GUYS I SOLVED THE GRANDFATHER PARADOX IN SKYWARD SWORD
Or well, not exactly *solved* theory-wise, but rather I found a pretty seamless retcon that fixes it. It doesn’t fix all of the time travel inconsistencies but it does rectify this largest plot hole.
So there’s actually multiple time paradoxes that occur in LoZ as a whole, but this video does a great job explaining what this one is and why this particular paradox is so atrocious:
(The video is mostly about why there can’t be a timeline split at SS, at least not in terms of canon, but that’s not important in this. Especially because my point isn’t a theory but rather a small retcon that people can make for their AUs in order to fix the worst time paradox in all of LoZ.)
[Disclaimer: I didn’t do any research past what I knew in my head from playing SS and watching this video a while ago, so I might’ve forgotten some things or gotten some details wrong]
Basically, in SS at the end of the game, Link defeats the Imprisoned then follows Ghiraham back in time where Ghiraham awakens Demise. Link then defeats Demise in the past, long before the events of the game (but notably after Skyloft is made).
The paradox is that the only reason Link even came down to the surface is because of Demise (or more accurately Ghiraham but considering how you literally fight the Imprisoned multiple times and the Imprisoned breaking out is such a major insiting incident so the point still stands anyway), so if Demise is already dead, then well, Link’s journey wouldn’t have even happened.
As I said, this isn’t exactly a theory but rather a very simple retcon that fixes this particular grandfather paradox, of which haunts the series as by far the worst and most nonsensical paradox. [Edit: to clarify, it doesn’t actually effect the whole curse thing or any of the lore in the other games, just in SS]
Link doesn’t *kill* Demise in the past.
Rather, he’s the one that reinstalls the seal, and he’s the one that makes him eventually become the Imprisoned.
In this version of events, Demise is fully slain as the Imprisoned in SS’s present, while the freed Demise in the past is simply resealed at the end of the battle.
This just fixes that grandfather paradox, full stop. Now, the Imprisoned will still become a thing in the same timeline the game takes place in, thus making Link go on his journey to defeat it, and Demise still ends up defeated at the end.
This retcon is really just made for me and also anyone that wants to make an AU of LoZ and needs a way to patch this gaping hole in SS’s plot without changing too much.
Another less satisfying way to fix it is to have Ghiraham bring a defeated form of The Imprisoned back to the past and he revives and frees that one instead of the one right beneath his feet that’s actually from the past, but this just makes less sense because that would mean that you fight Demise over the seal holding past Demise, which just… doesn’t work, I don’t like that explanation, but theoretically it does the exact same thing as the first retcon so I thought I’d mention it.
So yeah, that’s my “theory.” Any thoughts?
