Zelda: Majora's Mask Misconceptions

So, I know it's been a while since I've done one of these, partly because I've just grown so tired of arguing against the same points that I stopped doing it years ago. But several points of contention have come to my attention about one specific Zelda game, one that I just so happened to 100% recently, and upon doing so, discovered just how easy it is to debunk any and all of these erroneous claims just by playing the games.

Now, I don't particularly like to point the blame at anyone for this. I understand that video games ask for a lot of your time, and not everyone is willing to invest it all when it's much easier and convenient to pull from easily referential sources like clips of of game guides, screenshots of interviews, or manga scans. Especially with a game as seemingly cryptic and daunting to newcomers as Majora's Mask. Now, while secondary and tertiary sources are not inherently a bad thing on their own, using them is generally frowned upon when they contradict the primary canon, and rightfully so. Sources outside the primary canon are a supplement, not a replacement.

Therefore, to address these, I will be pulling primarily from the primary source, but will use supplementary evidence to further support my claims if necessary.

Misconception 1: Skull Kid Created Termina

Basically, the idea is that when Skull Kid put on Majora's Mask, it created Termina from his thoughts. It comes from a quote from Aonuma that (I believe) is taken out of context, and an excerpt from the game guide. One could also argue that this is primarily driven by theorists and confirmation bias to perpetuate their fan-based ideas, but I digress.

First, let's tackle the parts from the actual game that already make this bunk.

Early on in the game, you get a flashback of Skull Kid in Termina Field, before he found the Mask:

This cinematic occurs after your first 3-day cycle, when you go back in time and regain your human form, then travel to the Swamp for the first time.

There is also an optional sidequest where you learn the story of the Four Giants, and according to the story Skull Kid and the Giants were friends since "before the Four Worlds were created":

(Roughly 3 minutes in)

Now, some people interpret this as the Four Giants being an allegory for the friends he played tricks on in the Lost Woods, and "before the Four Worlds were created" referring to his time in Hyrule, though that relies on a lot of favorable speculation and disregards all evidence to the contrary.

Other characters in Termina also recognize Skull Kid and knew him since before he wore the mask. For example, when you go to the Southern Swamp, you come across Koume who was knocked out by Skull Kid, who says that he thought he could trick her by hiding his face:

This of course means that she knew who he was before he wore a mask.

With that out of the way, let's look at the sources of this misconception.

One might argue that though this was the case upon the game's release, these things can be retconned later. Well, while Eiji Aonuma did work on Majora's Mask during its development, this was mostly in regards to graphic design, so he probably wouldn't have the biggest say when it comes to creative control.

That being said, let's look at the quote.

"You know we described it as being a nearby land, but in feel, it’s almost like another dimension."

This is highly subjective and takes what he says out of context. This also ignores the interview where he disregards Termina as being a "dream world":

"

Q: There are hints in Majora’s Mask that Link’s whole experience in Termina could be a dream. One small example, the Indiegogo’s play The Ballad of the Wind Fish, which was featured in Link’s Awakening – which was revealed to be a dream at the end. Is Majora’s Mask all a dream?

A: The reason that this song from Link’s Awakening was used in this game really came down to a decision by the sound team. They were looking for inspiration, something that would fit the theme, and since the previous game was about collecting instruments it made sense that you would want to use this for a band in this case. For us, really, it was just a playful choice that referenced a previous game and nothing more than that.

However, I love that people think about stuff like this, and I think it shows how they feel about the franchise as a whole that they’re interested in these possibilities."

"When a Skull Kid steals Majora's Mask from a traveling Mask Salesman, the combination of the Skull Kid's burdened heart and the evil magic within Majora's Mask transforms the world into the land of Termina"

It is to note that, while this is technically official Nintendo material, no one in the original design or writing team had a hand in this. The authors were pulled from the outsourced Nintendo Dream Magazine, with the official Nintendo team playing little role in its development, and publications and localizations were handled by Tokuma Shoten Publishing, with the North American version handled by Dark Horse.

