Link, and Zelda.

[Kyberwulf]

I have been wondering this for some time. I haven't played A Zelda game in a while. Something has always eluded me though. Maybe I am blind or something. Why do people seem to think Zelda and Link or attracted to each other? I haven't really seen anything other then speculation that they like each other romantically. I mean, I get why people know Princess Peach and Mario are a thing. They seem to be all over each other. I hardly ever see any official material that pose Zelda and Link standing by each other. I think there was one when they where kids, and they where sitting by each other.

[JoshL]

Off the top of my head, Zelda 2 ends with a kiss (and waking the sleeping princess, which is not an uncommon story trope). Ocarina of Time ends with time being rewritten, but Link STILL finding Zelda. And Wind Waker is chock full of Zelda flirting with Link (obviously him being silent, it comes across pretty one-sided).

And then there's the Zelda cartoon...unless we're not going to talk about that :smallwink:

[Zevox]

The "hero saves Princess, lives happily ever after with her" trope is probably the main reason, really.

More specifically, I think some games do imply it. The main one that pops to mind is that Zelda does kiss Link at the end of one of the Oracle games - perhaps after beating the true final boss for beating both games? Don't recall if it's that or just one of the normal endings.

[veti]

Personally, I've always pegged their relationship more in the realm of Courtly Love (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtly_love) - which would fit the high fantasy tropes rather well - as opposed to anything so crude as actual physical attraction. There are also games (Phantom Hourglass springs to mind) that imply they're close friends but in a purely innocent, childish sense. I think, at heart, they're both about ten years old, even though they generally look like mature adults.

And for a game to go so far as to show them actually, y'know, kissing would be like a spark jumping a gap - it'd defuse the tension that must by now be powering millions of fanfics, both written and just imagined. It's part of Nintendo's marketing genius to make sure that tension stays unresolved.

Finally, to spend time building a romantic relationship there - would alienate the Under-10s, who are an important target demographic for the Zelda franchise.

[golentan]

Link could be paired with a large number of characters over the course of the series, but Zelda? Nah...

[cobaltstarfire]

I think it depends on the Link/Zelda (same soul different people after all). In Skyward Sword, they come off as very close friends, but could be read easily as there being some flirtyness from Zeldas end.

Also Groose comes off as rather jealous of the attention/friendship Link gets from Zelda. (Groose pretty obviously has a crush on her IMO).


I don't think I ever really got any potentially romantic vibes from any of the other Link/Zeldas, at least in regards to the games I've played. In OoT and TP, Link was practically press-ganged into being the hero in those two as far as I can tell.

[Kid Jake]

Because you can't drop two people into a room with each other without at least some portion of the fandom screaming for them to have sex. Doesn't matter if it's Link and Zelda, Seinfeld and Elaine or Spock and Kirk. Somebody out there wants them to get it on and they want to tell you all about how awesome it's gonna be.

[golentan]

Because you can't drop two people into a room with each other without at least some portion of the fandom screaming for them to have sex. Doesn't matter if it's Link and Zelda, Seinfeld and Elaine or Spock and Kirk. Somebody out there wants them to get it on and they want to tell you all about how awesome it's gonna be.

Spock and Kirk is almost canon.


Yes, there's certainly some of that -- certainly with love overtones. Deep love. The only difference being, the Greek ideal-- we never suggested in the series-- physical love between the two. But it's the-- we certainly had the feeling that the affection was sufficient for that, if that were the particular style of the 23rd century.

[Antonok]

Well if you take this thing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda_(1989_TV_series)) into account, a big running joke WAS Link chasing after zelda (and failing).

[golentan]

Well if you take this thing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda_(1989_TV_series)) into account, a big running joke WAS Link chasing after zelda (and failing).

Rule 1 of Nintendo:
No non-video game examples (or video games provided for other consoles) are EVER accepted as canon for any nintendo original intellectual property game lines that they may or may not be based on.

That way lies madness and horror that man was not meant to know.

[Landis963]

I can only think of one example where the relationship implications are geared more towards boyfriend-girlfriend than anything else, and that's Skyward Sword (and even then they could just be that close without being "committed," as it were). (In fact, not being committed would explain the Peatrice malarkey more than anything else would) Everything else, IIRC, is ambiguous enough so that they could be "Courtly Lovers" or they could be like brother and sister. Assuming of course that they knew each other before the start of the game. In the ones where they don't know each other from the beginning (OoT and TP immediately jump to mind, but I'm sure there are other examples) the relationship is nonexistent save for mutual admiration of heroic nature, plus maybe that fire-forged kinship that comes about when you realize you have matching tattoos.

[Zevox]

I don't think I ever really got any potentially romantic vibes from any of the other Link/Zeldas, at least in regards to the games I've played. In OoT and TP, Link was practically press-ganged into being the hero in those two as far as I can tell.
Twilight Princess in particular sets things up more for Link and Midna. At the very least Midna seems to have an obvious attraction to Link by the end, though it's a lot harder to tell if Link is supposed to feel the same or not for obvious reasons. Zelda meanwhile has almost no interaction with Link until the very end of the game.

Of course, Midna also seals the Twilight Realm off from the normal world at the end anyway, so it ultimately doesn't matter, but still, it's there.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Off the top of my head, Zelda 2 ends with a kiss (and waking the sleeping princess, which is not an uncommon story trope). Ocarina of Time ends with time being rewritten, but Link STILL finding Zelda. And Wind Waker is chock full of Zelda flirting with Link (obviously him being silent, it comes across pretty one-sided).

Yeah, I've really just played Wind Waker (and part of Four Swords, but argh the puzzles get really tough), and for me that seemed like "obvious future romance". Zelda has the right mix of being snarky at and impressed by Link. For his part, Link leaves his home to travel beyond the limits of old Hyrule with her.

[Drascin]

I have been wondering this for some time. I haven't played A Zelda game in a while. Something has always eluded me though. Maybe I am blind or something. Why do people seem to think Zelda and Link or attracted to each other? I haven't really seen anything other then speculation that they like each other romantically. I mean, I get why people know Princess Peach and Mario are a thing. They seem to be all over each other. I hardly ever see any official material that pose Zelda and Link standing by each other. I think there was one when they where kids, and they where sitting by each other.

In most games they really kind of aren't, but people assume it because it's a princess and a hero, and therefore it has to happen.

Biggest exception goes to Skyward Sword, where the two are pretty clearly very much into each other in a "childhood friends grow to be more" sense, to the point where if the game had ended with a kiss in the final sequence it would not have felt out of place at all.

[BeerMug Paladin]

They're the only significant recurring characters and on the same side. The fact that one is male and one is female makes people just assume it. If it were two dudes, there would be less such speculation.

If I recall correctly, one Link actually was engaged to a princess, but it wasn't Zelda. And it was a totally one-sided relationship.


Rule 1 of Nintendo:
No non-video game examples (or video games provided for other consoles) are EVER accepted as canon for any nintendo original intellectual property game lines that they may or may not be based on.

That way lies madness and horror that man was not meant to know.

So you're saying the Nintendo Cereal System has nothing to contribute to the canon of the Zelda franchise? Darn, there goes my research project.

[Sith_Happens]

Why do people seem to think Zelda and Link or attracted to each other?

Because a significant (though not majority) portion of the games do in fact imply it, Skyward Sword by far most heavily. In Adventure of Link it actually becomes canon.

Twilight Princess, conversely, is by far the clearest about it not being the case (mainly by pretty obviously making Ilia the main love interest instead).

[Dragonus45]

They're the only significant recurring characters and on the same side. The fact that one is male and one is female makes people just assume it. If it were two dudes, there would be less such speculation.


I promise you if they were both dudes there would be just as much, if not more, speculation. See above conversation about... oh god I just realized the portmanteau Kirk Spock would probably get hit by the word filter.

[Sith_Happens]

I promise you if they were both dudes there would be just as much, if not more, speculation. See above conversation about... oh god I just realized the portmanteau Kirk Spock would probably get hit by the word filter.

Spirk? This space intentionally left blank.

[danzibr]

In lots of games they don't have much interaction. Or they're kids.

Anyway... as people mentioned, Twilight Princess. Yeah, I was rooting for Link to get with Zelda most of the game, but it was clear Midna has feelings for him, and Zelda doesn't show it. I always imagine Zelda loving him but not showing it.

[zimmerwald1915]

Twilight Princess, conversely, is by far the clearest about it not being the case (mainly by pretty obviously making Ilia the main love interest instead).
Funny kind of love interest, who for half the game would talk of nothing but how Link should help Shad, how Link should totally check out this awesome thing Shad's working on in the basement, how unlocking her memory meant finding the key to the sky - i.e., Shad's personal project.

(yes, I ship Ilia/Shad. Sue me.)

[Reddish Mage]

Because a significant (though not majority) portion of the games do in fact imply it, Skyward Sword by far most heavily. In Adventure of Link it actually becomes canon.

Twilight Princess, conversely, is by far the clearest about it not being the case (mainly by pretty obviously making Ilia the main love interest instead).

Adventure of Link...isn't that just about the least Zelda game out of all the Zelda games though?

[golentan]

Link and Midna, OTP.

[Razade]

Considering they're all different Links in different points on different divergent timelines the answer is probably more along the lines of sometimes they are and sometimes they're not.

[veti]

Funny kind of love interest, who for half the game would talk of nothing but how Link should help Shad, how Link should totally check out this awesome thing Shad's working on in the basement, how unlocking her memory meant finding the key to the sky - i.e., Shad's personal project.

It's a long time since I played it, but I don't remember that.

Looking through (http://www.supercheats.com/wii/walkthroughs/thelegendofzeldatwilightprincess-walkthrough17.txt) such of Ilia's lines as I can find, there's only one mention of Shad in any context. As opposed to lots and lots of "Take care of yourself, return safely, I'll be waiting for you Link".

