What exactly do all the Links and Zeldas come from?

**Valigarmander** · 08-23-2010, 09:44 PM

So I just finished The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, and it's gotten me thinking about the Link/Zelda lineage. For those of you who don't know (there's no spoilers, don't worry), Spirit Tracks occurs about a century after the events of Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass, and features a new Zelda (who's the granddaughter of Tetra), and a new Link. So, here's some of my thoughts.

Zelda's lineage is fairly fleshed out: the original Princess Zelda, as told in The Adventure of Link, was cast into an eternal slumber by her brother (who was possessed by an evil magician), and since then all female descendants of the Hylian monarchy have been traditionally named Zelda. So, every Zelda is related to each other, though how close the relationships are isn't too certain. Unless the monarchy is really conservative about how many children they have, there could be Zeldas all over the place in a few generations. The only definite relationship we have between two Zeldas is between Tetra/Zelda from Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass and her granddaughter, Zelda from Spirit Tracks. A Link to the Past mentions that Zelda is descended from one of the Seven Wise Men (the Seven Sages), though whether that sage was a member of the royal family or just married into it is unknown.

With Link, it's a little bit harder to determine. Are all Links descended from one another as well? Is it possible that Link's conceived by ~~the Force~~ the power of the Triforce or something instead of just being a random blond Hylian boy born every century or so? The only family we've ever seen Link have was his uncle in A Link to the Past, and his grandmother and sister in Wind Waker, and there's also his late mother mentioned in Ocarina of Time. Aside from that, the only hint we have to his heritage is in A Link to the Past, which mentions Link is the last descendant of the Knights of Hyrule. So far there aren't any solid clues to where the various Links come from.

Also, how often does Link get romantically involved with Zelda? If each Link really is descended from a long line of Links, and they keep bumping uglies with the various Zeldas, wouldn't that end up being incest? Then again, Link doesn't always seem to be romantically interested in Zelda. There are some games where it looks like there's a mutual attraction between the two of them (Wind Waker and its two sequels for the DS), while other times there isn't (in Twilight Princess, Link seemed more interest in Ilia than he ever did in Zelda), and other times Link has a whole harem of potential mates to choose from (Ocarina of Time, naturally).

This, coupled with the fact that Link in Spirit Tracks doesn't seem to be related to Link from Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass aside from mysteriously living with an elderly Niko (you'd think that if you were the grandson of one of the first settlers of New Hyrule, you'd know; unless Niko was just playing dumb), seems to dispel the possibility that the Links are all related. It's also kind of weird that there have been all these Links and Zeldas throughout history teaming up to stop evil, and yet every time a new Link and Zelda meet up for the first time, they don't think twice about it. Hyrule ought to keep track of its own legends.

Don't even get me started on Ganon/Ganondorf.

What're your theories? How do all these Links and Zeldas come about? Any weird theories? Damn, this took me 40 minutes to write.

**X-3** · 08-23-2010, 10:25 PM

I think the Zeldas are part of a long, royal bloodline. The Links all seem to be unrelated to each other by blood. They're related by flowing, manly spirit though.

Glux · 08-23-2010, 10:26 PM

Well, when two people love each other very much...

Think about Link in The Wind Waker. All he had to do was wear the green clothes, which was tradition. Pretty much all else was by chance.
It was by chance that Tetra was dropped on his island, and chance that the bird captured his sister. (I haven't played tWW in a while.) Link kind of just... fell into it. He never actually had the Triforce of Courage (that I can remember).

They don't all necessarily have to be all in one bloodline.

Rainbow Dash · 08-23-2010, 10:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valigarmander

Don't even get me started on Ganon/Ganondorf.

What's there to get started on? There's one Ganon/Ganondorf.

Sim Kid · 08-24-2010, 12:03 AM

I think in Twilight Princess, it's implied that the TP Link is someone else who is sorta like a reincarnation of Link, right?

Course for all we know, Zelda's a royal family like the ones in real life or Fire Emblem are. Which probably means that either
a) She's probably got brothers and maybe ONE sister with hemophilia (Females can get it too, it's just rare)
or
b) She's probably got a twin brother who's got full Lopotuso blood while she has full Naga blood-oh wait, wrong game.

CuccoLady · 08-24-2010, 01:40 AM

Quote:

A Link to the Past mentions that Zelda is descended from one of the Seven Wise Men (the Seven Sages), though whether that sage was a member of the royal family or just married into it is unknown.

