Retronauts - 533: The Zelda Timeline

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Jeremy Parish, Stuart Gipp, Diamond Feit, and Nadia Oxford join together like a Triforce of knowledge (with a bonus piece) to explore the absolute mind-boggling inanity of The Legend of Zelda's chronology. Which timeline is canon? (And which is thirstiest?) Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts

This week's episode of Retronauts is brought to you by Factor, America's number one meal kit. For this week on Retronauts, Princess Zelda tells you to go fork yourself. See, because the timeline forks, you know, branches. Anyway, I go to, yeah. Hi, everyone. Welcome to podcast town. I am Jeremy Parrish, the mayor, the mayor of this town, this sad little village of four. And we're going to talk about, um, high rule and, uh, Hyrule village, which is also a sad little village of four.

So it kind of works out. Yes, this is, um, an episode on. the Zelda timeline, Retronauts Episode 533, in honor of or, you know, timed to the exciting new Zelda release for this month, which is a Game Boy conversion of Zelda's Adventure for CDI. It's, uh, it's just going to be popping off. Everyone go download it now from Ichio, uh, itchio, whatever it's called, itchio. It's so cool. Yeah. So, um, you know, this is, this is, uh, groundbreaking, epical news. So I feel like we should do a Zelda episode, just off, you know, spur the moment, totally unplanned, just to take advantage of this big release.

So here improvising with me this morning or this evening, depending, or this afternoon, I guess, depending on where you are, we're global. Let's start on the same continent that I currently reside on, which is North America. Who are you, fellow North American resident? I'm Nadia Oxford, and I cannot wait to bomb some dodgos. Wow, that sounds so rude and yet And yet, it is my destiny And let's see We'll travel

Against the earth's rotation And go to Europe Or a little, little offshoot A little European archipelago The little shitty little country that decided to forsake to Europe Yeah, it's a little turd that Europe pinched off Yeah Oh god, hi, yeah

No, no Sorry, I'm going to be over there in six weeks, and I'm excited about it. I think it's completely fair fucks, to be honest. Hi, I'm Stuart Jip, and this week I canceled my pre-order for Tears of the Kingdom because I realized there's no point. Wow. Because you, just the state of the world, we create enough tears on our own? I just keep trying to play Breath of the World, and I respect the hell out of it, and I think it's a 10 out of 10. And it's just, I've just decided after like six attempts.

It's not for me. It's not for me at all. I don't need to play the sequel site on scene. I can wait. You know, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. Well, you know, Nintendo games always get steep discounts within a few weeks. Yeah, you'll be good.

You'll be able to find it cheapest chips, as they say, on the high street. It'll be on sale in Steam in a couple of weeks. Summer sales coming up. It'll be 1550 on Fanatical with a little bundle of three extra on Nintendo games, 149. Yeah, thanks for mentioning Tears of the Kingdom, because I forgot a about that one, but I guess the incipient release of Tears of the Kingdom is also a good excuse for us to talk about the Zelda series. So actually, this episode works out really well. The timing is amazing. Wow. You can't see it, but I'm patting myself on the back.

Where else in the world do we need to go to introduce ourselves? Oh, there's another little archipelago, but it's off Asia, not Europe, which even though they're the same continent are actually different continents. It's really weird. Anyway, who are you? Good morning, everyone. This is Diamond Fight. And, you know, some people call them the hero of times. Probably people call them the Grindr of Time. But based on my region, we call them the wedge of time.

It's a wedge. Wait, Link is on Grindr? Oh, my God. Where's my fucking phone? I was going to say, time to download some shit. So we're learning all kinds of things about the Zelda timeline here. You know, you try to make a sandwich joke, and it turns out it's a dirty joke about something. Oh, oh, oh.

Right. Okay, got it. I'd make a sandwich with Link. I'm so out of touch with what the young people want. It's, you know, fight is originally East Coast. So that's where they call them grinders. They also think Dunkin' Donuts is good on the East Coast. I don't know. Oh, I get it.

Like a Hero sandwich. Okay, now I get the joke. Now I get the joke. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a good diamond. That's a good diamond. Thank you. But that said, he's still, Link is still an absolute gorgeous catch, I tell you.

Oh, absolutely. One of my first crushes in video games. Yeah, I mean, the timeline originally split when they decided to model Ocarina of Time Link after Leonardo DiCaprio. And they were like, yeah, the hormones are going either this way or that way. And that's the beginning of it all. I mean, the Zelda series is deceptively horny, isn't it? Like, there is a deceptive warning that's going on.

Oh, and they are, they just decided to straight up lean into it after I think they saw the responses to the champions in Breath of the Wild. Yeah. Well, yeah. So, yeah, now all the key art that we've seen of Gannon and Link for Tears of the Kingdom is just them without their shirts on. It's like you can have the little slender guy or you can have the really big beefy guy, but either way they're not wearing shirts. Or you can have the fish who's not wearing anything. Oh, God, the Zoras, yeah. Did anyone see that edit that someone did of Gannendorf without the beard and he's got like no chin. That was really funny.

Disturbing. Chins are a valid accessory for, I mean, beards are a valid accessory for those of us without chins. I had to get surgery to get a chin. Really? Oh, yeah, I had jaw surgery. And I was 15, 14, broke my jaw,

reset it, and couldn't eat solids for six weeks. So what you're saying is if I want to get a jaw, I need to break my jaw first, then they'll fix it for me. You got to get health care to pay for it. So if you want health care to pay for it, you got to get punched in the jaw. NHS, NHS, what can I say?

But we didn't go that route. We actually paid for it. Okay. I could have that surgery done here and be bankrupt. There you go. Good job, America. Anyway, so now that we've talked about horniness, I'm sure that that topic is never, and broken jaws, which probably makes some people horny. I'm sure I'm sure that the topic of horniness will not come up again in this podcast.

No, absolutely not. No, very chaste. It's Sunday. It's the Lord's Day Parish. Have some class. That's right. So my first question to all of you is, do you care about continuity in video games, but especially in the Zelda series? Nadia, you said you started to care with a link to the past.

So why? Why do you care? That was actually a bit of a lie. I think I started to pay attention around Zelda 2, the adventure of Link. And that's funny because that was my first Zelda game. And going over the instruction booklet back when those were a thing, I noticed how it really kind of built off not just the first game, but the history of Hyrule in general. And I found that really fascinating. And then when you get to Zelda 3, a link to the past, you see they dive into that a bit more and talk about the, I think it was called the Unif, no, it wasn't the Unification War or it was like the sealing war or something like the imprisoning war.

That's it. So, yeah, they've been talking about the Zelda timeline for a long time. So, and then Occurino Time, like, that's when it really kind of blew up, as we'll get into. So, yeah, I've been always paying attention to the timeline, but not really stressing over it. Like, if I, I don't think about, like, oh, Link's Awakening and instantly think, oh, that's the timeline of last hero. That's the hero's defeated timeline. I don't think like that. I don't really care where Breath of the Wild fits in or will fit in.

To me, it's, and this is what the developers intended, I think. It's gameplay first and story second, and the story's always good enough on its own without dealing with timelines. Yes, we are talking about a series that was originally produced by Shigira Miyamoto. And Miyamoto's an interesting person because he aspired to be a mangaka and create comic stories. But once he got into video games, he was like, you know what? As long as there's just like a premise, that's all you need. That's all the story. Please don't put more story than that in video games.

He gets very angry about it. That explains a lot about the Mario movie, I think, actually, the lack of a story there. So, yeah, it's, you know, very faithful to the video games. But, you know, he's only been the producer or executive producer on these games. He does not direct the Zelda games. He hasn't directed a Zelda game. The very first direct Zelda game was directed by Takashi Tezika. So his influence has, I think, been somewhat tangential to the Zelda series. So all these people, People are just kind of sneaking in more and more narrative. And at some point, they had to lock it down and make sense of it. But anyway, Stuart, you haven't played a lot of Zelda games. Is that right? I have played a lot of Zelda games, but I have finished like two. Links Awakening, Minish Cap, and that is genuinely it.

Like, I've never finished any of the other ones. So you've never actually fought a Gannon, huh? I have, but in, what's it called, the stupid one? I hate that I play 5,000 hours. What hell is it called? Ira Warriors, that's it. Stupid one that I hate that I play 5,000 hours. Oh, my God.

It's garbage, but I love it so much. It's so bad. That's Muso, that's Muso, baby. That is Muso. No, that's one horny game. It's trash that you can't stop eating. It's like the Taco Bell of video games. I mean, for me, like, I think, like, speaking of sort of generally, I sort of see the narrative in Zelda is almost sort of akin to the narrative as something like king of fighters.

Like, you've got the Erocha saga. I couldn't give a shit, like, about any of that. But I like that it's there. I like that there are these connections for people to pick up on. I think that's fun. I can play these games and enjoy them as just a straightforward beat at, you know, eight dungeons, like the Final Wars, save the world. But then knowing that there's this whole kind of law in the background that you're just getting tidbits of,

drip feed of, I think it's fun. I like that. And I wouldn't want it not to be there. I mean, there is the sort of stories of Miyamoto's influence on, say, the Mario RPG where he's sort of, he's blamed often for stripping out a lot of the character from those games. I'm not sure if that's true. I have opinions on that. I'm like a big Paper Mario fan.

And I feel like Origami King was actually really excellent. And I know the battle system wasn't for everyone because, yes, the game does need to decide whether it's an RPG or an action game. But the story and the characters were great. But people are still saying, oh, he doesn't let there be different toads, therefore it sucks. He's kind of held up as a boogeyman. And I think we're kind of beyond that. but that's just my opinion. Yeah.

I'm not going to... Yeah, sorry, sorry. Oh, no, I was just going to say, like, starting with really Sticker Star, you know, people are so naked about that game. I think it's... I love that game. Jeremy, me and you, me and you, baby, till the end of time. We're going to do an episode someday.

Ride or die, sticker star. What a game that is. I think it's phenomenal. And that's really the first one where they were just like, other characters, you don't need those. Just have Toads everywhere. But they did so much. Like, the writing with the Toads is so creative and so...

