Majora's Mask and the Art of Dark Symbolism

[Music] you [Music] The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask is what I'd like to regard as one of my favorite video games of all time being a massive Nintendo gamer and more specifically Zelda fan I was absolutely obsessed with the feeling of endless adventure that was brought upon me by its prodigal predecessor ocarina of time you see young me would stay up every night during the summer endlessly pushing forward through the Deku Tree the dongho's cavern and jabu jabu's belly after this followed the forest fire water shadow and spirit temples with their many dungeons before heading

up to the freakin lion's den climbing Ganon's castle to take on the great king of evil in both of his forms oh god what days those were strangely it would be a few months until young me would obtain the revelation that ocarina of time had a direct sequel hmm a sequel you say now you see at this point I was still just a young boy at this point in my life I had a strange but gargantuan obsession with Paper Mario and Zelda kind of took the back burner while I pressed through that game you see

this was back before the days of online walkthroughs and I had a whopping zero dollar to spend on a strategy guide so this stuff took time okay anyway once I finally did get around to playing Majora's Mask I really didn't get it there's some wonky time system and all my stuff keeps resetting to zero also why can't I just save by pressing V like I did before seriously Nintendo what gives I just didn't get it and it seems after doing a lot of reading on this a lot of other people that are my age didn't

quite get it either until we grew up you see majora's mask is one of those games that requires deliberation and critical thought being a far cry from the legendary hero's quest in Ocarina of Time Majora's Mask was a much more personal endeavour to endure in college I revisited the land of termina in a nostalgia driven attempt at finally mastering something that I'd readily given up on a decade prior when doing so I was actually able to comprehend what I was supposed to be doing rather than button mashing to the dialogue like I used to this

stuff had actual meaning and being at an age where I could make sense of it brought me to a revelation that I hold to this very day The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask is a dark and enigmatic masterpiece finding the reason why Majora's Mask didn't appeal to younger me really isn't that hard it's complicated yes the three-day cycle really left me scratching my head it confused on what to do the beginning of the game being slow and thought out rather than allowing you to take your true form and slash away through dungeons was also another

hindering factor really it was just a mishmash of me being young along with these reasons that led to me just not wanting to complete it so why am I talking about this now well my friends aside from the very obvious and nightmarish moon Majora's masks undertones are very dark and creepy these Hans coming you from all over while playing and everything every theme every character background every mini storyline that's intertwined throughout this overarching story is absolutely an unapologetically masterful as we know the game is largely carried by a mask system only a select few of

them and we'll get to this shortly are required to progress the main story aside from the three transformative ones there are 21 other masks in total that each come with a unique storyline none of the non story ones are required to complete the game but are rather completely optional allowing you to experience a multitude of side stories that require you to connect and engage with the citizens of Clock Town this is where the divide in tone between majora's mask and ocarina of time really becomes evident ocarina of time has you playing as a legendary hero

of time giving you the primary focus of slaying Ganon and saving the princess the game reminds you again and again who you're pursuing and what your end goal is Majora's Mask is the antithesis of this idea in its entirety you know how it is at the end of the climatic Ocarina of Time Princess Zelda rewarded link by sending him back to his own time in hopes of letting him live out the childhood that he had given up in order to save Hyrule when doing so Navi disappeared into the unknown and so links it off on

a search for his long-lost friend this is when Majora's Mask begins rather than being a chosen one s copening were initially greeted by nothing more than the silent ambiance of minimalist music alongside the clacking of hooves against the ground beneath us [Music] this this in its entirety sets the mood for how the rest of this dark enigma of a game would play out jumping forward the silence is then interrupted as we're ambushed by Skull Kid we begin to chase after him before direct confrontation and he transforms us into a Deku scrub afterwards we progressed forward

alongside tattle one of the skull kids fairy friends to eventually come face to face with one of the darkest and most prominent characters in this game the happy mask salesman exhibits the largest and most obvious sign of the stark tonal divided between ocarina of time and majora's mask if I were to pick one central character to serve as an example of this it would be him in ocarina he's nothing more than a happy-go-lucky I'll be it a little weird mask salesman who has a shop in castle town interaction with him is nothing more than optional