That would actually make sense, since OoT is the prequel to LttP and Zelda herself [the OoT Zelda] is the Seventh Sage. If we take it that LttP Zelda is descended from the OoT Sage Zelda, it works.

And I don't know about anyone else, but as for the Links, I kind of just assumed they were kind of reincarnations of the original hero [whichever the original happens to be]. Like there is some Link of some sort that either guides young dudes destined to be heros, or it's just the same soul reincarnated, or whatever.

Robotazy · 08-24-2010, 02:36 AM

I thought it was "Zelda and Link birth a Zelda", and that Link was just a somewhat uncommon name in Hyrule.

***Cosmonautical*** · 08-24-2010, 06:32 AM

Here's my suggestion:

Ganon is like the guys from Sliders, only evil. Using his malevolent power, he breaks through into alternate realities in an attempt to obtain magical power. Link is a sleeper agent of the gods, a soul inserted into a timeline to defend against Ganon at the most opportune moment because the gods are omniscient. The rigors of these mysterious artifacts being discovered, etc, is to awaken his true power to defend against and prevent Ganon, and Ganon is actively manipulated and shuffled onto another plane of reality whenever he gets too big for his britches. Some Ganons are not the same as others, or appear disconnected, because Ganon himself exists in plural form.

Because of the first connection Ganondorf made with the Triforce, which was meant to be forbidden from the impure (those who are not agents of, and withstood the trials of the gods) he is now caught up in their fail-safe system of trickery which lures him into a repeating pattern of failure. He possesses magical power because he gained it from the Triforce of God.

The cycle also serves a larger purpose to root out the evil forces in the land periodically, and put right the trials of the good inhabitants. In this way, when the threat of Ganon's resurrection comes about, it is not a true resurrection - he simply has been broken into a malevolent energy, and can be once again channeled into a vessel.

If we take a Time Splitters stand point on it, you could even say that Ganon hops from body to body of his alternate self, exhausting the worlds of their potential to be plundered by engaging in his cyclical actions and playing into the hands of the gods. This way, he even removes the threat of himself from alternate realities.

This also explains every continuity error ever in the Zelda series, such as impossible map changes and the absence or mutation of races.

Majora's Mask could represent a branch of reality that does not have a Ganondorf cycle, but instead the hero is lead into it by the gods to deal with an unaccounted-for complication of the mask. This is then used to explain the hero's absence in Oot's post timeline, and WW's subsequent recurrence - the gods compromised and trapped Ganondorf in Hyrule long enough to pick the cycle back up when a new potential hero was born. As the legend clearly states, a new hero may appear every 100 years.

The hero having been removed into the world of Termina, there won't be another available for a century. By some trick of fate, Ganondorf found a suitable vessel within the same reality again. The gods have planned for this, and by his second failure in this world he is convinced he must leap from one existence to another to obtain the power he seeks.

The triforce of power allows him to channel the raw unchecked power of the gods, but it does not guarantee him sway over the rest. Most importantly, every time he enters a new timeline in which the triforce exists, he must seek it out to regain the power. It is a trump vessel for the gods. Should he transer to a new reality where the triforce is either inaccessible or locked away in an alternate plane of reality such as the sacred realm, the power stays with him as he is the only existing vessel, and the other powers of the gods seek out their mutual potential vessels. In this instance, ganon may be seeking an alternate power.

This could all be made initially possible by the sage's choice to trap Ganondorf in the sacred realm, which had no way to directly re-access the world of OoT, but could inadvertently lead to other levels of reality.

To put it shortly, Ganondorf is a dimension-hopping lich. Link is a pre-planned system of checks that play off of Ganondorf's invasion to actually cause the land to benefit. Zelda is meant at least in one timeline to be the descendant of the line of Zeldas, but it is not necessary for them to all be part of the same royal line.

Oh, and Val, you forgot Link's Grandpa from Minish Cap.

**Valigarmander** · 08-24-2010, 06:39 AM

come on, who the hell played minish cap

Vgfian · 08-24-2010, 07:29 AM

^^While reading that it is hard for me to not associate LoZ with The Matrix in some ways.

Rainbow Dash · 08-24-2010, 08:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Valigarmander

come on, who the hell played minish cap

Me. :colbert:

Sim Kid · 08-25-2010, 12:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CuccoLady

That would actually make sense, since OoT is the prequel to LttP and Zelda herself [the OoT Zelda] is the Seventh Sage. If we take it that LttP Zelda is descended from the OoT Sage Zelda, it works.