There are numerous errors in this book, such as claiming Ganon appeared in Four Swords, referring to Hyrule instead of Lorule, and that Castle Town appears in Majora's Mask. All of these are wrong, which begs the question if Nintendo Dream Magazine and the Dark Horse localization even bothered to look at the primary resource of information or to fact check.

Here is a full list of these mistakes: https://zelda.gamepedia.com/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Encyclopedia

Now, I by no means intend to damage the credibility of this publication or anything dishonest like that, but its for these reasons that I tend to take Hyrule Encyclopedia as well as other secondary sources such as Hyrule Historia (which is also rife with errors) with a grain of salt. The entire central plot of Majora's Mask is dependant on Termina existing independant of Majora's Mask or Skull Kid, the story literally cannot happen otherwise. There are also no mentions or references of Termina being created by Skull Kid in any of the games.

It's for these reasons that I always go with the primary canon first.

There is a discussion on the Zelda Dungeon Forums that goes far more in depth into this.

Misconception 2: Ganon is more powerful than Majora

This one is a bit more Vs-oriented, but it's not any less frustrating. The idea is that Ganon has the godly Triforce of Power, which is clearly better than some tribal mask.

This is a disingenuous and flawed logical fallacy. In fact, this narrative is a combination of multiple fallacies, such as the Association Fallacy, the idea that if one character in a universe is capable of something another character can as well if not do it better, Appeal to Tradition, the idea that something is true because it's the way things are done or said and believed to be true in and/or out of universe, and Denying the Antecedent, choosing to follow pre-conceived "rules" of a series rather than all evidence to the contrary.

Divinity also does not always denote greater power in fiction. In Dragonball, the central theme is that if you try hard enough, one can fight without limits, and the characters are at a level where they rival deities and Gods of Destruction. In Marvel, Doctor Doom, who is just a scrappy young kid born with no powers who survived the persecution of his people in a third word country, can fell gods and cosmic beings and throws down with a manifestation of the Devil every year. Superman, who technically has no real supernatural abilities outside of being exposed to specific solar radiation (unless there's some sort of retcon I missed somewhere), can defeat the New God Darkseid in his true form as well as traditional godlike figures such as Hercules and Samson.

Furthermore, this whole argument is also a bit dishonest and takes a few details out of context. For example, it is never stated that it was created by an ancient tribe, only that it was used in their hexing rituals. Majora's origins are never actually given, we are only told that the entity himself is a demon, and for all we know it could have been created by some dark god or deity. The same cutscene also claims it bestows "an evil and wicked power" to those who wear it, and is described as "cataclysmic".

The Triforce of Power is also never stated to be the most powerful source of, well power in the Zelda universe. The argument goes like this: Well, Ganon has the Triforce of Power, therefore he must be the strongest. We know this because it's the essence of the gods who created Hyrule. He can only be killed by the Master Sword, which is impressive because he has the Triforce of Power.

This is circular logic with no real precedence. While it is true that the Goddesses Din, Farore and Nayru created Hyrule, it is clearly established that beings like Hylia and Demise (I'll get to him in a bit) are far stronger, so it's not too much of a stretch to say that someone holding a peice of their essence can be defeated by something other than said essence (in fact it happens rather often in canon, not all of Link's incarnations have the Triforce of Courage).

The only piece of evidence suggesting that the Master Sword is the most powerful weapon in Zelda lore is a quote in Wind Waker that states: "It is none other than the Master Sword... The blade of evil's bane. It is the only sword that can banish Ganon from the world above!"

For context, this quote comes from the King of Red Lions. This character existed 100 years after Ocarina, and in a separate timeline from Majora's Mask, and would not be aware of other powerful blades or items that could defeat Ganon. Such weapons do exist, such as the Great Fairy Sword, which is described in the menu (meaning not from the perspective of characters, but an omniscient source) as "the most powerful of all blades". This isn't even taking into account the Fierce Deity's Mask, the Silver Arrows that killed Ganon in the original game, the Divine Beasts or the One-Hit Obliterator from Breath of the Wild.

