Nameless Developments

The Creepiness and Significance of Majora’s Mask

It’s very refreshing to see a different type of story in a Zelda game. Many of them are just exceptionally simple:  

1. you are a hero  
2. interact with *only* key characters  
3. ???  
4. save the world!

But Majora’s Mask seems to do something different. It wraps you around the lives of each of the worlds inhabitants. It forces you to help with their seemingly trivial struggles to advance a slight bit further in your own. At some point, you may ask yourself: “why am I doing all of this again?” It’s as if you, the player, forget your ultimate goal. I’ll give you a hint, it’s not saving Zelda. Instead, it’s a very trivial goal: recover Majora’s Mask for the Mask Salesman that you meet in the very beginning of the game. Being as trivial as it is, it’s very easy to get lost in the game (ie, immersed) and forget that you even have to do it (that is, until you’re faced with Skull Kid).

[spoilers follow]  

I mean, lets look at this from Link’s perspective. First, he rides into the foreign Termina (which itself sounds like Terminal). He is greeted by Skull Kid, who promptly knocks him off of Epona, takes his Ocarina, turns him into a Deku, then flees. That right there is pretty dark — Link is now stuck being a Deku, no ocarina to play, and no horse.

Then comes along this creepy Mask Salesman. And wait, haven’t we seen him before? Yes, we have. Link gives no indication as to whether or not they’ve met, but as players, we know better. All he wants us to do is his dirty work. A correct assumption; he wants us to recover his mask that Skull Kid stole. After we chit-chat in the clock tower, where time strangely stands still, we are sent out into the vast world, alone, and still with no horse or ocarina.

So we arrive in this big town full of people. What do we do? We’re new here, we have to ask around to figure out what’s going on. There’s Kafei, the masked kid who’s scared of getting married because he was turned into a child by Skull Kid (that brat, we better make him pay!). Anju, the innkeeper who’s torn because she doesn’t know what happened to Kafei and thinks it’s all her fault. That poor girl, we think. I wish I could help her, we think. But wait, we can! But put that out of mind for now; there’s more misery to discuss. Just around Clock Town, there’s Granny (the sweet old lady who gets attacked by Sakon), Kamaro (the man who couldn’t die peacefully), the Rosa Sisters (the dancers that just can’t get it right), Gorman (the poor man who had all of his performances cancelled), Guru-Guru (the man who stole the Bremen Mask), and several others I’ve likely missed. Right there, that’s a whole lot of shit going on between sadness, hopelessness, and grief. You know what? That’s only the first of five major areas in the game.

There’s the other two… concerning events. The Goron’s mask and the Zora’s mask. Link meets the spirit of Darmani, the Goron war-hero that gave his life trying to save Snowhead from a curse. His method of death? Blown off of Snowhead temple, and into the giant fucking valley. That has to have been awful. Then there’s the Zora’s mask, given to Link by the dying Mikau. Why is he dying? Because of a climate change in the Great Bay. Oh yeah, and all of Lulu’s eggs? Those will die too if you don’t help her.

The only other thing I absolutely must go into is Ikana. Ikana is a wonderfully mysterious place, full of mostly dead, haunted, and invisible people. Okay, so there’s only one invisible person, but still.  

On your way into Ikana, you can find Shiro, the Stone Mask-giving soldier. I say can, because you need the Lens of Truth to see him. It’s evident that he’s been sitting here for a long time.. how he’s not dead, I have no idea, but he just wants a potion to revitalize him. Shiro has something of a self-esteem issue, because he’s been ignored by passer-bys for what appears to be many years.  

Get a little farther in, and you can see that Ikana is a wasteland. There is approximately two people living there. First, you see this wonderfully colored music house with a water wheel next to a dried up river. Then you get a little bit closer, and you see that the house is being circled by Gibdos. Wonderful, these people are being trapped in their house by some mummies. How could life be any more bleak for these poor folks? Oh wait, the poor little girls father is a bloody Gibdo, and she’s trying to keep him safe. It’s almost as if the Gibdopocalypse struck right down on them, like a bolt of lightning.  

Another thing to mention is how fitting Ikana is for the Waterfall Shrine. You fight mini-bosses there, after defeating them. Their spirits are stuck in Ikana, forever.  

If, by this point, you’ve got the Garo’s Mask (which you get by stopping some assholes vagabonds unnamed horse-keeping brothers), you can dig a bit deeper yet. Every Garo you defeat will say this:

“R-regrettable… Although my rival, you were spectacular. I shall take my bow by opening my heart and revealing my wisdom… Belief or disbelief rests with you. To die without leaving a corpse… That is the way of us Garo.”

Here’s the thing. They’re already dead. Ikana’s researcher says: 

“They are merely shells that are empty on the inside. They’re the shells of spies from an enemy nation sent to investigate Ikana. They have been unable to forget their living days. Even now their spirits—emptiness cloaked in darkness—continue to spy.”

This only raises more questions. Why were they spying? Who is this enemy nation? What did Ikana do? Were they that powerful that they just couldn’t die? And the most pressing of all, the last line, “their spirits—emptiness cloaked in darkness.” It’s clear there’s some despair in each Garo. 

Now, lets take another step into Ikana. Most namely, the Graveyard (as if this whole place wasn’t one large graveyard). If you go at night, you can see a whole mess of Stalchildren just sitting around the fires, as if this were an army or something. Oh wait, it is. The proof lies in your fight with Captain Keeta, the leader of them all, who is also dead. Upon his defeat, he gives you what I assume is a soldier, because the Captain’s Hat is basically a Stalchild in hat form. 

I’m going to skip a few steps and assume you have the Mirror Shield. You know, I really liked the old design of the Mirror shield, and was repulsed by the new design. Lets take a few moments and compare the one from Ocarina of Time, and the one in Majora’s Mask. See how the one from Majora’s Mask looks like a horrified face? Looking back on it, it fits a lot better, because it’s creepy.

Lets skip to Ikana Castle now. There are a lot of ReDead here. There’s also a lot of not-twice-bakeddead things here. Lets skip to Igos du Ikana, the King of Ikana in life and death. Ever since his death, he deters any who try to bring any form of light into his kingdom. After all, his whole kingdom shattered, and re-united in death. It’s hinted at that there was the Great War of Ikana, which led to the death of every inhabitant in Ikana. I won’t go into the Great War much here, but if you want to read more into it, here you go. After his defeat, Igos teaches Link the Elegy of Emptiness.

Ah, the Elegy of Emptiness. The Link statue is used in creepypasta all around the internet, so that by itself is a bit dark (and just plain weird). Then there’s the Deku statue, which is rather useless. Perhaps it’s a representation of the Deku tribe as a whole. I mean, they are living in a poisoned swamp and can’t help themselves. Then there’s the Goron statue. This instantaneously reminds me of Darmani, because of the scars and the pose. It’s possibly symbolizing that even after death, Darmani is still strong. Then there’s the Zora statue, easily identifiable as Mikau. It has a horrified look on it’s face. Originally I wanted to say it was laid back, but then I looked at a picture. 

Oh yeah, did I mention the only three masks (aside from the Zora, Goron, and Deku) that you have to get are the Gibdo, Captain’s, and Garo’s? All of them represent something that’s dead.

All in all, I think this game is a masterpiece. There are few modern games that I find to be as eerie as Majora’s Mask. I mean eerie, not shityourpants scary.