The seven sages never made sense to me.

Why are they all human?

Kargath · 08-25-2010, 12:53 AM

***Cosmonautical*** · 08-25-2010, 01:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vgfian

^^While reading that it is hard for me to not associate LoZ with The Matrix in some ways.

Yeah, it actually addresses the same issues as the Matrix in a way. What the writers for the Matrix trilogy did, was they wove into it a statement about the convolution of keeping an audience interested in an ongoing world and how that leads to self-contradictions, and how the writers pull you back into the fold of suspension of disbelief by acknowledging continuity errors, and building plots around them. It's one of the only ways to salvage a disjointed franchise like Zelda to give it continuity.

Basically, it creates alternate ideas for what the writers of the Zelda series have done. Change "the gods" in my post for Miyamoto and Aonuma, and suddenly it's about how they use the characters and elements, and have rewritten them over time.

The concept works off a single principle: That we are analyzing it post-creation. When we assign meaning to these things like a literary class, we are not actually discovering intended ideas but actually unearthing the process used to write.

You can even apply this idea to things like the Holy Bible if you're looking for lulz - the whole thing starts looking suspicious, as if most of the meaning is entirely assigned post-creation. We're even starting to do it with political documents like the US Constitution.

**Valigarmander** · 08-25-2010, 06:45 AM

I never watched the Matrix movies.

Rainbow Dash · 08-25-2010, 11:30 AM

***CaptHayfever*** · 08-25-2010, 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sim Kid

The seven sages never made sense to me.

Why are they all human?

...They're not. One's a fish, one's a wood nymph, one's a Goron,...

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

PK FIRE! · 08-25-2010, 02:48 PM

They were all human in aLttP. also while Death of the Auther theory can be fun it seems kinda self serving to say that I know just as much if not more about a given writer's work then s/he does/did so my interpritation is just as valid.

You know what I'd like to see in a Zelda game, a Hero who actualy HAS kept track of the varous legend of Hyrule and knows that he's going to get drug into whatever plans that Ganon has for Hyrule. Though I'm probibly the only person who'ld want to see this in a Zelda game so its probibly for the best that it won't happen.

-You stupid dog.

***Cosmonautical*** · 08-26-2010, 12:11 AM

I would prefer a game where Link goes reality hopping or time traveling, through key periods where his ancestors or alternate versions of him already existed. That would be awesome.

Rainbow Dash · 08-26-2010, 01:00 AM

So you want Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross?

08-23-2010, 09:44 PM	#1
Valigarmander The Bee's Knees Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: The land of rain and trees (Oregon) Gender: Posts: 29,755 Thanks: 1,649 Thanked 5,701 Times in 2,581 Posts Blog Entries: 20	What exactly do all the Links and Zeldas come from? So I just finished The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, and it's gotten me thinking about the Link/Zelda lineage. For those of you who don't know (there's no spoilers, don't worry), Spirit Tracks occurs about a century after the events of Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass, and features a new Zelda (who's the granddaughter of Tetra), and a new Link. So, here's some of my thoughts. Zelda's lineage is fairly fleshed out: the original Princess Zelda, as told in The Adventure of Link, was cast into an eternal slumber by her brother (who was possessed by an evil magician), and since then all female descendants of the Hylian monarchy have been traditionally named Zelda. So, every Zelda is related to each other, though how close the relationships are isn't too certain. Unless the monarchy is really conservative about how many children they have, there could be Zeldas all over the place in a few generations. The only definite relationship we have between two Zeldas is between Tetra/Zelda from Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass and her granddaughter, Zelda from Spirit Tracks. A Link to the Past mentions that Zelda is descended from one of the Seven Wise Men (the Seven Sages), though whether that sage was a member of the royal family or just married into it is unknown. With Link, it's a little bit harder to determine. Are all Links descended from one another as well? Is it possible that Link's conceived by ~~the Force~~ the power of the Triforce or something instead of just being a random blond Hylian boy born every century or so? The only family we've ever seen Link have was his uncle in A Link to the Past, and his grandmother and sister in Wind Waker, and there's also his late mother mentioned in Ocarina of Time. Aside from that, the only hint we have to his heritage is in A Link to the Past, which mentions Link is the last descendant of the Knights of Hyrule. So far there aren't any solid clues to where the various Links come from. Also, how often does Link get romantically involved with Zelda? If each Link really is descended from a long line of Links, and they keep bumping uglies with the various Zeldas, wouldn't that end up being incest? Then again, Link doesn't always seem to be romantically interested in Zelda. There are some games where it looks like there's a mutual attraction between the two of them (Wind Waker and its two sequels for the DS), while other times there isn't (in Twilight Princess, Link seemed more interest in Ilia than he ever did in Zelda), and other times Link has a whole harem of potential mates to choose from (Ocarina of Time, naturally). This, coupled with the fact that Link in Spirit Tracks doesn't seem to be related to Link from Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass aside from mysteriously living with an elderly Niko (you'd think that if you were the grandson of one of the first settlers of New Hyrule, you'd know; unless Niko was just playing dumb), seems to dispel the possibility that the Links are all related. It's also kind of weird that there have been all these Links and Zeldas throughout history teaming up to stop evil, and yet every time a new Link and Zelda meet up for the first time, they don't think twice about it. Hyrule ought to keep track of its own legends. Don't even get me started on Ganon/Ganondorf. What're your theories? How do all these Links and Zeldas come about? Any weird theories? Damn, this took me 40 minutes to write.

