The Zelda Timeline videos from Screw Attack

The Zelda Timeline has always been one of my side hobbies. I love talking Zelda lore with others who can stand to do the same. I realize that it’s not as deep as the lore for, say, The Lord of the Rings or other fantasy works, and I also realize that the philosophy of Shigeru Miyamoto kinda disallows it to develop into a great work of coherent fantasy fiction. And then there’s the fact that the format (video games) is more concerned with making a game fun than for it to be a medium of lore delivery.

BUT – I still love it. I have to rely a lot on my head canon, and can make some justifications for gaps and inconsistencies in stories by remembering that in medieval/fantasy times there was more weight in oral tradition than in meticulous written records so some of the details can get a little sketchy from game to game.

Several years ago, Screw Attack made a trio of videos detailing the history of the Zelda Timeline, and it is extremely accurate to how I thought growing up. If I could make changes to it to make it better, the only things I would change are:

1. OH-ca-ree-na, not AW-ca-ree-na. Get it right.

2. He uses the word “scapegoat” when talking about Ganon defeating Link, when he should have used the word, “escape hatch.” A scapegoat is someone to blame that didn’t actually commit the transgression in question, while an escape hatch is an easy way out of a tough situation. In this case, the tough situation is reconciling conflicting historical details from separate games.

3. A couple of the music transitions are a little awkward (specifically at the introduction of the ALttP and SS sections). I would just cut the music slightly differently.

4. The expectation that the story (or what little there is of it) would take place in the game for Zelda 1 & 2. That's how games are now, but back in the NES and early SNES days, any semblance of story was almost always in the manual, prologue, and epilogue. It just seems like they're imposing modern standards on older games. 

Other than those very minor changes, the videos were perfect. But now they are incomplete, as there have been 3 more Zelda games that have been made since then.

Enjoy!