Despite its ubiquity, I tend to consider 's story the series' most profound. Link's triumphant journey to defeat Ganondorf is underpinned by a pervasive sense of melancholy, even in the game's jovial ending: the celebrations highlighted in the credits are followed by two possible outcomes in the series' convoluted timeline.
Link's adult era continues without him, and Hyrule is doomed to be flooded prior to; when he's sent back in time, he's now an orphan in the wrong era, stripped of his destiny.
This doesn't even take into account the timeline branch where Ganon is victorious against the Hero of Time, but the events of itself aren't any less tragic.
Just when Link seems to be well on his way to rebuffing Ganondorf's coup by gathering the three Spiritual Stones, the kingdom falls anyway.
Link has his formative years ripped away from him while he's effectively comatose in the Sacred Realm for seven years. He emerges to a nightmare manifest: Castle Town Market is derelict and filled with ReDead; the home he doesn't belong to, Kokiri Forest, is overrun with monsters; Gerudo City is empty, its residents waiting to be consumed by an ancient, resurrected dragon; and Zora's Domain is frozen in eternal ice.