Link and Zelda reborn over and over, and Ganon comes back over and over that is the reason why in the Fallen Hero timeline, later on Link comes back, so if Link had died, this would have happened, etc. Zelda sent link to the past, removing link from the "Adult Link" timeline, so she was alone, and when Ganon came back he took over, but they all fought back and sealed him up again (I could have that mixed with the fallen hero one, but either way in both of those Ganon takes over, in one they fight back and stop him (sage war) in the other the land is flooded to stop him. Finally you have the "Child Timeline" where Zelda sent him back to change the past.

**And awesome video, loved it, now im thinking about an HD Zelda remake of all the games.

Wow. Well. That was well worth 35 minutes. Great production value.

Is this really going to be a series? (The tune at the end seems to suggest it...) Because I personally feel that a series would be pretty difficult here. Zelda is really the definitive video game for timelines... I don't know how they're planning to follow this one up.

Nice, thanks for the heads up!

Heavenly_King said:

1) Link is not a person, it's basic idea, spirit or whatever of a hero inherited through ages (hence the name), same for Zelda and Ganon(-dorf) (damsel in distress and villain respetively, it was explained in Skyword Sword through theomachy of Hylia and Demise), there're over a dozen of Links (not sure about exact amount, check fansites), all different persons. IIRC the most "lucky" Link is the one from Link to the Past, he was lucky enough to be a hero in four games, i.e. it's the same person (Link to the Past, Oracle of Seasons & Ages and Link's Awakening), the rest got one, rarely two games to participate into. The twist rooted into medieval epic as well as lot of other ideas in modern pop culture.

2) No, the story divided after the events of Ocarina, it makes perfect sense and has been rumored for ages now before official cofirmation. What perplexes me is Fallen Hero timeline, at this point it sound like lame excuse which could explain every exisiting and future games and therefore spoil the whole "timeline theory" guess game. In a sense it's not very "fair" (as if there's any fairness) for Nintendo to do that, unless the events of hero's failure is in the game. So fans could base their speculations onto smth, while now they are free to assume any wild fantasy that's not part of any game (like hero's failure in any other of... how many? 16 Zelda games?) and consider it's a fork in a timeline. Lame.

But again, it's just a game series, which btw have more core problems to address than timeline.

Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that all possible alternative histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" (or "universe"). So, way I see it, these 3 Zelda timelines are just what Nintendo decided to present to us (so far).

BTW, for those interested in bit more info:

http://zeldawiki.org/Zelda_Timeline

And all props to GT, things like this are why I like them so much (Invisible Walls being main reason, of course).

^Well, this kind of attitude destroys the entire idea of an entertainment :D

 Timeline by itself could be anything, but it should be "explained" within the laws of given universe. These kind of things have certain marketing value, because people care for such things, discuss them, like them if they're explained by the rules of the universe or dislike them if smth don't fit. In literature it's called literature games, the most prominent being The Lord of the Rings probably (or is it a Bible?). People accept the rules of such games and play them, i.e. speaking about of LOTR, they're trying to connect fictional world of Middlearth to modern-day human world (there's basis for this), even other authors base their works around such literature games. Say, The Last Ringbearer assumes that the Red Book (which is supposedly a real historic document that's been used by Tolkien to write the novel) is biased because "hisotry is written by the victors", and that serves as an excuse for the Last Ringbearer, so it explains the story of LOTR from "the side of an evil", which is not an evil at all. Basically it's an apocrypha to LOTR.

Same applies to Zelda.

I thought a better idea for the 3rd timeline is that Link created two timelines when he first picked up the mastersword: Adult and original child and the third timeline created by Zelda as the "new" child timeine that leads on to Twilight Princess

1st timeline is where Zelda sends you back to. As she sends you back to the point were you never opened the door of time. This timeline leads onto Twilight princess.
2nd timeline is what you start in and you created by picking up the master sword. Ganon's chasing Zelda while you're around in this timeline. You return to this timeline when you put the mastersword back to do spirit temple shiz.
This is the timeline you never return to though. The door is open ganon is free to get the triforce and this should be the "fallen" hero timeline.
3rd timeline is the adult timeline were you defeat ganon and seal him away.
Zelda sends you back to timeline 1 at the end of this. This timeline leads on to Wind waker

Well, to be honest, when it comes to entertainment, I'm not a big fan of using Multi-worlds interpretation either - specially when they try to connect them at some point (Star Trek, I'm looking at you). But, it's usualy the easiest (and sometimes) only way to make sense of mess you created by not making extensive history and lore before you started making game after game ;)