I am here to announce the strangest timeline you will ever see in the history of Legend of Zelda:
May I Present (drumroll)... The Triline! (end drumroll):
*Note* these timelines run on an extreamly thin line. They are based on the theory that when two of the timelines line up exactly they will remerge in order to stablize.
It begins with minish cap, then a few generations later it goes off into Four Swords. About 200 years later we enter Ocarina of time, and this is when things get complex. First of all the timeline splits as a result of Link being sent back as a child, lets call it Timeline A. The other destroyed future would eventually have Ganon break free and resealed leading to Hyrule being sunk, but I'll cover that later, so lets call it timeline B. During the course of Majoras Mask; another split occurs, every time link goes back in time he is creating a branch off where he didn't save everyone and there is, like in Timeline B, no link. This will be called timeline C. Meanwhile in the A timeline, link has saved Termina and found a way to return to Hyrule. At one point there is Twilight Princess which started while link was away in Termina, Ganondorf was sentanced to execution by the sages and was then sent to the twilight Realm where eventually Link killed him. Once again, in timeline C, a new link appears from another land. This is The Legend of Zelda Link. Jumping back to the A timeline again there is Four Swords Adventure where Ganon, after being killed in Twilight Princess has used his backup plan. When he first came in contact with the triforce in Ocarina of Time, he put a portion of his power in it. That way if he was ever killed and had the triforce taken from him, he could bring himself back from the dead once. Reeking havoc he is sealed in the Four Sword, and before Vaati is killed, he secretly uses the last of his power to reset everyone's memory. This spell does not take place untill after the Four Sword has captured Ganon. With everyone forgetting these events Ganon takes advantage of the situation to teleport himself back to the sacred realm, turning it into the Dark World. Using the guise that Agahnim, his puppet, had actually ended the problems caused by himself and Vaati, he was able to get a pawn close enough to the King to take over and break the seal that binds him to the Four Sword. Sending Zelda and the other decendants of the Sages that first attemted to kill him and bound his power into the Dark Word, he was able to undo the seal on his power and open up portals to the Light world. Link Kills him. At the same time as this, Back in good old Timeline B, Wind Waker is taking place. Ganondorf is killed at the same time in both Link to the past and The Wind Waker.
A short while afterwords in Timeline C there is the Adventure of Link. Now for the most confusing part... Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. Ages takes place in timeline C (because that link lived in a Hyrule that was much closer to the sea), and Seasons takes place in Timeline A. After Criss-Crossing over they then combine when Ganon is killed (again) as the timelines were at that exact moment, perfectly equal. After Link says his goodbyes and leaves on a boat for training, he gets caught in a storm. This leads to Links Awakening. Meanwhile in timeline B, there is Phantom Hourglass. So now there are 2 Timelines left... Timeline AC and Timeline B. Will these two timelines ever reconect? That my friends is another story.
