Majora's True Identity? - Zelda Theory

what exactly do we know about majora's mask not the game I'm talking about the mask itself majora is one of the strangest most maniacal and surprisingly threatening villains in gaming but what exactly is behind that mask and more importantly what's inside it our mission statement for this episode is to gather as much information as possible cannon or otherwise to try and piece together the truth behind majora what is it where did it come from when was it made and why was it made the mask itself has only had a major appearance in one game so that's all we really have to go by but reading a bit between the lines still might give us everything we need in fact my research has led to some pretty unexpected conclusions but I'm getting ahead of myself for starters let's talk about majora as an entity the mask is a magic item presumably made of wood that contains incredible power placed there by whoever made it while we could assume it has time-based power there aren't really any examples of this at all in fact that's one of the things we know it can't do despite it being such a prevalent theme in the game among the powers that definitely does have our teleportation levitation telekinesis transmogrification mind-control some sweet eye lasers tearing Souls from their bodies and even creating both matter and life out of nothing from what we've seen in the series so far majora is quite possibly the most powerful being in zelda history easily rivaling the three goddesses themselves after all they had their abilities divided among them didn't created fur or gave life Nehru gave intelligence majora on the other hand can do all three but also has one pretty major handicap the mask itself while it can act alone it seems to prefer to have a body hence why it chooses to stay with Skull Kid for most of the game before abandoning him to make its own body we don't exactly know which form it's actually more powerful in possessing someone or utilizing just itself so we can't really reach any conclusions based on that but we still have a pretty good idea what its abilities are as the mask has its own consciousness we know for sure there's something inside it but the game never explains what exactly the only glimpses we get are in the moon but we'll get back to that the closest thing we get to explicit backstory is unfortunately not canon but it's a place to start in the manga majora appeared as a dragon and guarded an entirely empty world where time doesn't exist and if that sounds pretty depressing you would be right as it turns out being unable to die in a world with literally nothing in it messes with you a little bit as does countless people showing up to try and steal your magic armor no not that magic armor this this one right here legend said it could grant wishes and contained great power so like with any source of great power people really wanted however majora had no intention of parting with it and ate everyone that tried to take it until this guy showed up the unnamed adventurer whom I feel compelled to call link for some reason talked to majora and asked what if given the chance it would wish for majora decided that it only wanted time to pass for it so it could die interestingly it's described as gaining this wish as a result of the devoured humans implying that at some point it either didn't possess intelligent thought or didn't have a concept of desires or wishes this seems to indicate that it had some innate ability to absorb some part of them link decided to help majora and began playing music majora danced for three days straight creating time in its world ending both the empty timeless void and the Dragon itself after it died a mask was carved from its armor and the power was sealed inside it's an interesting story but it doesn't tell us much that we can use to reach any solid conclusions in particular the personality doesn't really seem to match up majora as we know it is insane and energetic while this depiction is just depressed however there is one thing that's consistent loneliness after entering the moon there are four minigames based on each dungeon where one of the aptly named moon children ask questions about hiding your true face and interacting with people while not the same kind of loneliness it's definitely a running theme even extending to the Skull Kid who separated from his friends either the extended isolation or just it being born that way has undoubtedly driven majora crazy which is reflected in its weird behavior and delusional perspective a starting point for our origin story would seem to be that majora was at one point a very powerful being but for unspecified reasons was always alone presumably up to and including its imprisonment in the mask whether it was driven to insanity or was already insane remains to be seen man was with the themes of loneliness and Zelda games trying to tell us something uh Numa anyway it's safe to say that regardless of how it happened majora is pretty broken it seems to honestly think it's right in what it's doing we see in the moon that its moral compass is a bit skewed it doesn't seem to understand friendship and honesty while labeling you the bad guy for trying to stop it when not staring blankly at nothing it's laughing maniacally screeching torturing everyone in everything it can with no concern for consequences before the final boss the four moon children can be given masks to satisfy their curiosity causing them to leave one by one majora laments this and it notably mirrors what happened to the Skull Kid and the boss remains worn by all the other kids correspond to a temple guarded by one of the Giants the friends that abandon the Skull Kid as a result of his bad behavior there are a few ways you could look at this you could say this only represents the skull kids problem in a rather direct manner and majora is only represented by itself but I don't think that's the case remember that the mask is acting entirely in its own