08-23-2010, 10:25 PM	#2
X-3 Useful as an Owl Join Date: Jan 2004 Gender: Posts: 15,947 Thanks: 753 Thanked 1,213 Times in 790 Posts Blog Entries: 10	I think the Zeldas are part of a long, royal bloodline. The Links all seem to be unrelated to each other by blood. They're related by flowing, manly spirit though.

08-23-2010, 10:26 PM	#3
Glux Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Home Gender: Posts: 7,122 Thanks: 647 Thanked 360 Times in 236 Posts Blog Entries: 3	Well, when two people love each other very much... Think about Link in The Wind Waker. All he had to do was wear the green clothes, which was tradition. Pretty much all else was by chance. It was by chance that Tetra was dropped on his island, and chance that the bird captured his sister. (I haven't played tWW in a while.) Link kind of just... fell into it. He never actually had the Triforce of Courage (that I can remember). They don't all necessarily have to be all in one bloodline.

08-24-2010, 12:03 AM	#5
Sim Kid Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: The state of Denial Gender: Posts: 8,884 Thanks: 80 Thanked 198 Times in 122 Posts	I think in Twilight Princess, it's implied that the TP Link is someone else who is sorta like a reincarnation of Link, right? Course for all we know, Zelda's a royal family like the ones in real life or Fire Emblem are. Which probably means that either a) She's probably got brothers and maybe ONE sister with hemophilia (Females can get it too, it's just rare) or b) She's probably got a twin brother who's got full Lopotuso blood while she has full Naga blood-oh wait, wrong game.

08-24-2010, 02:36 AM	#7
Robotazy PRESS ANY KEY TO PANIC! Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: A Tiny Shed Gender: Posts: 16,484 Thanks: 529 Thanked 1,254 Times in 897 Posts Blog Entries: 46	I thought it was "Zelda and Link birth a Zelda", and that Link was just a somewhat uncommon name in Hyrule.

