Imprisoning War

The Imprisoning War or Seal War was an event that formed the backstory of A Link to the Past and is described in the introduction of the game and in the game's instruction manual. It was a conflict that ensued after Ganondorf entered the Sacred Realm and laid claim to the Triforce, becoming Ganon. Ganondorf's seizure of the Triforce tainted the Golden Land, transforming it into the Dark World and Ganondorf himself into a beast named Ganon. He launched an invasion against Hyrule with his new army of monsters, made up of people from Hyrule that came seeking the Golden Power for themselves. This invasion was repelled by the Knights of Hyrule, who gave their lives almost to the last to protect the Seven Sages as they cast a seal on the Dark World, trapping Ganon and his army inside and restoring peace to Hyrule.

The Discovery of the Sacred Realm
Long ago in the land of Hyrule, legends spoke of a great power left behind by the Golden Goddesses following Hyrule's creation. Stories speaking of the Sacred Realm and the omnipotent "Golden Power" known as the Triforce that resided within it spread across Hyrule over the ages, causing a lust for the Triforce's power to grow and fester in the hearts and minds of Hyrule's people until there was nothing left in many of them but pure greed. The Triforce could not judge between good and evil and thus would merely grant the wishes of its holder.

One day, a gateway to the Golden Land of the Triforce was accidentally discovered and opened by a band of thieves skilled in dark magic and their leader, a man named Ganondorf. It was a place like no other, a realm of midday golden skies rather than blue. And there, shining down upon this world from above, was the Triforce in all its glory. A long running battle then ensued between Ganondorf and his followers to the heart of the Sacred Realm in a race to reach the Triforce first. Ganondorf fought his way past and killed all of his followers that had accompanied him into the realm along the way so that he could claim it uncontested.

Ganon's Wish on the Triforce
After the murders of his followers, Ganondorf stood over the Triforce and grasped it with blood-stained hands. A voice whispered to him, stating that if he had a strong desire in his heart to wish for it. In response, Ganondorf's laughter echoed across time and space and reached even Hyrule itself as he made a wish that he become the ruler of the world.

Thus, one of Hyrule's greatest threats was born: the King of Evil, Ganon, who now had the strength of the Triforce at his command.

The Creation of the Dark World
As a result of Ganondorf's wish for the domination of the world, the Triforce caused the Sacred Realm to radically change. It began to whither and die as it was transformed into a twisted copy of Hyrule that represented what Hyrule would look like if Ganondorf ruled it. Dark clouds now permanently blackened the skies. As a side-effect of this transformation, the Triforce's magic was used to cast a curse over the entire realm, one that would cause any without protection from it to transform into a shape that would reflect what is in his or her heart. The Golden Land was now the Dark World, a place of darkness and evil.

Ganon was not satisfied merely with ruling the newly-transformed Dark World however, as he sought to return to Hyrule and conquer it as well. In time, evil power began to issue forth from the portal to the Golden Land, beckoning to men from the outside to seek out the Golden Power and have their wishes become reality through its magic.

The Invasion of Hyrule
As greedy men from Hyrule entered the Dark World hungry for the Golden Power, each of them was transformed into a monster reflecting the greed within them. As a result, Ganon's army of monsters grew to a large enough proportion that he was now capable of launching an invasion against Hyrule. Many plagues began to beset Hyrule as well, causing catastrophes for the people that would precede the coming storm.

Finally, with his army now ready, Ganon launched the invasion against Hyrule, intending to fulfill his wish to be the ruler of both the Dark World and the Light World. Ganon's army swarmed from the Dark World and flooded into Hyrule, causing mass chaos and attacking Hyrule Castle. Meanwhile, the Seven Sages searched for a courageous individual that could take up a weapon that had been crafted to combat magic as powerful as that of the Triforce's, a sword that could banish evil itself, the Master Sword. However, no hero worthy of the blade could be found.

The Seal of the Sages
The King of Hyrule eventually convened the council of the Seven Sages as well as the Knights of Hyrule that served to protect the Hylian royalty and commanded them to seal the gateway to the Dark World shut in order to stem Ganon's invasion of the kingdom. Both groups would play pivotal roles in the hope of reaching this goal, with the Seven Sages bearing the responsibility of creating the seal itself while the Knights of Hyrule would protect them as they did their part to halt Ganon's invasion of the kingdom.

