Topic: Your thoughts on the Wind Waker ending (major spoilers!! Do not read unless you have already beaten the game!!)

[Andu_Tros]

I'm totally confused with the ending of Wind Waker.  According to the new chronological order Nintendo has adopted for the Legend of Zelda series, it's Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, then I think it's Zelda 1, Zelda 2, Link to the Past, then Link's Awakening and the Oracle games.  Anyhoo, as those of you who beat the game know, the king of Hyrule wished for Hyrule to be washed away forever and for this Zelda and Link to start a new future and make a new kingdom.  NOW, since that has happened, how can the Zelda games that occur after this story (every game made before Ocarina of Time) exist if Hyrule is no more??  Any thoughts?

[BlkPaladin]

Maybe they rewrote the timeline again, it seems. It looks as if WW is the last game taking place in Hyrule. Its also the end of Gannon (at least that one, there is a male born to that race ever 100 or so years.), and the triforce is in slumber in the Golden Land and almost every one has forgot about them. Maybe the wraith of the three Goddess are next. (Maybe the new Zelda for Gameboy will cover this.)

[Okiva77]

Hello Legend of Zelda theorists!
I've done my own research into the legends' chronology. I pulled information from various sources, including game manuals and the game plots, and I believe I've come upon the definitive time line for the Legends of Link & Zelda:

Ocarina of Time
Majora's Mask
A Link to the Past
Link's Awakening
Oracle of Seasons/Ages
The Legend of Zelda
The Adventure of Link
The Wind Waker

I'm ignoring Four Swords cuz I havent played it yet.
I havent finished Wind Waker yet.
But from what I've read--I dont mind spoilers--if Hyrule ceases to be, then it makes sense for Wind Waker to be the "most recent" legend.
I dont buy the idea that Link's Awakening happened between the first legend and the second legend. Actually, I havent even finished that game yet if you can believe it. I s'pose after the gameboy player comes out and i can finish LA, then I can review my theories. Whatever!

[yellowfellow]

the answer can be found in:

http://cube.ign.com/articles/379/379358p2.html

like miyamoto says, there are two dimensions; one where link is an adult and the one where he goes back to being a child.
since miyamoto says that WW takes place after the dimension where adult link left off, perhaps the other zelda games can take off from the timeline of link returning to his childhood.
therefore, two separate paths in the zelda dimension which can exist at the same time.  

[BlkPaladin]

Yeah that's right you can go into that theory about the two dementions the one were Link saved the world as the Adult (The one in which WW takes place.) And the one were Link went back to to live peacefully because he sealed Gannon away.... As I said it going to be interesting.

[Chris150]

Or maybe someone claimes the Triforce again and raises Hyrule from the sea and wishes for gannondorf to be revived...or something.

[theaveng]

 I wonder if Link and Tetra will grow up and get married some day?  That would merge the two Triforces together

Troy

[theaveng]

LAME LAME LAME
The ending was totally lame. Ganan was sooooo easy to beat. All you have to do is:
- Pelt Ganan with the boomerang so he can't dodge Tetra's light arrows.
- After 3-4 hits, Zelda bounces the light arrows off your shield.
- And then you kill Ganan with ONE parry blow.

Lame! ONE blow to kill the most dangerous person in Hyrule?!? Lame, lame, lame. The Ganandorf fight in Ocarina was sooooo much better. It was actually a challenge.

And then the story's conclusion, there's about 30 seconds of happy-looking people, credits, and 30 seconds of Tetra/Link sailing off. I played 30 hours for that lame ending?!?!? Again, Ocarina's ending was sooooo much better. I guess I'm just used to Final Fantasy's 15 minute endings, and so expected more from Wind Waker.

Troy  

[theaveng]

I don't like Miyamoto's two dimension theory.  In my opinion, it's a lame star trek style way to cover plot holes.

A better explanation would be:
"Hyrule will eventually be un-flooded in some future game and the kingdom restored as seen in Link to the Past."

Miyamoto's idea does make sense though given that the "Hero of Time" statue is the adult Link.  The child Link probably never accomplished anything worthwhile.

Troy  

[Bill Aurion]

this is my theory:

Next game: Direct sequal of WW...no Ganondorf in sight, because he is kind of solidified at the moment

2 games from now: new generation, a greater evil arises, a new Link dwells down in the ocean, grabs the master sword, boom, Ganon is back to life, he takes back the triforce, Hyrule rises as he wished in WW...Link must fight both beings, Hyrule still stays above water

[ArmchairAthlete]

Here's the big thing I don't get at ALL. WHY did the King of Hyrule wish to have Hyrule washed away and destroyed, murdering everyone and everything that lived there? He could have any wish I suppose. Why not just wish that Ganon would cease to exist and could never come back?