[Mato]

Why do people seem to think Zelda and Link or attracted to each other?Because most incarnations it's implied they are?

Zelda: Not much implied.
Zelda 2: They get closer together as the curtain falls.
A Link to the Past: Boxcover says Link is the descendant of Zelda & the last hero.
Link's Awakening: Marin looks like Zelda, see also Link's interest in Marin.
Ocarina of Time: The scene the game ends on is post-Gannon's arrest. He is meeting her privately afterwards.
Majora's Mask: Link is dead but Zelda will never forget him and the Ocarina reminds her of "us".
The Wind Waker: Gannondorf implies Zelda is Link's, credits scene has them coming together.
Twilight: When Zelda asks for Link's help he holds his hand out.
Oracle: She kisses him.
Minish Cap: Nothing direct, but implied typical childhood lovers.
Phantom Hourglass: They stare at each other and attempt to hold hands.
Spirit Tracks: Everything from him gasping in awe to hand holding and her hugging him.
Skyward Sword: Zelda's mannerism changes when addressing Link, she has presents from him, you can sneak into her room for a piece of heart, the jealous not-boy friend, Link choosing to remain with her, the trailer's scenes, etc.
Link Between Worlds: One of their past incarnations did get together.

[Landis963]

Since when is Link dead in Majora's Mask? OoT Link dies in the interim between MM and TP, but there's no indication of when exactly that is yet.

[Mato]

Since when is Link dead in Majora's Mask? OoT Link dies in the interim between MM and TP, but there's no indication of when exactly that is yet.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S1SVkysIRw

[Coidzor]

It's a long time since I played it, but I don't remember that.

Looking through (http://www.supercheats.com/wii/walkthroughs/thelegendofzeldatwilightprincess-walkthrough17.txt) such of Ilia's lines as I can find, there's only one mention of Shad in any context. As opposed to lots and lots of "Take care of yourself, return safely, I'll be waiting for you Link".

Also, Ilia is the person chosen by Link's subconscious to represent an intimate betrayal by a loved one during the hallucination/vision/expository scenes talking about where the Twili came from in the first place.

I think she's very much in a First Girl Loses sort of situation, though, where while it's fairly clear that we're supposed to intuit that there were mutual feelings from the get-go, we're also supposed to pick up on Midna's growing thing for Link.

I... never actually beat the final boss and saw that last segment of the game, though, so I can't really speak to the interactions and theming of Link and Zelda's interactions, though, since everything I remember is him as a witness of what goes on between Midna and Zelda.

[Razade]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S1SVkysIRw

Oh him. The master of reading way to deeply into things and making connections where there are none.

[Sith_Happens]

Considering they're all different Links in different points on different divergent timelines the answer is probably more along the lines of sometimes they are and sometimes they're not.

This is integral to the plot of the Hyrule Warriors, incidentally.


Skyward Sword: Zelda's mannerism changes when addressing Link, she has presents from him, you can sneak into her room for a piece of heart, the jealous not-boy friend, Link choosing to remain with her, the trailer's scenes, etc.

Do you mean the wood carvings? Because what pretty much seals the deal is that when you sneak into Zelda's room she has a bunch of painted wooden figurines everywhere, and if you look on the desk in Link's room there's a whittling knife next to an unfinished figurine.

[Frozen_Feet]

Legend of Zelda draws heavily on chivalric romance and courtly love, so while Link is definitely Zelda's champion, it's not all given he ends up as her lover. This is reinforced in my mind by the fact that in many games, Link's a commoner by background, and there's almost always an alternate love interest (or several) of his own social class. I suppose, looking at it from this angle, Marin is Link's dream girl (hardy har) - looks and acts like Zelda, but is not of unreachably high status.

Skyward Sword ships Link and Zelda most blatantly, but even there there's the optional romance with the Item Check girl. If Ilia in Twilight Princess is victim of First Girl Loses, it's possible Zelda ends up being that in SS. :smallbiggrin:

[Mewtarthio]

Oh him. The master of reading way to deeply into things and making connections where there are none.

What? Are you implying that Rosalina isn't Luigi and Peach's daughter from an alternate timeline?!

Seriously, though, the Hero's Shade from TP has been confirmed to be the MM Link, so he pretty much has to have survived.

[GloatingSwine]

What? Are you implying that Rosalina isn't Luigi and Peach's daughter from an alternate timeline?!

Seriously, though, the Hero's Shade from TP has been confirmed to be the MM Link, so he pretty much has to have survived.

The story of the hero's shade/child link is even more tragic than him being dead. He's done all these heroic things in both Hyrule and Termina but every time he saves the world he does so in a way that erases the whole deal from time so nobody else ever knows what he's done. That's why he haunts the place, because he can't pass on until he's remembered somehow, and he does that by teaching his descendant his skills.

[Razade]

What? Are you implying that Rosalina isn't Luigi and Peach's daughter from an alternate timeline?!

Seriously, though, the Hero's Shade from TP has been confirmed to be the MM Link, so he pretty much has to have survived.

I actually think Rosalina is two Lumi or what ever they're called in a human suit but that's not the point of this thread. The point of the comment was using Game Theory as any kind of proof is like using Alex Jones as any kind of proof on anything. You can do it but you'll certainly have to deal with some giggling. I've also heard the "Five Stages of Grief" thing from Majora's mask used to explain that Navii died and the game is Link coping with it.

[Mato]

Oh him. The master of reading way to deeply into things and making connections where there are none.It's not his theory, it's been around years before he posted his video. It is handy for a visual & audio presentation through.

There are some counterarguments against it but it's all pretty circumstantial. I like to lean towards he died, and mostly for a different reason. Time travel in OoT was responsible for creating three timelines but in MM the split worlds are merged into one during the ending as if you accomplished everything in three days. If MM's Link truly existed then he would have merged OoT's timelines as well.

[Hiro Protagonest]

In Wind Waker, the King of Lions mentions something about the hero losing his powers when he traveled to a land beyond Hyrule. So I don't think he was dead when he arrived in the setting of Majora's Mask, but there was something that happened.

[Mato]

In Wind Waker, the King of Lions mentions something about the hero losing his powers when he traveled to a land beyond Hyrule. So I don't think he was dead when he arrived in the setting of Majora's Mask, but there was something that happened.Wind Waker sits on another timeline than MM.

The three branches off OoT are Hero is defeated which results in LttP, Oracle, LA and the NES games. The child timeline where Link is sent into the past using the Ocarina leading to Gannon's arrest which results in MM, TP, and one of the four sword games. And then the adult timeline where Gannon is defeat by Link only to be revived and flood the world leading to WW, PH & ST.

And that "something" was Link rejecting purgatory. Instead of accepting the fate of Termina to be destroyed he fights back refusing to give up. He accepts the mantle of him self long enough to overcome his fate, forging ahead and returning to the world of the living as a ghost determined to teach his next mystical incarnation and bloodline.

[Razade]

And that "something" was Link rejecting purgatory. Instead of accepting the fate of Termina to be destroyed he fights back refusing to give up. He accepts the mantle of him self long enough to overcome his fate, forging ahead and returning to the world of the living as a ghost determined to teach his next mystical incarnation and bloodline.

Citation please.

[Mewtarthio]

There are some counterarguments against it but it's all pretty circumstantial. I like to lean towards he died, and mostly for a different reason. Time travel in OoT was responsible for creating three timelines but in MM the split worlds are merged into one during the ending as if you accomplished everything in three days. If MM's Link truly existed then he would have merged OoT's timelines as well.

Why? The world of Termina clearly has some unique metaphysical weirdness (eg, the Song of Time reversing time instead of just moving a select few blocks, or the Ocarina spontaneously transforming into a set of pipes), and the creation of the "perfect run" timeline is a bizarre outcome of a unique event that doesn't appear to be under Link's control, so there's no reason to assume Link would be able to pull off the same trick in Hyrule.

[GloatingSwine]

Hyrule Historia explicitly states that Termina is a parallel world to which Link travels and then returns from, alive, and then at some point in the future has a family.

It's not circumstantial evidence against the "Link is dead" theory, the theory is cobblers unsupported by either games or supplementary material.

[Yora]

One character is male, the other is female. It's popular. By the rules of fandom, they love each other.

[Kd7sov]

Seriously, though, the Hero's Shade from TP has been confirmed to be the MM Link, so he pretty much has to have survived.

While I'm aware of official statements on the matter, I still like the theory that the Hero's Shade is SS!Link. Largely because the first two skills he gives are things SS!Link specifically does and that HoT!Link is not observed to do in life.

[Reddish Mage]

Hyrule Historia explicitly states that Termina is a parallel world to which Link travels and then returns from, alive, and then at some point in the future has a family.

It's not circumstantial evidence against the "Link is dead" theory, the theory is cobblers unsupported by either games or supplementary material.

There are several ways to support a "Link is dead" from the game itself regardless of the official nintendo position:

We can guess at the game's writer's original intent. A Classical Reading

We can ignore original intent and look at the structure, the characters, the tropes. New Criticism

Screw it all, do a Deconstructionist view, and treat it as a burnt book.

[GloatingSwine]

Only if you can provide evidence from the actual game to support it, and you can't. Not ambiguous evidence based on the functioning of spacetime in Termina or the odd behaviours of its residents, that doesn't work, you have to provide actual evidence that Link dies at some point.

Not "takes minor fall damage", but actually dies.

No school of criticism worth its salt allows you to ignore the text itself.

[danzibr]

Only if you can provide evidence from the actual game to support it, and you can't. Not ambiguous evidence based on the functioning of spacetime in Termina or the odd behaviours of its residents, that doesn't work, you have to provide actual evidence that Link dies at some point.