The Knights of Hyrule took the full brunt of the attack from Ganon's monsters, and while they fought courageously to the end, they were nearly wiped out entirely as they did their duty. Their lives were not lost in vain however, as they bought the necessary time for the Seven Sages to create their seal, trapping Ganon in the Dark World and halting the invasion. With this, the war was ended in a victory for the Light World, though it had come at a very high cost. The people of Hyrule rejoiced nonetheless at the restoration of order and peace to their kingdom, thanks to the efforts of the Seven Sages and the Knights of Hyrule. Ganon and his army were trapped in the Dark World until the events of A Link to the Past.

Ganon
According to the manual of A Link to the Past, Ganondorf, was once the leader of a band of thieves that resided in Hyrule. One day, they discovered one of the gateways to the fabled Golden Land. After a deadly race to the heart of this Sacred Realm in which he slew all of his own followers, Ganondorf seized the Triforce as his own with the blood of his followers literally on his hands. His wish to become the ruler of the world caused the Golden Land's transformation into the Dark World as well as his own transformation into Ganon.

Once he laid his hands on the Triforce, he became the King of Evil. Using the Triforce's magic, he cast a spell over the Dark World that would cause any venturing into it without protection to be transformed into a shape reflecting what lies in that person's heart. He also used the Triforce to lure greedy men from Hyrule into the Dark World in order to transform them into monsters for his army. Once he had built a large enough force, Ganon proceeded to launch his assault on Hyrule with the intention of ruling both worlds with the Triforce at his command. His schemes were put to a halt however through the sacrifice of the Knights of Hyrule and the magic of the Seven Sages when a seal was placed on the gateway to the Dark World, preventing him from being able to return to the Light World.

King of Hyrule
Not much is known about the sitting King of Hyrule at the time of the Imprisoning War, apart from certain details concerning his actions during the conflict. It is said that when Ganon's army invaded from the Dark World and began attacking Hyrule Castle that the king called the Seven Sages and the Knights of Hyrule together and ordered them to seal the gateway to the Golden Land as a means to stem the invasion. Beyond that, not much is known about his reign or what other actions he took during the war, but it appears he was the chief architect of the plan to seal Ganon within the confines of the Dark World in order to restore peace to the kingdom.

In the stories of the Imprisoning War, he is referred to as the "Lord of Hyrule". As is the case with the Royal Family at the time of A Link to the Past, it is implied that he too ruled from Hyrule Castle during his reign, as Ganon's beasts were said to have targeted it during their invasion of the kingdom. As there is still a sitting king at the time of A Link to the Past, which supposedly takes place centuries after the Imprisoning War, it is thought that both the King of Hyrule in the present as well as Princess Zelda are descendants of the unnamed king that led Hyrule through the Imprisoning War.

Knights of Hyrule
The protectors of the Hylian royalty renowned for their bravery, the Knights of Hyrule were the primary military force defending Hyrule during the era of the Imprisoning War and sacrificed a great deal to preserve its freedom. Not much is known about their order or how it was formed, but their primary purpose was to serve the Royal Family of Hyrule and to defend the country. When Ganon seized the Triforce and attacked Hyrule after forming a great army of monsters, the knights were the main source of resistance to the chaos he wrought upon the kingdom. When the King of Hyrule formed the plan to seal Ganon and his army within the Dark World, they were assigned the role of protecting the Seven Sages from harm as they cast the seal on the portal to the Dark World. As a result, they took the full brunt of the beasts' attacks and subsequently perished almost to the point of complete extermination. They had however succeeded in their ultimate goal of giving the Sages the time they needed to cast the seal, so their lives were not lost in vain.

Their bloodline was not entirely destroyed, however, for one of their few remaining descendants, Link, is featured in A Link to the Past and becomes the legendary Hero spoken of in the prophecy of the Great Cataclysm that would reverse the Cataclysm's effects by taking back the Golden Power and restoring both the Golden Land and Hyrule to their former beauty.

