Zelda Theory: Solving the Windmill Paradox (How Time Travel works in the Legend of Zelda)

Welcome back, everyone! I am Hero's Shade, and this time around I have decided to take on a particular mystery that has perplexed fans of Zelda ever since the release of Ocarina of Time back in 1998 (seriously, 20 years ago? God, I feel old), what is known as the Windmill Paradox, aka the Song of Storms Paradox or Music Man Paradox.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the game, what have you been doing with your life? there is a cheerful man with a music box inside the windmill at Kakariko Village. After you pull out the Master Sword and become an adult, you find the music man furiously cranking his music box, complaining about a boy seven years ago who played a song and messed up the windmill. He plays that song, you play it back, and you memorize the Song of Storms. Then, in order to progress through the game, you must play it again in the past in order to make the windmill spin rapidly and drain the well. He hears the song, and is the same song he complains about in the future and teaches to you.

But... if Link played the song in the past after he learned it from the music man in the future, who in the past learned it from Link...and...

 

Alright, so it is likely that Nintendo's developers just put this in the game as a throwaway gag to be joked about later on. But that answer is simply unsatisfactory to me. After all, what kind of nerdy internet theorist would I be if I didn't analyze and over-complicate something that isn't meant to be given that much thought? 

In all seriousness, jokes and Easter eggs like this can become part of a series' official lore. For example, the infamous Bat Shark Repellent has become canonically an item stored in Batman and Robin's arsenal, and numerous quotes and one-shot references from Star Wars: A New Hope have become the building blocks for three prequels and entire episodes and seasons of the Clone Wars cartoons, not to mention those cartoons themselves.

So, from a lore perspective, where did the Song of Storms come from in the first place, and how did Link learn it? To answer that, we'll have to explore how time travel works in the Zelda series, so buckle up. It's going to get more complicated from here.

To start off, I will explain some of the various methods of time travel and how they differentiate  from one another.

First, we have the Ocarina of Time, which is capable of performing various magical spells via playing the right notes on it. For instance we have songs that warp Link to various locations and the aforementioned Song of Storms, which is capable of summoning strong wind, heavy rain, and lightning, although the primary function is time manipulation.

You may want to take note on how I used the phrase 'time manipulation' instead of 'time travel'. I'll get to the finer details of the latter later on, but let's say for instance Link plays the Sun's Song. The Sun's Song, as the name suggests, causes sunrise or sunset. Contrary to what... certain... websites and wikis may have you believe, this melody does not actually affect the gravitational cycles of the Earth or moon, Link is actually accelerating time to the next interval that would begin night or day. This is proven by the fact that the guard in front of Kakariko Village who keeps track of time will indicate that time has passed whenever you use the song, and while Biggoron is crafting you the two-handed weapon Biggoron's Sword you must wait a few days for him to complete it, but you can just play the Sun's Song a few times to get it right away. This is also very similar to how the Song of Double Time works in Majora's Mask.

Keep that in mind, as this is different from how he time travels works when pulling out or replacing the Master Sword from its pedestal.

There are those who use the timeline split in OoT as a reference to indicate that Link creates an alternate timeline, as well as an alternate timeline version of himself every time he withdraws or removes the Master Sword. I'm sorry to say, but they've got it all wrong.

When the Hero of Time pulled out the Master Sword, it essentially judged his worthiness and determined he would not be ready until he was older (Though Wind Waker Link wields it with no problem. I guess it didn't want to repeat the same mistake it made here by leaving a portal open and letting Ganon get the Triforce of Power. Hindsight is 20/20.), therefore Link's Spirit was sealed in the Chamber of Sages for seven years. Alternatively, Link can replace the Master Sword back in the pedestal to return his spirit seven years back into his child body.

There is no new version of Link or any new timeline being created here, it's the same Link being put into a magical coma, with his spirit and consciousness traveling back and forth between his child and adult bodies in the past and future. Now, this by no means contradicts the timeline for a multitude of reasons, but that's a whole other can of worms I don't want to open right now.

The point here I'm trying to make is that when Link transfers his spirit into his future body, everything he did as a child has already happened, since this is all the same time continuity. This is true for the Spirit Temple, where Link has to go back in time to retrieve the Silver Gauntlets and return as an adult in order to save Nabooru and complete the dungeon. In the future, you will also find the unbeatable Running Man in the tent in front of the bridge to Gerudo Valley, who you gave the Bunny Hood years ago, as well as the Skull Kid in the Lost Woods who you find playing Saria's Song that you taught to him as a child. This concept is also seen again in Twilight Princess, where you find an old opened chest. Then, you travel to the past and open it. This means in the present time, Link found it open because he already opened it in the past.