Not "takes minor fall damage", but actually dies.

No school of criticism worth its salt allows you to ignore the text itself.
I'm primarily blowing smoke here as I've never played Majora's Mask, but a mark of good fiction is ``show, don't tell.''

[Lethologica]

I'm primarily blowing smoke here as I've never played Majora's Mask, but a mark of good fiction is ``show, don't tell.''
Showing would also be evidence. GloatingSwine doesn't believe there's either showing or telling suggesting that Link died.

[GloatingSwine]

When talking about criticism "the text" refers to the whole shebang, not just the written parts. In the case of a videogame it would refer to spoken or written dialogue, cutscene actions, gameplay, world design, and basically any other source of information contained within the actual game itself.

There's nothing in there to suggest that Link is dead, at all.

[Razade]

Only if you can provide evidence from the actual game to support it, and you can't. Not ambiguous evidence based on the functioning of spacetime in Termina or the odd behaviours of its residents, that doesn't work, you have to provide actual evidence that Link dies at some point.

Not "takes minor fall damage", but actually dies.

No school of criticism worth its salt allows you to ignore the text itself.

No school of criticism worth it's salt also doesn't allow you to make up crap when the facts state otherwise.

[golentan]

When talking about criticism "the text" refers to the whole shebang, not just the written parts. In the case of a videogame it would refer to spoken or written dialogue, cutscene actions, gameplay, world design, and basically any other source of information contained within the actual game itself.

There's nothing in there to suggest that Link is dead, at all.

It's implied, not stated. Thematics, "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you" being arc words when you first meet the mask salesman and when you die, the recurrent theme not only of death, but of taking on the identities of the dead through masks...

[BeerMug Paladin]

Usually when I play a game (especially a first-party Nintendo game), I don't take any deeper meaning out of it than it being a fun experience. But if someone sees something interesting to them in there that I don't, I don't typically care one way or the other.

The game has no meaning in the first place but what meaning we (individually) choose to give it. Like all media. That's as far as I'm interested in videogame thematic analysis for the most part. Mostly because I care more about the actual gameplay experience rather storyline/meaning analysis. Not that there's not a valid role for such a critique. It's just not my primary goal when playing a game.

Although I do profess a mild interest in Tingle's role in this purgatory/death theory. Is he an ignorant annoyance or a cheerful angelic guide?

Presenting a particular interpretation, I'll choose to say that MM is a political satire. Not only for the fact that I could construct arguments in support of such a seemingly arbitrary interpretation, but also for the fact that on this board, the rules explicitly prevent me from doing so. I'm not particularly interested in elucidating that viewpoint, so the latter is a convenient excuse not to do so. But that interpretation isn't invalid. It just is.

My point is that any interpretation one may have isn't invalid or wrong. It's just a new or different way to view the art.

Oh, and with regards to SS Link, it's more or less pretty obvious that Zelda has a thing for Link, but I always thought Link was written to be kind of stoic and indifferent to hints that those around him drop. He always comes across as asexual to me, but I think that's just because they try to make him as ill-defined in personality as possible. So it's easier for him to be a player-proxy. Non-Link characters aren't written in this way.

OoT Link had the most romantic options available, but none of them seemed to be interesting to him. There were four ladies into him in that game, although one of them had a bit of an advantage over the others.

[Coidzor]

My point is that any interpretation one may have isn't invalid or wrong. It's just a new or different way to view the art.

Offering an argument only because one wishes to be facetious rather undercuts one's self, however. :smalltongue:


Oh, and with regards to SS Link, it's more or less pretty obvious that Zelda has a thing for Link, but I always thought Link was written to be kind of stoic and indifferent to hints that those around him drop. He always comes across as asexual to me, but I think that's just because they try to make him as ill-defined in personality as possible. So it's easier for him to be a player-proxy. Non-Link characters aren't written in this way.

Obliviousness would fit better than being aware of the flirtatiousness and just not reacting to it at all.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Obliviousness would fit better than being aware of the flirtatiousness and just not reacting to it at all.

I agree. I don't know why I didn't think of that.

[007_ctrl_room]

Off the top of my head, Zelda 2 ends with a kiss (and waking the sleeping princess, which is not an uncommon story trope). Ocarina of Time ends with time being rewritten, but Link STILL finding Zelda. And Wind Waker is chock full of Zelda flirting with Link (obviously him being silent, it comes across pretty one-sided).

And then there's the Zelda cartoon...unless we're not going to talk about that :smallwink:

Zelda II - you beat me to it.

[Mewtarthio]

Although I do profess a mild interest in Tingle's role in this purgatory/death theory. Is he an ignorant annoyance or a cheerful angelic guide?

Tingle is HELL!

More seriously, Tingle is a Terminian, and therefore would serve to emphasize the denial theme. Tingle cannot bear to face the reality that he is a middle-aged man of no supernatural import, and so he retreats into a comfortable fantasy world. The other humans reject him for this, even though none of them can face the equally obvious reality of their impending deaths.

[Coidzor]

Tingle is HELL!

More seriously, Tingle is a Terminian, and therefore would serve to emphasize the denial theme. Tingle cannot bear to face the reality that he is a middle-aged man of no supernatural import, and so he retreats into a comfortable fantasy world. The other humans reject him for this, even though none of them can face the equally obvious reality of their impending deaths.

He's also a grotesque mockery of Link, especially grown Link from the previous game, where Link was a child in the body of a (relative) adult while Tingle is an adult attempting to be a child and fairy.

[Mato]

Hyrule Historia explicitly states that Termina is a parallel world to which Link travels and then returns from, alive, and then at some point in the future has a family.

It's not circumstantial evidence against the "Link is dead" theory, the theory is cobblers unsupported by either games or supplementary material.Saying Termina is a parallel world does not disclude the possibility of it being a world based on the bridge between life and the afterlife.

You also simultaneously assumed Link remained the same age in MM as his child form in OoT. However, child Link was too small to draw a bow or ride a horse and the ending scene of the two meeting in the garden in OoT takes place by Twilight's own depiction after Gannon has already obtain the Triforce. Meaning the castle was attacked and Zelda already fled, what you are witnessing is those two privately meeting in the garden time-skipped to after Hyrule regrouped, arrested Gannon, and restored Princess Zelda to her rightful place as heir and I just don't see that happening in five minutes.


Not "takes minor fall damage", but actually dies.The Historia and Twilight says he dies before passing his knowledge on. You are not debating if he died, because he does, but when.

And that when, according to his bloodline dialog is after copulation but before the child grows to adolescence. Now remember that according to Wind Waker's guide, child Link is already 12 years old before opening the door of time. Which in the catholic religion and feudal japan as if the Zora betrothal and Talon's question were not enough for you, is very close if not already marriageable age.

You assume a lot but prove nothing.


Citation please.It's a deduction. No matter your stance on MM, Link refuses to accept death and becomes a ghost according to Twilight.

MM can be about purgatory and Link moving on all it wants but it doesn't matter, Link refused to give in and that is the real point of the game. He don's another transformational mask, which is established to only grant Link the body of a deceased character, which literately turns him into an adult sword-beam shooting [ancestor] Link and he rejects his terrible fate by defeating Majora and stopping the moon. Everyone else's grief is over, they move on, celebrate, and presumably live a happy life. Link however doesn't join, instead he walks alone in the darkness, fading into the fog. In the end, it's just the memory of him that an immortal skull kid in Hyrule will never forget.

It's really not that subtle and it explains how Ocarina-only Link never corrected the timeline split on OoT with his abilities displayed in MM.

[GloatingSwine]

It's a deduction. No matter your stance on MM, Link refuses to accept death and becomes a ghost according to Twilight.


However, he does so after having at least one child, because Twilight Princess' Link is his descendant.

So unless you think he got his freak on as a ten year old, in which case the FBI may want to have words with you you dirty minded individual, he is still alive after Majora's Mask and grows up to adulthood.

[Mato]

However, he does so after having at least one child, because Twilight Princess' Link is his descendant.

So unless you think he got his freak on as a ten year old, in which case the FBI may want to have words with you you dirty minded individual, he is still alive after Majora's Mask and grows up to adulthood.My edits have been word clean up, I literally used the term breeding age in my second sentence. I clipped it since I addressed age the second time I addressed you.

There for I have reason to believe you do not read posts before replying. You also can't prove he was 10 years old either. Word of god says 9, guide says 12 (as I already stated), and the games remain silent but do clearly depict that OoT child Link is significantly younger than MM Link and that same younger Link was already under consideration for marriage.

By multiple races & cultures in Hyrule.

[Talakeal]

I always assumed that it was a case of courtly love / childish puppy love that would end tragically. I never figured Zelda and Link would actually end up together, and they don't in any official media I am aware of.

My favorite interpretation has always been:http://tofu.azurepixels.com/zeldacomic/phpslideshow.php?directory=comic&currentPic=190

[Razade]

You assume a lot but prove nothing.

That's a rich thing to levy at someone else when you're doing more or less the same thing. Glass houses and all that.


And that when, according to his bloodline dialog is after copulation but before the child grows to adolescence. Now remember that according to Wind Waker's guide, child Link is already 12 years old before opening the door of time. Which in the catholic religion and feudal japan as if the Zora betrothal and Talon's question were not enough for you, is very close if not already marriageable age.

Skipping over the real world stuff, marriageable ages don't translate to child baring ages. It's a rather rare occurrence (thought not impossible) for girls to have children at that age. But the parent is typically not an equally aged boy. Either way, twelve year olds don't have kids and Marriage=/=Children.


It's a deduction. No matter your stance on MM, Link refuses to accept death and becomes a ghost according to Twilight.

A very clearly adult ghost. With armor and everything. But that's just what...how he wants to look or something? I dare say you won't have something made up that agrees with your position.


