Fans are prone to certain annoying behaviors regarding unreasonable expectations of hyper-consistency from media, to the point where it’s detrimental to the media itself. I say that, but I’m honestly not certain how true it is, because I know examples where the fans were not to blame for settings hemming themselves in with lore, but I can’t actually think of examples where this problem actually did happen in response to fan demand. Star Trek is the stereotypical example of fans having a higher demand for lore consistency than creators, but I haven’t actually checked. Is that true?
The most egregious example of people blindly assuming that a lore tumor was the result of creators giving into fans is the Zelda timeline. It’s not an uncommon opinion that the Zelda games are meant to be retellings of the same basic story with new twists, a legend with no specific continuity, and that the fan efforts to impose a timeline on them are to the detriment of the games, especially when the games feel pressured to play along with things like the Hyrule Historia releasing official timelines and cramming in games that clearly want to be their own thing into the timeline.
That sounds like a thing fans would do, but it is a matter of historical fact that this is not the case. Every problem with the Zelda timeline, including the existence of a Zelda timeline at all, is Nintendo’s fault. The “the games are just legends with no specific timeline and which frequently retell the same story in different ways” interpretation is a fanon retcon that ignores the lore of the games. Not supplemental material like the Hyrule Historia book, but the games themselves.
The first game in the series is the Legend of Zelda. The Adventure of Link is a direct sequel. A Link to the Past is declared a prequel by its title and the back of the box – this is only true in English, the Japanese title and marketing is different, so it does seem like the developers intended Link to the Past to be a Super Nintendo remake of the NES original similar to Super Castlevania IV, but the fans are not to blame for taking Nintendo of America at their word. Ocarina of Time is a direct prequel to Link to the Past, depicting the events of Link to the Past’s opening cut scene. Majora’s Mask is a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time. Wind Waker is also a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time. Twilight Princess is also also a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time. Every one of these three games makes explicit references back to Ocarina of Time without referencing one another, in addition to Ocarina having been a prequel to Link to the Past in the first place – this is where most of the trouble comes from. And then Phantom Hourglass is a direct sequel to Wind Waker, and Spirit Tracks is a direct sequel to Phantom Hourglass. Skyward Sword is not a direct prequel to any specific title (it makes no reference to the plot of any game besides itself), but it is very explicitly the first game on the timeline.
By the time the Hyrule Historia was released in 2011, the only Zelda games that did not have explicit placements on the timeline were the handheld games Link’s Awakening, Oracle of Ages/Seasons, and Minish Cap, plus the Four Swords multiplayer mode for the Link to the Past Gameboy Advance port and the Four Swords multiplayer game made for Gamecube based on that mode.
Even if we count the original Legend of Zelda and Link to the Past as retellings of the same story and thus not on the same timeline as one another, and remove Adventure of Link as being lore-incompatible with Link to the Past’s version and therefore also count it as incompatible with the timeline, that still means eight games are in some kind of timeline with each other (Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Skyward Sword), while another eight are free floating with no connection to the main timeline (Legend of Zelda, Adventure of Link, Link’s Awakening, Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons, Minish Cap, Four Swords, Four Swords Adventure). And those eight games include the Oracle pair in continuity with one another and the first two games in continuity with one another, and also includes Four Swords mode as a game unto itself rather than a prototype for Four Swords Adventure. And also most of these games weren’t made by the main Zelda team, and exactly zero of them are incompatible with the main timeline – most of them can be dropped in wherever and it’s fine. The timeline snarl comes from games in the main timeline, because they are mutually incompatible sequels to Ocarina of Time.
By the time Hyrule Historia came out, the point when Nintendo allegedly gave in to fan demand and cranked out a half-assed timeline because the fans were desperate for all the games to be in continuity with one another, fully half of all Zelda games were in a timeline with each other, including all the ones that made the timeline hard to keep straight.
Think that having a contrived three-way timeline split is the fans’ fault? Nope, Hyrule Historia invented that. The idea that there is a timeline where Link died and that’s why Hyrule is in decline in the original Legend of Zelda game and its sequel was not really something any fans were talking about before Hyrule Historia had a three-way timeline split.
Think that having multiple timelines at all is the fans’ fault? Still no, this was not a fan invention while trying to reconcile the mutually incompatible Wind Waker and Majora’s Mask, this was something Nintendo devs said in interviews before Wind Waker came out.
Twilight Princess isn’t hard to place on a timeline because it wasn’t intended to be part of a timeline in the first place. Twilight Princess is hard to place on a timeline because it was intended to be part of a timeline, and it turns out the timeline was bad.
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