What this means is that when Link is in the future, he already played the Song of Storms and messed up the windmill, even though he hadn't traveled back and done it yet from his perspective. But doesn't that leave the question of who taught Link the song unanswered? No, actually. He learned it from the music man.

If you pay close attention to him in the past, he says that he wants to write a song inspired by the windmill, going around and around and around. Naturally, Link has a talent for imitating songs he hears. We've seen him do it before with Malon's humming and Sheik's Harp. And typically, music boxes only play one song, unless programmed to play something else.

So, there we have it! Link simply copied the notes from the music man, and the magical properties of the OoT caused it to summon a storm. And we're done! Good night, everybody!


...

Oh dear.

See, the sequel complicates things even further. Majora's Mask takes places some time after Link defeated Ganondorf and Zelda returns him to his own time to have a childhood and grow up naturally. As a child, Link ventures to find Navi and comes across the land of Termina.

A bunch of other stuff happened, but while there, he learned the Song of Storms from Flat, one of the royal Composer Brothers. Now... how could it be possible that the music man and Flat wrote the Song of Storms, and that Link only learned it after he went to Termina? Not only that, but there is also a pair of Composer Brothers that serve the Hyrule family and happen to be named Flat and Sharp, and look exactly the same.

In regards to Link learning the Song of Storms from Flat, remember, everything Link does in the past already happened seven years ago from the perspective of future Link, so child Link would still have known the Song of Storms from Flat and played it at the windmill.

It's an existing fan theory, and certainly a fascinating one. However, that doesn't answer any of the other burning questions. And to do that, we need to talk about PARALLEL UNIVERSES!

Yes, as if time travel shenanigans wasn't enough, we now can add parallel universes into this clusterfuck.

It is stated in several guidebooks that Termina is a world parallel to Hyrule, similar to the Dark World, the Twilight Realm, and Lorule. This is how identical or identical-looking characters can exist in parallel to their OoT counterparts and some of the same things can exist in both worlds, even with different origins. (The real world explanation is that the developers only had a year to finish the game and had to resort to using a lot of the same character models to cut down on time.)

So, that means that one of three things is happening here:

A, Link really did copy it from the music man in the first place and the version by the Composer Brothers is parallel to the OoT counterpart.

B, Either Link or the music man read the music notes from Sharp and Flat's gravestones in the Kakariko Graveyard for inspiration (the Sun's Song and the Song of Storms to sound very similar)

Or C, Link learned it in Termina, returned to Hyrule, and played it in the windmill, "closing the time loop", so to speak.

Now, I'll admit these theories are by no means flawless. I've mentioned before that at the end of Ocarina of Time, Zelda sends Link back to the past. And after that, Link sets out on his adventure in Majora's Mask. So... this presents another paradox.

How can Link complete his journey in Ocarina of Time if child Link doesn't learn it until the events of Majora's Mask, after Link defeated Ganondorf and left the Master Sword in the Temple of Time? And Link never using the Master Sword to travel back to his future body again (that we know of, at least) and growing up naturally after that point is what created the timeline split into the child and adult timelines (because the future Link that emerged from the Chamber of Sages after seven years technically still existed), so how could he play it in front of the music man to teach it to his future self if it's after the time split?

Well, the fact of the matter is that the music man in the future still plays it, we just have a little more insight to it now thanks to MM and other lore. Perhaps MM has nothing to do with it, in fact I doubt the idea that the sequel would give some explanation crossed their minds, since they didn't even know they'd be making a direct sequel until after the fact. But that's nothing a little retroactive continuity wouldn't fix, and all it would really take is one little reference or interview statement to make it canon.

But alas, for now, we can only speculate. It truly is a song that goes around and around and around.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to heal my brain's sorrow's.

I am Hero's Shade, and I'll see you all next time.

VS Discussion: The Anti-Debaters

Hello everyone, Hero's Shade here! Today I thought I'd whip up a quick blog page to talk about something that irks me about the VS community, and is unfortunately becoming largely more prominent lately. Yes, I know, VS debating is terrible and water is wet, news at 11.

Have you ever been to a freind's house and played a game with them, and said friend has their own set of house rules that put you at an obvious disadvantage? Well, if you can't recall being in a situation like that, let's say you're playing chess with someone. You begin the game and attempt to move a pawn forward two spaces, but your opponent tells you that because of their house rules you can only move pawns one space at the beginning of your turn. He later revises this rule when he does just that, saying you can only do it once per game. Later, you move your pawn to his side of the board to make it a queen, which would put his king in check, and he has no way of eliminating that pawn. He pulls the house rules card on you yet again saying that you can't make your pawn a queen, only a knight or a rook, and those just so happen to be the two pieces that can't put the king in check on that particular turn. At this point, it becomes clear that this player will just bend the rules in any way that would benefit him and prevent him from losing, even though it is clear that you'd be the winner in this scenario if the game was being played normally.

