I’m confused on the story in Totk. I know totk is after BotW, but I’m curious about the other events in the game. The game talks about a war, which is the imprisoning war. This would put it squarely in the “hero is defeated” timeline before the events of a link to the past.
“7 sages seal away Ganon in the imprisoning war”
What is confusing me however is that Rauru is claimed to be the first king of Hyrule. Hyrule however was founded well before the imprisoning war. It was actually founded shortly after the bandaging of the twili and sealing of the sacred realm. Now, in the timeline it states that sage Rauru seals the sacred realm to protect the tri-force. But that isn’t the imprisoning war, nor do I think it’s the same Rauru. But it also states that Skyward Sword Zelda’s descendants founded Hyrule shortly after the sealing of the sacred realm. Skyward Sword Zelda wasn’t a Zonai though.
Does anyone understand the timeline enough to explain what I am missing? It just feels like Rauru is too many people
Nobody understands the timeline. Not even Nintendo. If you want proof of that check out this video that goes over the history of Zelda timelines. That’s right. Someone made a video not about the timeline itself, but about all the times Nintendo changed the timeline.
Personally, I just go with the stance that each game is a “Legend” of Zelda. Just like how real life has stories of the past that may or may not have happened either as written or even at all. Sometimes those stories even reference older stories and the legends continue on.
Don’t trust Nintendo, there is no timeline. This series is about recurring themes, not about one continuous nation and royal line.
I can see why a lot of people say that. It really does start to break apart under a not-so-fine microscope. I was kind of hoping there was something I was missing that would explain why it didn’t make sense but maybe not…
I wanted to love Totk but it just doesn’t feel like Zelda… I miss the days of the wind waker. Legend of Zelda the wind waker was my all time favorite Zelda game I’m really hoping they go back to those style of games but with newer shed graphics (obviously)
Honestly, I loved TotK. But it made me dislike BotW. I love BotW when it released, but TotK made it feel incomplete. So many people were worried about Totk being glorified DLC but what it ended up making was BotW into the early release beta.
But I do enjoy older games as well. I remember playing a link to the past growing up and getting lost in the puzzles. We actually broke the game in one of the dungeons by using a key on the wrong door and soft locking the game in an unbeatable state. Had to start everything over lol. That was the age when some of these games were actually difficult though. Playing oracle of ages on switch and I am flying through it. With about 30 minutes of play time I got the first dungeon completed pretty easily. I think Zelda has evolved quite a few times and each generation of players has their “golden years”
But it also states that Skyward Sword Zelda’s descendants founded Hyrule shortly after the sealing of the sacred realm. Skyward Sword Zelda wasn’t a Zonai though.
There’s no indication of how much time passed there. It just says that Skyloft came down, and then there was an entire era of chaos, ending by the sealing of the sacred realm, then the founding of Hyrule kingdom, and the beginning of the era of prosperity. The graph even has an extra empty slot between the sky era ending with the return to the surface, and the era of chaos with the sealing of the sacred realm.
Hyrule Historia p. 77 says that “the world became known as Hyrule” and “the Hyliaans, descendants of Hylia, lived in Hyrule” - but the descendants of Hylia are the descendants of Skyward Sword Zelda, who is Hylia incarnated. So we’re already talking a few generations there.
Then the legend of the supreme power spreads, and Rauru, the sage of light that we see in OoT, builds the Temple of Time to seal the Triforce and the Sacred Realm.
And then the descendants of the goddess Hylia, reincarnated as princess Zelda (so that’s the descendants of SSZelda), established the kingdom of Hyrule, to protect the Triforce. Then after some time, we get to OoT.
The only thing that’s changing here with TotK is the imprisoning war. The one we see in TotK and the one we see in the LttP backstory (and also in Hyrule Historia) simply seems to be… not the same event at all. The TotK events are just a different war that is not the one we’ve known about so far. As for Rauru… the founding of the kingdom and the sealing of the sacred realm did happen in the same time period, and they have the same powers. And the Zonai could easily have had an entire civilization and left between the Skyward Sword ending and the sacred realm sealing.
I’ve been wondering this too and watching lots of YouTube videos of people explaining their take. Truth is nobody knows and everyone is head canoning how TOTK fits. But I particularly like this video that describes the idea of a dragonbreak having merged the timelines back into one.
This would explain why the Tri-Force is missing. I hope there’s a third game that explains why people seem to have forgotten it’s existence.