[Nam3l3ss]

I think that the ending was appropriate, although the King of Hyrule just appearing was sort of...well cheap.  Watching this ending, I also was thinking that the next Zelda really has to break new ground for the series to stay fresh...I mean when you can compare Link and Ganon/dorf fights over 5 or more games, it's difficult to keep things new and unexpected.  I seriously think that if they pulled a MGS2 and had you play as Zelda (not link) for most of the next game, it could add a whole new dimension to the series.

[The King of red Lions]

"I have scattered the seeds of the future"
                                     King Hyrule

What does that mean?  He's scattered the triforce around so you gotta go looking for them?  I think so.  You must search for them later in the quest. you create a new kingdom that resembles Hyrule very closely.  King Link and Queen Zelda haven't aged much since the end of Wind waker.  An evil potionmaster steals links sea charts out of the Castle's basement, finding the location of the sunken master sword.  He is a very evil man who wants power over everything.  The evil potion master starts to pull out the blade but the King, still alive, destined to gaurd the blade forever, appears.  But he is to late.  The evil potionmaster swims off.  The King can't believe it as he looks toward the Potionmaster swimming away.  
The seal has been broken.  Ganondorf laughs from behind the kings back.  The King is captured by Ganondorf. Meanwhile, the evil potionmaster has sent monsters into three places on the map.  Link has to go there, recieving items from the creatures based there.  Link finally defeats the evil potionmaster and again holds the master sword in his hand.  This allows the King to telepathically speak to him, telling him how ganon has come back and corrupted their new land.  The king says the only way to abolish this evil is to get the real triforce, all three pieces.  Link battles through three dungeons, getting courage and wisdom, but Ganon steals power from link in the last dungeon, he also kidnaps Zelda and goes to create a tower for his evil purposes.  Link must go through two more dungeons to recieve the items that will allow him to defeat Ganondorf, he fails to kill him when he has the chance,  Ganon's soul is sucked into the evil potionmasters son, which sets the stage for the next game.

[The King of red Lions]

The creative burst that let me delve into the story of the next Zelda has come and gone.  I now realize that, unless something miraculous happens,  Hyrule, its king, ganondorf, and the master sword are now gone from any future zelda games. Unless they take place in the past, which will make the series twice as complex as it already is.

---I still hold to my theory that Ganondorf is not dead, or else Nintendo would've made his stony body break into a thousand pieces.   And Ganondorf himself didn't really mold into stone, it simply surronded his temporarily lifeless body, as if making a perfect stand for somebody to rip the blade right out from his head, and breaking the seal for evil to reign once again.  And if you think that the water from the sea above will destroy Ganondorf and the master sword, (likewise the king), then you're pretty stupid.

[rodtod]

Anyone hoping to find continuity in the Zelda series is in for major headaches. These games are not the "Adventures of Link", it is specifically known as "The Legend of Zelda". Now, "Zelda" is certainly not one person. If anything, it's like a title given to the Princess of Hyrule, with each new princess being a descendant from the original Princess Zelda.

The Zelda series is simply a bunch of whimsical, fantasy-style iterations. It covers multiple dimensions, and different time periods.

Think of it this way, the series bears no exact timeline because whoever recorded this legend did a pretty poor job of organizing

------------------
Actually, now that I think about it, the reason the Zelda series has no obvious continuity is because the Legend of Zelda was not originally intended to be a major, continuous saga. How could Nintendo have known TLoZ would become one of their most successful franchises? Nope, Miyamoto and co. just made one Zelda game, without any plans for a sequel. But because that first Zelda game became so popular, Nintendo did the smart thing and kept the series going.

I think Nintendo might have been a little blinded by their own success. They knew that no matter what, Zelda would sell. And so, for the first couple of games, they didn't even bother setting up a major, continuous plot. A Link to the Past was perhaps their first attempt at constructing an actual legend, but it contained so many plot holes and inconsistencies that clearly the story was just put in as an afterthought.

What did Nintendo care? They had the Action-RPG genre all to themselves (all those other Action-RPG games either went unnoticed, or were also on Nintendo's systems).

When Squaresoft's Final Fantasy VI and VII made their debut on the PSX, Nintendo's Zelda was suddenly up against some true competition, and so with Ocarina of Time, they put a whole bunch of effort into the design, and a finally produced a working plot. This time around, the Zelda game got Game of the Year.