and the masks that you get from his side quests are ultimately cosmetic more than anything in majora he carries a different persona and role entirely now he has knowledge and with this power that comes off as eerily uncanny you make a deal with him bring back the mask that was stolen from him by the Skull Kid the same mask that has the potential for relentless unfathomable destruction and he he will give you your life back to live once more as a human in the dystopia of termina think about this link Mina deal for his life

link is stuck in a dark doomed parallel universe link made a deal with a figurative devil every failed attempt at saving termina within three days results in the happy mask salesman sinisterly telling us his famous line you've met with a terrible fate haven't you while the world hellishly burns to the ground but that's the bad ending that's the inning you're met with if you don't end up following through with your into the deal swamp mountain ocean and canyon are then explained to us as the regions that need to be saved to release the deities of

each area in order to save the land of termina and so we set off on a quest to ensure that not only us but all of the undeserving residents of this parallel kingdom survive this impending doom that looms right above us so setting off we're the newbies in Clock Town in termina and we head out to converse with all the residents to figure out what the hell is happening along the way we meet a multitude of people who all have trivial issues that collectively add up to supplement the central theme of this game for starters

we have granny from the end who is attacked by second kymaro the man who couldn't die the Rosa sisters the dancers who just couldn't get it right Gorman who had all his performances canceled guru-guru the one with the Bremen mask and many many others all of these many storylines add up to a collective sense of hopelessness and grief and this is right out of the gate [Music] we haven't even gotten into the stories behind the transformative masks when you get the mask salesman to end the curse set upon you you're able to collect the Deku

scrub as a transformative mask this however is a stark contrast from the origins of the Goron and Sora masks as they come from beings that have passed away and been put to rest or is it you see there's one small detail that many might overlook at the very beginning on this game when you're traversing through the abyss while trying to escape with tattle you come across a shriveled-up Deku scrub who appears to be dead keep this in mind and fast forward in the game to where you're able to play the racing minigame with the Deku

Butler in order to obtain the mask of sense and you'll come to realize that the Deku Butler says something that many might overlook you remind me of my son with this it's become widely believed that the Sun is in fact this very Deku scrub that we pass up at the start of the game this is further supported when we see him crying next to the same scrub during the end credits what if when skullkid cursed us into Deku Forum he did so by immediately sucking all life out of this innocent being leaving it with indefinite

and undeserved death this ultimately becomes a major addition to the prevalent themes that we've drummed up for this game hopelessness grief and now undeserved death for innocent people in Snowhead we set out to put the spirit of the Goron leader darmani whom risked his entire life trying to save snow head from the skull kids curse to rest when doing so were tasked with consoling the Goron elders son has nothing more than an apparition of darmani himself once again deals with death and grief jumping forward to Great Bay were tasked with saving Lulu's eggs from dying

and putting the Zora spirit Macao to rest once again death also these eggs are undeservedly fated to death due to climate change brought about by the skull kids curse all of it ties into the themes of hopelessness despair and now death Icona Canyon is one of the most prominent displays of how dark Majora's Mask can come to be though the entire region is home to the invisible ikono species a tribe of skeleton-like creatures that have been overrun by invaders by the name of the garo I Cana was once a prosperous region bustling with life much

like Hyrule and since then its digressed so much that it's now a dystopian area that's widely known as a home for lost wandering Souls and the undead one of the freakin masks you get from this region is the gibdo mask which allows you to talk to mummies and you get this by playing the song of healing next to the gibdo father of a little girl as trapped inside probably the only colourful house in the entire area [Music] you [Music] one of my favorite portions of the entire game falls within Romani ranch I just don't know

what it is about ranches and Zelda games that just stick with me forever Romani primarily got to me the most due to on mission our tasked with handling fighting off them how genius is this nothing nothing gives me the sense that I'm in a dark and outlandish parallel universe more than a freaking alien invasion this far and large was one of the creepiest and most adrenaline-inducing moments in this entire game and really it's for good reason throughout the game Romani along with other NPCs would reference them coming to abduct cows once a year unfortunately for

us that day somehow perfectly lies within a short three day time span that were given in the world of termina across clock town you'll encounter many NPCs who talk about a certain experience with them and how transformative it was this allows us to speculate the possibility that these people were likely experimented on but wait according to Romani the aliens arrived every year to abduct cows so what gives you see the beauty of this segment is the lack of knowledge surrounding it if you fail the mission at the ranch Romani is abducted and acts strikingly different