So funny. So fluid. Like, because Toads are just everything and everywhere, they can do anything with Toads. And if you actually, you know, if you get over the fact that, no, you don't have the fun little companions this time. Instead, you've got like a box fan, a sticker of a box fan, actually. It's fine because the Toads are weird and funny and surprising and interesting ways. And they, you know, they like create this bizarre, ancient history and cultures for Toads that, you know, never, never, never factors in anywhere else. It's just like throwaway gags. And I think that's great. But, you know, for the Zelda series, I think there does need to be a little more concrete narrative. I feel like there is kind of a merit to be held up there to the Zelda series because they are like, you know, the Paper Mario games aren't connected either, strictly speaking, I would say, you might get like a small reference to them. But like, a thousand year door is the one that everyone holds up and it is a great game. But there's nothing in that that then carries on to say, stick a star, color splash.

or origami king, they're all just great games. And, you know, that's true of Zelda as well. If you don't want that kind of connection, you don't have to care about it. I didn't even know the games were connected until relatively recently, and it didn't affect my enjoyment of them at all. So I guess that's why I brought the comparison

to the Sixth Start, the best game I have been out of ten, you know. There you go. Faito, what about you? You know, I was there at Zelda from the start, and I feel like I'm okay with either one, I wish they would sort of pick a lane at this point because, you know, you had Zelda. And then you had Zelda, too, which is very clearly a direct sequel. Like, we're literally, you know, remember that kid?

He's a little older now and the monsters are mad at him. And then it's like, okay. Yeah, that's a great way of winning it. That's a great way of winning it. They bear grudges. They bear grudges. But then you get linked to the past. And link to the past is clearly not connected.

It's definitely totally different. Is it, though? I mean, it's like some sort of path. It's a prequel, so it could be anything it wants to be, basically. It's a link to the past. Right. What I'm saying is Zelda 1 to Zelda 2 is a very clear progression story-wise. And then the third game was very much off in its own direction.

Okerunate of time, very much in its own direction. Oh, my God, we're just blasting right past. Okay, there you go, Link's Awakening. You know, Link's Awakening in theory happens somewhere in there, but it's like, is it a sequel? Kind of, but it doesn't really play on any parts of it. So I feel like they sort of have these, they come and go with this stuff. You know, like Winwicker clearly was a offshoot of its own thing, but then they had those DS Zelda's that very much clearly wanted to have, oh, this is more adventure to TuneLink.

And now Breath of the Wild seem to be another reset, and now we're getting this new game, which obviously is going to run with Breath of Wild. Like, I've heard they're using the same map even, so like there's going to be some sort of connection there. Yeah, it's the crackdown two of Zelda. Oh, my God. Don't does it that. Okay.

that was that was unnecessary exactly the same except there's shitty aliens now i do appreciate that these games are very uh forgiving in that you can come to them and if you haven't played a zeld in a while it's okay you're not going to get lost you know you know you're going to get the sword you you're going to get the shield you're going to fight these things you're going to you know open a chest and you know you break some pots like you know this is all going to happen so i do appreciate that because you know let's be honest i've played a lot of zelda games but i also haven't played a lot of Zelda games. So when Breath of Wild came out and everyone was super excited, but I was like, oh, geez,

it's been a while since I played a 3D Zelda, but everyone seems to love this one. And I loved it. So it was great that I didn't have to put it up and, you know, sit through 10 minutes of a character. I didn't know talking to me about, well, remember that time we were on the mountains together and we had that campfire, and then we lit that the dragonfly and what? So I appreciate the Breath of the Wild just sort of started from scratch again, even though there's very clearly like breadcrumbs there to relate to other games here in, you know,

little things, I think that's probably, at this point, that's probably the best they should do because you can't actually expect all these things to connect together. Like, we'll get to it. But the document that they've presented to us is an insult. I'm sorry. It's nonsensical. So, that was, that was my next question. Do you mean the Highroll Historia one?

The official timeline, yes. I don't mind. I think it's quite, I think it's quite fun. That forking nonsense. Well, it's like doing a It's like doing a fighting fantasy book Or a Choose Your Adventure Oh, good old fighting fantasy

Yeah If Link dies as a child Turn to page 16 Yeah Blatent plug I'm doing a fighting fantasy episode at some point It's definitely happening Oh sweet

Yeah, you should come on it Maybe I will Thank you. There's one thing we've learned from the recent Zelda games, it's that proper nutrition is important, even for the hero of time. For those of us who don't have an ocarino or whatever to rewind time and create extra space in our busy schedules, finding the time to prepare and enjoy food can be, you know, the dark souls of self-care.

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ranging from fresh fruit smoothies to extra proteins for your meals. And perhaps most importantly these days, Factor kits are affordable, especially for you. Right now, Factor is offering a special introductory offer for Retronauts listeners. Head to FactorMeals.com slash Retronauts 40 and use code Retronauts 40 to get 40% off your first box. That's code Retronauts 40 at Factor Meals.com slash Retronauts 40 to get 40% off your first box. And now back to that whole timeline. So that leads me to my next question. Does the Zelda timeline actually make a goddamn lick of sense?

As it is presented in Hyrule Historia. Yes and no. It's like, okay, I can understand the whole timeline split back to the future thing with like the hero is defeated or the hero is successful. When it gets to the hero successful, then it kind of branches off into two other timelines, which is a little bit confusing. but it is kind of grim when you think about it that like link dies this is something they thought of what would happen if link died against gannendorf because he don't think like that you think oh you're going to play operative time you win therefore zeld and link win forever and ever and then it's like no it's like there is a game over that is a permanent game over and if that happens well apparently link to the pass happens and that's kind of confusing to me because it says on the timeline link to the past ganon is revived he wasn't killed in the first place because link failed so does that just mean that just confuses me right from the start.

Did he, like, seal himself because he figured, well... Maybe it was like a double-k-o or something. Self-sealing. Even, yeah, even within the branching timelines to make sense of the storyline that Nintendo came up with, they're still retconning. Like, yeah, we'll talk about this, but the reference you just made, like, if Link doesn't succeed in Ocarine of Time, they kind of retconned that so that. I think the sages ended up defeating Gannon, in which case you have to wonder, like, why do you even need Link?

Oh, so they finally got off their ass, is what you're telling me. Yeah, basically, they were like, okay, fine, we'll do this. I thought that Link was, I'm sorry if I'm being very ignorant here, but my understanding was I thought that Link was supposed to be a hero that was resurrected as a different body repeatedly rather than just one guy. No, I don't believe so. Well, that would have made, that would have also made no sense to be fair. So the idea is that Gannon is the same guy. He's just a guy who's so pissed off in power hungry that he just won't freaking die. And he just keeps coming back even after being like in a horrible desiccated mummy form for a few millennia.

Link is just a dude who happens to like carry forward the predestined legacy of, of Hyrule. Zelda is always a different person, but she's always the incarnation of the goddess, or has the goddess's spirit in her. So there's like three different levels of predestined reincarnation continuity there, each for the different characters. I feel like I'm just, look, I'm not going to apologize any further for my ignorance, but how can Zelda be different if Link isn't? Like, how does that make sense? I think they're all just reborn, basically. right but so in smash brothers this is not a joke oh smash brothers no idea

no but is that why they have tune link adult link and young link is that but they're all from different timelines is that how that makes sense I don't think you're really supposed to put that much thought into the narrative of smash brothers it's a aren't they toys in smash brothers are supposed to be toys oh yeah fair play yeah it's true as well yeah they they are literally amoeboes now um amybo yes that's not that's not meant to be like a bit I just wondered if that's how they separate the three timelines, adult teen and child.

Sure. I mean, if they wanted to come up with some justification, they could do that. I don't know how they come up with the different Mario. Is Dr. Mario actually a different incarnation than Mario Mario, who's different than pixel Mario? See, you're getting existential here in a way that that franchise does not support. But looking at the timeline here from Herald Historia, on the right, you've got the hero of winds in a new world, right? I mean, that's all the two link games, right? That's Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks.

Oh, those are just the same, those are the same kid, yeah. Okay, okay, I'm sorry. There's no rebirth, reincarnation happening there. It's just like, I did the Wind Waker thing, then, you know, they flooded Hyrules, so we're going to go find a new high rule. And then, yeah, so fandom hourglass is them searching for a new high rule and having an adventure on route on the ocean. And Spirit Tracks says, hey, we found a new high rule.

And also there are train tracks. Yes. Okay. So all those three, but all the games with that timeline are the cell-shaded tunelink games. That's how you're... Okay. I'm sorry. I'm right. This is really me trying to... No, no, no. It's all nonsense. So please, this is like a Socratic lecture and we need you to express the ignorance. You know what's really throwing... The lector can step up and share his wisdom. It's really throwing me off that the middle timeline has the two darker games, Majors Mask and Twilight Princess, and then Four Souls Adventures is there. Right. So basically they had these incredibly harrowing, like, dark games.

Like, Twilight Princess is maybe the darkest of the Zelda games, I would say. Maybe. I'm going to say Major's Mask is there, but yeah, they're both pretty dark. Major's Mask is up there. But then you've just got these four idiots just twatting around, like throwing each other in, throwing a repeat of each other. And I assume TriForce Heroes is also there, so it's like... No, that means being stricken from the record. Here's the moon crashing into the Earth, and now...

Fashion Show. Cartoon Link can be a cheerleader. And now the terrible game for you. use a place. But that's what I'm talking about, you know? It's like, whenever you get a new Zelda game, you never know which directs they're going to go in, whether it's, okay, you like the last Zelda game, here's more, here's more of that, or it's, we started over kids, but we have a document that makes it all

makes sense to us, but not to you, you know, it's a little strange. I feel like they should embrace, I don't know, I'm going to get in trouble for this, but I feel like they should embrace the Terminator model where it's like, everything's a retcon, it doesn't matter, you know what I mean? Like, if you, if every Terminator movie technically happened, there'd be like a dozen Arnold's in Southern California at any given time. It doesn't matter because it does, each one rewrites the old Arnold and somehow it all works out.

Does it all work out? Yeah, I haven't seen Genesis, so I can't speak to that. I haven't seen anything since half of Terminator 2 and then I stopped watching. Half of Terminator 2. Yeah, well, I watched the first half and I was like, man, this kid is annoying and I turned it off, and then I didn't get that to it. It has guns and roses. It makes up for the annoying kid.