Although, there is a grain of truth in the statement, in the sense that it can kill Ganon due to his weakness to light magic. However, this is more a "Super-Effective to Dark" thing, as weapons with far higher damage output than the Master Sword exist in universe. In fact, it's implied that the Happy Mask Salesman left Hyrule and traveled to Termina during Ganon's rise to power didn't want to risk him becoming even more powerful than he currently was (this was after he got the Triforce of Power). Though this is mildly getting into theory territory, so I'll leave it at that.

Another common argument is that Ganon is a rencarnation of Demise, who was a threat to Hylia, and therefore Ganon must be the most powerful threat as well. However, this is easily addressed as Demise and Ganon are treated as two entirely separate entities, just as Zelda and Hylia are separate even as far in the timeline as Breath of the Wild.

Misconception 3: Termina is an allegory for grief/the afterlife

This can be thought of as an extension of the "Majora created Termina" theory, with even less going for it since not even secondary or tertiary canon addresses it, and the 3DS version of the game seems to even go out of its way to deny this. While the game can freely be interpreted as a metaphor for all of these things, I personally have no problem with this and these kind of deeper analyses are always interesting to discuss. However, what I take issue with is the idea that these metaphors are all literal, as if Termina is actually the afterlife and Link is dead. Some of you may think I'm just beating a dead horse at this point, but, ironically, this thing just refuses to die. This is helped in no part by the Game Theory intro cheekily featuring a tombstone with Link's name on it, and AVGN recently reviewing Majora's Mask and inaccurately perpetuating this theory and the first one here as fact. James, bless your heart, but it wouldn't have killed you to fact check that before posting the full video.

While MatPat of Game Theory fame did not create this theory, he is responsible for popularizing it (as he does with many easily debunked, yet viral falsehoods). He presents the Kubler-Ross Model of Grief as the center for this theory.

Now, if true, I would apply the model to Link's grief over the loss of Navi, as this would be far more plausible and fall more in line with the game's central themes and plot. But the argument is that Link himself is dead and Majora's Mask is his journey of coming to grips with it. But when we actually consider what the Kubler-Ross model actually is, and what it represents, the theory already falls apart from the beginning. The Model is a psychological concept that presents how humans deal with death and loss, usually the loss of someone else or after being diagnosed with a terminal illness. In simplified form, it is given five stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. It is to note that not everyone under these set of circumstances experiences or copes with loss in this way, "loss" in and of itself in the human psyche is not exclusively death (it can apply to something as simple as moving to a new area), and one does not always go through the stages in that specific order. One can go straight to anger or bargaining, or accept at first but then transition to denial. There are such a variety of reactions to loss that to construe them in a specific order, while cherry-picking specific instances where these reactions are displayed is incredibly disingenuous.

The carpenter and swordsman denying the threat of the Moon and refusing to flee? What about the rest of the townsfolk such as the guards that want to evacuate?

The Deku King being angry? What about his daughter or the butler being indifferent, or the imprisoned monkey?

Darmani's ghost bargaining and then becoming depressed?

That alone sounds like a huge stretch to connect this to all the previous events in an effort to connect the dots that aren't there. It also raises the question: Why are all these characters experiencing these reactions if it's supposed to be Link who is dead? And what about all the events that happen in the intro to the game leading up to all this? What is that supposed to represent?

And the in-game detail that single-handildy blows all of this out of the water is one of the game's locations: Ikana Valley. There, a very clear distinction is made between the living and the dead, and it is explicitly stated that Link is alive:

(7:21) Link is described as "You who do not fear the dead"

(0:20) "This is not a place for one as full of life as you."

(27:35) Pamela's father has a ghost radar, which goes off when Link wears one of the masks inhabiting a spirit. It will not go off if Link is in his base form.

Anyhow, there are plenty more little details like this, if you want to go more in depth please check out The One's Link is Not Dead video posted above.

Anyway, I just wanted to compile all my thoughts in one place, so I made this quick little blog. In the meantime this has been Hero's Shade, and thank you for reading.