MM can be about purgatory and Link moving on all it wants but it doesn't matter, Link refused to give in and that is the real point of the game. He don's another transformational mask, which is established to only grant Link the body of a deceased character, which literately turns him into an adult sword-beam shooting [ancestor] Link and he rejects his terrible fate by defeating Majora and stopping the moon. Everyone else's grief is over, they move on, celebrate, and presumably live a happy life. Link however doesn't join, instead he walks alone in the darkness, fading into the fog. In the end, it's just the memory of him that an immortal skull kid in Hyrule will never forget.

And there you are, Twilight Princess Link is just the Fierce Deity Mask Link Ghost. I'm not going to join you in Make Believe World. Citations and actual evidence or nothing man. No "deductions". Actual evidence.


It's really not that subtle and it explains how Ocarina-only Link never corrected the timeline split on OoT with his abilities displayed in MM.

The creators of the game don't share your opinion. Nor do plenty of others as the very evidence you want to use has been used for other theories. I'm happy you've got your pet conspiracy theory though.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I think that some Links and some Zeldas are attracted to each other and even hook up in some form or another (Skyward Sword and Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass leap to mind), while other incarnations are more indeterminate or just don't have that close of a connection (Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask being vague, Twilight Princess being a fairly distant connection).

That said, story tropes for these genres do tend toward "male hero receives female damsel as reward for quest", sadly. Which is probably the main reason people read it into the story-free original Legend of Zelda.

[Mato]

Skipping over the real world stuff, marriageable ages don't translate to child baring ages. It's a rather rare occurrence (thought not impossible) for girls to have children at that age. But the parent is typically not an equally aged boy. Either way, twelve year olds don't have kids and Marriage=/=Children.You're right that marriageable age is not the same as childbearing age, but I feel discussing the promiscuity of a man that has lived several weeks to even years outside of time inhabiting a child's body to not be very family friendly. Instead I will say one thing, the average age of menarche is 12. Elementary Biology and History classes disagree with you.


A very clearly adult ghost. With armor and everything. But that's just what...how he wants to look or something?The ghost chooses to look like a golden wolf for wolf-Link to howl to/with so it's clearly within his powers to alter his appearance. Stalfos, Poes, and ReDead are all dead Hylians and look how vastly different they are from each other and from how they used to be so the better question to ask is why do you think he should appear the same in death as he did in life?


And there you are, Twilight Princess Link is just the Fierce Deity Mask Link Ghost. I'm not going to join you in Make Believe World. Citations and actual evidence or nothing man. No "deductions". Actual evidence.That's not quite it and you just ignored the game to play plug your ears and hum.

Of the five form-altering masks in MM, the titan is unique is that it only enlarges, but does not alter, it's wearer. The four shape transforming masks are the Deku, Gorron, Zora, and FD. Three of which grant the wear the body of a deceased character and are obtained after the soul is put at ease. You claim FD is another unique, I say stop entering make believe worlds and look at the actual evidence, FD is probably the mask of a Hylian sword wielder who could shoot beams of energy.

I just also happen have a guess at who that could be.


The creators of the game don't share your opinion.The creator's ideals in Majora's Mask does and the people that worked on Twilight Princess seem to agree, Miyamoto was also willing to prematurely murdered a Link to create an explanation of the timeline so what you really mean is you don't share my opinion. That's fine, but don't fail to correct me with opinions that are contrary to facts and then assert yours matches the creators when they clearly don't.


As I've said before, "Link's alive" in MM debaters have purely speculative points that easily miss what they aim for. There is nothing they can use to rule out the opposing side and it requires thinking several things are unique exceptions rather than following established theme making it the radical idea that doesn't follow suit. But don't get me wrong, "Link is dead" debaters don't have concrete evidence either, but the theory can not be debunked and unlike the other side it also serves to explains the intent of depiction and themes in MM, gives character insight to TP's ghost, explains why the timesplit Nintendo choose to use can exist as lore (Zelda used ocarina-only time travel on Link, per MM the time lines should have merged), and it even fits into established themes like it's all a dream (LA) and true parallel worlds do no copy people like MM does (LttP, LA, TP, LbW). In short, it just fits better because it matches intent and ties up loose ends.

The ability to discuss both is why MM's story is so great.

[GloatingSwine]

You're right that marriageable age is not the same as childbearing age, but I feel discussing the promiscuity of a man that has lived several weeks to even years outside of time inhabiting a child's body to not be very family friendly. Instead I will say one thing, the average age of menarche is 12. Elementary Biology and History classes disagree with you.

The possibility of a thing is not evidence of a thing.


That's not quite it and you just ignored the game to play plug your ears and hum.

Whereas you just make up whatever most appeals to you.


As I've said before, "Link's alive" in MM debaters have purely speculative points that easily miss what they aim for.

It requires no speculation at all to suggest that Link is as alive in Majora's Mask as he is in every other game. You are the one presenting the extraordinary claim, you are the one who needs to present extraordinary evidence.

Until you do, get in the sack (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHVVKAKWXcg).

[golentan]

He's had weird, unreal adventures though...

Link's Awakening was all just a dream.

Ocarina of Time split the timeline. Or, if you (like I) view the official timeline as making too many plotholes and not being an accurate depiction of the Zeldaverse, it may have all been a vision of a possible future, with the vision preventing it from coming to be.

There are all sorts of weird dark worlds.

We know there are things that can occur for various forms of afterlife: life after death, ghosts, all sorts of things.

We know in Majora's Mask and the Legend of Zelda, that the Poes and the other forms of living dead are locked into a cycle of endlessly fighting old battles, unable to let go of their visions of the past until convinced to let go of what they lost. Link in it, seems locked into viewing Termina as a mirror image of hyrule, populated by people and variations of people he knows from Hyrule.

Almost everything reinforces some theme of loss, death, etc. The whole plot is kicked off by link being overpowered while searching for his companion he's unable to let go of. And if the whole thing is coming to terms with and confronting the fact he's died, the form associated with that death being the final boss makes sense, as does the whole surrealist sequence inside the moon (If and only if Link gives up all of what he's accumulated in confronting his death, all his baggage, the faces of all the people he's focused on in this life, he can become his true self, the archetypal Hero of Legend, the Fierce Deity: the core of his soul that continuously reincarnates to rise up and cast down the forces of darkness. By giving up his attachments, he stops being the Link of the Kokiri, the mortal part of him, and becomes the archetypal link that will empower the next link, the new hero who will live a different life, with new friends and loved ones, new attachments, he's washing himself in Lethe, if you will).

[GloatingSwine]

Nope, not good enough. This specific Link lives to have descendants, this is a thing which happens in Legend of Zelda canon.

You need to reconcile that incompatibility by demonstrating when and how Link has, in only the time between OoT and MM, produced those.

No, those hentai doujins you've seen aren't canon.

[Razade]

You're right that marriageable age is not the same as childbearing age, but I feel discussing the promiscuity of a man that has lived several weeks to even years outside of time inhabiting a child's body to not be very family friendly. Instead I will say one thing, the average age of menarche is 12. Elementary Biology and History classes disagree with you.

Except they don't or at least not in the last two hundred years where the average age of women giving birth was 16 to 21. Just because it can happen doesn't mean it does happen.


The ghost chooses to look like a golden wolf for wolf-Link to howl to/with so it's clearly within his powers to alter his appearance. Stalfos, Poes, and ReDead are all dead Hylians and look how vastly different they are from each other and from how they used to be so the better question to ask is why do you think he should appear the same in death as he did in life?

Don't really but he certainly doesn't have anything resembling the Fierce Deity about him. Which you'd imagine (or maybe -you- wouldn't) they'd have tried to import over into his style if they wanted to make the connection.


That's not quite it and you just ignored the game to play plug your ears and hum.

No. Just no. I'm just not making crap up and putting links where they are tenuous at best.


Of the five form-altering masks in MM, the titan is unique is that it only enlarges, but does not alter, it's wearer. The four shape transforming masks are the Deku, Gorron, Zora, and FD. Three of which grant the wear the body of a deceased character and are obtained after the soul is put at ease. You claim FD is another unique, I say stop entering make believe worlds and look at the actual evidence, FD is probably the mask of a Hylian sword wielder who could shoot beams of energy.

Was Link a God? Because you're the first person to speculate that it's the soul of older Link. But hey, I guess I should stop entering "Make Believe" worlds and agree with your wholly unsubstantiated claims based off of make believe worlds. That seems like the best thing to do. Oh wait.


I just also happen have a guess at who that could be.

And that's all it is until you can back it up with actual evidence. I don't care if you've got a guess. Is it true?


The creator's ideals in Majora's Mask does and the people that worked on Twilight Princess seem to agree, Miyamoto was also willing to prematurely murdered a Link to create an explanation of the timeline so what you really mean is you don't share my opinion. That's fine, but don't fail to correct me with opinions that are contrary to facts and then assert yours matches the creators when they clearly don't.



As I've said before, "Link's alive" in MM debaters have purely speculative points that easily miss what they aim for. There is nothing they can use to rule out the opposing side and it requires thinking several things are unique exceptions rather than following established theme making it the radical idea that doesn't follow suit. But don't get me wrong, "Link is dead" debaters don't have concrete evidence either, but the theory can not be debunked and unlike the other side it also serves to explains the intent of depiction and themes in MM, gives character insight to TP's ghost, explains why the timesplit Nintendo choose to use can exist as lore (Zelda used ocarina-only time travel on Link, per MM the time lines should have merged), and it even fits into established themes like it's all a dream (LA) and true parallel worlds do no copy people like MM does (LttP, LA, TP, LbW). In short, it just fits better because it matches intent and ties up loose ends.

