trident, and becomes Ganon, the King of Evil. After a Shadow version of the new Link tricks Link into pulling the Four Sword and freeing Vaati, the events of Four Swords Adventures take place. Vaati is destroyed, and Ganon is sealed into the Four Sword. This ends the Four Swords Continuity.
The End.
And now we come to the last Continuity, and the most recent one. This I call the Rebirth Continuity. Here, we have presumably the same origins of the world. The Goddesses decend and create everything, including the Goddess Hylia. Once their creation is complete, they leave behind some kind of Triforce. The exact nature of this version of the Triforce is as of yet unknown, but we do know it exists.
One of the creations of the Goddesses, and the race presumably with the closest connection to Goddess Hylia, is the Zonai. With their powerful magic, they can create all kinds of devices and items, such as the Secret Stones. Additionally, with their advanced magic, it is possible the Zonai were able to glimpse into other Continuities and view the events that took place. This is how they created items such as the Hero of Time Set, the Biggoron’s Sword, the Classic Set, and other items and clothing we can obtain in Tears of the Kingdom, and the Zonai, upon coming down to the Surface, most likely shared stories of the events of different Continuities, which is how this Rebirth Continuity has legends of the other worlds. The Zonai eventually descended upon the world of Hyrule, and Rauru, the Zonai King, became the first King of Hyrule. He and his Hylian Queen Sonia possessed Secret Stones, which amplified their abilities.
Ganondorf, the King of the Gerudo (again), resented the boring, peaceful world King Rauru had made. He wished for a world where he would rule absolute, and where heroes would constantly come to face him in glorious battle for all eternity (this is hinted at in all the language translations of Tears of the Kingdom except English). After feigning friendship (and being aware of Rauru’s suspicion), Ganondorf tricked them and killed Queen Sonia, taking her Secret Stone and becoming the Demon King. Rauru then assembled this continuities version of the Seven Sages, including himself and Princess Zelda from the future, and went to defeat Ganondorf. They ultimately failed, but not before Rauru sacrificed himself to seal Ganondorf in the Depths.
Time goes on, and the seal Rauru placed on Ganondorf slowly erodes, allowing more of Ganondorf’s power to leak out. This leaking power manifests itself several times in history as Calamity Ganon. 10,000 years before Breath of the Wild, the Sheikah craft incredible technology to help automate the process of beating Ganon, while the Princess Zelda and the Ancient Hero (who is either part Zonai, or wears the Hero’s Aspect to become one, kind of like the Fierce Deity Mask) defeat Calamity Ganon.
10,000 years later, all that Sheikah Tech is dug up and turned back on, ready to face the return of Calamity Ganon (which is most likely a new creation of Ganondorf’s power leaking out of Rauru’s now-weak seal). The current Princess Zelda can’t access the power of the Triforce inside her soul, and Calamity Ganon returns to corrupt the Sheikah machines, causing the Great Calamity. Zelda eventually accesses the Triforce and seals Ganon in Hyrule Castle, waiting for Link to awaken from the Shrine of Resurrection and return to weaken Ganon. Breath of the Wild takes place, and Calamity Ganon is destroyed.
Several years later, Zelda and Link descend below Hyrule Castle to investigate the origins of Gloom, a toxic substance, and find the sealed Ganondorf, held there by the thin, fragile remains of Rauru’s Seal. The Seal breaks, Zelda obtains Rauru’s Secret Stone, and is brought back in time to Hyrule’s Founding, where she helps King Rauru fight Ganondorf as the Sage of Time. In the present, Ganondorf returns and hides underground to regain his full strength, and the Master Sword is shattered. The Master Sword is sent back in time to Zelda, who then consumes her Secret Stone to become the Light Dragon and bathe the Master Sword in Light to heal it for thousands of years. In the present Tears of the Kingdom occurs, and Link, the Hero of the Wild, destroys Ganondorf, and peace returns to the world.
The End.
This Theory, kind of like a Multiverse idea, seems to explain practically all the confusing lore contradictions, such as the origin of the Master Sword. Another thing to note, is that things that may be in one continuity could also be in another, but not confirmed. For instance, the Minish in the Four Swords Continuity could also be present in the Classic Continuity, for instance. Demise could also exist in the Original and Rebirth Continuities as well. We just don’t know. There’s a lot of leeway with this theory, but it seems to make the most sense.
What do you all think about it? Does this sound plausible to you? Let me know, I’m interested to test the validity of this theory. Thanks!