That's fair. I'll go back to it one. Yeah, so I kind of feel like Breath of the Wild is an attempt to sort of reconcile all the timelines by saying and then 2,000 years happened and now here's

another link and everything else that happened before this is shrouded and mystery. So at this point, you know, if they build off the Breath of the Wild like is at a departure point for the rest of the series whoever, you know, however long that keeps going I think

you can kind of say like well, it doesn't really matter which timeline happened because in the end, everything was all messed up, and there were giant robots, and Mummy Gannon came back. It feels a bit like the, I mean, with thinking about sort of how the Switch kind of, or the Wii U as well, started with Breath of the Wild, and we're getting another big mainline Zelda game on the same system, which is kind of weird, like to be a direct sequel. I mean, I know we had Wind Waker and Twilight Princess both on the GameCube, but Twilight Princess again crossed the bridge to the Wii, didn't it? Yeah, I mean, that was really a Wii launch game. But here... Then on Wii, you also had Skyward Sword.

With Tears of the Kingdom, though, it feels like they're setting up, like, I mean, how can they go back to anything else once they've done this? Like, it feels like Apex. Like, this is the most they can do to me. And it makes me think that after this, things are going to be much more straightforward. But because all they've done is make this and remakes, you know, they did Twilight, Solite, Skyward Sword, they did Link's Awakening again. And I wonder if that's what we're going to get sort of as a pattern from that one.

I do wonder if they're trying to remake these games to reconcile them more into the timeline somehow. I don't know. I mean, where does a series go from here? Probably games as a service. I'm very sorry. Jesus, don't say that. I have to leave now. Little frigging cursor equipping link with a sword that has a one number higher.

I mean, I don't, thank you. I don't want to say this cynically, but it's like, whatever they're going to do, it's going to depend on what sells, right? Like, if Tears of the Kingdom sales a lot, and it probably will, then they'll be tempted to like, okay, well, then let's do this. But if they make one and somehow it doesn't work out

or something goes awry or, you know, someone behind the scenes, you know, leaves the company midway through and things got a mess. Then someone else could come in. It's like, okay, you know what? Alunuizera is over. I am now in charge of the Zelda,

and we're going back to Toon Link. It's like, you know, who can stop them? I can't stop them. I literally cannot. You are helpless. in the face of it, I don't know. I mean, you do live, you do live one town over from Kyoto. So you could, you could like, I don't know, pick it, protest.

Books there is. I'm not going to, I'm not going to suggest terrorism here. But, you know, up to that point. But, I mean, I'm not saying you should terrorize, but. I'm trying to imagine, I'm trying to imagine the site of me protesting outside Nintendo headquarters and the exact amount of zero crap. that anyone inside the building cares about the guy watching outside. I mean, I'm not saying that you should use violence to coerce them, but it does work.

It's historically proven to work, I'm just saying. This is the point where people usually start talking about guillotines, and I think that might be taking it a little too far. So let's dial back the radical rhetoric. The problem with using the guillotine is it would just break immediately, and then you have to go and find another one. There's a Zelda joke there. Well, as long as you know how to craft a new one. A plus. Go catch some fireflies.

and mushrooms. So we should actually talk about the chronology of Zelda. But here is a relevant quote from Miyamoto that someone pasted into the notes. Thank you, whoever that was. That was you. I figured it was you. Yes. Thank you for that.

For every Zelda game, we tell a new story, but we actually have an enormous document that explains how the game relates to the others and bind them together. But to be honest, they are not that important to us. We care more about developing the game system. Give the player's new challenges for every chapter that is born. I will never deny the importance of a great story, but the plot should never get that important that it becomes unclear. He's right.

Classic Miyamoto. That's a 20-year-old quote. That's from 2003. Wow. Can I just say something really British? Classic Shigzy. That was very British. Thank you.

I don't care for that. Classic Stewie. All right. Anyway, so yes, the storyline. of Zelda doesn't really matter. And yet, we are nerds. And as such, we tend to like, terrible nerds. We tend to like consistency and connections and taxonomy. Like, nerds just can't help it. We've got to see how things fit together. And sometimes that results in horrible things like infinite Star Wars prequels that, you know, like, hey, here is a throwaway line or a small character in a movie.

some guy made on a, you know, like, stoned out of his mind in the Tunisian desert 50 years ago. Can I briefly interject that's a very relevant anecdote? Now, I'm going to, okay, cover your ears, because I'm going to slightly spoil an incredibly minor thing about Evil Dead Rise, if that's okay. This is the kind of continuity that I like, personally, and I think it does relate to Zelda, because this is kind of what they're doing with this little drip feed of little lines. But there's a bit in the movie where they, when they listen to the Necronomaconte, like they always do in these movies, because they're stupid. and you hear Bruce Campbell in the background shouting it's called the Book of the Dead for a reason and the director said yeah that's actually

time displaced Ash Williams which puts him in the movie canonically makes then ties that movie to the other Evil Dead movies in a really minor way that makes perfect sense I think and that's the kind of thing that gives me little nerd shivers and I think that's a great

little things like that always make me really just happy as a terrible awful appalling nerd But no, I do like that kind of continuity, like the sense that, hey, there's something, some sort of connection here, but we don't have to make it explicit. And in that sense, the Zelda series works. And actually, I think a lot of people kind of got upset about the Zelda timeline because it took away that freedom to interpret. And even though Nintendo has said, hey, you have the freedom to interpret as you choose to, you know, see fit. the fact is they authorized and published a book through Dark Horse Comics that explicitly lays out how all the games up through Skyward Sword are interconnected. So how much freedom do you really have to say like, no, no, this is what they've officially said and how this,

you know, how they're building the games, but in my brain. I mean, yeah, sure, like people on archive of our own do that. But it's, yeah, it's kind of hard to just like, ignore the fact that there is, like, an official statement, so... Well, the fact is they didn't account for head cannon, which is the most important thing of all, you know? Basically, they were saying, we have a story, we have a timeline, enjoy it, but please don't fight on the internet about it. And then everyone filing the internet about it. Yes. What we have to do, basically, is we have to seize TV tropes and destroy it.

That's what we have to do. That's the only way forward. It's already, then, like, 50 hydra heads were really spawned from TV tropes. So it'd be impossible. stop us from categorizing everything. You can't stop this. TV Troops was fun back when it was brand new, and it was just like, hey, here's all these things that are, you know, common fictive elements that you see.

That was enjoyable, and then it turned into something different. It's horrible. It's ridiculous. It's like, they have a trope, which is like guy with a hat, and it's like subverted. This guy doesn't wear a hat. Shut up. What are you talking about? Stop italicizing everything.

Okay, the rest of this podcast is now going to be me pissed off at TV trips. Okay. I mean, Link wears a hat in most games, right? There you go. Yeah. Most links wear hats. And sometimes the hat snarks at him, and that's great. Yeah. That is always good. Talking hats, their way forward. All right. So we, instead of just like going through the Hyrule Historia document and giving a straightforward talk about that, what I'd like to do is talk about how the concept of chronology and the timeline evolved throughout the history of the Zelda series. as it was released. Since Diamond and I have been there since the start, I don't know about, Nadia,

you said Zelda 2 was your first? Zelda is my first, but I did like play Zelda. I had a neighbor kid who had it. Okay. So we've, we've kind of all followed it from the beginning. And, you know, a lot of, within the games, the early games, there wasn't really much in the way of explicit continuity stated or even really story, just like you got the little scroll, King of Darkness, Gannon, kidnapped Princess Zelda to get, you know, three Triforce of power and hit them in dungeon. Just like terse, barely grammatical. That was it. But if you read the manuals, that's where things got interesting.

But the original Zelda, I mean, there was no continuity because it was the only game. It was like, here is a game. Here is a little kid. He doesn't want to go alone. So he takes a sword and he walks into the mountain and stabs the pig man to save the princess. The end. And that was fine. That was pretty much the way the first game was.

But I actually put it this way. The instruction booklet story for the second Zelda game was so in depth that in Canada, half of it got nerfed because they had to fit the French. So I remember getting my husband's instruction booklet because he's from American. I'm going through them. I'm like, there's a whole lot of shit here I didn't see in my own childhood. You have a whole bunch of art that we don't have. So, yeah, that's just a bit of a funny bit of trivia.

I'm wondering if the, I wonder if the Pell Region one is even worse because it has to fit like French, German. Here's this one page. Yeah. It's just like, look, just press the button. Stuff will happen. It doesn't matter. It's a princess, kid.

Get the princess. Princess E. I don't know. Princess goal. Although in two, you have to wake her up. Wake up princess. Right. So in the first Zelda, you are Link and you need to rescue Zelda from Gannon.

And in Zelda 2, you are Link and you need to wait. and you need to wake up Princess Zelda and avoid the resurrection of Gannon. So it's basically the same story. I kind of feel like if you look at games Shiger Miamoto has supervised, he's like okay with a story that consists of Hero saves Princess from Evil. And that's kind of the beats he stuck with. If you were to just play Zelda 2 after playing the original Zelda without reading the manual, one, you'd be really confused because, wow, this plays totally differently, but two, you would just assume that, hey, you're trying to rescue the princess again. Someone put her under a sleeping spell or something. And also you're trying to avoid Zelda being resurrected because whenever you die, it says return of Gannon. So that's all pretty straightforward. But no, if you read the manual, that wasn't enough. They went into, they built this completely ridiculous and

totally arcane story to justify like, hey, you got to save Princess Zelda again. They're like, no, no, no, it's a different Zelda. And she's been asleep for thousands of years. So you have to wake her up and get a kiss from a lady with morning breath. It's really, I really got to say, I got to admit this. I had no idea there was another princess. I just assumed, because Link is clearly an older, a little bit older. And the Gannon stuff is clearly a reference to the fact that he beat Gannon so they want to bring Gannon back. So you have these three characters again, Link, Zelda, Gannon, and two of them are clearly the same. Link is a little bit older. Gannon is much deader. And it's like, I just assumed, oh, the sleeping Zelda has got

to be, yeah, like a sleeping beauty, something happened. Yeah, exactly. You know, when I read these notes, and I was like, wait a second, and I went back and read the manual in both languages, and they both have very clearly, it's like, it's like someone in the office decided, oh, wait, we actually have to make a legend of Zelda in our legend of Zelda game. It's like, you didn't? You didn't actually have to do this? Like, like, the game itself was the legend. It's cool as they did, though. But apparently, no, in canon, a king said, oh, all women are now Zelda. Like, what? What?

Are there any, like, that's real? I didn't make the set. Are there any, like, key differences between the English and Japanese that are, like, kind of interesting to bring up, or is it all pretty basically the same? I thought, I think the English staff took the Japanese book and just translated in English. Like, it seemed to all flow in the same direction. It seemed to be very clearly telling the same story. So, yeah, I would have assumed for a lot.

long time that the backstory was like an invention of the localization because they did that a lot back in the day. They were just like, you know, there's all this like horse hair plant stuff in the Mario manual. They just like made things up. Horsehair plant. What are you talking?

