Gossip Stone: Should Non-cannon Official Stories Impact Zelda Lore?

With The Legend of Zelda boosting a current gaming line-up of fifteen games and counting, you would think that all the history we would ever need would be contained within. But that hasn’t stopped Nintendo from releasing a fair amount of side stories, or even complete retellings, of over half of the games. But should these ‘after thoughts,’ as I like to call them, be considered cannon for lore and analysis purposes? Let’s take a look at a few of the different sources, and you can weigh in on what you believe in the comments below.

Confession time: While I have owned a digital copy of Hyrule Historia for over a year now, I didn’t realized that there was a comic in the back until very recently. And I have read it several times, crying by the time I got to the ending. And my first question after reading it for the first time was “is this real???” If what is drawn here is an actual history, then the Link from Skyward Sword is NOT the first incarnation of Link. Also, the connection between Hylia/Link is suggested to be deeper than just the Triforce of Wisdom and Power. And with this information, so much can be theorized for later games! I for one love this story, and have already incorporated it into some of my personal theories and lore.

Alright, anyone who has played Ocarina of Time knows that this is not how this scene goes. And yet how many of us picture Link acting just like this? One of the most interesting aspects of the manga series is that it gives Link a personality that could either be spot on with our own feelings or completely different. That is why I take the manga with a grain of salt. Though we do get great bits of information with characters names (ex: Dr. Mizuumi) the basic flow of the games are followed. Of course there are some awesome tidbits thrown in there, like the interaction between the Fierce Deity and Majora found at the end of the Majora’s Mask manga, suggesting a dark history between the two.

It has become tradition for Zelda games to come with beautiful, full color guides to help you on your journey. And hidden within the pages can be little bits of trivia, such as mild suggestions as to where items hail from or what a character does in their spare time. Most of these claims are small, nothing too groundbreaking. My biggest problem with the guides is that they tend to have printing errors within them, such as having one paragraph appear twice or having a piece of information incorrect. This leads me to not want to use the guides for lore purposes. I want my facts to be stall worth; unable to be shaken easily.

If it were up to me, I would consider all Nintendo produced content for Zelda to be cannon. I believe that they seek to expand the world beyond the limits of the virtual, bringing a larger life to Hyrule. But in the informational world that we live in, we tend hesitate in taking these secondary sources too seriously. What do you guys think? Do you consider these sources as cannon? Let us know in the comments below.