Wind Waker is Nintendo's way of saying "Yes, we now know that it's not enough to rely on a series' name for sales." WW is, imo, the best Zelda game yet. And this time around, it has a very comprehensive, very mature plot. Congrats Nintendo.

If we could just ignore the Zelda originals (Link I, II, Awakening and LttP) and go with OoT, MM, and WW, then there's definitely a continuous plot to be had. But for the series as a whole, it's still one big messy anthology.  

[couchmonkey]

I think this is a fun topic!  I'm not going to waste my time on continuity or the chronological order of the Zelda games, that just complicates things unecessarily.

I think yellowfellow's theory is pretty cool!  But maybe unecessarily complicated.

I think rodtod is exactly right when he says not to worry about continuity in the Zelda series, although it's ironic that he brings up Final Fantasy, the series which ignores continuity altogether by creating a brand new world and characters with each game.

Anyway In my opinion, the explanation to the Wind Waker's ending is simple.  The flood wipes out old Hyrule and a new Hyrule appears in it's place.  Maybe Link and Tetra find a new place to call Hyrule, or maybe the ocean eventually disappears over years or decades or centuries...either way, it actually helps to explain why the world of Hyrule changes so much!  Out of my two theories, I would guess that the ocean disappearing is more likely, since Spectacle Rock seems to always appear in Hyrule no matter what game you play.

Ganon seems to be nearly indestructible, so I wouldn't be worried about how he "comes back".  For all we know the real Ganon is still in the Sacred Realm (or Dark World) and he was controlling Ganondorf like he controlled Aghanim in ALTTP...we never did see him in his true form, now did we?

Oh yeah, on the "scattering the seeds" quote, didn't the Deku tree say something similar?  Interesting parallel, though I wouldn't read into it too much.  Scattering the pieces of the triforce seems like a good analysis.

[rodtod]

Point taken couchmonkey. FF is actually a good example of how an RPG franchise is generally not continuous, and because the series has had such popularity in the past, it seems like a good format to stick with. Meanwhile, the Xenosaga games are making waves.

I agree with couchmonkey's analysis of the ending sequence in WW. Ganon is not only indestructible, he's a necessary part of the Zelda series. He plays two roles in the games, one as a crazed Gerudo trying to satisfy his lust for power, the other as a savage monster intent on wreaking mass destruction throughout the world. I don't know if Nintendo planned for this, but by having this double-villain trait, we get so many possible appearances for Ganon.

Something to note, in WW you never fight Ganon in his true form, he's always in his classic Ganondorf mode. And because he's been sealed in stone and submerged by an ocean, he's going to need some pretty hefty magic to make a comeback. Now, we all know Ganondorf is the weaker of the two forms, so my guess is he will come back, but will only be able to do so as a big, bad, beast. Sea monster, anyone?

[couchmonkey]

Cool idea, rodtod.  I must say, I'd really love to see a direct sequel to Wind Waker.  I loved Tetra and her crew of pirates and the ending certainly left things wide open for more adventures.

[ExtremeGcube]

Yes the Great Deku tree did say something similar to scattering the seeds.  He also set the stage with how Hyrule will continue.  He said that trees and forests had the strange ability of causing more land to form.  The Great Deku tree wanted to populate all the land with forests so that the islands would grow and possible some day connect.  This would feed into ALttP where the story says that ages ago Ganon the thief touched the triforce.  I think that legend is what was carried out in the OoT.  The sages sealed Ganon after the night(link) fought Ganon and gave him a near deathly blow.

[nitsu niflheim]

Quote
Originally posted by: yellowfellow
the answer can be found in:

http://cube.ign.com/articles/379/379358p2.html

like miyamoto says, there are two dimensions; one where link is an adult and the one where he goes back to being a child.
since miyamoto says that WW takes place after the dimension where adult link left off, perhaps the other zelda games can take off from the timeline of link returning to his childhood.
therefore, two separate paths in the zelda dimension which can exist at the same time.

There being two dimensions is an easy way out of establishing the story.  Why is there all of a sudden a second dimension when there has never been.  This is a fanasty series, not a sci-fi series.  I don't buy the 2nd dimension.  Neither the story nor the ending of Ocarina had anything to do with alternate dimensions therefor there isn't one now.  