Oh, yeah, yeah. The citizens of the mushroom kingdom have been transformed into bricks and horsehair plants. So any time you break a brick in Super Mario Brothers, you're killing a toad. It's terrible. What the hell of the horsehair plants? What's happening? That's what you all asked in our childhood. I don't know if it's yeah the clouds of bushes it's

the world's gone mad so so the thing the thing that that kind of made me say well maybe this was the intent of the original you know Japanese development staff is that there's all this great artwork in the American manual that clearly is you know uh Japanese manga anime art it's not it's definitely not drawn by an American so like you know that is that does seem to be like a you know an element of the Japanese manual so

So last night I looked it up. And yes, the Japanese manual just kind of lays out the same story. So somewhere along the way, they said it's not enough to just save the same princess. There has to be another princess by the same name who's been asleep for a thousand years. And you've got to save her too. So now at the end of Zelda 2, there are two Zeldas running around in Hyrule. Yeah, what was the other one doing? And one of them is, I don't know. Like, who is the rifle monarch. Like, there's some real succession questions happening at the end of the constitutional crisis. Absolutely.

And in the coronation week as well, I can't believe it. Oh, shit, that's right. Like, which one is princess? Which one is queen? I didn't vote for either of them. Just guillotine. All right. You know what makes it easy? Here's what makes it easy. Just pretend that the Link and Link's adventure is actually Zelda dresses Link. There it is. Oh, there we are. She's the hero now. Hmm, I like that. So basically one, like basically everything was fine.

They managed to make it to the second game before they completely ruined it. Like it just, yeah, absolutely, like Sonic the Hedgehog tier level of ruining it. Just like absolute nonsense. Okay, fair, well, I don't know, the Sonic 2 introduce a lot of continuity. No, no, the Sonic is, the Sonic series is just kind of, just a, the story is just a bunch of completely arbitrary drivel that people constantly try divine meaning from. Oh, okay. When the actual meaning is just, hey, I'm Sonic. buy my products.

That's, you know, that's it. Buy my shit. Buy my shit, pretty much. Yeah, yeah. But I was created solely to accrue profit kids. Let's go. Yeah, but no, Zelda's not like Sonic in many ways. Stay tuned for the upcoming ways that Zelda is like Sonic to our episode with me.

I mean, let's be honest, if we started playing, if I start playing Tears of the Kingdom and Zelda walks up to Link, she's like, Link, am I have a burden? I'm going to lose my mind. Oh, my God. I forgot about that. My mind is going to explode. Sonic frontiers, Jesus Christ. Is it tears of the kingdom or is it tears of the kingdom? That's my question.

It is tears. That's been confirmed. But there was a mention of tears. There has been a mention of tears in one of the movies. I noticed that. That's annoying because that's going to be my next 40 minutes, so I've got nothing. Oh, you're going to tear them a new one. I like that.

All right. So, yeah, with Zelda 2, the manual introduced a very, very elaborate backstory for the Zelda franchise that spanned hundreds of years and I guess created a reason for princesses to be named Zelda. So at that point, it's canon, princesses are going to be named Zelda. But there's no mention of like another link. There's no mention of Gannon having any influence on the events of the previous, you know, millennia. It was like just some sorcerer who corrupted the prince and they ended up putting the princess to sleep. It's kind of nonsense. But like, you know, it adds a third triforce to the mix, which kind of makes

sense. It's like, oh, there's two trifors. I guess they're triangles. But, you know, you throw a third one in there. And then, then it really, it becomes the triforce. It really shines. The whole tri-part makes sense at that point. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, at that point, all of a sudden, like, if you take the time to read the Zelda 2 manual, it's like, wow, there's, this, this seems unnecessary. Like, even at the time, I was kind of like, this seems ridiculous, but okay, sure, why not? I'm going to go try to beat the Great Palace. I am very fond of the fact that they have thrown this immediate, like, chronological nonsense in.

Like, it really is fun. Like, it gives you something to get your teeth into straight away and try it together, although back then you would be doing so when I'd done, bulletin boards and, like, stuff like that. Right, but you'd also like try to take into account the Zelda cartoon and like, how does this back down into things? Oh, but it reminds me of the Mega Man network and just constantly try to reconcile the Mega Man classic to X and to zero and what stuff. I can do it. They're all linked except for a battle network. You said the wrong thing, Stuart. Now this is now Nadia's Mega Man continuity podcast. For love of God, let's do that at some point. I would love to do that.

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All right, so we're going to skip the suffering circuits and talk about a game called A Link to the Past. Now, in Japan, this was called Kamigami no Triforce. I believe that's correct, the Triforce of the gods. So there's no mention of chronology. It's just gods. But I guess when they localized it, Nintendo was like, whoa, Americans, they're only like one god. and we're not going to talk about him. But there's actually, like, also, the Christian god is also kind of a Triforce with the whole Father, Son, Holy Spirit thing. But let's maybe avoid all of that.

This is a kind of thing you'd see on a church sign, the real Triforces, isn't it? That's right. Boy, be the hero of time. Experience the true Triforce. So, anyway, the name, A Link to the Past, was an invention of the American localization.

And to me, that always implied that this was a prequel to the original Zelda. And I think Nintendo Power kind of put forward that view. I know I didn't just invent that whole cloth. Like, there was some sort of marketing or commentary that made me say, ah, yes, this is how it is. I'm not that inventive. I'm not that creative. Even like as a child playing the game, and I knew about Zelda too, and I was reading

the instruction book for this game, and as for Link to the Past and playing the game itself, the way that it talked about a war, but it made it sound like it was at the start of Hyrule's history. So I kind of got that impression right away. Okay, this is a prequel. This is not Zelda 3 in the sense that it's going to follow Zelda 2 immediately. Right? Everyone was calling it Zelda 3 before it came out. I think there's even, I think there's even like if you buy an original, yes, the original super NES box. I've got it right here. Zelda 3 coming soon. The legend continues in what is sure to be a chart-topping hit, because that's the important thing. It's not that you're having a great time.

It's that it's a chart-topping hit. Zelda is like Sonic. There you go. It is. It's all about capitalism. Is it worth very briefly mentioning that this was probably the first Zelda game to have more of a narrative in-game as well, right? I mean, like that ties it in a lot more to sort of events. You feel like it's a lot more atmospheric in that respect, I think.

You're a lot more kind of in there. So that's the thing that kind of got me at the time was like, hey, this is, you know, this is presented as a pre- to the original legend of Zelda, but also, this prequel starts kind of in Medias Rez. There's like hundreds, thousands of years of history that happened before this prequel. So in taking you back in time to before the first game, it's also saying, oh yeah, but there was all this other stuff that happened even further back in time that we're just not even going to touch on. Anyway, here's Wonderwall. You know, it's hitting me now. It seems like every Zelda game starts off.

with the, uh, the ghost of Thanksgiving pass from, from, uh, you know, like thousands of years ago. And every single game starts off with this giant epic story about what happened before anyone in this game was even conceived. And everything's, you know, everything's ancient. And someone was sealed away. And we hope this doesn't happen. But oh, no, it's back. And yeah, because every game starts off and it's always, we're always picking up with some sort of led. I mean, that's, there it is. There's always a legend there, but I never put out a connection. It's, uh, coming back to Zelda, I want some turkey. A link to the past, actually, still to my, for my money, still has one of the best

intros of any, like, in media res intros of any game out there. Oh, hell, yeah. They're written, not only the rainstorm, but also the, the, the way the story is presented when you let the title screen run is really, really good. The music, the dialogue, the, um, the narrative. It's all just, I still just kind of run through it once in a while because it's, is really well done. When you come out of the rain and into the castle and the music, it's absolutely amazing.

Oh, my God, I love this so much. Yeah, great, great sound design. Like, the Nintendo really tried to take advantage of the capabilities of 16-bit audio on the Super Nintendo. You know, we talked about the Metroid, Super Metroid sound design pretty recently. But, yeah, I linked to the past, the rain, like how it's muted when you're inside a house, but then it's, you know, louder and there's thunder that you can hear more clearly when you're outside. And then you go into the dungeon and just, yeah, like, it really kind of makes you feel like you're there as much as a 16-bit could, game could, yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, the point is, I link to the past, took you into the past, and then it said, oh, but there's all this other past before this past. So they just wouldn't commit. There's like, oh, okay, you know, like new wrinkles to the legend. Where do the Triforce come from? Well, actually, this doesn't really tell that. It just talks about, like, you know, where Gannon came from and the fact that he was defeated long before you defeated him, and then, you know, this is before you were going to

defeat him again. It's just a mess. And that's why Link's Awakening was nice, because none of that even mattered. It takes place on a standalone island that doesn't even exist. Nothing you do in Link's Awakening even happens. So that's, it's kind of comforting. Here's a direct sequel to a link to the past. It's the same link.

Sorry, that was marketed, well, not marketed, but it was referred to in, uh, UK magazines are Zelda 4 all the time. Good. Zelda for me. And it's my favorite one. It's my favorite one. I love it. So that's a nice little sorbet to cleanse the palate before we get into Ocarine of Time, where everything goes horribly awry. Now, Aquarene of Time, when you first start playing, it kind of seems like, hey, this is the origin

story of the Zelda series, because here's Gannon, except he's a human, well, Garudo, which I guess is a human, I don't know, named Gannendorf, but, you know, by the end of the game, he turns into Gannon, the horrible pig monster. That was so cool. Yeah. And there's like some time travel shenanigans, but also, like, as you start to talk to people, you know, characters like Mito and Sariah, if you've played Zelda 2, you're like, wait a minute, this is the name of all the little towns throughout Hyrule in Zelda 2.

So these are the people that they named the cities of Highland. firewall after. But of course, somewhere in Occurine of Time, you have a conversation where they're like, oh, yeah, actually, here's all this other stuff that happened thousands of years ago with the goddesses who made the Triforces and sent them to Earth and yada, yada, yeah. So it almost seems like they committed to a start point here. But then they were like, no, no, this goes even further back into the past. So this is a prequel to a link to the past, which is a prequel to the legend of Zelda. But still, there's prehistory here, things that happened before Ocarina of Time. All right, so when last we met, we were talking about Ocarine of Time,

which was followed immediately by a direct sequel that even more explicitly than any other game, like pair of games to this point, follows on the heels of Ocarine of Time by following the adventures of Young Leak, Link after defeating games. traveling back in time and going on a journey. And here our troubles begin, for real, because this whole idea of like, oh, you saved the world in the future and now you go back to being a kid, that's very sweet. Like, yes, go have an actual childhood instead of being frozen in a temple for 10 years while you turn into Leo DiCaprio.