Now, I'm not going to knock anyone for playing games by their own house rules as long as they are discussed beforehand, but hopefully I made my analogy clear. The rule-changer in this scenario is preventing any situation where the other player would be winning by meta-gaming and cheating himself out of losing rather than simply resorting to the options already available to him and being a good sport. Or how about this, playing a fighting game where one player is using hacks and cheats to win against another player who is playing fairly. This doesn't prove that you're any more skilled than the other player, all it proves is that you can cheat and deny victory from other people who deserve it. In fact, there some situations where it hasn't worked, but that's beside the point.

It makes more sense to use a universal set of rules that anyone can work off of on hand rather than make your own and expect everyone else to follow the rules you made, yes? And that brings us back to VS debating. Debating in general is a logical exorcise. It is best done after extensive research (and I don't just mean spending ten minutes skimming wikis lmao) to compare the facts you've compiled with someone else, as well as-to an extent- the rhetoric used to present information. It is a very informative and enriching experience for those who know what they're doing.


Unfortunately, there are those who will essentially become Obi-Wan ("I have the High Ground, DON'T TRY IT!") and attempt to avoid or hand-wave information and rhetoric. I refer to these people as "Anti-debaters", because they essentially defeat the whole purpose of debating as a logical exorcise, and because they create a lot of the negative stereotypes associated with internet VS debating, which I'm sorry to say are accurate, more often than not. However, I will make an attempt to inform people of these Anti-debating tactics, as well as to purge  educate  also inform those who use them, so hopefully less people will resort to them and less people will be turned off and discouraged by this hobby.

"VS is just opinions anyway"

 

This mentality is one of main reasons I decided to write this blog, because it's one of the best examples of Anti-debating. People who say this during debates likely only say this because actual evidence presented to them goes against their pre-conceived notions of a character or series, or resort to this as a last ditch effort to declare victory in an argument.

This is also counter-intuitive and circular logic, because these people will often present a character as the irrefutable, objective winner, and when they run out of arguments (if any) will claim that it is their opinion that this character will win. If it's an opinion, by definition, it is neither irrefutable nor objective. Which... means it's still open for debate. Hypocrite that you are! Will you fight? Or will you perish like a dog?

Now, a lot of people who say that debating is opinion-based take issue with calculations. Which is fair enough, there are some calculations that can be revised or refuted. But saying all calcs are wrong or that calcs can't be applied to fiction at all is just silly. Yes, we are talking about fictional worlds that may or may not follow the same rules as ours, but most fictional universes have the same universal constants as ours, like gravity. And the very few that don't are the exception rather than the rule. For example, you won't just see people floating around when you're catching up on the Walking Dead, the fact that there's fictional elements like zombies doesn't change the fact that physics are still a thing in their world. Therefore, it only makes sense that they should also follow the same general laws of physics (which you can apply math to because anything that exerts force can be measured in kinetic energy).

Says who? This guy named Occam. He makes great razors. 

"Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor) is a principle from philosophy. Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. In this case the simpler one is usually better. Another way of saying it is that the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation is."

" Occam's razor (also Ockham's razor or Ocham's razor; Latin: lex parsimoniae "law of parsimony") is the problem-solving principle that, when presented with competing hypothetical answers to a problem, one should select the one that makes the fewest assumptions."

My point is that there are things in fiction that you legitimately cannot argue against. Take the Greek legend The Twelve Labors of Hercules for example. The feats he performs in the story have a huge impact on the world around him, and are a driving force for the narrative in general. They happened. Your argument is invalid. The same can be said about most of fiction, like a hero defeating a villain, or a character performing a certain feat triggering a specific event to happen (say, causing a volcano to explode, resulting in a major conflict). Now, when it comes to varying versions of the story, such as if Hercules fought the Hydra alone or with his cousin or nephew, those things are subjective. But more often than not it won't be a deciding factor and there are plenty more examples and pieces of evidence that are much more blatant and concise.

The Stonewallers

This one is pretty self-explanatory, so expect this section to be short. 

These are the people who will have a list of reasons, if not one reason, why they think a character should win, and will never back down from those points or present any new information despite those reasons being repeatedly contested. Said arguments against those points will either be ignored or argued around in circles and/or buried in a sea of comments, only for the stonewaller to continue to present their points as the clincher to newcomers and lurkers. Stonewallers will also use those same points to go against anything the debaters bringing in actual evidence have to say.