We have the fact that the creators said that MM Link lived long enough to have kids without having to say that somehow a 12 year old Link had kids. Because that's just making crap up. So once again until you can actually give evidence for your position other than telling me I'm just wrong because "the spirit of the game" says I'm wrong (and I don't really think it does) then you simply stating "it fits better" is one big fat logical fallacy which comports with your pet Conspiracy Theory.

[golentan]

Nope, not good enough. This specific Link lives to have descendants, this is a thing which happens in Legend of Zelda canon.

You need to reconcile that incompatibility by demonstrating when and how Link has, in only the time between OoT and MM, produced those.

No, those hentai doujins you've seen aren't canon.

It's not at all clear to me that Twilight Princess link is physically descended from the Hero's Shade: He's unambiguously his spiritual successor. The Hero's Shade addresses Link as "my child," but enough time has passed it seems pretty clear that he's not literally his father, either. The inheritor of your incarnation could be considered a spiritual descendant, a closer Filial bond than mere biology, after all. I know a fellow, his father is the man who raised him, not the person who happens to share some of his genes.

You don't have to agree with the interpretations of others, but you're interpreting as much as anyone, but moreover you're insulting people for disagreeing with your interpretation. Not facts, interpretation of a fictional work's themes where the clarity of a work is lacking and open to interpretation. Literary interpretation and criticism are fine things to engage in, and I really find the almost-slurs you're using not conducive to discussion.

And again, I don't take Hyrule Historia as gospel... I tend to like to let nintendo games stand on their own: every time they try to make some non-game source, the plotholes get worse...

[GloatingSwine]

It's not at all clear to me that Twilight Princess link is physically descended from the Hero's Shade: He's unambiguously his spiritual successor.

He explicitly states (in the scene where he teaches the Mortal Draw skill) that the skills he teaches from then on are secrets which do not leave "our bloodline" (8:30 in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf1KaB0XGGg). Directly referring to a common bloodline between him and Link.

Given that he's speaking to Link alone and is not therefore referring to a third party, and he does not otherwise use the royal we, that means that they are blood related.

It's explicit in the game. The Hero's Shade is a direct blood relation of Link in Twilight Princess, he is also the Hero of Time.

He is alive in Majora's Mask, he returns to Hyrule in the ending, goes on to father at least one child but dies with his heroic deeds forgotten and his skills not passed on to his offspring, causing him to haunt Hyrule.

(and good luck understanding most Japanese games without the fan books, there are games where the whole plot is in those...)

[golentan]

He explicitly states (in the scene where he teaches the Mortal Draw skill) that the skills he teaches from then on are secrets which do not leave "our bloodline" (8:30 in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf1KaB0XGGg). Directly referring to a common bloodline between him and Link.

Given that he's speaking to Link alone and is not therefore referring to a third party, and he does not otherwise use the royal we, that means that they are blood related.

It's explicit in the game. The Hero's Shade is a direct blood relation of Link in Twilight Princess, he is also the Hero of Time.

He is alive in Majora's Mask, he returns to Hyrule in the ending, goes on to father at least one child but dies with his heroic deeds forgotten and his skills not passed on to his offspring, causing him to haunt Hyrule.

(and good luck understanding most Japanese games without the fan books, there are games where the whole plot is in those...)

And everyone knows there are no blood relatives who aren't children or parents, right?

[Lethologica]

And everyone knows there are no blood relatives who aren't children or parents, right?
Now I'm curious--does Link have a lot of blood relatives lying around?

That said, I'm not entirely on board with a line of thinking that appears to go, "As long as we ignore the right material, and squint the right way at the blood relationship between Link and 'his child', the theory is possible and is therefore a better narrative fit than the alternative."

[golentan]

Now I'm curious--does Link have a lot of blood relatives lying around?

That said, I'm not entirely on board with a line of thinking that appears to go, "As long as we ignore the right material, and squint the right way at the blood relationship between Link and 'his child', the theory is possible and is therefore a better narrative fit than the alternative."

Honestly, I'm not sure how we would know in OoT. His mom, fleeing war, wandered into the forest and gave birth. But his father? Who knows? Was he their first child?

[GloatingSwine]

Your fanfiction version of Link's parents are not canon, sorry.

You must provide evidence from within the games that Link had siblings or half siblings.

Otherwise it's just you making things up.

[Sith_Happens]

No, those hentai doujins you've seen aren't canon.

They aren't? Party pooper.:smalltongue:

[Coidzor]

Was Link a God? Because you're the first person to speculate that it's the soul of older Link. But hey, I guess I should stop entering "Make Believe" worlds and agree with your wholly unsubstantiated claims based off of make believe worlds. That seems like the best thing to do. Oh wait.

Well, being bearer of a fragment of the triforce does infuse that person with some portion of deific power, and there's several "older" links to choose from as well as the Ur-Link which every Link is anchored to in some metaphysical way or another, I suppose.

There's also the potential that it's the ideal of the Hero rather than the actual soul form of anything or anyone.


It's not at all clear to me that Twilight Princess link is physically descended from the Hero's Shade: He's unambiguously his spiritual successor. The Hero's Shade addresses Link as "my child," but enough time has passed it seems pretty clear that he's not literally his father, either. The inheritor of your incarnation could be considered a spiritual descendant, a closer Filial bond than mere biology, after all. I know a fellow, his father is the man who raised him, not the person who happens to share some of his genes.

An adopted son, however, is not part of the adopted father's bloodline, so there's a fairly strong implication from word choice that something more than a spiritual mantle at play here.

What language a person would use when talking to one's reincarnated self is a bit existentially problematical though, at least without explicitly calling out that Link is a reincarnation of the Hero's Shade or that the Hero's Shade is a piece of a past Link that didn't reincarnate with him and needs to reunite with him the hard way.

IIRC the only other time bloodlines come into play are Link to the Past where Link's being a descendant of the knights who sealed the sacred realm was relevant to why he was narratively appropriate to take on the hero's journey and possibly Windwaker where the Hero of Time addresses his eventual successor in the form of engravings.


You must provide evidence from within the games that Link had siblings or half siblings.

Is Windwaker Link's sister ever revealed to not actually be a blood relative to Windwaker Link?

If she's confirmed to be his blood sister rather than some kind of adoption deal, we've at least got it confirmed that a Link has been capable of having siblings and thus it's likely that it's possible for all Links and non-Links in a posited Link-producing bloodline to have multiple children and split the bloodline.

Doesn't really help for confirming the specific existence of any non-Link sibling to a Link or a specific fork in the bloodline, of course.

[golentan]

Your fanfiction version of Link's parents are not canon, sorry.

You must provide evidence from within the games that Link had siblings or half siblings.

Otherwise it's just you making things up.

:smallsigh: I KNOW IT'S NOT CANON! :smallfurious: I'm raising a possibility, implied as possible by the game's history of Link, that is not explicitly barred by the source material, and which accounts for the logical inconsistencies of trying to shoe horn stand alone games which contradict many of each other's elements.

It's not unlike the ludicrous mental contortions nintendo feels it has to do for every new zelda game. Except the writers for the official timeline get to put nintendo approved on it, despite the acknowledgement their version doesn't make sense. The world of Twilight Princess has little in common with many of the others, the rules of magic are different, the outcomes of various historical events are different, and so much more.

The games, with a couple of clear exceptions, are stand alone retellings of a similar storyline, defeating evil. Many if not most of them fit into a broader narrative, the reincarnation of several figures across worlds and time periods, struggling eternally for the fate of the world. Majora's mask is one of the exceptions, clearly following the future journeys of link from Ocarina of Time. And, within the logic of that framework, "Link is dead" is a reasonable interpretation of that game.

And, I will say this clearly as long as you keep unhealthily obsessing on what is canon/headcanon/fanon/fanfiction: I'll accept the canon on anything when and only when it doesn't create more plot holes than it fixes. Nintendo is an unreliable narrator with their own material, outside of the confines of any single, individual game. They change numbers, they create explanations that make no sense, they lie, they alter, they twist. They claim Han shot second.

Misremembered, link was born before his mother fled into the forest, but was still a baby, as a self correction.

[GloatingSwine]

:smallsigh: I KNOW IT'S NOT CANON! :smallfurious: I'm raising a possibility, implied as possible by the game's history of Link, that is not explicitly barred by the source material, and which accounts for the logical inconsistencies of trying to shoe horn stand alone games which contradict many of each other's elements.


Except the "logical inconsistencies" are only raised by trying to bodge a bonkers internet theory about Link being dead into Majora's Mask.

In the actual canon there's a simple progression of "Link goes to parallel universe, comes back, has kids".

Making things up does not answer criticisms of a bonkers internet theory.



Is Windwaker Link's sister ever revealed to not actually be a blood relative to Windwaker Link?

If she's confirmed to be his blood sister rather than some kind of adoption deal, we've at least got it confirmed that a Link has been capable of having siblings and thus it's likely that it's possible for all Links and non-Links in a posited Link-producing bloodline to have multiple children and split the bloodline.

Doesn't really help for confirming the specific existence of any non-Link sibling to a Link or a specific fork in the bloodline, of course.

Showing that a Link has siblings is irrelevant, the argument is that the Hero's Shade could be descended from a sibling of the specific Link in Ocarina of Time, ergo evidence for the existence of those siblings is required, otherwise that theory is dismissed.

[golentan]

@GloatingSwine: No, the logical inconsistencies are way more prevalent than that. There have been essays on why the Zelda Franchise as a whole makes no sense, but it can be summed up by Miyamoto's official policy.

"Game First, Story Second."

Officially, I have to incorporate Twilight Princess into a theory involving the Hero of Time. Unofficially, I have to admit... that's pretty much the stupidest requirement ever. The writers on both games clearly had no intent to tell an overarching story between them. How'd Ganon end up sealed in the shadow realm, anyway, it's certainly not consistent! What happened to Link during and after Majora's Mask, because the explanation in Hyrule Historia isn't any good for that! There are dozens of questions like that raised by inconsistencies, everything from the vanishing/reappearing nature of goron-kind to what the heck is going on in four swords.