Maybe that would account for why Leo only dates women who are like under a 25 because he was time frozen, denied his child. Anyway, that's probably not relevant. First did Leo DiCaprio take that. I didn't. I was just trying to better understand the man. Anyway, yeah, so Maduro's Mask takes place in, like, yeah, just there's all kinds of time travel shenanigans throughout Majora's Mask because you're constantly turning back time three days. But, you know, this whole thing, Nintendo looked at this and was like, ah, here's our opportunity. So, you know, around this time, I think they began developing the timeline.

master Bible, whatever you want to call it. I believe it's just called a magic book in the American translation. Yes, it is. Yeah. So anyway, after this, you have a few years of the Oracle's games, Four Swords, Adventures, which, you know, they kind of have stories. They kind of don't. They all seem sort of tangential to the Zelda thing. Like there's some, you know, there's a Zelda and there's a link.

It always confuse me a bit. Yeah, Oracle and seasons of Oracle and ages. If you had told me, Nadia, what is that a sequel to? I would have said, Occurion of Time, just because he had the horse. And the games came out so soon after O'Ready of Time. Everyone was super hyped for it. I mean, I don't know, but like the Oracle games, to me, stand out as different because they're not Nintendo developed, right? They're Capcom.

No, they're like Capcom, like Minish Cap. Flagship. Yeah. So it's easier to not write them off. But you can, it's easier to say just like, well, this doesn't count. This is, this, this is not, doesn't necessarily fit. This is like, I mean, do we have to count faces of evil now? Do we have to count Zolda's adventure?

Yes, yes, we do. Do we have the DIC cartoon? Come on. Well, of course, especially the deep cartoon. What about the game and watch? Was there any text on the back of the serial books? Does that, we didn't have those in Canada? I don't think the serial system, Canada.

I don't think it was legal in Canada because it was so shudder. I wish, I wish, I wish that Nintendo was still naming things that the Nintendo blank system. That would be amazing. The Switch Entertainment System. I still go around Nintendo. It's a serial. Wow. So anyway, we can kind of just elide over the spinoffs that are not part of the main continuity.

The little portable game. Good as they are. They are quite enjoyable. Yes. I love Mitch. But also, they kind of stand on their own and do their own thing, which just makes the whole master document that much messier. But it does bring us to 2003 and the Wind Wendwake. which is explicitly a sequel to Ocarina of Time,

but not a direct, like, follow on from, hey, here's the hero from O'Carina of Time doing more stuff, but rather, like, many, many years later, here is a game that is, you know, following on the footsteps of Ocarina of Time. So that link in the Wind Waker is the same link from O'Reaner of Time just that is being given his childhood back or something. In The Wind Waker?

yeah no he's he's a new kid named link he's like you said it was always the same link i no i did not say it was always the reincarnated link link link is always a different kid it's a destiny thing right unless it's a direct sequel but i oh there you will find out in a in a moment steward there is a there is an instance where link talks to his older like another link like there are different links but i i thought i thought earlier that we just okay well i can see that i've been barking up the wrong tree. You're barking mad. No, Gannon is always the same guy. He is a guy. He is just this one dude who's so pissed off that he will not die. He's just that ornery. Zelda is always a different woman unless, okay, you know, with the exception of direct sequels where, like, yes, this game

follows directly on the heels of the previous game, and these are the same exact characters. But when you're talking about, like, centuries apart, Zelda is always a different woman, but she always manifests the reincarnation of the goddess, Hilia. Like, that is, that is the spirit that moves her, like the Holy Spirit, but I guess, you know, cuter. Actually, I don't know what the Holy Spirit is like super cute. I don't know. Sorry, God, about that. I didn't mean to dish you. link is always just a kid he is a kid he's a new person he's born he grows up and he's just gonna be a hero

because he really likes the color green except in breath of the wild in which case he really likes the color blue but it's never it's never the same link unless again it is a direct sequel as in ocarine of time to majora's mask okay i got the wrong end of the stick but it's nice to have this lid up this is what we're here for so in the wind waker Link is just a really sleepy, tow-headed kid who grew up on an island with his grandma. And he likes to sneak around and throw pigs and stuff. And he has never saved the world. He has never fought Gannon.

He's just a kid. He's got a little lobster shirt and he's cute. I do love that shirt. Though in the end, he does stab Gannon fully in the head, which is really. Oh, yeah. That was really cool. Yes. He has his moment.

He brutally murders his man six times a size. Screw this guy. I love it. Also, the world of Winwaker is a little bit grim to me because it was under siege and the people of Hyrule cried, save us, save us. And the gods said, okay, and just flooded everything. Right? They're like, yeah, well. The Old Testament way of doing things.

You guys are really F now. Yeah, no, at the end, this cute little kid with a lobster shirt and the bedhead is like, this melancholy man seems so sad. I'm going to stab him in the face. It's great. It's the only thing to do. It was the correct thing. I mean, you've been fairly quiet. Do you have thoughts about the Winwaker? I was just going to say, you know, based on the events of Winwaker, it's, if Link always sort of is reborn and has the same destiny, this Link in particular really answered that call, you know?

For sure. He even had the roughest start. He had to sneak around that fortress in a stealth game. That sucked. I'm just going to say that right up front. So, like, he really had heroic determination. But when the time came, it's like, all right, see that guy? You got to stand. Stick your sword in his head. All right. And he did it. Done.

Sometimes you just got a. Didn't Link have a sister, though? I don't want to get too far off. Yeah, Ariel. Didn't Link have a sister in that game and that, did she factor into other games? Or is she just a brand new character and never came back? She was a brand new character as far as I know. I don't think she's been anywhere else either.

Okay. Yeah, I think at the end of Wind Waker, Link and Zalta go off to find, you know, a new Hyrule, since Hyrule gets flooded again. And they just leave everyone behind, including his sister and go to have adventures without her. I have a quite really, I have no way. That's a stupid question. I don't finish this game. Is, was Tetra Zelda secretly? Yes. Yes. Oh, what a twist. Okay. There's a weird thing where when she becomes holy, her skin gets lighter. Oh, that's not great. But I think, I think it's just like, I think, you know, she's, she's living a pirate life, so she's all tan. That's, yeah. That's the story I'm sticking to. Just covered in pirate filth. That's just, yeah, that's it. It's just a scurvy. It's just the scurvy. It's just the scurvy. It's just the scurvy. It's just the. It's just, it's just the scurvy. It's just. It's just, it's just the. It's just scourgy talking. Eats and Limes, yeah. But yes, the Wind Waker initially seems disconnected from other Zelda games, you know, and as much as it could be.

Like, yes, clearly there is a guy named Gannon who's kidnapping children, and that seems kind of bad, but is he the same Gannon? Sure. But, you know, it seems really, you know, just kind of like a story on its own, where does it fall, until you get to the undersea palace, at which point you're like, oh, wow, okay. So a long time ago, Ocarina Time happened, and now I just totally ruined everything

by taking the sword for myself. Way to go, dumbass. That was pretty cool, that was probably my favorite part of Wind Waker when you go below decks, so to speak, and you see this, like, totally restored Hyrule in this bubble. Yeah, yeah.

Like, that set piece is maybe the greatest in the entire series. Like, it's just, it's so striking and different than what has come before. And also, more than any other, game in the series, it really says like, hey, this is, you know, this follows on from what you've done before. And this is, this is not a hint. This is not a suggestion or an intimation. It's not explained in the manual. Like, this is explicit. You've been to this place before, you know,

as a different link, but you know this place as the player because you've, you've been here. You've done this. Breath of the Wild actually does that with striking, like, really powerfully if you go to Castle Town you go to like the epicenter of everything you will find Long Lawn Ranch and it will be absolutely decimated. I like it when Zelda pull stuff like that. So it's like this is a direct

sequel in some way to Occurion of Time because this is the Lawn Ranch. You can see everything was placed exactly where it was in the first game. Yeah and that's a world building trick they've been using since Zelda too because you know you're like you're in Hyrule but boy it doesn't look anything like the high rule I remember from the first

game but then you do get to that little patch of mountains and you're like, oh, okay, I recognize this. Wow, the original game took place in a really tiny little patch of land. This is like one acre. And you do get the opportunity to just smash the shit out of spectacle of rock, which is very satisfying. I did not know that about Windwick. See, now this is a sad confession. I'll be very quick. O'Creener of Time, like this year is the year I want to actually beat games that are classics that I've never been. And Our Queen of Time is on that list because I've never gotten much further than like the second or third dungeon in that game. I want to see all these

cool set pieces and I want to go on and play Wind Waker and see this stuff because it just it just sounds like it's really good, you know? It is. That's why Zelda's beloved for a reason. I really want to do that, so I'm just ensuring you naughty is that I will make time. You know, it's almost too bad. I feel like if

Tears the Kingdom had been delayed again, we might have gotten Winwaker on Switch. We might still. There's nothing on the horizon is. No, it's not. If I want to play it, I have to get out my Wii U. Oh, no. All right, so anyway, wind waker, that really shakes things up and makes you say, oh, there, there is a storyline here. There is continuity. Like, it's not just hints. once long ago, but now all of a sudden I'm seeing the actual places and events referenced.

So it kind of, you know, this is also around the same time that Miyamoto gave us quote about how there was a kind of comprehensive document that tracked the continuity of Zelda. So it all started to make sense. You're like, oh, hmm, they're actually paying some thought here. For better, for worse. So anyway, the next game is the Minish Cap, which has nothing to do with anything. No, it's pretty good. It's a great game. I really enjoy Minish Cap. But yeah, it is definitely, has that different feel to it because it's by Capcom, as Stuart and I were talking about earlier. And it's kind of in the before Ocarina timeline, but it just because it fits there. There's no real reason for it to be there except Link does get his cap, though. Link does get his hat, his iconic hat.