[mouse_clicker]

"There being two dimensions is an easy way out of establishing the story. Why is there all of a sudden a second dimension when there has never been. This is a fanasty series, not a sci-fi series. I don't buy the 2nd dimension. Neither the story nor the ending of Ocarina had anything to do with alternate dimensions therefor there isn't one now. "

No no no- think about it. At the end of Ocarina of Time, Zelda sends Link back to his original time as a child. In that time, Ganondorf doesn't exist and hence neither do many of the turmoils that have plagued Hyrule for a while. However, it was ONLY Link that was sent back in time- Zelda, the sages, Ganondorf, Hyrule, they are all still there. When Link went back in time, he ceased to exist in the main timeline (with Zelda and co.) and only existed in the second timeline, the alternate dimension. That's where Majora's Mask takes place. But the rest of the Zelda games stem from the main timeline, where Ganon is still a very real threat. On that timeline you have Wind Waker, then A Link to the Past (and it's gaiden Link's Awakening), then Legend of Zelda (and it's gaiden Adventure's of Link). They all follow Ocarina of Time directly- they involve the same world and people with the sole exception of the original Link. That's why in Wind Waker it says when Ganon returned, Link was not there to defeat him because he didn't EXIST in that dimension, only in the dimension that began with Majora's Mask (which is the only game that took palce in the "alternate dimension"). Even if it was invented soley to make a plot fit (I mean, it is pretty obvious that Miyamoto doesn't take great care in making their stories fit), it wouldn't work because it wouldn't put into context ANY other Zelda game- you could just as easily have said Majora's Mask literally took place after Ocarina of Time (or at least during). However, the branching timeline does make more sense if you think about it.

Okiva- You're wrong about Wind Waker being last. Besides the fact Miyamoto said it takes place only 100 years after OoT and directly follows it (you couldn't cram in every other Zelda game in one century), if you play the game it's quite obvious that WW does indeed follow OoT. I won't say any specifics since you haven't played the game, but you'll see exactly what I mean when you play the game.

Also, Four Swords was more of a mini game to me rather than having fodder (sp?) for the story. I wouldn't worry about it if I were you.

[Mike-OPN2000]

I am pretty sure WW takes place, hundreds of years after OoT.  I dont buy the 2nd dimension either, Zelda sent Link back to regain his lost time.  I thought Ganondorf was awsome in this Zelda.  Link did kill him though, without the power of the triforce, he couldnt withstand that blow.  As previously stated, he turned to stone, and is submerged under water.  Will he ruturn?  I think so, wheather it be a powerful wizard bringing him back, or some other twist.  Either way, i would really like to see a direct sequel to WW also, to much is left up in the air, way more than OoT.  Best Zelda game ever?  I really did have my doubts, and my only real complaint, is that I have beaten it already.  I am sure I played 25+ hours, but it just seemed to short for me.  So much of this game looks like anime, like when fighting Gaonondorf.  I would have to say that Wind Waker is now the greatest game to date.

[mouse_clicker]

Mike: *siiiigh* The King of Red Lions SAYS "hundreds of years ago" at one point, but it's only one hundred, according to Miyamoto. Wind Waker takes place one century after Ocarina of Time.

And if you read what I said, a second dimension is perfectly plausible. Yes Zelda sent Link back to regain his lost time, but when he traveled back his timeline branched off from the one that occurred in OoT. Why would Zelda say she wanted Link to regain his lost time if he'd have to repeat everything he did against Ganondorf all over again? It's pointless. So in MM Link's timeline, Ganondorf doesn't exist, which means a second dimension was forme. The main timeline from OoT continued on to WW, LttP, LA, LoZ, and AoL.

[Mike-OPN2000]

I still say hundreds of years, everything in the game points to it being hundreds of years.  Miyamoto rarely pays much attentiontion to story continuality, but I am sure if he or another member of the Zelda team were asked in an interview to clear it up; they would say hundreds of years.

[joshnickerson]

I just ignore the possible "2nd world" chat and just figure everything is on the same timeline. As for the Wind Waker, the King of Hyrule told Link and Zelda to go out and find a place to call their own. That's what I think the Hyrule in the other games turn out to be. And that might be what the next Zelda game will be, if they continue the story on Gamecube, Link and Zelda setting out to find a new Hyrule.
This Gannondorf is probably toast now, though just like there are different Links and Zeldas, doesn't mean there can't be a different Gannondorf. Same with the Master Sword. Just because that one is buried under the ocean now, doesn't mean another can't be forged and infused with the power of the gods.
I dunno, just my two cents. I finally beat the game a little while ago, and it's pretty much all I can think of right now.