The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and Philosophy. Post #1

Introduction

For my midterm project I read “The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy” which covered a lot of the overall philosophical concepts that drive all of the Legend Of Zelda games. So what I wanted to do with these upcoming posts is dive into my personal favorite Zelda game, Majora’s Mask, and really look at the philosophy behind it. So I’ve sat down with Majora’s Mask and a two-liter of soda and explored the game like I never had before. These are some of the theories that I came up with.

Link is Dead?

There are a few reasons I believe that Link was actually dead throughout his journey in Majora’s Mask. Maybe not exactly dead, but he is in a state of purgatory somewhere between life and death. At the beginning of the game we watch a scene where our hero falls down into a giant abyss, but after we watch the video (as seen below) we get the feeling that the abyss might of signified something more 

When he lands, Link finds himself not in Hyrule anymore, but in an area called Termina (Oddly similar to the word terminal) He is approached by a creepy looking man who starts the game off by saying, “You have met a terrible fate haven’t you?” Some of the other things that we first notice about this new place is that there is a giant moon with an evil looking face glooming closely over the city.

Despise their impending doom the entire city seems to be preparing for some sort of end of the year celebration, but if you had recently played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time you might notice that the same people in that game populate this world too. Most importantly we notice that our Hero has been transformed into what is known as a Deku Scrub (A common enemy seen throughout many of the Zelda games). This seems more like a really bad dream than a reality for Link. Majora’s Mask’s gameplay is also structured in a way that supports Link being in a state of purgatory. You soon find out that you have 72 hours, 3 days and 3 nights (in the game world, not real life) until that giant, evil moon crashes into Termina. To stop this from happening you must play a song that resets time and takes you back to the beginning of the first day. You are forced to repeat these 3 days over and over again until you save this world, which in this case is done by beating the game.