We’ve just seen the Hero of Time’s first adventure, his second, and the form he ultimately takes after his death. So what happened in between? Let’s go through a rough chronological view of his exploits as we know them, opening some cans of worms as we do.

First, how do we identify Timey? He was the first voiced Link, so his grunts and barks (which are frequently reused) can identify him by voice. Of course, these sound bites were also reused in the GBA remake of LttP, so perhaps they’re not a perfect identifier. He’s an obvious template for future “realistic” styled Links, and the first 3D Link, so that iconic design will come up. His look is just echoing previous official art—although I believe he’s the first to have an earring, which carries through to the other realistic Links (Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword take their cues from Adult OoT Link, whereas many other games after this point are closer to Wind Waker, after that was developed of course).

Enough digressions. Basically Timey is the only Link in 3D with a normal-sized head until TP. His relatively simplistic design compared to this later overhaul is also evident. So let’s get to it.

Young Link, or Child Link, has another two appearances before growing up for real this time. The first is a children’s chapter book called Link and the Portal of Doom. Link has to learn parts of a whole song from diverse sources over Hyrule to close up a magical portal that is sucking in matter, with the help of Zelda and the owl Kaepora Gaebora. It is unclear when this occurs: perhaps after OoT, but the presence of Navi and the sense of introducing him to areas suggests to me that it is concurrent with the initial events of OoT, before his stasis. A sidequest, if you will, that happens to not be shown in the game. Alternatively, it may have occurred in the new timeline created at the end of the game before Navi leaves.

Majora’s Mask happens after this, but first we must address Smash Bros. Melee, in which the child and adult forms of Timey both appear. This is a big wormy can, less so than Brawl but the crossovery nature of the game with little explanation, the intro cutscene and the mystery of Master Hand muddy the true explanation for these events. Are these characters pulled from their native worlds and times? Or are they merely dolls, puppets, trophies—replicas—animated for the amusement of a being all-powerful within his little world?

To make it a little more interesting, I’m going to say they’re the real deal, brought by Master Hand to battle each other until he can find an opponent worthy of himself… or perhaps to help him in the struggle against a greater enemy? (ie. Tabuu) Of course, to avoid mind-bending repercussions, let’s say that after their fights in this implicitly consequence-free realm, their memories are wiped. (Except Mr Game & Watch and ROB. They know all.) As far as I can tell, this is similar to the plot of the Dissidia Final Fantasy games (although they seem to be as narratively lanyrinthine as the games they are crossing over, so…)

So we’ve decided that the Smash Bros. really happened. When did Melee happen for Link subjectively? This gets a little tricky, and in fact it involves the Adult Link of both the N64 Smash Bros and Melee being earlier chronologically. Try and follow me here. Later sources which we’ll discuss in a bit reveal that Link held onto some of his equipment gained in Majora’s Mask until his true adult years, when he grew up for real. In both Smash and Melee, Adult Link exclusively uses items based on their OoT appearance. This is also the time when he did his greatest deeds, so it makes sense for Master Hand to take him from here, instead of later in his natural life when his attitude may have turned a little more cynical.

Link in both these games uses the Bow, Hookshot, Boomerang, and Bombs. The latest you acquire is the bow. So the Smash timeline placement goes like this: during the events of OoT, between Link beating the Forest Temple and defeating Ganon to be sent back in time, Master Hand intervenes to pluck him away, not once but twice. Since he has that control over time, they could just have been right after each other. Link then goes back, none the wiser, etc. and ends up a child at the end of it all.

The child form is also playable in Melee. When is he from? His sword, shield, bow, hookshot, and boomerang are all OoT-exclusive designs. (The milk bottle model is shared between OoT and MM, although SSBM uses a new model anyway.) This implies that the transdimensional abduction occurs before Majora’s Mask, but his home stage is Termina’s Great Bay—this is not directly tied to him as the items are, though (Adult Link’s stage seems to be based on Zelda II, hundreds of years later in a different timeline branch). So after Link and Zelda prematurely get Ganondorf put to trial (as revealed in TP), and Link has time to physically mature slightly more, enough to be competent with his adult weapons—but before he leaves for Termina—this post-OoT Child Link is taken the same way. This makes sense I suppose—his smaller, faster form allows for a different fighting style but he has some competence with his more powerful weapons now. So we see that Link had already subjectively participated in Hand’s strange game twice before his younger form had his chance.

So that’s four things happening in between OoT and MM. He was a busy kid, wasn’t he? But all kids grow up, and the next we hear of the Hero of Time is the Gamecube demo reel from Spaceworld 2000. Showing off what their new hardware was capable of, Nintendo showcased some graphically impressive (for the time) FMVs. One showed Link and Ganondorf (!) fighting in some kind of castle. As I said, TP showed that Ganondorf had been tried and sentenced by the Sages and banished through the Mirror of Twilight. Therefore that sentence must have occurred after this fight, evidently there was no reason for punishment at that time (the putting young Hitler on trial paradox). This event must have been the culmination of Ganondorf’s deferred grab for power, then.

