2. "RE: Zelda and Zelda By-Products"
In response to message #0
The explanation I like best is that Link is a composite folk hero, like Hercules or Sun Wukong. There are a lot of stories about him, they all exist in multiple versions, and each game is a retelling of one version of one story. Maybe the stories have some truth at their core but it seems very unlikely that one person did all of the deeds that are attributed to him.
(Also, yeah, I don't understand why they refuse to do even one game where Zelda is the protagonist.)