from before almost as if she's in a total haze was she lobotomized was she probed or she raped the beauty of this game is that we don't know it's as a mysterious of a phenomenon to us as it is to the in-game characters and this was done to make us feel something [Music] it's absolutely unbelievable I wasn't able to make any of these connections or even have the will to when I was a kid however even if I did I likely wouldn't be able to comprehend them once more Majora's Mask absolutely requires deliberation and critical

thought as you all know many theories have been made throughout the years regarding the dark undertones of Majora's Mask of course of course we have the theory that link is dead as birthed by matpat among others surrounding links lost childhood and what-have-you however I really really want to share an overarching theory that I think might be even darker than this what if at the end link accidentally becomes the villain that he's trying so desperately to defeat if we can recall at the end of the game link defeats Majora's Mask and the land of termina is

saved once everything is said and done the words dawn of a new day up here on screen implying that everything is ok and the land of termina will live on peacefully good ending right if you turn off the game here and leave it at that then this is absolutely the case I do want to bring something to your attention though if we rewind back to the moon portion of the game right before link enters the room to face the final boss we're rewarded with the fierce deity's mask this is only rewarded to us if we've

completed every mask quest in the game however it has one strikingly apparent trade it grants link unfathomable power himself so much so that even he is able to take down Majora's Mask in just a few hits with this in mind let's sidetrack here and think about every other Zelda game in the lineup none of them let you continue an endgame with any items that you may have gotten at or immediately before the final boss instead they all back you up prior to the final boss fight if you ever feel like loading up the file again

we have to remember that Majora's masks entire perception of time is completely different from every other Zelda in the lineup remember how I mentioned that link made a deal with the mask salesman a figurative devil the fierce deity's mask is his reward as it's given immediately before link reaches the final stage of his quest to uphold his into the deal essentially this reward is now apparent unfathomable power himself and now the ability to live forever now wait a minute ability to live forever where did that come from so if you turn off the game with

the dawn of a new day screen it's over Turman is saved and everything is peaceful and prosperous if you continue to play though you'll notice that you still have the fierce deity's mask and the time has been reset again this ultimately leads me to believe that all of the work that linked it to uphold his into the bargain for the mask salesman was for nothing and the sleazy catch in the fine print of his deal to get his life back was to be banished in this doomed hell full of residents that are entrenched in grief

and despair due to the many struggles that come with him the evident difference now though is that there forever engulfed in an endless cycle of dealing with their issues over and over and over and over forever and ever and ever even worse all of this is happening during the three worst days of their entire lives as death quite literally stares them down from the sky termina was always destined to die it's even in the name termina terminal and everything dies and everything is finite link was simply interfering with the natural order of things forever trapping

everyone in a world whose time was up you can't cheat death and in the end game it's breathing down links neck awaiting the moment that he decides that his good intentions aren't worth it anymore when this moment comes and it will death will finally be able to run its due course link made a deal with the devil majora's mask does not end with link leaving termina it does not end at all for a game that's rated E for Everyone we definitely have a treasure that's grim desolate and haunting while it's not in-your-face scary The Legend

of Zelda Majora's Mask carries with it a sense of eeriness that's chock-full of symbolism no matter how you slice it hopelessness despair impending doom and death have all been interwoven into the many storylines that are present in this game and unfortunately a lot of this can be easily overlooked if you don't stop to take it all in with this being said and too close it's almost impossible to gloss over the irony surrounding the extremely prominent song of healing that towers over everything else in the game the song itself is the very foundation of Majora's Mask

having a sole purpose of in theory representing something that's positive however in actuality it's clearly one of the most haunting scores that you're able to play on an ocarina ever like I mentioned prior the game is as a whole made to make you feel the heavy emotions from each character all the way up until the very end when we're finally able to go forth and bring an end to the clammin II brought upon us by this gold kid all of the interwoven storylines that we've experienced through the many side quests from woodfall snow head Great

Bay I canna Canyon and Clock Town end up coming together as a collective whole and it's at this moment this tiny sliver of time during the carnival when everyone is able to experience the brief sentiment that maybe just maybe there's a glimmer of hope in this dystopia after all [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you