@Coidzor: To be clear, when I was addressing the bloodline issue, I meant link from OoT/the Hero's Shade (if they are the same, since really the Hero's Shade could be any Link who precedes Twilight Princess, having looked more into him), could be referring to a common bloodline (the golentan bloodline, for me, would encompass my sister and any of her descendants as well as mine, and probably cousins as well), to satisfy any requirements imposed by his history and manner of address to the Hero of Twilight.

[Kd7sov]

Of the five form-altering masks in MM, the titan is unique is that it only enlarges, but does not alter, it's wearer. The four shape transforming masks are the Deku, Gorron, Zora, and FD. Three of which grant the wear the body of a deceased character and are obtained after the soul is put at ease. You claim FD is another unique, I say stop entering make believe worlds and look at the actual evidence, FD is probably the mask of a Hylian sword wielder who could shoot beams of energy.

I just also happen have a guess at who that could be.

You'll have to specify, then, and back up your argument; the sword beam disqualifies the Hero of Time, who never has access to them in OoT or as the Shade, nor in MM when not wearing the FD Mask.

(My personal speculation is that this particular mask is representative of the Ideal Link, connected to the "true face" that perplexes the Twinmold Moon Child.)


Is Windwaker Link's sister ever revealed to not actually be a blood relative to Windwaker Link?

If she's confirmed to be his blood sister rather than some kind of adoption deal, we've at least got it confirmed that a Link has been capable of having siblings and thus it's likely that it's possible for all Links and non-Links in a posited Link-producing bloodline to have multiple children and split the bloodline.

Doesn't really help for confirming the specific existence of any non-Link sibling to a Link or a specific fork in the bloodline, of course.

Windwaker Link is a poor choice for backing up this kind of argument, since - if I understand correctly - he and he alone is specifically disparate from the "Ur-Link" you mention. All the other Links, except probably the one in New Hyrule, start out with their essential Link-ness, but the Hero of the Waves has to earn it.

[GloatingSwine]

Officially, I have to incorporate Twilight Princess into a theory involving the Hero of Time. Unofficially, I have to admit... that's pretty much the stupidest requirement ever.

Except it's a canon thing which happens. If you are not accounting for it you're doing fanfiction, and your fanfiction is not admissable in an argument about what actually happens in the games.


How'd Ganon end up sealed in the shadow realm, anyway, it's certainly not consistent!

In that timeline it's directly shown, he's banished using the Mirror of Twilight. Link is sent back to the point at which he first meets Zelda (the final scene of the ending is a direct repeat of the first meeting), warns her specifically what will happen, and Ganon's attack on Hyrule Castle is defeated, he is imprisoned and then banished via the Mirror in a failed execution. All events shown on screen in their respective games which don't even require any confabulation to connect them (because of that specific repeat scene in OoT we know when Link was sent back to).


What happened to Link during and after Majora's Mask

He travels to a parallel world, saves it, and returns from it. All that is required is that you play the damn game and you can watch that happen. That's what you do in Majora's Mask.

After that he has a nonzero number of children then dies at some future point.


because the explanation in Hyrule Historia isn't any good for that!

No, it's in the game. See all you have to do there is accept the events of the game as having really happened as they are shown. Link travels to a parallel world, saves it via time travel erasing the peril it was in, comes back.


There are dozens of questions like that raised by inconsistencies

You're not doing very well at these inconsistencies, you have failed to come up with a single one which isn't explained by paying vague attention to the actual games themselves...

[golentan]

Yeah, he was banished, after a botched execution (apparently on the grounds he had the triforce of power, something he only acquired after the assault on the castle and temple in Ocarina). By sages who have nothing to do with the sages in Ocarina, apparently. Link returns always to the moment that he was suspended in time, when he first seized the sword, and him returning to the Child timeline seems to do the same, except ganon hasn't attacked yet (occurred before he seized the sword) it makes for a nice closing cut scene but it's a temporal mess. Did link wind up in a position where there are two simultaneous child links?

Kokiri are immortal, but they die off(koroks seeming to know little of the way of their ancestors, have different names, it seems unlikely that Saria or Mido is among them)/evolve into the Koroks in wind waker (and yes, the koroks are descended), vanish entirely in twilight Princess.

Landmarks like death mountain, rather than simply getting upgraded, migrate from north to south or other, strange permutations.

Gorons just vanish.

Miyamoto has acknowledged the existence of plot holes, why are you so resistant? I've played the games, I've paid attention, and I'm not convinced. You've also consistently set the barrier of your skepticism arbitrarily high.

[Razade]

Miyamoto has acknowledged the existence of plot holes, why are you so resistant? I've played the games, I've paid attention, and I'm not convinced. You've also consistently set the barrier of your skepticism arbitrarily high.

It's because filling Plot Holes with answers you've made up to keep the thing consistent in your own purview is just making things up and if you want to discuss actual plot and things your internally desired storyline to get rid of the plot holes holds as much water as a sieve.

[golentan]

It's because filling Plot Holes with answers you've made up to keep the thing consistent in your own purview is just making things up and if you want to discuss actual plot and things your internally desired storyline to get rid of the plot holes holds as much water as a sieve.

But, as said, I'd rather hold to a much looser canon where each of the games individually make sense along with any sister games, rather than allow for the clusterwhoops that is the official excuse for cramming so many plot elements together willy-nilly. Zelda Games are, mostly, standalone and better that way. And, that way, in keeping with the tendency of myths to be vague and keep inconsistencies, we can say the Legend of Zelda is a legend. Each story makes sense, each story conveys a meaning, but the whole thing doesn't have to even if it's based on something that holds closer to some consistency.

And from that perspective, if I must accept that the Hero's Shade is the Hero of Time, it makes as much sense to me given the themes, iconography, and outcome of Majora's Mask to assume he died during that game as it does to accept the official version, if not more. Majora's Mask is about accepting death, accepting loss. It makes sense that it's the tale of how Link confronts his own mortality, when all is said and done, and it makes a better story than "and then he went home, had a kid, and having learned nothing about letting go of the past proceeded to linger as a ghost."

And it's one where the inconsistencies can be explained by what's not shown in the games either way: People can ask Nintendo's opinion of those gaps, but as mentioned I don't trust nintendo outside the confines of their games. They've burned me often enough with dumb explanations and terrible non-game media properties. Or you can look for another explanation of the gaps.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Majora's Mask is about accepting the end of childhood. Death is merely the metaphor, as waking up is the metaphor in Link's Awakening.

Am I cool now?

[Razade]

But, as said, I'd rather hold to a much looser canon where each of the games individually make sense along with any sister games, rather than allow for the clusterwhoops that is the official excuse for cramming so many plot elements together willy-nilly. Zelda Games are, mostly, standalone and better that way. And, that way, in keeping with the tendency of myths to be vague and keep inconsistencies, we can say the Legend of Zelda is a legend. Each story makes sense, each story conveys a meaning, but the whole thing doesn't have to even if it's based on something that holds closer to some consistency.

I'm happy you've got your pet conspiracy but when discussing things your opinion is only that. You know that of course. I don't need to grant your personal pet conspiracy theory any more merit than anyone else's however and if it's all you've got then we're done. Regardless of the crazy crap Nintendo wants to tout out that's their storyline and even if I dislike it I have to accept it instead of making stuff up to better swallow the pill.


And from that perspective, if I must accept that the Hero's Shade is the Hero of Time, it makes as much sense to me given the themes, iconography, and outcome of Majora's Mask to assume he died during that game as it does to accept the official version, if not more. Majora's Mask is about accepting death, accepting loss. It makes sense that it's the tale of how Link confronts his own mortality, when all is said and done, and it makes a better story than "and then he went home, had a kid, and having learned nothing about letting go of the past proceeded to linger as a ghost."

You keep saying that but I haven't seen any evidence so your appeals to it "making just as much sense" falls flat. Especially considering that your pet conspiracy is just one of about fifty floating around all with people with the same level of certainty that they're correct.


And it's one where the inconsistencies can be explained by what's not shown in the games either way: People can ask Nintendo's opinion of those gaps, but as mentioned I don't trust nintendo outside the confines of their games. They've burned me often enough with dumb explanations and terrible non-game media properties. Or you can look for another explanation of the gaps.

If Nintendo tells you what's going on and they're the ones who made the game as much as you don't like it they're the ones who get to tell the story. Whether you like it or not has no baring on the facts.

[Reddish Mage]

Miyamoto has acknowledged the existence of plot holes, why are you so resistant? I've played the games, I've paid attention, and I'm not convinced. You've also consistently set the barrier of your skepticism arbitrarily high.

One thing I'm damn sure about. Miyamoto wasn't the one to actually write the Zelda stories, he merely gave an executive nod to what others came up with.

He had mandates sure, and he may have made a few edits. However, whoever wrote Majora's Mask wasn't Miyamoto. Whoever wrote the stories for all these games (and there are certainly numerous writers), Miyamoto may get a credit, but he wasn't one of the more active writer.

[golentan]

Golentan Invokes "Death of the Author."

I'm not trying to say I'm necessarily right, because I don't believe there is a right when it comes to interpreting works of fiction. I'm trying to make an impassioned plea for literary criticism giving access to better stories, that can't be shut up by "lol-nope-canon."

Lots of people hold the view that the author's interpretation of their work, and their sole right to interpret and depict their characters are sacred. As a sometimes author, and frequent enjoyer of literature, movies, games, and television, I disapprove of that. Shakespeare would be way worse if we couldn't make wild speculations about thematics as applicable to the modern world. Is gloating swine willing to charge into the English Department of an Ivy League School mocking them for their "Chaucer Fanfiction?"

