12-21-2011, 12:26 PM
(12-21-2011, 11:54 AM)Zac Wrote: I don't buy that
the thing about the 2 timeline split is that they can both exist at the same time
a third branch caused by link failing can't work with the other two
It's not so much Link failing as, uh, like an original timeline where.... it's really hard to explain because it doesn't really make a lot of sense, I'll try to let someone else explain it
some guy named L on Kotaku Wrote:Allow me to clarify. In Ocarina of Time, there are in fact three timelines. Not two. Whether this translation proves to be bullshit and there are only two split canon timelines in the end as we have all known to be true until now, is irrelevant to the fact that there are three in Ocarina of Time. Note before you continue that this only relates to story, at no point does the relevance of optional gameplay/sidequest mechanics come into play in what I'm about to explain. That includes Epona because when or whether you get her or not, has no bearing on the main story.
TIMELINE NUMBER 1 - is the one through which you play the game after waking up in the future. At no point throughout the entirety of Ocarina of Time until the end, do you ever leave this timeline. However, just because this is the original timeline from your perspective does not mean it actually is the original.
TIMELINE NUMBER 2 - is the one created at the end of the game by Zelda sending Link to the past using the Ocarina of Time.
TIMELINE NUMBER 3 - the one everyone is curious about is the original timeline and the one that secretly holds the workings of Ocarina of Time together. Never do you experience this timeline in the future, but you know it exists because of two significant events: Nabooru's capture and the Song of Storms.
Basically this is the timeline in which everything you do in the past after pulling the Master Sword first occurs before you ever wake up in the future. The characters key to understanding this are Guru-Guru (both in the past and future), Aveil A.K.A. Naburoo's Second-in-Command, Naburoo herself, and the carpenters after they finish the bridge. Their dialogue in is explicitly written to imply that those events have already happened before you ever arrive in the future.
The timeline that you experience when you wake up is essentially the result of this Link's endeavors in the past. When you go back in time, you are either rewriting or reliving those events one last time. What happens to Link in this timeline is unknown. However, because the timeline that you play through is essentially the "last act" before the end, after all the factors related to your quest in the past have been preemptively activated by the Link before you, it is naturally suggested that something must gone wrong. Otherwise YOU, the player, would be the one playing through these events for the first time, which the game clearly establishes you are not.
IN OTHER WORDS, everything after you become an adult is the result of an offshoot of the previous Link's struggles. Kind of like Ocarina of Time itself is the result of the combined achievements of the Zelda's that came before it, which this purported third timeline would poetically lead into if it turns out to be true.