Now, it is true that there are times where the information you would present is accurate and the refutations against it are wrong (for example let's say you are arguing something Mario related and somebody argues against your points using an example from the US version SMB2, which is in a dream) , and you often have to repeat yourself. But I'm talking about instances where say, people will claim Saitama will always beat anyone with one punch (I'll get to NLFs later) despite being presented examples from his own series where it took more than one punch to beat someone, and will continue to insist the idea that he always beats enemies with one punch despite being proven wrong multiple times.

This is not debating. This is the age-old children's playground argument of "nuh-uh, is too is too!"

The Hive Minds/The Yes Men

Again, self-explanatory, and you can easily see the issue with this simply by watching the video above. Hive minds and yes men are two different issues, but they do go hand in hand. 

I've been in plenty of situations where a mod on a VS site will just agree with whatever the last thing was that was posted, even if said posts are on opposing sides of the argument. Said mods would often be in charge of whatever was posted on the wiki and main page, which is concerning. There is essentially no debate, and nobody disagrees with anything, aside from outsiders who don't think the same way they do. So you have proverbial Superintendents letting metaphorical houses burn down because they were convinced the Arora Borealis is in the kitchen, despite the fact that those hamburgers are obviously grilled.

Proof by Example

There are plenty of people out there who, rather than going by generally accepted methods like feats, go by arbitrary views or concepts when it comes to certain characters and works of fiction, and Proof by Example Fallacy aka No Limits Fallacy is certainly a by-product of that.

For instance, I have argued with people (who shall remain unnamed, but if you were there you know who they are and I'm sorry for triggering the PTSD flashbacks) who believed that Psycho Mantis could convince any character to kill themselves, or that Freddy Kruegar with the Power Glove had control over any video game character, like he could just snap his fingers and kill Kratos or Asura.

And the biggest problem with this is that they believe that this is the only way to look at fictional characters, and that feats are just secondary, or that they don't matter at all. They believe these subjective concepts are the correct and accurate way and that using numbers, calcs, feats and actual examples from the series is nonsensical and silly.

Going back to what I started this with, these people essentially expect you to drop everything you knew about the characters and debating in general and perform the same mental gymnastics with them.

Me and my friends have this inside joke where you could break these peoples' minds by asking them if Ganondorf could survive a punch from Saitama, and just watch the beauty unfold.

Oh wait, silly me. Whoever wins is whichever character they're a bigger fan of.

Toxic Fanbases

Now, I will openly admit that I am an elitist. I've been doing this for about 5+ years now and have lurked and participated in various VS communities, read tons of respect threads, read plenty of comics, watched tons of TV shows (yeah I know, watching TV, so difficult), as well as written many blogs on and researched many characters. I like to think I know what I'm doing, and I believe there's nothing wrong with being proud of what you do. However, there is a line to be drawn. This should go without saying, but if you tell someone to go kill themselves or just in general act like an asshole or condescend someone the entire time they just want to have a rational conversation with you, chances are they're not going to want to hear your points. This also works conversely. Don't dismiss someone's arguments just because you think they're an elitist, try to hear them out and if they're being toxic just let the mods handle it. Just be respectful to each other. Because at that point there's no actual debate taking place and it devolves to a pissing contest. You're arguing about fake characters on the internet for fuck sake, there's no need to make it personal.

The Posers

 

That guy. You know the one. That guy who only knows memes or surface knowledge about a character and acts like an expert. That guy.

That guy who thinks Aquaman loses every fight because of Robot Chicken, yet had they actually bothered to look even a bit deeper into the character they'd know that that portrayal of the character is exclusively from a cartoon that came out 50+ years ago, and that Aquaman actually has superhuman strength, speed, and agility, can summon tidal waves, and that communicating telepathically with fish isn't a "dumb power" when you can use it to summon sharks and giant squids, not to mention prehistoric creatures and mythical figures like the Kraken.

That guy who thinks Deadpool has metafictional manipulation and can beat anyone because he's immortal, yet in the recent comics he had his deathless curse taken away, the comics clearly establish that healing factor has a limit, and Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe is a non-canon elseworld that exists solely for the purpose of DP killing everyone, thus them being horrendously nerfed.

That guy will also continue to act like an expert despite being shut down several times by people who actually know what they're talking about.

Don't be that guy.

Conclusion

Well then, I think that just about wraps things up. Let me know if you have anything you'd like me to add or take issue with anything I said here, and I will gladly discuss with you.

I am Hero's Shade, and thanks for reading!