11th March 2004, 3:59 PM
The oracle games don't fit at all yes. For that matter, Soul Calibur 2 also doesn't fit anywhere (that's now part of the Zelda multiverse too ya know). LA it's guesswork. 1 and 2 however have been stated, officially, as being AFTER LTTP. Yes, I know NOA is very ridiculous with the time lines, especially with the one where they tried making it all work with ONE Link, but there was a time when they just translated stuff from Japan to report their information, and that's how it's confirmed that LTTP is supposed to be before 1 and 2. It fits that way, because they had to occur while Hyrule kingdom was in possession of the Triforce, and the only OTHER time something close to that was the case is OOT, where they had the key to the REALM where the triforce lies, though not the actual triforce itself. That is confirmed to be the first appearence of Ganondorf, so 1 and 2 couldn't be before that. Between OOT and LTTP (including wind waker) the triforce is locked away, only occasionally showing up for a major plot point only to immediatly return to the dark world. So, it had to be AFTER LTTP. For that matter, it had to be a long time after, so the people would forget of the events in LTTP. In fact, that's part of LTTP, saying the old legends of what Ganon did long ago (what became OOT) had been forgotten (I think they had that part purposefully to explain why no one in Zelda 1 had any idea of LTTP).
In any case, a lot of the story is perfectly placed in the time line. OOT, MM, WW, (Zelda GCN 2, yes WW2 is a rather odd way to put it, considering the OTHER thing it stands for), LTTP, Hyrule Fantasy, and Adventure of Link all are very certainly fitting. LA is the one EAD-made game who's fit could be anywhere, and the ONLY one of them.
With enough imagination sure you could switch them around, but you are missing the point of occam's razor. Occam's razor is a principle that states, essentially, that the explanation with the least number of entities required for perfectly accurate description of some phenomenon is the one that should be deemed correct. The instance the explanation doesn't perfectly describe it, THEN you add on extra entities. However, the point is that one should never needlessly add on extra facets to an explanation if there is a simpler one that perfectly describes the situation. That way lies madness. One could easily (well, not easily) make a VERY complicated yet perfectly accurate model of the laws of physics, even unto sounding ridiculous. However, since it's much more complicated and using far more entities than is needed while a simpler explanation perfectly explains the same thing, that one must be deemed incorrect. Now, LA fits in a lot of places with an equal amount of simplicity. It can even fit in after Wind Waker. Everything else however can only be made to fit with a more complicated explanation, thus they are wrong. Show that this more complicated explanation is the only one that accuratly describes it and the simpler explanation doesn't and then you have my attention.
Now, as for the 3rd party made storylines, the Oracles, Four Swords, and Soul Calibur 2, the simplest explanation is to consider them unrelated side stories. Making it actually fit INTO the story is more complicated and requires ignoring a lot of plot holes that would be created in the process.
Don't get me wrong, there IS a place for needlessly complicated stuff like that. For example, anyone writing some fan fiction might WANT to put the games in a different order and come up with a nice explanation for how that would work. No problem with that in that case. It's when you are trying to nail down the originally intended storyline by itself where adding on more than the minimum needed to explain it is a bad thing.
In any case, a lot of the story is perfectly placed in the time line. OOT, MM, WW, (Zelda GCN 2, yes WW2 is a rather odd way to put it, considering the OTHER thing it stands for), LTTP, Hyrule Fantasy, and Adventure of Link all are very certainly fitting. LA is the one EAD-made game who's fit could be anywhere, and the ONLY one of them.
With enough imagination sure you could switch them around, but you are missing the point of occam's razor. Occam's razor is a principle that states, essentially, that the explanation with the least number of entities required for perfectly accurate description of some phenomenon is the one that should be deemed correct. The instance the explanation doesn't perfectly describe it, THEN you add on extra entities. However, the point is that one should never needlessly add on extra facets to an explanation if there is a simpler one that perfectly describes the situation. That way lies madness. One could easily (well, not easily) make a VERY complicated yet perfectly accurate model of the laws of physics, even unto sounding ridiculous. However, since it's much more complicated and using far more entities than is needed while a simpler explanation perfectly explains the same thing, that one must be deemed incorrect. Now, LA fits in a lot of places with an equal amount of simplicity. It can even fit in after Wind Waker. Everything else however can only be made to fit with a more complicated explanation, thus they are wrong. Show that this more complicated explanation is the only one that accuratly describes it and the simpler explanation doesn't and then you have my attention.
Now, as for the 3rd party made storylines, the Oracles, Four Swords, and Soul Calibur 2, the simplest explanation is to consider them unrelated side stories. Making it actually fit INTO the story is more complicated and requires ignoring a lot of plot holes that would be created in the process.
Don't get me wrong, there IS a place for needlessly complicated stuff like that. For example, anyone writing some fan fiction might WANT to put the games in a different order and come up with a nice explanation for how that would work. No problem with that in that case. It's when you are trying to nail down the originally intended storyline by itself where adding on more than the minimum needed to explain it is a bad thing.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)