08-24-2010, 06:32 AM	#8
*Cosmonautical* Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: I rub my tilde all over your asterisk Gender: Posts: 28,103 Thanks: 2,158 Thanked 5,338 Times in 2,433 Posts	Here's my suggestion: Ganon is like the guys from Sliders, only evil. Using his malevolent power, he breaks through into alternate realities in an attempt to obtain magical power. Link is a sleeper agent of the gods, a soul inserted into a timeline to defend against Ganon at the most opportune moment because the gods are omniscient. The rigors of these mysterious artifacts being discovered, etc, is to awaken his true power to defend against and prevent Ganon, and Ganon is actively manipulated and shuffled onto another plane of reality whenever he gets too big for his britches. Some Ganons are not the same as others, or appear disconnected, because Ganon himself exists in plural form. Because of the first connection Ganondorf made with the Triforce, which was meant to be forbidden from the impure (those who are not agents of, and withstood the trials of the gods) he is now caught up in their fail-safe system of trickery which lures him into a repeating pattern of failure. He possesses magical power because he gained it from the Triforce of God. The cycle also serves a larger purpose to root out the evil forces in the land periodically, and put right the trials of the good inhabitants. In this way, when the threat of Ganon's resurrection comes about, it is not a true resurrection - he simply has been broken into a malevolent energy, and can be once again channeled into a vessel. If we take a Time Splitters stand point on it, you could even say that Ganon hops from body to body of his alternate self, exhausting the worlds of their potential to be plundered by engaging in his cyclical actions and playing into the hands of the gods. This way, he even removes the threat of himself from alternate realities. This also explains every continuity error ever in the Zelda series, such as impossible map changes and the absence or mutation of races. Majora's Mask could represent a branch of reality that does not have a Ganondorf cycle, but instead the hero is lead into it by the gods to deal with an unaccounted-for complication of the mask. This is then used to explain the hero's absence in Oot's post timeline, and WW's subsequent recurrence - the gods compromised and trapped Ganondorf in Hyrule long enough to pick the cycle back up when a new potential hero was born. As the legend clearly states, a new hero may appear every 100 years. The hero having been removed into the world of Termina, there won't be another available for a century. By some trick of fate, Ganondorf found a suitable vessel within the same reality again. The gods have planned for this, and by his second failure in this world he is convinced he must leap from one existence to another to obtain the power he seeks. The triforce of power allows him to channel the raw unchecked power of the gods, but it does not guarantee him sway over the rest. Most importantly, every time he enters a new timeline in which the triforce exists, he must seek it out to regain the power. It is a trump vessel for the gods. Should he transer to a new reality where the triforce is either inaccessible or locked away in an alternate plane of reality such as the sacred realm, the power stays with him as he is the only existing vessel, and the other powers of the gods seek out their mutual potential vessels. In this instance, ganon may be seeking an alternate power. This could all be made initially possible by the sage's choice to trap Ganondorf in the sacred realm, which had no way to directly re-access the world of OoT, but could inadvertently lead to other levels of reality. To put it shortly, Ganondorf is a dimension-hopping lich. Link is a pre-planned system of checks that play off of Ganondorf's invasion to actually cause the land to benefit. Zelda is meant at least in one timeline to be the descendant of the line of Zeldas, but it is not necessary for them to all be part of the same royal line. Oh, and Val, you forgot Link's Grandpa from Minish Cap.

08-24-2010, 06:39 AM	#9
Valigarmander The Bee's Knees Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: The land of rain and trees (Oregon) Gender: Posts: 29,755 Thanks: 1,649 Thanked 5,701 Times in 2,581 Posts Blog Entries: 20	come on, who the hell played minish cap

08-24-2010, 07:29 AM	#10
Vgfian Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Listening to Seeking 7 Seven and giving out free hugs. :) Gender: Posts: 6,862 Thanks: 2,433 Thanked 398 Times in 311 Posts	^^While reading that it is hard for me to not associate LoZ with The Matrix in some ways.

08-25-2010, 12:53 AM	#13
Kargath et in Arcadia ego Join Date: Jul 2001 Gender: Posts: 8,334 Thanks: 1,226 Thanked 780 Times in 488 Posts

08-25-2010, 06:45 AM	#15
Valigarmander The Bee's Knees Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: The land of rain and trees (Oregon) Gender: Posts: 29,755 Thanks: 1,649 Thanked 5,701 Times in 2,581 Posts Blog Entries: 20	I never watched the Matrix movies.

08-25-2010, 11:30 AM	#16
Rainbow Dash been dreamin', i've been waitin' Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: a bomb-ass cloud house bachelorette pad Gender: Posts: 24,402 Thanks: 173 Thanked 1,179 Times in 716 Posts

08-25-2010, 02:48 PM	#18
PK FIRE! Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2000 Location: On the run. Gender: Posts: 9,544 Thanks: 175 Thanked 150 Times in 120 Posts	They were all human in aLttP. also while Death of the Auther theory can be fun it seems kinda self serving to say that I know just as much if not more about a given writer's work then s/he does/did so my interpritation is just as valid. You know what I'd like to see in a Zelda game, a Hero who actualy HAS kept track of the varous legend of Hyrule and knows that he's going to get drug into whatever plans that Ganon has for Hyrule. Though I'm probibly the only person who'ld want to see this in a Zelda game so its probibly for the best that it won't happen. -You stupid dog.

08-26-2010, 12:11 AM	#19
*Cosmonautical* Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: I rub my tilde all over your asterisk Gender: Posts: 28,103 Thanks: 2,158 Thanked 5,338 Times in 2,433 Posts	I would prefer a game where Link goes reality hopping or time traveling, through key periods where his ancestors or alternate versions of him already existed. That would be awesome.

08-26-2010, 01:00 AM	#20
Rainbow Dash been dreamin', i've been waitin' Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: a bomb-ass cloud house bachelorette pad Gender: Posts: 24,402 Thanks: 173 Thanked 1,179 Times in 716 Posts	So you want Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross?