There is one thing i never understood... fans usually say when Zelda sent Link back in time this created a split, creating two time lines: one where link tells Zelda what's going on and Ganondorf is stopped and the one we just played (he defeats Ganondorf as an adult). Or something.
Shouldn't the whole "Adult Link defeats Ganondorf" be erased because of what happened? If Zelda sends Link back in time and he tells her about Ganondorf, shouldn't half of the game just never happen, given Ganondorf never gets the Triforce of Power, Link doesn't lift the Master Sword and everything is OK?
Time travel is a very tricky thing in storytelling. And if they done what you said it would make the whole timline theory ten times more simple.
I think that by going back in time and warning people of Ganondorf didn't erase the events of the future it just avoided them by pushing it into an alternate reality.
Nintendo should have never gone the Windwaker route.
at the time, I thought the adult ending of OOT led perfectly into A link to the Past:
LTTP's backstory:
Seven "Wisemen" (renamed as "Sages" in the GBA port) seal Ganon and the triforce in the Golden land turned Dark World
OOT: Seven "Sages" Seal Ganon and the Triforce of Power in the Sacred Realm turned Evil Realm.
Twilight Princess remedies it somewhat by more or less tying LTTP into the Child Link ending(the "Sages" being all human males, and the Temple of Time gradually becoming LttP's Lost Woods), but it still is a little convoluted, like, if Ganon still got the triforce, then how did Child Link make any differance, because he could not wield the Master Sword as a Child?
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first the split already happened. the only why to fix it is to merge the 2 timelines together. so going back in time and warning everyone about Ganondorf didn't erase the other time line. it just stopped them from fallowing the adult timeline again, (which would be the original and the child ending would be the alternate ending by the way). cause originally link open the temple of time letting ganondorf access the the triforce. link going back in time and warning everyone is what created the alternate timeline.
second, don't know what you mean by windwaker route according the in game story LTTP does follow the adult time line, and WW (in my opinion) would follow the child time line better. (but that's according to my personally time line that I won't get into here).
Most poeple believe that WW is part of the adult timeline for one obvious reason. In the legend it says that Lik defeated Ganon, but then just dissapeared. Flooding Hyrule was the only other way to stop Ganon when he escapaed the realm. That's why king of hyrule said they made the land above the sea. They wanted a compltely new Hyrule with the Ocarina of time descents of Link and Zelda.