His Minish Cup. So we move on to 2006. I can't believe it was that long ago. God. 2006, Twilight Princess, a game that I beat in the space of like four. days locked in a room with it in order to get the earliest possible review that I could manage out on oneup.com. Oh, boy. And I enjoyed it. But it was also very confusing narratively because midway through the game, actually before that, you meet what is very clearly the ghost of link, like a different link, pretty likely the ocarina of time link. It just, it just has, like that feel about it, who's like, yeah, yeah, I fought Gannon. It didn't go so well. So I'm going to train you to be a swordsman. I'm like Obi-Wan, but I'm already dead from Vader. I'm going to teach you to, you know, use the force or use the Wii U. Is this a remote? And you're going to,

you're going to be, you're going to be Gannon for me. Is this Twilight Princess you're talking about? Yeah, Twilight Princess. Because that's actually in the successful story timeline. And I actually find that very interesting because, yes, you do meet this, yeah, you meet the shadow of Link. I'm looking at the timeline right now. It says, hero's successful. And you, but the reason, here's what happens. Okay, I wrote a whole thing about this for US Gamer, RIP. You meet the shadow of Link when you learn the song of healing from Majora's mask from that wolf. Like, you meet a wolf, he howls the song of healing, which is a thing in Twilight Princess. And the reason he's singing it is because, yeah, he is kind of a sad, damaged

shade. And the speculation, and I think was implied quite heavily, is that, okay, after Majora's mask, he didn't really do much else in the way of adventuring. And going by his dialogue, he never really had a chance to pass down his skills. And it's, you would think, okay, well, maybe he never had kids, but no, the Shadow of Link calls Real Link, you know, my son or my child or something like that. So my theory is that maybe he didn't need to fight because it was peaceful after Gannon was sealed. Maybe he wasn't allowed to. Maybe there was some sort of law against owning swords or whatever. And he just never was never able to teach his children how to fight. So he died with regret until you find him. He sings the song of healing, which you learn. And that's very iconic because the song of healing is like the big thing in Majora's mask that kind of put souls to rest. So by learning from him, you have put his soul to rest. Wow. That's quite moving. Okay. So my, uh, like I, like I, Like I said, when I played this game, I blew through it in like four or five days. So everything's kind of a blur.

So I guess I just totally. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I love it. I sure miss video game reviewing. Yeah, so I completely, I completely misread that or misremembered it. My God. It was, the reason I know it is because I used to do a column about game music for U.S. Gamer, and I decided to do the Song of Healing, which I knew from Ocreen of, sorry, from a Jora's Mask.

And I knew it kind of made an appearance in Twilight Princess, but I didn't. really think about the wiser hows. And that's when I kind of learned about the link, so to speak. And I said, oh, that's actually really interesting. I really do like the idea of a hero who died unfulfilled. Because Gannon, in his timeline, he, I'm assuming when Link comes back, he tells Zelda, hey, this Gryuda guy's up to no good. And so everything kind of stops before it happens. So, yeah, he just never really had a chance to swing his sword around as much he would have liked to, except maybe, well, I'm guessing if Kent, actually, now I think about it, if Gannon was killed, I don't know if Vajor's mask would have happened. I don't know. It's so

confusing, but the point is he died unfulfilled, and you help him with that. But they execute Gannon for things. Yeah, well, they try to, but everyone sucks at killing Gannon apparently. So, so let me, before we talk about the, the killing of Gannon, which is kind of weirdly brutal. Oh, screw him, it's Gennon. So if I'm understanding this right, so the, the shade of Link in Twilight Princess, the idea there is that Link sleeps in the Inoccurant of time, he sleeps in the Temple of Time for a decade or seven years or whatever, and then wakes up as an adult and he defeats Gannon as an adult and then is sent back in time to become a child and he no longer needs to defeat Gannon once he becomes a child again because Gannon was

already defeated by him as an adult. But his consciousness is that of a child. So he's like a kick-ass warrior, but Gannon's gone. So aside from like, you know, stopping the moon from crashing into Hyrule, or sorry, Termina, he doesn't really need to do hero stuff. So he's sad because he really kicks ass at killing stuff and he can't kill anything. He basically, yeah, he remembers all of his battles, but he can't really fight. He's a kid. And everything's peaceful. He doesn't need to fight. But eventually he grows up, but he still can't, like, kill stuff as an adult. Yeah, that's the muddled part, like I said, because he does imply that the link that's alive is his child or his descendant. So why couldn't he fight as a kid?

What happened was he not allowed? Was there just no war at all? Like, why would he not be allowed to have to pass on those skills to his children? Maybe because they didn't need a skill that's literally called, like, the Helm Splitter and other things that, like, kill your enemies instantly. So maybe Chi Chi to sit and allow it, you know? Maybe he would love him train anymore. Maybe he was a deadbeat dad. So Link is like canonically at this point, a killing, bloodthirsty killing machine who longs to take lives.

I guess so. He can't take lives. He's like the ultimate weapon, but he's never allowed to use any of his abilities. It's like the boys. It's like the boys this is. I love this. He's like Iron Giant. Yeah.

He is not a machine. He's not a gun. He's like a giant, except he wants, he is a gun. Oh, yeah, that's right. He is, okay. He wants to murder every creature in, with, that's wonderful. I love that. So I guess we need to talk about the split timeline now.

I was going to wait until we got through the games, but it's really kind of impossible to make sense of what's happening in these games, unless you understand the fact that in 2013 Nintendo published Hyrule Historia and said, okay, here's how it works. There's, you know, like the origin story that begins with Skyward Sword. we finally nail it down. We finally said, this is the beginning, except there's still some stuff that happened before that. But really, this is the beginning. And then everything comes from that. But also, there's a whole lot of stuff that doesn't make sense if you try to look at it in a linear way. So really what happened was link time travel in Ocarina of Time.

And there's all these different timelines that branch out from that, depending on how the events of Ocarina of Time went. So basically, like, parallel realities. So I don't know if there's supposed to be a canon timeline. I guess like the sacred realm is protected or Gannendorf is sealed. And then there's also like the game over timeline. But basically it splits into three. Like what if Link loses? And yeah, he just totally beefs it and the sages have to come in and seal Gannon,

but they can't defeat Gannon because they're not Link who is supposed to be the cool guy who defeats Gannon. But even he wasn't cool enough to do that. so everything sucks and this is a really bad grim timeline but then there's also the the link succeeds and now here is the timeline that follows from the adult reality where he killed Gannon or defeated Gannon and moved along and then there's the actual timeline that you experience as the player where he defeats Gannon as an adult and then travels back in time to become a kid and is very sad and lonely because he doesn't get to murder anymore.

Yeah, that's that's more or less it This is what bugs me This is what bugs me about this Because if you look at the games There's a real cluster of games All together that you know We're kind of like the early games Yeah

So it's like at some point They have all these early games And then decide to do more of this world building And suddenly everything's a thousand year old history And somehow all these games End up taking place before the other games But then it's like If you look at this timeline

and basically nothing happens after the adventure of Link. And it's kind of like, it reminds me of, and this is actually relevant because this is also coming up very soon. The billion-dollar Fast and Furious franchise, hell yeah. You know, those movies, those first three movies are all sequels to one another. And then they decided, you know what? We liked this character we made in the last movie, and he died.

So we're going to bring him back and we're going to just write this off as, oh, this movie, the fourth movie takes place before the third movie. And then they made a series of movies that took place. before the third movie because they didn't want that character to die. Eventually, eventually the character

does disappear and he does die and they eventually do make and make more sequels. So it's like, Zelda needs to get off their, you know, they need to get off their high horse and make Fast and Furious 7

Zelda style where it's like, no, these people are dead and we're going to make a new game now. But the funny part of that is almost everyone who's died in that of the timeline ends up coming back anyway.

Like the movie they came out a couple years ago, this character who they literally bent, they bent time and space around to keep him alive and keeping the movies. They made a new movie. It's like, oh, yeah, he's not dead.

He's back now. Yeah. He got better. So Fast and the Furious is like the Metroid Prime series, basically. Exactly. In every respect, Jeremy, every respect. Including the giant bugs, the spit acid. You know, they went to space on the last one, so there's a majority.

But this is where it's what's bugged with us. So it's like, you've got these chunk of games that all fit together and make somewhat of a sense. And then all the other games are just going back and forth. and back and forth, and going way, way back or going on a separate timeline. And, like, for some reason, they keep deciding, oh, well, whatever this new idea is, we can't possibly follow up on the adventure of Link. We can't possibly that timeline ends with that thing.

So it's kind of cowardly. Why? I don't know. I feel like it kind of makes sense. Like, you fight Gannon in his pig form, his bestial form in the Legend of Zelda, and then the only chance he had of, you know, resurrecting was to have links. blood sprinkled on his ashes. So if Link prevents that from happening, and then, you know, eventually Link lives out

his life, dies, no more blood to be sprinkled, then that's kind of it for Gannon's prospects of resurrection. So I'm okay with that being the final. He's like, he's like Freddie Krugia. He'll be back. My question is Zelda 2. I feel like that was, might be like, I'm not even going to bother mucking through at all, but I feel like that is the last of the game timeline-wise, because that is the game

takes place north of Hyrule, as you said Parrish. You kind of see the little map, and you are beginning the game where, I think it's the only instance where Death Mountain is south of you. And we just never saw much anything else north of Hyrule. Everything's been, well, Death

Mountains is in the north, and that's all there is to it. So I feel like, totally, as Fight was saying, just a totally new Zelda, like, okay, we're not being cowards anymore. We are doing its sequel. This is the story continuing. That would be picking up where Zelda two left off. That would be really cool. I'd love to see that.

Every time anyone says, Death Mountain, I laugh. I'm sorry. I just like, why? You just simply would not go there. You're not supposed to. It's a volcano. But Link is linked. Link is link. I have two questions, and one of them is more important. I mean, there's a hell Michigan, so. That's true.

I've got to ask this question. I think you've answered it already, so I genuinely apologize, but it's important to me that I understand this. Yes, I am wearing pants. Gannendorf. So, Gannendorf is a dude, right? he's a guy, he's a guru. He's a thief.

In Aquino of Time, he becomes the demon king Gannon. Now, are we talking like a possession scenario here? Or does he just randomly become Gannon? Like, what is the difference between Gannadorf and Gannon? King, Gannon. Ah, well, that takes us to Skyward Sword. How does he become the inkster?

That's why I want to know. I know that in a link to the past, it's very simple. Anyone in the dark world slash golden realm, whatever do you want to call it, they are twisted to reflect. what's in their heart, and he becomes, like, this monstrous pig thing. And Link is just an instant bunny. He's just a bunny.