I like the writing staff on the games. There are juicy things in there to get into. I don't like the writing staff between the games. They make a mess of things and tell me that I can't enjoy my juicy games.

And since the objections to me have been "Canon" and "Your arguments don't make sense" I've been trying to debunk "Canon makes any more sense" and explain ways mine can. That's been pretty much my sole goal here.

[Lethologica]

Majora's Mask is about accepting the end of childhood. Death is merely the metaphor, as waking up is the metaphor in Link's Awakening.

Am I cool now?
INSUFFICIENTLY CONTROVERSIAL
DOES NOT ASSERT LITERARY THEME AS LITERAL FACT
APPLICATION TO KOOL KIDS KLUB DENIED
jk you're in, mind you don't trip over the epileptic tree roots

[golentan]

Majora's Mask is about accepting the end of childhood. Death is merely the metaphor, as waking up is the metaphor in Link's Awakening.

Am I cool now?

You've always been cool to me, and damn the torpedoes!

[SiuiS]

Because you can't drop two people into a room with each other without at least some portion of the fandom screaming for them to have sex. Doesn't matter if it's Link and Zelda, Seinfeld and Elaine or Spock and Kirk. Somebody out there wants them to get it on and they want to tell you all about how awesome it's gonna be.

You say that like it's a bad thing?


Spock and Kirk is almost canon.

Holy smokes!


I promise you if they were both dudes there would be just as much, if not more, speculation. See above conversation about... oh god I just realized the portmanteau Kirk Spock would probably get hit by the word filter.

The official portmanteau is Spirk.


Adventure of Link...isn't that just about the least Zelda game out of all the Zelda games though?

Not at all. It's actually very iconic, and is less of a deviation from the core than many other games have been. It's fundamentally the 3d chassis before 3d.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S1SVkysIRw

Holy smokes! :eek:


Oh him. The master of reading way to deeply into things and making connections where there are none.

You've just described all humans...

[golentan]

Oh, SiuiS, your enthusiasm always cheers me up.

[GloatingSwine]

Golentan Invokes "Death of the Author."

I'm not trying to say I'm necessarily right, because I don't believe there is a right when it comes to interpreting works of fiction. I'm trying to make an impassioned plea for literary criticism giving access to better stories, that can't be shut up by "lol-nope-canon."

Death of the Author does not imply that you get to fill in the gaps with whatever nonsense most appeals to you. It simply means that the text itself is the only reference.

Your theories are not referenced in the text ergo the concept of death of the author provides you no shield.


Lots of people hold the view that the author's interpretation of their work, and their sole right to interpret and depict their characters are sacred. As a sometimes author, and frequent enjoyer of literature, movies, games, and television, I disapprove of that. Shakespeare would be way worse if we couldn't make wild speculations about thematics as applicable to the modern world. Is gloating swine willing to charge into the English Department of an Ivy League School mocking them for their "Chaucer Fanfiction?"

If they wanted me to believe that, say, the Wife of Bath was three small boys in a dress stuffed with pillows, yes I would. Your arguments are of a similar calibre where textual support is concerned.


And since the objections to me have been "Canon" and "Your arguments don't make sense" I've been trying to debunk "Canon makes any more sense" and explain ways mine can. That's been pretty much my sole goal here.

The objection of "canon" is "your fanfiction directly contradicts in-game events". You might as well be arguing that Link is three cuccos in a link suit for all the validity your arguments posess.

[Coidzor]

Showing that a Link has siblings is irrelevant, the argument is that the Hero's Shade could be descended from a sibling of the specific Link in Ocarina of Time, ergo evidence for the existence of those siblings is required, otherwise that theory is dismissed.

Well, having an example of a Link that has non-parental relatives helps establish the possibility that another Link might as well. It'd be more relevant to show the Link in question's non-parental relatives, though, that is true.

The questionable nature of Link's... Linkness in Windwaker is a muddying issue, though, and the only other avenue to explore for non-parental relatives to Link would be Link and his uncle in Link to the Past, and I can't remember if his uncle in Link to the Past is actually his uncle.


@Coidzor: To be clear, when I was addressing the bloodline issue, I meant link from OoT/the Hero's Shade (if they are the same, since really the Hero's Shade could be any Link who precedes Twilight Princess, having looked more into him), could be referring to a common bloodline (the golentan bloodline, for me, would encompass my sister and any of her descendants as well as mine, and probably cousins as well), to satisfy any requirements imposed by his history and manner of address to the Hero of Twilight.

You know, come to think of it, it could be a reference to the Hylian bloodline/race of humans, which seem to vary in their prevalence compared to other humans(round ears vs. knife ears) from game to game as well.

[SiuiS]

He's had weird, unreal adventures though...

Link's Awakening was all just a dream.

I wouldn't say just a dream. The joy of it was the mythic beauty of. Reality that truly was real, if ephemeral.


Nope, not good enough. This specific Link lives to have descendants, this is a thing which happens in Legend of Zelda canon.

You need to reconcile that incompatibility by demonstrating when and how Link has, in only the time between OoT and MM, produced those.

No, those hentai doujins you've seen aren't canon.

Link Prime from the first game continued o to have descendents. Every single link could be a spontaneous genesis of those genes through that one family diaspora. Descendents doesn't mean direct line every time, does it?

There's also the concept of a spiritual descendent / spiritual successor.


Oh, SiuiS, your enthusiasm always cheers me up.

:D

[BeerMug Paladin]

The following is spoilered for length and contains thoughts which may be fandom controversial!

Reading over the past page or so of conversation, I'm reminded of idly wondering about the Zelda timeline, years ago. I think it may have been just after Windwaker came out and (oddly enough) there was an implied callback to the end of OoT. I didn't expect that at all.

Regardless, I thought it was pretty cool to have that. I certainly never remembered any consistency between the individual games before, and I figured the idea was we were in the broken timeline from the end of OoT, the one Link abandoned. Being in the 'aborted' timeline gave the game an epic feel I don't ever remember the game really having before (or quite since). This world was broken because the bad guy came back and the hero abandoned everyone. The only solution offered to fix it was to condemn everyone to a watery grave. And it doesn't look like it worked. Awesome. Time for some heroics. Because nobody else is gonna do anything about it. (Except all the gods might try another crappy solution again.)

Apart from that, and a couple of direct sequels, like MM, I never remember thinking any of the games were linked other than having overall thematic similarities. Ganon kidnaps Zelda at some point (usually), Link runs around gathering up trinkets and saves the day, and triangles are the key to ultimate cosmic power. Some things like fairies, gorons and zoras exist in wildly different forms, but also sometimes don't exist at all.

I more or less figured that LoZ was a series of mostly unconnected games. Like how James Bond movies are unconnected. Or not every movie with a vampire named Dracula is in the same universe. (Imagine if it was!) That wasn't a big deal for me, because plenty of franchises like that exist. And it's a game, so consistency across sequels only matters for gameplay type.

Then I eventually heard word of an official timeline existing. I thought it was a cool idea, but also wondered how they'd even managed to fit it all together. Not just in something even trying to portray a timeline of any sort, but in other ways as well.

Did a cosmology explaining Termina, The Golden Realm, The Twilight Realm, The Silent Realm, The-Place-In-The-Windwaker-Sequel, (and eventually Lorule) as well as every other alternate universe also have some explanation? Where were are all these places in relation to each other? How come completely new alternate universes just suddenly appear so regularly in the games? Especially since The Golden Realm is comfortably reused in lots of the games. (This has an easy explanation. They don't want to explain why the new game's portrayal is different than a past game's portrayal of the same dimension. New-dimensions ahoy. I'm fine with that.)

I don't recall seeing any explanation for those things, but that really isn't an issue. The same thing happens for plenty of other things in the series (like whole races popping into and out of existence and drastically changing their forms). It's part of why I had more or less originally concluded there was no overall story.

So as a fan, I decided to read some of the now canon stuff. Ever seen a TV show where the writers obviously have no idea where their story is going? That's the Zelda timeline on steroids. None of the games had been made to fit together in the first place. They actually added an extra dimension I never even suspected existed! (Maybe more! It's the Link-dies timeline. If the timeline splits there for that reason, then they may as well split the timeline for every game ever made! Yippee!)

Each entry was just loosely inspiring the sequels. And some vague similarities existed between them. Trying to tie it all together is kind of a joke. Doing so leaves glaring holes a mile wide. And they're trivial to spot. (Just look at the wildly different appearances of the Zoras in various games. Sometimes they're docile blue fishy humanoids, and sometimes they're green swamp-monsters that breathe fire! If some people are to be believed, sometimes they're even bird creatures that can fly!)

Can they wallpaper over these holes to make the overall claimed story canon make sense? You betcha. Enough work can fix any mess. Whether or not they will bother retroactively fixing things in the timeline is another question entirely. I wouldn't bet on there being any better a fix coming for these things than what we've already got. Because it's completely unimportant. I wouldn't think they'd be silly enough to ruin one of the games with this sort of ad-hoc justification process cannibalizing the individual game's narrative. I await their hiring of George Lucas.

I find it a little funny that publishing an official timeline can make folks more or less accept its statements at face value. When I look at it, it strikes me as overly glorfied fanfiction. That's fine, I suppose, and it has its place, but it's not something I consider worth thinking about too much. I'll continue to judge each entry's storyline as if they are entirely standalone universes and not judge it on the meta-narrative of the entire timeline. Because that's still how I'll continue to experience all the entries in the franchise. As genuinely discontinuous from one another. (Apart from the direct sequels like MM and such.)

