The Reversed Lorule Timeline is a timeline theory co-created by Evan B and GwJ. It originally derived from the Four Swords Separate Timeline, but the current version derives from the Extended Child Timeline.
Evidence & Reasoning
Lorule has a hero like Link, Ravio. Unlike Link, Ravio is not courageous enough to stand before Hilda and Yuga to prevent their plans to take Hyrule’s Triforce. Ravio took a route of lesser danger by sneaking into Hyrule himself to recruit Link. And something Lorule doesn’t have that Hyrule does is a Master Sword. While Link is adventuring in Lorule, he discovers Master Ore which the Blacksmiths are able to use to enhance the Master Sword. Interestingly, all of the Master Ores are found in Lorule while none can be found in Hyrule. The reason for this is pretty simple: Hyrule already used its four pieces of Master Ore to forge the Master Sword while Lorule never created one. We do not find a Master Sword while in Lorule and Ravio does not carry a sword. We don’t even visit the area of the Lost Woods where the Master Sword is found.
If we think of Lorule as if it were Hyrule, how would one explain a Hero that lacks courage and does not have a Master Sword to wield? The answer is simple: Skyward Sword never happened in Lorule. There is no counterpart to Goddess Hylia, which helpfully also settles any debate on what a hypothetical Lorule goddess would be called. There is no Loria, Lorelle, Loretta, or Lylia, and DEFINITELY NO LOLIA EITHER. Skyward Sword’s events only occur due to Hylia’s actions and plans. Because of Hylia, Zelda awakens as the goddess reborn and ropes Link into tempering his soul to upgrade the Goddess Sword and become worthy to wield the Triforce. This is the first hero in history and the origin of the Spirit of the Hero that all future Links share. If there is no Hylia, there is nobody to seal Demise away, to coax Link into tempering his soul to save Zelda, or create the Master Sword.
Lorule also has a princess like Zelda, Hilda. And unlike Zelda, Hilda does not appear to have the magical abilities Zelda has. She carries a staff like Yuga that she uses to perform magic, and she also uses Ravio’s Bracelet to send Link and Zelda home to Hyrule. She is never seen performing magic of her own, while Zelda is shown being able to create the Light Arrows for Link while she was cursed to be a painting in Lorule.
The Lorulean royal family destroyed their realm’s Triforce to prevent conflict over it. Meanwhile in Hyrule, the Triforce was handed down by the Golden Goddesses to Hylia to protect and it is in this duty that she sets into motion the events leading up to Skyward Sword. Destroying the Triforce is something antithetical to her existence and out-of-character for all the characters involved. Hilda not having the benefits of being a goddess reincarnated would make the idea of destroying the Triforce more plausible.
Without a counterpart to Hylia, it must be asked how Lorule would survive Demise’s invasion. The solution is that Demise simply does not exist here. Hyrule (and by extension Lorule) are created on the principles of balance as symbolized by the Triforce itself and the constant oscillation of the powers of good and evil. Without a Hylia as the paragon of light, there can't be a Demise, paragon of darkness. In addition, we don’t see Lorule in a state that suggests Demise exists. If the Triforce were destroyed, there would be nothing preventing a demon invasion from completely overtaking Lorule or from being outright destroyed. But what we see in Lorule is a realm that is slowly decaying due to the lack of the Triforce and humans turning into demons from their own negative emotions. The game presents Lorule as what happens when Hyrule loses its Triforce and it shows how humanity will fall without the Triforce, becoming corrupted by their own greed and lust for power. It is not Demise that defeats humanity in Lorule, it’s humanity itself.
Common imagery in A Link Between Worlds is the mirrored relation between Hyrule and Lorule. In addition to the inverted Triforce, Lorule itself is often presented like the reflection in water. The alphabets are also upside-down, Hilda’s Theme is Zelda’s Lullaby inverted on a staff, and part of Lorule Castle’s theme is Hyrule Castle backwards. The Ballad of the Goddess from Skyward Sword is Zelda’s Lullaby backwards, and it makes a cameo appearance here covered by the milk bar band.
Demise's sword has an upside-down Triforce on it, aka the Lorulean Triforce. He was described as coming forth from a crack in the earth which is our mode of transport between Hyrule and Lorule in ALBW. In Skyward Sword, Demise's goal is to rule the world with the Triforce, making it into a monster-infested hellscape ruled by the Demon Tribe. Lorule was shown decaying into a Dark World where the people all transform into demons with no Triforce to govern the land, so the transformation of the world into a demon world involves the outright removal of the Triforce, rather than using it. Demise doesn’t need the wish, he wants to destroy the Triforce and consume its power in order to destroy Hyrule.
Our big assumption, with copious aforementioned evidence, is that in the same way Lorule is a mirror world to Hyrule, its timeline is also mirrored, running generally in the reverse direction to Hyrule’s. They do temporarily sync up when the doors between them are open, which to use highway terminology is called a Wrong Way Concurrency. If we take the timeline in Lorule to flow opposite to Hyrule’s, forward advancement in Lorule’s timeline would correlate with backward movement in Hyrule’s timeline. Lorule’s past lines up with Hyrule’s future and Lorule’s future lines up with Hyrule’s past.
