The name Hero of Twilight is given to the Link of Twilight Princess. He has to defend Hyrule from an incursion from the Twilight Realm, with the help of various Hyruleans and Twili. And Sky People (there’s at least 3 races in the Zelda series who live in the sky). This Link is able to wield the powers of the Triforce of Courage, due to his bloodline as a direct descendant of the Hero of Time.

Twilighty really only has the one major appearance, but he also starred in the following spinoff, Link’s Crossbow Training. This is an arcadey target-shooting light gun game, with stages set in various Twilight Princess locales, during the events of the game. So it’s kind of like an extra chapter of that game, intermissions or such like. It presupposes the existence of the crossbow weapon and minor events that are unseen in Twilight Princess. For example, the most significant event is the final boss battle with “Fossil Stallord”. It’s implied this follows the fight in the Arbiter’s Grounds. The different name, location outside in the desert and Stallord’s extra horns point to a follow-up encounter, which is cool and fits with a reanimating skeleton. There’s not much else to say about this game.

This brings us to the tricky part. It seems at first glance that the Link in Brawl is obviously Twilighty. But look closer, beyond the shorter Master Sword (that can be explained by him finding it during his initial cutscene in Subspace Emissary, it must be a slightly different iteration or Master Hand’s replica): his face is subtly different in detail, and his hair has a much blonder tint. It’s been suggested that this “Link” is an amalgamation of the styles of Twilighty and Timey, who appeared in the previous Smash tournaments. This is backed up by the appearance of Snake, which draws from the look of Naked Snake and Solid Snake (two separate individuals—actually one’s a clone (spoiler!)). More importantly, Sheik appears as an alter ego of the TP-inspired Zelda of Brawl. But Zelda was never Sheik in TP!

This is actually problematic for my theory that these characters are their true selves from their respective games, summoned to an intermediate dimension. But perhaps we can say that Master Hand is able to change them slightly, for whatever reason, for the duration of their stay in his world. It would explain their differing movesets between games (and in some cases, appearances). It’s a bit of a copout but I’m honestly stumped here. It does explain some other things that are great for the game, but tricky for continuity such as alternate costumes (Dark Toon Link for example). There must be some measure of surrealistic shenanigans, to explain the cognitive black hole that is Mr. Game & Watch.

Now I’m all confused. Comes from thinking too much about how Smash Bros. is supposed to work. Where was I? Yeah, let’s say it’s just Twilighty, but Master Hand subtly gave him some of the traits of Timey to make him more awesome, and obviously gave Zelda the capabilities of Sheik to make her much more awesome still. Master Hand can explain many inconsistencies, that’s why he’s great. As for Twilighty’s origin, since he finds the Master Sword during a Brawl cutscene, let’s say he’s been lifted from before the Lost Woods bit but after Zora Temple (he has the Clawshot). This is not even halfway through the game, so he needed a bit more awesomeness. Explained!

Now we come to the biggest question about Twilighty: is his fairy canon?? (Is that the question you were thinking of?) Let me explain. In the Wii version of Twilight Princess, the Wii Remote cursor’s position on screen is represented by a blue fairy much like Navi from Ocarina of Time. Now the Gamecube version obviously does not have this feature, and its left-handed world of Hyrule is considered canon. But I like to think there are canon aspects to both, and as I often say, additive continuity is more interesting than subtractive continuity (ie. it’s more fun to consider the fairy canon than non-canon). The fairy has no other part in the storyline and is never mentioned or acknowledged.

But! This fairy appears with Link in a Subspace Emissary cutscene in Brawl, and is part of one of his in-game taunts. The question now is, is the fairy Navi, who came along with the other Timey-like traits, or the same person as Cursor Fairy? Obviously I’m going to say they are both Cursor Fairy, but consider this: we don’t know where Navi went at the end of OoT. Maybe with Link’s descendants moving back to a peaceful life in the forest (and the Kokiri nowhere to be seen), Ordonians made friends with forest fairies and in some cases took them on as companions? Perhaps even Navi herself bonded with Link’s children, for several generations?

Either way, whether Cursor Fairy is Navi or not, I like to imagine that Twilighty was accompanied by a fairy through his adventure. She must have been fairly passive to go along with Midna as much as Link did, so she may be a young fairy. Or perhaps she was really just super shy, much unlike Tatl in Majora’s Mask. She helps to aim, like Timey’s fairy companions. Anyway it’s just nice to picture a journey where Link is never lonely, even if Midna is being withdrawn. Of course, loneliness is a strong tonal effect, but the good part is I’m reading all this in anyway, so I can turn it off if I feel like it! It’s the perfect plan. Ok that may seem a little hypocritical but hey lighten up it’s a video game.

On that note, I’ll end my series on in-depth lore of the Zelda universe. I hope you enjoyed coming along with me through all these weird timelines (and hopefully the timeline image helped with that). And yeah like I said these are all just silly games but we can make more of them with a little critical thinking, and imagination! So until next time… Hoo Hoo Hoot! Also Kooloo Limpah~!

EDIT: Stop the presses! I forgot the Zelda HD Experience, ie. that Wii U tech demo they showed at E3 2011.

This Link is obviously Twilighty, all the details are there, also the accompanying UI and setting is reminiscent of Twilight Princess. They made new HD assets to show it off, but we can tell a few things. The place looks kinda like the Temple of Time, but it could easily be some other temple, and those feminine statues weren’t found there. Link has the Hylian Shield, but no Master Sword! He seems to be using the Ordon Sword, the one he uses before that. But there’s also an inventory screen, showing the post-Master Sword items the Spinner and Sky Book. So we can’t place this chronologically before obtaining it.

Of course, Link can equip the Ordon sword at any time during the game. And he replaces the Master Sword in the Sacred Grove at the end. So this encounter with what seems to be Gohma of some type could take place any time after the Arbiter’s Grounds, but it makes more sense to put it after TP is wrapped up due to no Midna and why would you switch back to the Ordon Sword if you had a better one?

So we come to Cursor Fairy. Link is accompanied by a fairy, similar to the Wii cursor and Brawl Fairy. So clearly now we can say without a doubt Cursor Fairy is a real character. She also seems very active in this tech demo, flying all over and even pointing out Gohma’s weak point to Link. I can picture her gaining confidence as a guide over the course of the TP adventure, and stepping up when Midna leaves.

I feel much better about Cursor Fairy now. Apart from that, all this shows us is that, as we’ve seen before, even after Ganon is defeated, there’s things to do in Hyrule: temples to be explored, monsters to be slain, and quests to be questing on. We don’t know why Link is in this palace—maybe it has something to do with the book? It is a lot like the Past Temple of Time, enough that I’m pretty convinced it’s the same place, and there’s any number of reasons to go back there.

So I hate to ruin my nice conclusion up there, but this definitely needed to be here, and I didn’t want to try integrating it in. So uh Link I think your name shall go down into history!