ゼルダの伝説(でんせつ)(The Legend of Zelda) is a game franchise by Nintendo mostly made up of Action-RPGs with basically the same story every time.

I’d consider Zelda to be among my favorites, though it’s a bit of a stranger one, since I haven’t personally experienced a lot of it.

Most of my understanding of Zelda comes from YouTube videos and the little I bothered to go thru myself. Thus, it could be said that my relationship with it is a bit strange as compared to something like Warcraft or Bionicle.
Buuut…that’s not gonna stop me from talking about it.

The franchise is interesting in general because, to me, there is some interesting story/worldbuilding that makes it stand out…but it also repeats itself a lot. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing, necessarily, though it might be overdone. Obviously, the main appeal is gameplay, though I can’t comment on that much seeing as how I haven’t played much of the franchise.

One thing I’m convinced of is that the timeline just…doesn’t work. You can read about that in Canon.

Because I’m always a little more interested in story, I ended up reading the manga adaptations of a lot of the games…and it’s an interesting experience.

In general, I think I’d say the manga are kinda average or mediocre. Some exceptions include the 4コマ and Twilight Princess. Twilight Princess’ manga story might be (read: almost certainly is) better than the game’s. But I can’t really remember the rest.^A)

They generally showcase a Link who talks and has more of a backbone, which is kinda interesting.

This is the first Zelda game I played and was my introduction to it in general. As a kid I…didn’t finish it and, to this day, it remains unfinished. Some action bits were too difficult for me.

It still holds a special place in my heart.

This is, I believe, the second Zelda game that I’ve ever played. Though Minish Cap is the third.

I started playing it after reading the manga and getting annoyed that the translation just kinda stopped.^B) So I decided to play the game because I found the story very interesting.

Imagine my surprise upon learning the story was…quite different.

Here I’ll note that my experience with Twilight Princess was mostly neutral until it became negative. I found the gameplay very repetitive and the story not very good, though I don’t remember any specifics. The only thing I’ve found that I wrote about the game is that I thought it was “too easy”.

But I am certain the story in the manga adaptation is actually better than the game.^C)

Yes, I watched the cartoon. Arguably, it’s the second piece of Zelda media that I actually went thru and, unlike Phantom Hourglass, I actually finished this.

It’s okay, though not very good. Zelda’s hot. That’s all that you need to know.

Here I’ll mention something again that I really should just make an article on: the Japanese approach to canon. Namely, the Japanese don’t really recognize the concept. At least not in the Western sense.
As far as I can tell, they mostly categorize entries in a franchise on whether or not they’re official…and that’s it. Everything else is mostly up to individual interpretation. Whether you want to ignore a part of the franchise or not is up to you.

And this may explain why Zelda’s continuity is so weird: nobody ever considered continuity to even exist.

But! And this is important to note: they still did sequels and prequels and usually connected new games to past games…just that the approach they took to this is a bit different from how most do.

Rather than fitting everything into one big timeline, it makes a lot more sense to think in terms of starting points and direct connections.

What do I mean? Let’s take Ocarina of Time as an example. Ocarina of Time leads to three separate timelines as it’s where the split occurs.
In a starting point sense, its continuities would be:

• Majora’s Mask.
• Wind Waker.
• Twilight Princess.

All three of those games use Ocarina of Time as a jumping-off-point, but ultimately go in very different directions. And that’s mostly how all the games treat continuity.

Link to the Past uses the original Legend of Zelda as its starting point. Oracle of Ages/Seasons and Link’s Awakening then both use Link to the Past.
Along similar lines, Zelda II: The Adventures of Link uses the original as a starting point as well, but takes it in a different direction.

Phantom Hourglass uses Wind Waker and Spirit Tracks uses Phantom Hourglass in turn. Wind Waker used Ocarina of Time, just like Twilight Princess, but they otherwise are disconnected.

And this also explains why some things aren’t shared between timelines. Logically, the Twilight Realm exists in both Wind Waker’s and Link to the Past’s timeline…right? But it never shows up in either of those. That’s because it doesn’t actually exist in those continuities.
Why is it that Skyward Sword Link has a hat when The Minish Cap established that that Link got the hat? Because The Minish Cap and Skyward Sword don’t exist in the same continuity.

Honestly, I don’t mind this approach: I just wish that people didn’t try to cram it all into one timeline. Or Nintendo attempting the same thing.

This is an idea that I had at some point, but there’s no evidence to suggest that Link is actually called Link in most games (as far as I know)…and, well, that’s not that interesting. You name him, so obviously his name isn’t Link. Sometimes.

But where it gets weird is the green tunic: in actuality, Link probably doesn’t wear green most of the time. Now, this assumption is based on the assumption that the games are not accurate portrayals of what actually happens, but rather representations. The games mostly follow the story that happened, but make adjustments for one reason or another.

There is little evidence to suggest this, so consider it a crack theory.

This is another crack theory of sorts, but it’s one which has a little more behind it (I hope).

Basically, what if each game is actually just an account of the same legend? Any differences between the accounts is explainable as geographic/chronological differences between each telling.
This would explain why the same stuff seems to happen over and over again, while the details change.

Having started rewatching matthewmatosis’ review on Zelda (linked in Trivilinks), I started to wonder where exactly Nintendo decided that Zelda needed to consistently reference past games and maintain a strict continuity…well, ‘strict’.
My gut reaction is telling me that this definitively started with Majora’s Mask or Wind Waker, but I can’t be certain yet.

So far, this is just a “thing I noticed” and I may expand on it in the future.

• Zelda Wiki
• Fandom Wiki
• Zelda Dungeon
• Matthewmatosis’ review series.
• From prior experience with the Zelda wikis, they make some…strange choices. The only one that I’ve noted, though which may not apply anymore, is with how they treat characters: every ‘Zelda’ is treated as a single character – combining all the versions into one article. The same for ‘Link’. This is an odd choice because, even if you subscribe to the idea that they’re reincarnations, they are still distinctly different people.
• Though I’ll note that that was the case when I last checked those wikis and the situation may have changed, so take it with a grain of salt.
• As a side note, Twilight Princess’ Link cannot be the same as Ocarina of Time’s Link because they literally meet each-other…so Twilight Link can’t be a reincarnation.
• The 1d6chan article says that there’s an implication Link to the Past Link is Zelda’s brother. What…?
• I don’t remember exactly where he said it, but matthewmatosis once said that he thinks Nintendo are better game designers than they are storytellers and…after looking at the stories of all the Zelda games, I think I have to agree with him. Though I may elaborate on my own thoughts later.
• The banner on this page features ‘Zelda’ written in Hylian. Though it mixes the scripts from Link to the Past and The Wind Waker.