I know what I've written here is more or less a heavy critique of the official canon, but I've got no problem with the storyline canon. I don't hate it or think the people who worked on it are bad. In fact, it must have been a pretty sweet gig to be the writer who got to attempt fitting everything together. That would've been pretty awesome thing to work on, no matter how bad the outcome would inevitably be. I suffer no delusions that I could do any better.
Sometimes I wonder why I type these extended soliloquies. For whatever those who read it may get out of it, I hope you enjoy it.

I wasn't going to respond to another thing someone said for a while, but I just had to respond to this.


The objection of "canon" is "your fanfiction directly contradicts in-game events". You might as well be arguing that Link is three cuccos in a link suit for all the validity your arguments posess.
This theory not only precludes the "Link fails" timeline from even existing at all, but is also contradicted by the fact that Link can't just immediately go win in every game without collecting any power-ups first. Cuccos are frickin' scary.

[Frozen_Feet]

That said, story tropes for these genres do tend toward "male hero receives female damsel as reward for quest", sadly. Which is probably the main reason people read it into the story-free original Legend of Zelda.

Considering the overall nature and thematics of the setting, it's not "receives as a reward", it's "is rewarded by". There's a reason why the series is called Legend of Zelda, and not Legend of Link. Huryle maybe traditional, but it's traditionally gynocentric and possibly matriarchal. Link's legitimacy as a hero is completely dependent on him jumping through hoops to satisfy Zelda/the three goddesses/other females.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Considering the overall nature and thematics of the setting, it's not "receives as a reward", it's "is rewarded by". There's a reason why the series is called Legend of Zelda, and not Legend of Link. Huryle maybe traditional, but it's traditionally gynocentric and possibly matriarchal. Link's legitimacy as a hero is completely dependent on him jumping through hoops to satisfy Zelda/the three goddesses/other females.

The stories have evolved that way and I am intensely glad they have (if only for the sake of variety in a sea of thoughtlessly patriarchal fantasy stories), but I was referring specifically to the NES games, for which the plot was basically made up by the guys writing the instruction manuals. Zelda is basically a non-entity in both except as an end goal for Link's quest.

That said, the "is rewarded by" interpretation does stand, because Zelda is literally the supreme good authority figure in those games, rather than being an accessory to some high king as you generally expect for a princess, because Zelda (and the old men in the caves and occasional Moblin) are basically the only friendly NPCs in TLoZ, and Zelda II doesn't really put anyone above her either. The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. both managed to be oddly sort of progressive simply for the sake of eliminating excess characters - the princesses in both are (once freed from their kidnappings) their own authority simply because the creators of the NES games couldn't be bothered to write fathers for them into the story (such as it was).

[Frozen_Feet]

I'm not sure I'd call it progressive. Women as choosers is a really old trope. Even if it's the parent of the woman (typically ruling King or Queen) who nominally give the quest to jump through all the hoops, typically the hero only succeeds because they already have her sympathies (and the bad guy / guy who loses can be identified from not having such support). I don't know what's the earlieast recorded example, but I'm fairly sure this dates back to chivalric romances at least.

[Mato]

Was Link a God? Because you're the first person to speculate that it's the soul of older Link.I'd doubt that seeing there are entire websites dedicated to figuring out who FD is. The only thing that is known is it's name, "Fierce Deity's Mask". Because the Mask isn't a deity, it's the mask a deity owns.

I know it's my made up theory that SW's Zelda created the FD mask and I don't sell it as anything more than a fan theory. But you take your incorrect made up assumption based on fabricated none sense that the mask is a deity and assert it's fact in order to further ignore the game. It's no wonder why you can't convince anyone of anything.


In the actual canon there's a simple progression of "Link goes to parallel universe, comes back, has kids".The actual canon is "Link goes to parallel universe" & "TP's Link is related by blood to the Hero of Time" which are mutually exclusive. Your statement is as equally unfounded as me claiming pregnancy or someone else saying siblings.

Except nothing changes the fact that there is a canonical time skip between OoT & MM the does in fact create an alteration in Link's age. And Raz will like this one after his social standard point became based on a number; 16 falls in the exact middle of "older than 12 (WW guide & in game text) and less than 19 (OoT in game text)" :)

[Razade]

I'd doubt that seeing there are entire websites dedicated to figuring out who FD is. The only thing that is known is it's name, "Fierce Deity's Mask". Because the Mask isn't a deity, it's the mask a deity owns.

I know it's my made up theory that SW's Zelda created the FD mask and I don't sell it as anything more than a fan theory. But you take your incorrect made up assumption based on fabricated none sense that the mask is a deity and assert it's fact in order to further ignore the game. It's no wonder why you can't convince anyone of anything.


What the hell are you talking about? I don't think the Mask is a Deity (Though and I'm sure you know this but it's refereed to as both Fierce Deity Mask and Fierce Deity's Mask). I don't know if it was owned by a Deity or what the Deity may or may not be. I'm not making a positive claim on anything, I'm asking you to support the wild claims you make. The reason I'm not convincing anyone of anything is I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I'm just saying I don't believe you and I'm not going to entertain your wild theories until you give me something more concrete than "it's my theory". Keep setting up those strawmen though.

[GloatingSwine]

The actual canon is "Link goes to parallel universe" & "TP's Link is related by blood to the Hero of Time" which are mutually exclusive. Your statement is as equally unfounded as me claiming pregnancy or someone else saying siblings.


The ending of Majora's Mask shows Link leading Epona back through the same woods he was in just before he entered Termina, and a tree stump just like the one outside the door to Termina with a picture of him and Skull Kid on it showing they had become friends.

Going to a parallel universe and him having kids are not mutually exclusive if he then comes back, which the game shows him doing.

[TheThan]

So final fantasy joke:

question: What’s Link’s favorite final fantasy character?

answer: Zel, duh.

*rimshot*


(awful i know, but you still laughed at it).

[Drascin]

What the hell are you talking about? I don't think the Mask is a Deity (Though and I'm sure you know this but it's refereed to as both Fierce Deity Mask and Fierce Deity's Mask). I don't know if it was owned by a Deity or what the Deity may or may not be. I'm not making a positive claim on anything, I'm asking you to support the wild claims you make. The reason I'm not convincing anyone of anything is I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I'm just saying I don't believe you and I'm not going to entertain your wild theories until you give me something more concrete than "it's my theory". Keep setting up those strawmen though.

I'm in fact rather certain that the original Japanese term is "Oni Link" for fierce deity Link. So it's more likely that the mask belonged to a demon than a deity, at that.

[Dragonus45]

The official portmanteau is Spirk.



I know, but the other option has a lot more appeal.

[Prime32]

I'm in fact rather certain that the original Japanese term is "Oni Link" for fierce deity Link. So it's more likely that the mask belonged to a demon than a deity, at that.It was "Kishin". Which is literally "Oni God", and is generally used to refer to these guys (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrathful_deities).

[Mato]

Was Link a God? Because you're the first person to speculate that it's the soul of older Link. But hey, I guess I should stop entering "Make Believe" worlds and agree with your wholly unsubstantiated claims based off of make believe worlds. That seems like the best thing to do. Oh wait.
I'd doubt that seeing there are entire websites dedicated to figuring out who FD is. The only thing that is known is it's name, "Fierce Deity's Mask". Because the Mask isn't a deity, it's the mask a deity owns.
What the hell are you talking about? I don't think the Mask is a Deity (Though and I'm sure you know this but it's refereed to as both Fierce Deity Mask and Fierce Deity's Mask).Maybe you should articulate your speech better, the conversation that already happened has you attempting to rebuttal the hypothesis that the FD Mask is Link by claiming Link isn't a god. Which has literately nothing to do with anything since the FD mask isn't based on a deity to begin with.

And for the record,
noun: strawman
a person compared to a straw image; a sham.
a sham argument set up to be defeated.
A strawman is a fake argument designed to fail. Like how you've decided to question one theory that has little to do with another and then claim I live in make believe land because of it and as a follow up fallacy therefor nothing else I say matters. And then, just now, start a new debate about how you weren't talking about it and I suppose what's next will be about what is or isn't a strawman and how that's totally not what you're doing now. :smallsigh:

I'm in favor of skipping that if you are.


The ending of Majora's Mask shows Link leading Epona back through the same woods he was in just before he entered Termina, and a tree stump just like the one outside the door to Termina with a picture of him and Skull Kid on it showing they had become friends.

Going to a parallel universe and him having kids are not mutually exclusive if he then comes back, which the game shows him doing.I'm glad you looked at the stump, now I want you to go back and look at the half-tree.

During the intro we're told Link started a new personal journey to find a lost friend and on his first showing Link is walking towards a half-tree with a full-tree off to it's left when the fairies, Tatl and Tael, interrupted him and knocked him from his horse Epona. During the ending Link is shown galloping off towards the same half-tree/full-tree depicted before.

noun: hypothesis
a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.
Are we on the same page now? I do slightly apologize, I feel like baby steps after reading Raz's rebuttals. I like that you went to the stump to validate that the painting (carving?) is in Hyrule.

But you assert he is going back based on him being in a forest (there is a fade out between both shots) and I claim he is not since he continues in the same direction as before. Which one is a valid hypothesis?

Now recall what I said before, no matter you're take on Link's alive or not MM's theme is the stages of grief is a given. But I pointed out that Link rejects them, altering time until he stops horrible events from happening. Exactly as the beginning and ending portray, Link. Never. Gave. Up. If he was alive, MM was a bump in his journey and not his stopping point. And if he was dead then we see the desire that kept him around as a ghost.

[Thanqol]

I would just like to add a thank you to those of you who bought up this analysis of Majora's Mask as the afterlife and moving on. It rings deeply true to me, and it finally settles a deep question I've carried with me for over a decade.

[Sith_Happens]

So final fantasy joke:

question: What’s Link’s favorite final fantasy character?

answer: Zel, duh.

*rimshot*

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/515/177/175.jpg