^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.
