Trying To Change The Past Rarely Works, Does It

Ever since I first beat The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (which was geez, nearly a decade ago, where does time go?) I've been intrigued by the ending. At one point, I was so intrigued I started to write fan fiction based on it, but stopped myself after about five (boring) pages.

At the end, Link, Zelda, and the Sages have defeated Ganondorf, and banished/trapped/sealed him in the Sacred Realm*. The day having been saved, Zelda confesses how guilty she feels about this to Link. Seven years ago she sent him off to collect the Sacred Stones which, combined with the Ocarina of Time and her knowledge, would gain them access to a sealed area of the Temple of Time. From there they could reach the Triforce, and use it to stop Ganondorf**, who she did not trust (good call on that). By the time Link returns with the stones, Zelda's being whisked into the night by her bodyguard, Ganondorf in pursuit***. Zelda did toss the ocarina and the necessary instructions in the moat, so Link retrieves them, heads to the temple, opens the chamber, and lifts the Master Sword he finds out of the stone it's set in. This opens the way to the Sacred Realm where the Tri-force was. . . and Ganondorf promptly follows Link in, brushes him aside (kid couldn't be more than 10), and seizes the Tri-force (part of it, anyway).

The Sage of the Sacred Realm sealed Link up in a crystal for 7 years, until he was old enough to actually wield the Master Sword, and sends him off to awaken Sages and eventually trounce Ganondorf. In the 7 years, Ganondorf's generally trashed things. Hyrule's a burned-out wreck, the Gorons are imprisoned in a volcano, the Zoras are frozen in ice, the Kokiri hide in their cottages to avoid all the monsters. People in Kakariko Village are doing OK, though I believe the town is set on fire eventually. Still, most of the people there are refugees, who lived in Hyrule or the surrounding areas.

That's all pretty rough, and the reason Zelda feels bad is because it's sort of her fault. The Master Sword can only be wielded by the Hero of Time, which turns out to be Link. You have to be able to draw the sword to access the Sacred Realm, so Ganondorf could never have gotten the Tri-force without their efforts****. In her defense, I'm not sure she was aware of that safeguard, and I don't know who she could have asked about it.

From what I could discern, Zelda sends Link back 7 years, to before the whole thing started (since we see shots of him asleep in his home, which is where the game started), and I had the impression she to change how things went. Since at the very end, Young Link shows up in the castle courtyard, surprising a Young Zelda the way he did originally, the best I can figure is he's supposed to tell her younger self it's a bad idea to send him after the Sacred Stones. Perhaps it's my cautious nature, but I've never been sure that's a good idea.

Yes, the idea of using the Tri-Force against Ganondorf backfired, but it wasn't as though Ganondorf was really wholly on gaining the Tri-Force. He set loose some arthropodic monster inside the Great Deku Tree (who kept one of the Stones), which killed it, despite Link's efforts. He helped seal off the cavern where the Gorons found their favorite rocks (which they eat), and I can't remember if he was responsible for all the Dodongos***** in there as well. Link blasts open the cavern and kills the King Dodongo. Ganondorf also unleashed some sort of octopus parasite inside the Zoras' fish-god, Lord Jabu-Jabu, which inhaled their princess, so Link had to save the fish and the fish-princess. Both these peoples were allies of the Hylians, so he's starving one bunch, and possibly throwing the Zoras into mourning or despair over their princess and their god. Plus, he's the ruler of a group of warrior women, who Older Link would be able to attest are no pushovers. Ganondorf himself is a pretty tough guy, he knows magic, and he's crafty******. Tri-Force or no, he would have been trouble.

Cozying up to the Hylian King, while simultaneously weakening his allies, is a good prelude to a surprise attack. It might cost Ganondorf some more of his people, probably take a little longer when he doesn't have enough power to keep a castle levitated above a lava lake, but I highly doubt that's going stop him. And if Link doesn't go after the Stones, does he go back to the Kokiri Village? Then you've got the Hero of Time out in the relative open, where he could be taken out by Ganondorf's forces (they've already killed the Deku Tree, who protected the Kokiris). At least with how things originally went, Link was safe in the Sacred Realm until he was old enough to be useful.

Again, I'm not much of a gambler, so that's definitely affecting my perspective on this, but it seems risky to go back and try for a better outcome (I guess they don't operate on the Marvel idea where changing the past just creates a new alternate timeline, but doesn't change the original). I figure with the Tri-Force, Ganondorf conquered what he wanted quickly, and the people who were going to escape safely did so quickly, and with no challengers to his power, Ganondorf established the way things were gonna be in his turf, and things settled into a static, but horrible, situation. Without the Tri-Force to ramp up his power, I'm picturing a drawn-out battle*******, more deaths on both sides, with the battle spreading out over a wider area (maybe pockets of resistance in the Lost Woods), as the sides try to gain an advantage. I'm not sure the triumph of what's good and right would be any cleaner than the one they already have.

One could always hope, though.

* They couldn't take his piece of the Triforce away, so they weren't able to kill him, even after Link buried his sword in Ganondorf's face nearly to the hilt.

** Ganondorf was leader of the Gerudos, and was establishing diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Hyrule.

*** He stops to ask Link if he saw them, and Link draws his sword, really a dagger compared to Ganondorf's size, which gets him promptly knocked on his butt by an energy blast, who laughs, then rides off.

**** I'm not clear on what would happen if Ganondorf had tried to grasp the Master Sword. Would it have simply not budged, similar to Mjolnir if the unworthy grab it, or would it have injured him to touch it?

***** Large, gray, scaly, fire-breathing lizards. Not really dragons though, their body type is more crocodilian, slow, fat, and shambling, no wings. Link fights a real dragon when he's older.

****** I have a hard time picturing he made all these moves strictly to push two kids to try and use a powerful magical artifact against him, so I figure he caught onto their plan somehow and was smart enough to use it to his advantage.

******* I'm picturing trench warfare, actually, which doesn't make much sense considering most of the peoples involved are at swords and arrows level technologically. Then again, there'd also be fish people, sword-wielding skeletons and bickering witch sisters involved, so who knows.