A Link To The Future
A cross-cultural look at time travel.
written by Mike originally for Poprocks & Coke on March 12, 2003

Ever since the first caveman made the first dumb mistake, humans have daydreamed about the possibility of traveling through time. People of my generation have especially entertained their own theory of time travel, thanks to modern cinema.

As far as I'm concerned, discussion of time travel theories doesn't get any better than in Back to the Future. I'm not here to argue this self-evident truth. Nope, I'm here to do something far worse than that. I'm going to take everything I've learned from Back to the Future & apply it to the time travel theories of something completely unrelated...

Don't roll your frigging eyes at me. You should be aware by now that I'm a pretty huge fan of the Legend of Zelda, & just in case you aren't, hi, my name is Mike, & I'm a pretty huge fan of the Legend of Zelda. As such, it is my duty to occasionally do this kind of pointless research. It's sort of like your college math professor doing a dissertation on infinity+1. Only, you know, with swords.

So what exactly does Ocarina of Time have to do with Back to the Future? Oh, just about everything. The whole game revolves around Link traveling through time to stop the evil Ganondorf & his giant schnoz. But how did Link even get into the time traveling business, anyhow? Well, it all started when he found that Master Sword thing.

When this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're going to see some serious shit.

The problem was that Link was too young to wield the Master Sword when he first pulled it from its pedestal, so he was put under a sleeping spell for 7 years, & then he awakens to find himself all grown up. Now Link must use the Master Sword to travel back & forth between those 7 lost years in his quest to stop Ganondorf's reign over Hyrule.

Now, a question came up among some fellow fans about what happens at the end of the game. We know that Ganondorf is banished to an alternate dimension known as the Sacred Realm, where he originally found & stole the Triforce. More about that place later. Meanwhile, Link is allowed to return to his childhood & recover the 7 years he had lost. The question that came up was, having been sealed inside the Sacred Realm in the future, has Ganondorf's reign over Hyrule during those 7 years leading up to his banishment been removed from history? I say that's not possible. Events that take place in the future cannot affect the already written past. The only way the past can be changed is if you travel back in time & make it your present. This is where Back to the Future comes in.

If I looked as good as you, I could run a different type of business...Heh he heh.

Back to the Future Part 2, in particular, involves a lot of travel back & forth through time. After Marty McFly visits the year 2015, he returns to his own time in 1985, only to find that his world has changed drastically!

It's dangerous to go alone! Take this...

It turns out that while he was in the future, old man Biff Tannen stole the Delorean to give a 50-year sports almanac to himself in 1955, so that he'd easily become rich by simply betting on the winners until the year 2000. So the 1985 that Marty goes back to is based on Biff's utilization of the almanac. Now our hero must go back to 1955 & steal back the sports almanac that Old Biff gave to Young Biff, all so Marty's mom can have her real boobs back. Oh yeah, & her real husband, too.... & the house, & well, just about everything else.

Whenever something changes in the Back to the Future movies, it is because someone has gone to the past & changed something, thereby creating its own future. Even when Marty goes from 2015 to the alternate 1985, it's because Biff first went back to 1955 & changed something. My point? According to BTTF's theories of time travel, Ganondorf's banishment in the future couldn't have removed him from the past, even if it is to an alternate dimension with a different concept of time. So when Link goes back to his childhood at the end of the game, Ganondorf is still around at that time, & he will still spend those 7 years taking over Hyrule.

Now if you want to believe that upon Link's return to his childhood, that the previous 7 years were erased from existence, thereby denouncing everything that Back to the Future has taught us, then be my guest. Meanwhile, I like my theory, & it's no more right or wrong than yours is.

So now that Link has returned to the past, is there anything he can do about Ganondorf now? Nope. He needs the Master Sword to defeat Ganondorf, but he's not old enough to do anything with it, remember? He'd just fall asleep again!

Now, according to Back to the Future, if Link were to try & take the Master Sword again, then there would be two comatose Links in the Sacred Realm. Example from BTTF Part 2: when Marty goes back to 1955 for the second time to steal the almanac back from Young Biff, he has to avoid himself playing the guitar at the dance from the first time he went back.

Hey! Listen!

That would mean that when Link returns to his childhood, he would return as an adult, & I just realized now that he doesn't. While traveling through time doesn't affect his memory or even what he's carrying with him, it does have a direct affect on his physical aging process. When Link goes back 7 years, his body returns to its younger physical state. If Ocarina of Time's time travel laws were true to Back to the Future's, Link would return to the past as an adult every time he does so. Case in point, Old Biff meets Young Biff...

Master using it and you can have this.

Alright, so maybe that's where time travel differs in Hyrule. However, I still think that while Link goes back to the past, his comatose body is still in the Sacred Realm at the same time. Eventually, he'll also have to stay out of his own way 7 years later, so as not to interfere with his quest to defeat Ganondorf. When you get down to it, Link's the only person who travels through time, so he's the only one affected by time travel. So I'm still standing by my theory about Ganondorf's reign of power still taking place & being handled by Link in the future.

Meanwhile, having done all that he can & returning to his own time, Link hangs around for several months & then finds himself in Termina, where he travels through time again in the sequel to Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask...

Save the clock tower!

Link spends the entire game reliving the same 3 days over & over again. Sort of like the movie, Groundhog Day, only Link gets to keep some of his stuff. Also as in Groundhog Day, Link doesn't run into himself when he returns on 6:00 on the first day. Maybe I should've been talking about Groundhog Day this whole time instead of Back to the Future. Oh well. Too bad I don't feel like rewriting this whole thing.

Wait, kids. We're not done yet. There's still another point where Link travels through time. It's the Game Boy Color game, Oracle of Ages!

I'm running out of captions... umm... ooh, I know! I hate manure!

In this game, Link uses the Harp of Ages to go back 400 years into the past, & his body isn't affected at all by this. I guess you could write it off that it's because he's going back to well before he was born, but I think it's because he's using the Harp of Ages. That must be it. The Harp of Ages... the Ocarina of Time... the Flux Capacitor... they all must handle time travel a tiny bit differently. Good, I don't mind leaving it at that. I was afraid I'd have to bring Donnie Darko into this mess.

I'm your density!

Well, now that I've totally confused the living crap out of you, I don't think we learned a bloody thing today, except that Robert Zemeckis is consistent & Nintendo isn't. Now I think I'll give my brain a rest & go play a round of the Adventure of Link, because it's not sexist... it's romantic!