well, now that there are more than one timeline
i'm interested in nintendo compacting both timelines,
making the triforce corrupted

and shuffle the chosen ones...

meaning any one of the three (Zelda, Link, Ganondorf) could be the main protagonist/antagonist... all which can be chosen by the player

that's practically six different endings right there

LOL, that'll make the chronology even more messed up.. hahah!

<<never mind, i guess. that’s doesn’t seem too good an idea..>>

i am one of the few that would like to see ganon die finally.

That's like having Bowser die aswell.

Nope can't take that

i have to disagree with you there, cos in wind waker Link has to find the 8 shards of the Triforce in order to advance.. 

man, the timelines confuse the hell out of me. i spent ages teaching my mum just who Link was, cos she thought he was Zelda ("oh, its called the Legend of Zelda tho.. etc" then when i was playing a differentLoZ i had to explain it all over again ("how can it be him, he looks nothing like him!")

ugh. some people have no imagination.

and i have no concept of time.

As mr Khan said- he has the triforce of power and is thus immortal. Whatever happens to his body is merely temporary- his spirit lives on and on.

This begs the question- what special power do the other pieces give? Wisdom doesn't do jack for escaping it would seem, and the triforce of courage can't even open doors. Ganon got the only seemingly worthwhile piece

You probably won't like my answer, since it isn't derived from in-game happenings, but here it is. I just think this is another case of Nintendo going gameplay first and storyline on the backburner. That's not a bad thing either, but I feel that's why Zelda is the mess it is storylinewise. So in a nutshell, Ganon keeps coming back because the designers just want him to, and no manner of death is going to change that.

you should have done this^

my life is over

Onyxmeth is right.

Why do people insist on using a detailed timeline when discussing Zelda games? There are some games that obviously take place after others, but there's definitely no such thing as an official, coherent and logical chronological timeline to the Zelda universe. There was, once, but with every new Zelda game the whole thing gets muddier, more complicated, strange and impossible to puzzle together. There are too many loose ends and contradictions. As Nick would say: OBJECTION!!
Why? Because Nintendo don't give too much of a flying fart about fitting the games together. They create the gameplay and levels first, then at the end come up with a story that makes sense in that context. They give thought to how a new game fits in with the rest of the franchise, but obviously not too much, or otherwise we would have a coherent timeline. Alas, we do not. But who cares, really? As long as the games stay as great as they are, I'm happy. :)

He's returned to complete a task for the forces of good, essentially replacing the fallen wizard Saruman. He also changes his name to Gandalf.

Why do people always complain when they see something remotely resembling a timeline discussion? If you don't think there is one that's fine, but there is and that's a fact so I'm not sure who you're trying to win over.

That said Ganon has very rarely had an explicit "death" in the series, even Twilight Princess was vague. And the people that keep citing reincarnation must not be familiar with the actual term. There is only one instance where Ganon may have been reincarnated (Four Sword Adventures) but any other time he was either revived (Oracles) or was never dead to begin with (WW/TP).