The reason we place it thus is that the Link shown is obviously Timey, but using the MM version of the Hylian shield. In that game, Link initially wields the Kokiri sword and Hylian shield, but their designs are oddly quite different to their OoT appearance. Why is this? My theory is that those specific items were warped in some way during the passage to the twisted dimension of Termina, changing their look in devious ways. Most of his other possessions were similarly affected, rendering them unusable, which is why he starts with squat and has to replace his stuff with Terminian equivalents (bigger stuff like the Megaton Hammer he stashed in Hyrule as he was still not physically able to wield them).

When he gets back from Termina, Link grows up gradually, wary of Ganondorf who just has to be up to something. When he finally makes a play, Link has grown up to roughly the equivalent of his OoT Adult form, ie. around seven years later. He takes the Master Sword now that he needs it, and his Terminian Hero’s Shield and goes to confront the schemer. (Glitterberri theorises the location to be a Gerudo fortress, I agree). During the fight, importantly, he (for some reason) tosses his shield aside to meet a particular attack with a two-handed strike.

Back to fanon. Link prevails over Ganondorf, and the sages are motivated now to take action, banishing him as stated. Link’s shield slid under a couch and he can’t find it, so he goes back to Hyrule Castle Town and buys a stock standard Hylian shield again (established to be mass-produced). The stage is now set for our next appearance.

Soul Calibur 2 had Link as a Gamecube version exclusive character. Awesome addition, and very interesting for canon (my canon, anyway). The backstory in this game says that Link has just fought off an attack on Hyrule by an evil sorceror, who was being controlled by the plot MacGuffin of the Soul Calibur series. Another adventure of Timey’s, in which he saves Hyrule! What is that Shade complaining about?

Link’s default weapons are the Master Sword and proper Hylian Shield (not the MM one). All well and good, but you’ll see why I required all my earlier justifications, as this game has a big item list for each character. Among Timey’s arsenal are the Megaton Hammer, Biggoron’s Sword and Mirror Shield that his artificially aged form used in OoT (meaning they couldn’t have been destroyed in Termina—although he could have gone separately to claim their non-paradox versions from the Child timeline). He also uses items acquired in Termina, ie. the Razor Sword and Great Fairy’s Sword, meaning that both these optional items are canon and this version of Link is post-MM, meaning he’s the naturally-aged Link of the Child Timeline.

Strangely, other equipment he uses include the Cane of Byrna (from LttP), and the Magic Sword and Shield (from LoZ) meaning he must have adventured to acquire special items in the interim, items that otherwise would have lain dormant in Hyrule for generations (in the alternate timeline, they did until being claimed by later Links). Pretty cool huh!

So SC2 is another example of a Link dimension-hopping to other universes (although arguably Timey already did that in MM). And that’s all the New Adventures of Timey we know about. Let’s examine.

Link saves Hyrule from Ganon, and is sent back in time so he can save it from destruction, erasing all his hard work from the minds of his friends and all Hyrule (except perhaps that owl, but who knows really). This is supposedly a major reason for the Shade’s regret. However, Timey saves Hyrule 2 or 3 more times in the meantime, and seems to have had some serious adventuring to boot, acquiring some sweet loots. He stops the sucking portal, journeys to a parallel world and saves it too, goes in an interdimensional tournament 3 times (but doesn’t remember), fights Ganondorf a second time from his perspective, defeats some other evil sorceror, goes in another interdimensional tournament (with higher stakes, I think—and he remembers it) and finds some of the mighty treasures of Hyrule.

Of course, life is long. Half of those didn’t take place in Hyrule. I have my own fan theories about Timey’s life after SC2, the last we hear of him. He has to have lost or injured his left eye at some point, to explain the appearance of the Shade (and Golden Wolf). I like to think he went back to Termina as a result of not feeling at home in Hyrule at some point—as we discussed, his experiences there must have affected him deeply, creating a connection there. Something has to have happened in the Lost Woods: Skull Kid is there in TP, the Master Sword was put there (presumably by Timey), and the Shade’s undead appearance must be linked to the tales of Hylians becoming Stalchildren when venturing there.

I think the loss of his defining experiences from the world was still a huge barb to Timey. It is stated as a source of his regret as the Hero’s Shade. The other stated reason involved his lack of a pupil. In a world without Ganon, peace was the status quo. Despite these things I’ve mentioned, most of them have an extra-Hylian origin. Hyrule itself was at peace. No-one wanted to be trained for war or adventuring.

After a while even Timey itself must have run out of adventuring to do. A fan theory I subscribe to is that he eventually settled down with Malon (or Romani, is my theory) and turned to a life of farming. His descendants, of which the Link of Twilight Princess is one, carried on this legacy (that particular Link started the game as a farmhand with a knack for animals). This is the other big reason the Shade could not move on after death. He was that era’s greatest hero, whose skills ended up being unneeded and squandered, never taught to pupils or apprentices or sons. Teaching his descendant healed that regret.

You can sort of see how it all fits together. Timey has a long arc, with many big life events (which we fortunately know a lot about). He has his ups and downs—a traumatic but exhilirating childhood, spending his prime trying to recapture those days, and finally giving up on that life (not without major reservations). Finally, he finds absolution after a period of undead wandering. Enough waffling though, I’ve said enough about this Link.