May 19, 2007

Temple of Time Architecture (Part 1)

If you are a Legend of Zelda fan, you know what the Temple of Time is. For those who do not know, The Temple of Time is a structure debuting in "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time". It was built by the sages to house the master sword, the sword in the game that evil may never touch. The Master Sword serves as a weapon, a time travel key for the "Hero of Time" and a key to the sacred realm, which somewhere inside holds the Temple of Light, where the Triforce exists (The three triangle thingy you see. Anyone who forms it gets a wish granted by the gods).

In the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (herein TP), I was shocked when Zelda informed Midna to move to the back of the Faron Woods to find the Sacred Grove: the equivalent to the Lost Woods in Ocarina of Time (herein OOT). I have studied transperencies and looked at locations in both games (I'm that hardcore about Zelda games) and have come up with a few conclusions, some facts, and inevitable some unsanswered questions that only Miyamoto (creator) can answer.

First off, If you draw a map of Hyrule from TP and one from OOT, you will notice a LOT of places match up. Not perfectly, but close. In OOT the Temple of Time was situated near/inside the castle walls. TP supports this: if you look around the ruins, you can see fountains (confirmed OOT Temple of Time had fountains on both sides of the structure) and passageways used long ago. But here is a problem: Fitting the location of the temple on both maps: They are quite far apart from each other. The TP Temple of Time fits almost exactly over the OOT Sacred Grove, where the Forest Temple exists. The area in TP is called "The Sacred Grove", so there is some uncertainty there. We don't know if the Forest Temple was knocked down, or if the Temple of Time in TP is in a different location. So where is this damn temple??

It was suggested through the split timeline theory that sometime after OOT, in the ORIGINAL Legend of Zelda, Hyrulians moved a bit north from their previous location. This would support the idea that the entire forest area in TP is the old Castle Town with overgrown trees over 400+ some years. There are irregular structure parts that suggest the Temple of Time in TP WAS NEAR a castle or castle wall of some sort, pointing that this may have indeed been Castle Town. The Legend of Zelda occured in Hyrule A, but Twilight Princess in Hyrule B according to this theory. They are parallel universes, so events may happen different, yet objects may remain similarly between both dimensions. Less debating about the temple location, what about the temple itself?

In OOT, the Temple of Time was a big place. In TP, it is HUGE. I'll have to dig up rough mspaint measurements, but the Temple of Time in TP is roughly twice the size of the first OOT. We know that the Temple went through major renovations. The pointed dome was taken out from the OOT one, and fancy schpance windows were put in: 6 of them. Most of the original columns remain intact (or perhaps they were replaced). Instead of walking straight in, the main room dips down below ground level, then back up again around the Pedastal. From the OOT height of the temple, it is equivalent to roughly 8-10 stories (72-80 feet) In the front, and about 20-25 stories where the dome part is (160-250 feet). In TP, the temple is roughly 180-200 feet in the front (20 stories) and near the dome part, at the minimum, 30 stories (240-300 feet). Here are those measurements again:

Main Room Dome
OOT Temple 72-80 feet 160-250 feet
TP Temple 180-200 feet 240-300 feet

So the TP temple, which was renovated with brand new stone and inscriptions, was a lot taller than the original Temple of Time. To get an idea of the scale of the Temple compared to a 6 foot person, look at the sketch I did. It is a rough sketch, from evidence of structural engineering, a little bit of medieval architecture study and evidence from within the temple has granted me to do. If I ever get my hands on a building program, I will definetly do a 3d Rendering.

4 comments:

Johnny said...

This is one of the coolest blog posts on the internet.

Anonymous said...

Hey man, just read your blog as I've been wondering the same thing for quite a while.
If you're still into this kinda thing then I suggest that you also look at the location of:
Death Mountain
Gerudo Desert
+ Ordon Ranch

Let see if we come up with the same idea ;P

Anonymous said...

Hey, It's good to see other big LOZ fans out there! Although when you said, "The TP Temple of Time fits almost exactly over the OOT Sacred Grove, where the Forest Temple exists." did you mean the OOT Sacred Forest Meadow?

Mako said...

Hello, I find your post interesting since I've been thinking about doing a Temple of Time 3d model and take out some renderings (images or video).

Sadly I haven't been able to play Twilight Princess...