In ALBW, Yuga is briefly fused with Ganon before being destroyed by Link with the Light Arrows. This leaves Ganon in Lorule, and the resulting being is known as Yuganon. Yuganon succeeds in conquering Lorule and obtaining the Lorulean Triforce. Now imagine in a way perhaps similar to how Yuga first found Hyrule, Yuganon detects the presence of the Hyrulean Triforce? We know Yuga had the means to open cracks as portals to Hyrule and he should be able to do so again.
So just imagining that Lorule's timeline flows opposite of Hyrule's, if Yuganon conquers Lorule and leaves his universe it would be happening near the end of that timeline. Coming out on the Hyrulean side, he would find himself near the beginning of its timeline. To the people of Hylia and Hylia herself, he would be known as Demise. As Fi remarks, Demise's appearance changes:
“A being that is timeless and absolute, it is the source of all evil. It is said its form differs according to the era and also differs according to the person who sees it.
Knowing what he wants and how to locate it (having already experienced the Lorulean Triforce), Demise (future Yuganon incarnation) is able to track the Triforce to the Sealed Temple area and is sealed by Hylia.
Original Timeline Theory
Version 1.0
This is the one from GwJ's 2022 document. The 2D and 3D timelines have separate creation events here. Ganon evolves from FSA to LttP and ALBW, then in the form of Yuganon back up the Reversed Lorule Timeline to become Demise.
| 2D Timeline | RLT | 3D Timeline | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creation of the World | (Read this
column up from the bottom) |
Creation of the World | |
| The Minish Cap | Demise's Invasion | ||
| Four Swords | ^ | Skyward Sword | |
| Four Swords Adventures | Timeline | Ocarina of Time | |
| A Link to the Past | Lorule | Adult Timeline | Child Timeline |
| Oracle of AgesOracle of Seasons | Reversed | The Wind Waker | Majora's Mask |
| Link's AwakeningAncient Stone Tablets | ^ | Phantom Hourglass | Twilight Princess |
| A Link Between Worlds | Spirit Tracks | Impossibly long
time gap | |
| Hyrule Fantasy | ^ | Wild Trilogy | |
| Adventure of Link | Creation of the World(Lorule edition) | Age of Calamity | Breath of the Wild |
Version 1.1
This is the one from Evan's April 2023 video. Wanting to give both the 2D and 3D timelines the same creation event, it treats Demise's Invasion as a true time travel branch to join them together.
| RLT | 2D Timeline | 3D Timeline | |
|---|---|---|---|
| (Read It
Upwards) |
Creation of the World | ||
| Demise's Invasion (which didn't
happen in the 2D Timeline) | |||
| ^ | The Minish Cap | Skyward Sword | |
| ^ | Four Swords | Ocarina of Time | |
| Timeline | Four Swords Adventures | Adult Timeline | Child Timeline |
| Lorule | A Link to the Past | The Wind Waker | Majora's Mask |
| Reversed | Oracle of AgesOracle of Seasons | Phantom Hourglass | Twilight Princess |
| ^ | Link's AwakeningAncient Stone Tablets | Spirit Tracks | Impossibly long
time gap |
| A Link Between Worlds | Wild Trilogy | ||
| ^ | Hyrule Fantasy | Age of Calamity | Breath of the Wild |
| Creation(Lorule) | Adventure of Link | ||
Revised Timeline Theory
The first version had a serious flaw, but fortunately not even the people who were always criticizing it noticed. Evan realized the problem with it was that it simultaneously claimed that there was no Skyward Sword event in Lorule as evidence that it was the opposite of Hyrule's history, but there'd also been no Skyward Sword event in the 2D timeline either.
Fortunately, the April 2023 video also provided an alternative, later formally adopted. This is the one from Evan's September 2023 video. Here, Ganon evolves in "a big freaky circle".
| RLT | Timeline | |
|---|---|---|
| (Read it
upwards) |
Creation of the World | |
| Demise's Invasion | ||
| ^ | Skyward Sword | |
| ^ | Ocarina of Time | |
| Timeline | Child Timeline | Adult Timeline |
| Lorule | Majora's Mask | The Wind Waker |
| Reversed | Twilight Princess | Phantom Hourglass |
| ^ | Extended Child Timeline | Spirit Tracks |
| ^ | The Minish Cap | |
| ^ | Four Swords | |
| Timeline | Four Swords Adventures | |
| Lorule | A Link to the Past | |
| Reversed | Oracle of AgesOracle of Seasons | (It's not actually here,
it's also Child Timeline but there's no room there) |
| ^ | Link's AwakeningAncient Stone Tablets | Wild Trilogy |
| A Link Between Worlds | Breath of the Wild | |
| ^ | Hyrule Fantasy | Age of Calamity |
| Creation(Lorule) | Adventure of Link | Tears of the Kingdom |