Seven Sages
The Seven Sages, also known as the Seven Wise Men, were a group of powerful sorcerers skilled in magic that served the Royal Family of Hyrule around the time the Imprisoning War broke out. Not much is known of their history, such as their group's formation or even what their names were, but what is certain is that they were primarily responsible for ending the Imprisoning War by placing a seal on the gateway to the Golden Land, therefore locking Ganon away within the Dark World and protecting Hyrule from further harm. Before the formation of the plan to seal Ganon away, they were said to have searched for a courageous individual that could take up the Master Sword and confront the evil that was threatening Hyrule. Despite this search, the beasts of Ganon's army were wreaking havoc, and the King of Hyrule acted by convening the Sages' council, where he ordered them to place their seal on the Dark World. They succeeded in this endeavor largely because the Knights of Hyrule sacrificed their numbers to defend them while they created the seal. In the end, it was the combined efforts of the Sages and the knights that saved Hyrule.

The descendants of the Seven Sages, the Seven Maidens, appear in A Link to the Past, and have inherited their status as Sages in their own right in the present day. The town elder of Kakariko Village at the time of A Link to the Past, Sahasrahla, also claims to be descended from the Sages as well as the lost old man that gives Link the Magic Mirror on Death Mountain. During the events of A Link the Past, the dark wizard Agahnim intends to send each of the Sages' successors, the Seven Maidens, across the barrier between the worlds and destroy the seal placed on the Dark World by their ancestors.

Timeline Placement from Hyrule Historia
In the Hyrule Historia guidebook, the Imprisoning War is described as an alternate version of the events of Ocarina of Time taking place in a timeline where Link is defeated by Ganon. This is neither the Adult Timeline where Link defeats Ganon as an adult nor the Child Timeline where Princess Zelda sends Link to his childhood after he defeats Ganon as an adult, but is instead a third timeline, the Downfall Split timeline, where Ganon is successful in killing Link.

After Ganondorf kidnaps Princess Zelda at the end of Ocarina of Time, Link challegened Ganondorf but was defeated. Ganondorf extracted the Triforce of Courage from Link and the Triforce of Wisdom from Zelda obtaining the complete Triforce and transformed into Ganon. In desperation, Zelda and the Seven Sages sealed Ganon along with the complete Triforce away in the Sacred Realm.

Trivia

 * The name of the Imprisoning War seems to be a play off of the end result of the conflict, which resulted in the "imprisoning" of Ganon inside of the Dark World; Meanwhile, the alternate name for the war in Japan, the "Seal War", seems to be a reference to the seal cast by the Seven Sages that trapped Ganon in the Dark World and ended the war.
 * In the American manual for A Link to the Past, Ganondorf is given the surname "Dragmire" as well as the alias of "Mandrag Ganon" meaning "Ganon of the Enchanted Thieves".
 * The American manual for A Link to the Past makes the claim that the Hylian people were responsible for the creation of the Master Sword, while its Japanese counterpart states that the sword was ancient and had been crafted at the direction of the goddesses ; It was later revealed by Princess Zelda in Twilight Princess that the sword was crafted by the wisdom of the Ancient Sages, falling more in line with the Japanese manual's version of the sword's origins.
 * The story was heavily truncated for the manual of the Game Boy Advance version of A Link to the Past and did not include such important details as Ganon seizing the Triforce or the search for the Master Sword. These details are still provided by in-game text, however.
 * The American version of the story has the sages forget where the Triforce is hidden.
 * As indicated by deleted text in Four Swords Adventures, the original concept for that game would have included elements which might have made it the game in which the Imprisoning War occurred. Deleted text talks of Link not being able to wield the Master Sword, and more explicit references to the Hylians. During development, Four Swords Adventures had considerably more story than the final release, but Shigeru Miyamoto thought that the game should have a stronger focus on gameplay and the story was simplified.
 * In regards to the games nominated to possibly be the Imprisoning War, one highly cited reason for the differences between the nominated games and the story of the Imprisoning War is that so much time has passed between the time of A Link to the Past and the Imprisoning War that the story has been altered or changed over the centuries, resulting in the differences.