I was so mad I didn't do that in Twilight Princess. I'm like, a wolf is so, like, typical. I'd love to play as Link as a little bunny. How does Link between Worlds fit into this? I think that is definitely a sequel, a direct sequel, to a Link to the Past. Yeah, it was announced as that, wasn't it? It was, and it's also, there's a lot of throwbacks, a lot of references. Like, there's a mural of the, apparently there's a mural of, like, Lincoln and Zelda

hugging or whatever and the actual the link, sorry, the Zelda who's in the link between worlds, it kind of looks at that mural longingly, which is cute. Oh, that's nice. That is cute. Yeah, so the idea behind Gannon becoming a pig thing

is that Skyward Sword, like I said, kind of establishes the beginning of the Zelda timeline, except, you know, it still says, oh, there were stuff that happened before. But in Skyward's sword, you don't fight Gannon. You fight a demon, like a, not even a demon. It's like an eternal entity, almost like a god. Demise. Demise. Yes, demise. So basically there's the goddess Hylia and the demon entity thing, demise. And they both are very powerful and eternal and stuff. And so Skyward Sword, you have to fight Demise and you seal him into the Master's Sword, which is a girl who is very talkative named Phi or Phi or something.

Anyway, so Demise's spirit is trapped into the Master's sword, but Demise is like, hey, you can defeat me, but my grumpiness will live on forever. And eventually, that grumpiness passes into the Garudo king, Gannon, the thief king, who lives in the desert. There's some ramifications there that we really shouldn't look too deeply into. No, absolutely not. No. There's nothing wrong with that. Anyway, yes.

So the thief king who lives in the desert and has dusky skin. and a hook-nose. Oh, Jesus. So, anyway, let's not think too much about some of the important implications. They are, they are, they are. They are trying to do better. I want to give them the benefit of a doubt here. Anyway, at some point, he, I guess, becomes the possessor of Demise's spirit.

And so this, he becomes imbued with that power and decides to take over High Rule. And, hey, he succeeds. He kidnaps the princess. puts her to sleep, takes over the kingdom, turns the castle into like the Death Star or whatever, and then Link has to travel back and forth in time to defeat him. Right. So this guy, this desert dwelling racist character is originally called Gannon or originally called Gannendorf. Yes. Right. Gannendorf, Dragmire.

Which, so that's his name, Gannendorf, Dragmire. So Gannon is just short for Gannendorf. It's not like another entity. Yeah, it's like he becomes, well, he becomes this, this beast. Like the demise within him transforms his body into like a pig demon thing. And I guess he becomes so bestial he can't pronounce his full name. So he's just like, I'm good. Maybe it's sort of like, he's like, oh, Gannendorf is my father's name.

You know, just call me Gannon. Please call me Mr. Gannon. Yeah. What I find interesting is that you always have like Helia, is that her name. living through Zelda in some regard. Obviously, I guess, Demais, lives through Gannon. Link is not really a reincarnation of anyone specific. Like, there is often mention of Heilian knights,

which, like, you know, you hear once a while, like depending on what storyline you're following, that his father was a knight. That's a big thing in Breath of the Wild. But actually, at the end of O'Carina, another hint that you are in this for the long haul, timeline-wise, is Gannon. Ganon is spinning in affinity,

saying cursory link and he says when I get out of here I'll get revenge on your descendants so I was like oh okay they're really kind of setting out the timeline thing here as far back as that

that's cool I mean that's another reason why I really need to play through this frigging game I mean to what you're saying nutty though I think it's it's worth pointing out yeah so

Gannon has this long history of evil and Zelda has this long history of holiness you know spirit I guess Link can't have any of that because they don't want to make Link a character. Like, Link is just supposed to, you know what I mean?

Like, Link has to be a cipher. So, like, if, like, if Link actually had a long history, that it would make things, like, messy, you know, like, we don't know any, you know, like, we don't want to have a new link show up. It's like, oh, good old Link doing the things Link always does. Like, no, Link does whatever, whatever the game wants it or whatever you want to do with it. He, I mean, he's, he is imbued with, he has personality, I think, like, expressions and, and things like that. Actually, in Wind, sorry, not Wind Waker, Breath of the Wild, the way he responds to people gives him a lot of personality. There's one hilarious joke I love where you go to the Garudo town, and it's a full of Garuda woman, and one of them's running a bar, and she's like, wait a minute, how old are you? And you can answer, I'm actually 100, which I just thought was great.

Yeah, that is quite fun. So stuff like that gives him personality, but I also see where fights coming from because his name is Link. he was meant to be a link between the player and the game, if I'm not mistaken, history-wise. Of course, as you sort of say, you imbued the emotion and the character into him sort of yourself. As your reaction becomes the sort of canon, I guess. It's good. It's a pretty standard trick for, you know, what's the word? Silent protagonist, that's it.

Yeah. But Link is like the ultimate silent protagonist. Like anything else is just a copy of him, basically, or them. I don't know. Yeah, Link gets kind of into the whole hero with a thousand faces, Joseph Campbell thing. I don't know that that was necessarily the intention, but the idea that there is the like the platonic concept of a hero who, you know, stands up and and undertakes a journey at the time that he's most needed.

So Gannon is like the eternal evil, you know, with the spirit of demise, always scheming, plotting, trying to gain power, acquire the triforces, etc. And Link is just, you know, a kid who happens to show up at the right time. And there, if you look at the timeline, there are a few spots where things go awry because no hero arose during that period. There's one particular. He had one job. Yeah, right? But you just, you just, you just weren't born. Come on, come on, come on dude um yeah so a lot of a lot of what happens you know with the timeline branching is not explicitly stated in the game it's like the developers saying oh yeah and then this thing happened that will mention in passing in some game and it's not actually shown like a big part

of it you know we mentioned in twilight princess ganon was executed like they just straight up stuck the dude on like a murder stone and attempted to kill him, and it would have worked, too, if it weren't for that pesky triforce that he possessed. So the triforce kept him from being totally killed, and instead they just had to banish him to the twilight realm, where he basically did the same thing as in a link to the past shadow realm, but it's a totally different kind of realm that exists beyond our ken. Anyway, so, yeah, there's all the stuff that happens. But there is one period at which It's just, there's a quote Homer Simpson.

It's just a bunch of stuff that happened. Right. But basically you can look at Ocarina of Time as the branching off point at which Gannon basically comes into the picture. Before that, it was just like the spirit of demise and some random bad guys doing some stuff. And then all of a sudden, Gannon comes to the picture. And then the outcome of the battle with Gannon and Ocarina of Time, depending on which universe, which parallel universe you're looking into, determines the nature of the story beyond that. It's kind of messy.

Yeah. What makes it even messier is that when they try to put Gannon on the murderstone and kill him, that's when the Triforce appeared, the TriForce of Power, as he said, perish. And I was just reading some supplementary thing before we started this. And nobody knows why it appeared. Like they called it like a cosmic joke of the gods or something. I have a question because I missed this. I'm sorry.

The sage is trying to kill Gannon. or whatever with the murderstone. When does this happen? Which game is this done? It's done before Twilight Princess, but after Ocourine of Time. Is this in like the opening crawl for Twilight Princess or something? It's in the story bit and it's like pretty deep into the game. Yeah, it's like in the back half of the game.

You get out to the desert area and you're like, oh, here's the execution spot where they murdered Gannon or tried to. That's interesting. Tourist spot. Anyway, So, I guess the question then is, does any of this really matter? No, no, not in the slightest. It's just fun to talk about it. Not in the slightest, but it's really, it's nice to have us background spice,

especially if you want to start arguments on Twitter. Oh, yeah. I like I like looking for things, like I said, the La Lawn Ranch in, in Breath of the Wild. Stuff like that, I adore. There's also other links to Breath of the Wild, like you can get a big ass horse. And it's implied this big ass horse is a descendant. of Gannon's horse, which was like a guerrido stallion or something like that, some unique breed. So I just love stuff like that and try to capture the horse and extremely angry.

There's another horse he can capture a stallion that was like a descendant of the royal family's horses, Zelda's horse in particular. So stuff like that I find is extremely just really adds a lot of flavor to Hirel. I just like to look for hints. But can you buy horse armor for $5? Got him. Like actual, oh, I see, this was a World of Warcraft joke. No, it was a moral... Elder Scrolls, Oblivion.

Yeah, oblivion. Abilvian. Abilvian joke. That's it. Anyway. Oblivion. Oblivion and Breath of the Wild. Essentially the same game. Kind of, yeah. Except one has Patrick Stewart and one doesn't. Yeah. Actually, you know,

Elder Scrolls is kind of relevant to Zelda because in 2011, Skyward Sword came out and Skyrim came out. And also Skyfall, the movie came out, and A.G. Aounuma, the head of the Zelda franchise, the effective leader, was like, huh, there must be something to this. And then, you know what? Six years later, we get Breath of the Wild, which is the Skyrim Assist Zelda you could possibly imagine. Oh, there is a tribute to Skyrim right in the middle of, like there is a moment where you climb a big ass mountain that's all covered in stowed to meet a dragon. You tell me that's not up with Skyrim tribute. Oh yeah, yeah, and then you get to the top And there's a little One of those little poop guys who's like He-hee, I used to be a mountain climber like you

But then I took an arrow to the knee Oh, God, the memes in this episode You don't have any knees, a little asshole Not anymore, he doesn't I think some of that was a joke But I'm not sure There is a mountain that you climb And there's a dragon on there

Which I always considered a tribute to this guy around Especially since you climb But then I ruined it with a stupid joke The Breath of the Wild Like, I hate saying this word but the Breath of the World discourse really makes me laugh because it's done the full circuit from like

the weapons aren't important and then the story isn't important and then the mechanics really aren't that important just do what you want like the linear, the map isn't that important and then finally last week on Twitter we at last had the corrupts aren't important

so basically for six years now it's been a constant stream of people explaining why certain aspects of the game don't matter. And that's, I mean, that's fascinating to me. It really is. Like, if you put all that together,

what you're basically saying is that it's garbage, but it's clearly not. You know who? I mean, the coroc seeds, they don't do anything, right? If you get all of them, then basically you get an item that is implied to be coroc poop.

