#fun fact i wrote a very complicated fic explaining this back in like. 2017 2018ish

[chaoxfix]

you can tell that a lot of zelda lore theorists aren't fanfiction writers bc its soooo easy to come up with a story explaining the 3-way timeline split

the child/adult timeline split already makes perfect sense. zelda split the timeline when she sent link back in time, but adult zelda would have continued onward with the adult timeline, no real speculation needs to happen there. and when zelda sends link back, link goes to the child timeline to relive his youth, not a whole lot of explanation needed there either.

but if you stop to think about the downfall timeline, and why zelda sent link back, its actually pretty obvious what happened and why.

the downfall timeline doesn't happen "any time link dies" or whatever, it's not some silly "git good or ur inventing the downfall timeline" gimmick. there's a purpose to it.

from a story perspective, it makes perfect sense if zelda actually went back in time herself in a previous attempt to defeat ganon. the way i see it, in link's first attempt to defeat ganondorf, he dies. so zelda goes back in time and abandons that timeline as there's no hope without a living link. on link's second attempt, he succeeds -- but zelda realizes how damaging growing up so quickly was to link. perhaps something that happened as he was dying, or she really just realized how unfair this whole ordeal was to him. but sending him back to live a longer, happier life? makes perfect sense if she witnessed him dying.

so yeah. the three timeline split makes perfect sense. you just have to consider it from a character-driven perspective.