Ambidextrous Link?

[Nate the Great]

So you kinda want the standard infodump on "okay, this is what happened before, here are some subtle references to the Links of the other games," etc.

This leads into one of my canonical itches that I can't scratch away. Some canon lists of the games split into a "Adult OOT Link" branch and a "Child OOT Link" branch. You know, one history had the world know that Link stopped Ganon, there was a period of reconstruction, maybe he married Zelda, who knows. The other history had him reappear in the Temple of Time immediately after he left. I think in the final timeline Ganon and his minions suddenly vanished in the middle of their attack on Hyrule Castle (when Link was still inside Jabu Jabu). At least that was my assumption. Then again, the big question with the end of OOT was "did Zelda know who Link was?" That was never answered, was it?

For that matter, how did a child of ten (according to the game manuals) get his hands on Epona to take her to Termina in MM? From the way Talon was talking, even as a young horse Epona was clearly remarkable and would be valuable property, either as breeding stock or as a present to Zelda's father or something. Even with 500 rupees, could Link just out and out BUY Epona?

Then again, how much is a rupee? Is there anything in the game that Link can buy that would immediately have a real-world dollar amount attached to it? Let's try guessing a bit. A minigame is usually ten rupees, right? Let's say that that indicates that 1 rupee=50 cents to a dollar, comparing a minigame to most arcade games (real ones like Skeeball, not Pac-man ). I'd say that it's closer to a dollar, what with the 20 rupee cost for a shield. Twenty bucks for a large (presumably hardened) piece of bark, carved and painted, with a leather strap, seems about right. Eighty bucks for a piece of sheet metal (a Hylian Shield), with wooden lathes on the inside and a metal handle, also seems reasonable.

Now, granted this doesn't seem to hold water in some areas. Maybe five hundred bucks for a fish in Goron City makes sense, but in Zora's Domain it should be cheaper. Simularly, magic is presented as the domain of a select few, given that not everyone has the munitions required to access the Hyrule Great Fairies Fountain, clearly few people climb Death Mountain, as visitors seem to be few and far between in Goron City, etc. One would presume that magic would be cleaper in the outlands than in Hyrule Castle Town.