Yeah. He's a giant coroc poop. I mean, it's not that that's not true. Just to say, don't worry about the coroxys, just get what you can. That's completely reasonable. But it's just funny when it comes in with along the lines of like, oh, also, don't worry about this,

or this, all this, this. It's a fascinating way to experience a game, I think, to not have to care about anything. I mean, this is the same fandom that gave us, you know, Fox only, final destination, no items. No items. You know, some people just have to bend over backward

to find ways to justify liking a game or to, like, enforce their like of a game onto other people. And that's silly. They just need to rock my philosophy, which is, can you collect fruit? If so, yes, good game. I mean, there's so much fruit to collect in Breath of the wild. There is. My inventory is. My inventory

is actually currently overloaded. I'm like 50 hours into the game and I have no idea where I'm supposed to go or what I'm supposed to do or what the story is. I've beaten one of the divine beasts and that's it. Was it Varuta, the water one? Is that the one that gives you healing at the end? Yeah, yeah, I did that one. The trunk elephant. That's the one I've done and I don't know where to go after that. So I've just been kind of dicking around and I've finally surrendered to the fact that I just don't like it very much, unfortunately. Oh, I found a second one, but I started doing the dungeon and was like, oh, this is kind of boring. So then I went off and wandered around the world. At some point, I guess I should go back and actually defeat that, you know, beat that dungeon. But I just

wanted to, like, go find all the towers. So now that I've, now that I've, now that I've Ubisofted, I guess I can start doing the actual game. Anyway, so that's the Zelda timeline for whatever that's worth. Yeah. I'm glad we all settled that. Yeah. I feel like we've ended up, we've ended up at the same point that we start. Right. Which is, you know, that's where you want to be. But the important thing is that we filled 90 minutes of podcast time, and that's what people really want.

It's true. They want that padding. This would have been a very boring episode if we'd said, does it matter? And we'd said, no, and I'd hit off. That would be terrible. If we stopped there, that wouldn't be much of a podcast. It would be a very efficient episode. It would be, but efficiency doesn't sell in podcasts.

That is something that I've learned over the years. People want the most inefficient podcasts, amount. And we even had some digressions here, you know, talking about Mega Man and racism and all kinds of cool stuff. Fast and Furious. Yeah. That was completely on topic. That's true. You're all looking forward to Fast X?

I haven't seen any of the Fast and Furious movies. Well, I'll tell you what order to watch them in. Do I start with the first one? Oh, God, no. Not really. Okay. That means you definitely should start with. the first one. Anytime someone is like, skip the first thing, it's like the first season of

Jojo or the first series of Doctor Who. Like, there's got to be some weird, interesting stuff about that. Yeah, just like, oh yeah, I love the first season of Jojo. Hey, guys, I want to get into Doctor Who. Okay, what you want to watch is an unearthly child. You want to stick it, get stuck into that. Watch Doctor Who in order. And if by the end, you don't want to kill yourself, then, you know, keep on going. Well, you need to watch an unearthly child because it gets referenced in, and The most recent doctors were on. And now you need, okay, now what you need to do is you need to listen to this off-air recording of the first part of the Celestial Toy Maker, which has been animated in flush, very poorly. Oh, I have a, Stuart, here's something you'll appreciate it.

I was terrified of Doctor Who because Canada was big into Doctor Who, maybe still as I have no idea, but it used to come on when I was a kid on TV Ontario, which is a kid's channel. And it's a channel with like no commercials or anything. So I'd literally watch a show for toddlers called Pocodot Door. And then there would be no break, no nothing whatsoever. But right after the credits, they'd go into Doctor Who. And it was the Time Tunnel and the music, woo-hoo. So I'm like two years old, three years old. And yeah, like, why is this guy's face appearing on the screen?

I just want to watch Pocod Door. Tom Baker does have some pretty terrifying teeth. But apparently that's a shared trauma for all kids in Ontario because they just like go straight from Pocodot Door to the Time Tunnel. Everyone's freaked out. I mean, I used to be scared of the autons, you know, what they call the mannequin that come to life. They're too scary for me. But, yeah, so scary, in fact, that whenever I see a mannequin in real life, I punch and kick it.

As you should, those things get away with too much shit, if you ask me. I mean, it's just, it's like Pascal's wager, you know. You don't know for sure if the mannequin's going to be evil or not. So if you punch them all, you're safe. What if it's Kim Cottrell, though? If she's manic-in form, she won't feel a thing. Okay, fair enough. And we can build this thing together.

All right. We're into Starship now. So that's our sign time, our sign to sign off. Yeah. to Retronauts. This has been a very, very podcasty podcast, and I'm glad that you have podcasted with us. Oh, absolutely. So let me tell you, if you have listened to this episode on the free feed, my friend, you can listen to so many more episodes by going to our Patreon, patreon.com slash retronauts, and subscribing for $3 or $5 a month. That $3 a month, you can listen to

every episode that we do on the public feed a week in advance at a higher audio quality with no advertisements. But for just $2 a month more, you can also get biweekly patron exclusive episodes and every weekend you'll get bonus columns and mini podcasts by our friend Diamond Fight here. They're very good. So that's a lot of stuff. Like what can you get for $5 these days in this economy? Nothing.

It's an amazing deal. It's a pathetic amount of money, frankly. Anyone who's not on this should be ashamed of themselves. A pittance, really. So that's my spiel for subscribing to Retronauts. We are almost entirely funded through Patreon. We do have some advertisements, but they don't really bring in that much money. Don't say that.

So go to patreon.com slash Retronauts and subscribe and listen to so many things. We also have a huge backlog of exclusive episodes. We've been doing it for more than three years now. So that's like, what, biweekly, 75. five-ish, 75-80 patron-exclusive episodes in the can, plus all of Fights weekly columns. So that's another like hundreds, hundreds of columns. Hundreds of columns. That's so much content for five freaking dollars.

Just next to nothing, next to nothing. And often they are, the podcasts are better than this one. Sometimes they are worse. You never know. It's a crapshoot. It's a lottery. You should actually, if you subscribe, you, You enter the heroic timeline where all retronauts episodes are good.

Ah, there you go. There you go. What a pitch. Actually, that's just the normal timeline. Retronauts episodes are always good. But some of them achieve true greatness. The Mario movie episode. Jeremy, when we recorded our Zelda 2D ranking hoot-nanny, that was a Patreon exclusive episode, right?

I think it was. I don't remember because that happened more than 30 minutes ago. I think it was. So I think if you want more Zelda talk, that's one to look for, where Jeremy and I and Stu take all the two details of games and we decide which ones are the best ones and which ones are not the best ones

And we decided it was Tri-Force Heroes, right? Of course. Yeah, of course. Okay. You know, it was the best, it was the best at being bad. You know, I found out recently that there was this guy who got really upset that I didn't like

Super Mario Ranking Hurt and Annie very much and they're still mad about it. Well, it is upsetting. I'm really proud of that. My awful opinion has really hammered home on this person. I mean, in this economy, being able to live anywhere rent-free is great. Yeah, to make their life appreciably worse. I mean, I'm very sorry that this has happened, but, I mean, it's not my fault.

Mario World should just have been a better game. I'm really sorry. All right, Stuart, where can we find you and your amazing opinions on the internet? In the bend. No. You can find me on Twitter as Tupacabra, like the Tupacabra, but Stuart, It's very clever and funny. My Twitter feed is absolute hellhole, but please enjoy my comic and such.

And I've got a book coming out called All Games Are Good. And, you know, a lot of people have criticized me for saying a game is bad. But the point is, all games are good even when they're bad, okay? That's the point of the book. And I hope you will enjoy it. I'm not sure what it's out, but it seems to be a thing that exists now. I've seen a physical world. It should be in June.

Oh, my God, it's coming out in June. Wow. Wow. I didn't even know that. I didn't even know that. That's so cool. Yeah, we got the first, like, actual off the press copy, off the printer copies. They are in transit now.

How chunky are they? I have to know. They look chunky. That is chunky boy. Because when I picked out the paper for this one, I wanted to give it the feel of just like a big ass paperback book that you pick up, you know, like the airport or a gas station or something to take with you on summer vacation just to like read through in the car, you know, in the backseat, you know, as your parents drive across the country or whatever. So I was really like leaning into my own childhood. So I picked kind of a rough

paper that, you know, all together, all those 400-odd pages together make for a very fat book, much fatter than other 400-page books because- Is the book also bald like me? That's what I want to Is it what? Is it all so bald to reflect me even more? It is not, but I guess if you rub the cover enough. It would eventually get there. But anyway, yeah, it's a very chunky, satisfying book. It's going to be available in paperback and hardcover. But in this case, I kind of feel like the paperback might be the more canonical version because it just has the feel. Like I said, you know, of the paperback book you pick up to just read through in your idle moments for the next month or two. So, yeah, look forward to that. Yeah, definitely please, buy my book, buy my book, buy my book, buy my book,

my book. Anyway, Natia. Hi, I am on Twitter at Nadia Oxford. I'm also the co-host of the Acts of the Blood God

RPG podcast, which is at Patreon.com forward slash blood god pod, where I also do Charlene Dropout, which is a Final Fantasy

14 podcast. And I also do Retronauts. I have several episodes, and those are all the excellent episodes, right, Parrish,

those are all the ones that are like absolutely 15. Those are A plus, S-rank. Absolutely. S-ranked S plus plus plus.

I have some really good ones like about Star Control 2. We had the creators on for that one. That was a pretty cool episode. All my episodes are very cool. You should listen to them. So please do. And always modest. Very, of course, extremely modest.

You kidding me? I may be the best, but I'm not like, you know, I'm not God yet. You know, pompous about it. Yeah, of course not. I just want to chime in and say some of my episodes are pretty good. Some of them are okay. I just want to try to out there. I like that positivity.

They're all right. They're right. They're great. They are good. And finally, our fourth chair this episode. Good night, everybody. My name is Diamond Fight, and you can find me around the internet. Look for Fight Club, F-E-I-T. That's my last name. C-L-U-B, that is a weapon that certain monsters in Zelda use sometimes. And you can pick it up, and you can throw it at the monsters. That's exciting. You can also use it to make...

Pancakes or whatever. I don't know. Cooking is weird. Club pancakes. Finally, you can find me, Jeremy Parrish, on the internet, making books at limited run games, making videos on YouTube under the surprisingly anonymous moniker of Jeremy Parrish. And I guess I'm still on Twitter as GameSpite, but man, that's just, I don't see a future there. It's bad news. Anyway, that's where you can find us. And of course, you can find Retronauts this very podcast, wherever you find. podcasts except Spotify because it's evil. But all the rest, yeah, we're there. So listen to us, find more episodes and look forward to another episode coming directly into your ear holes in a week. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.