world of its own creation a world without time interestingly enough and the parallels between the two characters while not explicitly stated can be inferred pretty easily Skull Kid is no longer relevant to majora he's been abandoned entirely if all of this has nothing to do with the mask and whatever's inside it why would it appear like this and be so directly tied to his issues why wouldn't it draw a carer about its literal puppets inner turmoil it just doesn't make sense when you consider how conceited and bratty it acts most the time maybe majora saw something familiar inside the skull kid' that mirrored itself why else would the finale play out the way it did in a similar vein Majora's mental state must be so unstable that doesn't even understand morality judging by how it still wants you to play with it after everything two of you have done over the course of the game and even gives you the fierce deity mask which is so powerful that it's impossible to lose when using it under the stipulation that you just run because that's what bad guys do this all implies that majora was the victim of something traumatic something horrible happened it was abandoned by those closest to it and the culprit escaped without consequence the images of friends leaving it behind left alone in emptiness with all the time in the world to do nothing but seethe and drive itself insane with hatred it's clear this thing isn't thinking straight but I suppose being alone for almost incomprehensible amounts of time will do that to you now that we have a better grasp on its personality and mindset let's consider where the mask itself came from again we aren't given much to work with from the game it says that a tribe of darkness created the mask for hexing rituals but was eventually hidden because it was too powerful based on what we know of its power majora was probably able to start fighting against its containment and gaining control over its own magic in this new form so the creator's got rid of it hoping it would disappear forever and it seemed to work for a good while majora doesn't make any appearance implied or otherwise until the mask salesman eventually finds it and wherever they toss the thing it stayed there for a long time we know for sure that the mask has existed for at least a hundred years and we owe that to a link between worlds it's never explained why but in that game link actually has the mask and it's just hanging on the wall like that's a thing you can do with the most dangerous object in zelda history next to the Triforce itself but there it is nonetheless link between worlds takes place before the original NES Zelda and centuries after Link's Awakening which in turn follows not too long after link to the past which then follows the big old timeline split caused in ocarina of time by long enough that the story became a legend presumably a few hundred years or so and we know it had to exist before the split because link between worlds Majora's Mask are in separate timelines and the masses called ancient in Majora's Mask even though takes place right after our Carina of time Mina was already old even by that point meaning he'd even go as far back as minish cap or even Skyward Sword and you stop doing that so with all that being said we know Majora's power its personality and roughly when it had to be made but now it's time to ask the big question where and who did it come from we never see or learn anything about the tribe that made the mask beyond the fact that they disappeared at some point and it's never stated why at least in any of the games there is a popular fan theory that I need to address there is another instance of some kind of powerful magic based ancient tribe that mysteriously vanishes and we learn a lot more about this one the twili as seen during Twilight Princess the twili were extremely powerful and infused that power into the fused shadow notably a helmet and used it to try to claim the triforce and later being banished to another dimension by the light spirits and their artifact shattered a commonly noted observation is this little detail on Midna sewn helmet a fragment of the fused shadow it's just a bit too similar to be written off as a coincidence isn't it keep in mind that from the n64 onward the continuity of Zelda games are always important to the developers and Twilight Princess does follow majora's mask in the timeline plus the events themselves line up almost perfectly almost but there is a problem with this theory yes the eye does match the mask but look at everything else that's the one and only piece of anything made by the twili that even remotely resembles it the mask is rounded brightly coloured covered in spikes while the twili objects in architecture are very geometric and square and almost entirely black green and red why would this one thing look so different remember this is a video game so this kind of artistic expression doesn't really happen at all so you can't really pass it off as a stifled twily creator trying to fight the traditions of an oppressive society that turns up its nose and disgust at personal works of art that reflect one's inner soul that's also possessed by a demon or something I guess the details aren't important damn it he must be heard while I like this theory overall I don't think it lines up quite well enough to work from instead I propose a different possibility after all the twili aren't the only ancient magical tribe that mysteriously vanished one day everyone seems to forget about them since frankly we've only seen one so far although she does tend to pop up a few times what if the sheikah made majora's mask they fit the bill just as well if not better than the twili while yes they are described as shadow folk you may be questioning this one right off the bat after all the sheikah served the royal family and always have and the royal family in turn is always on the side of good we haven't seen any instances of Hylian Realty doing anything immoral but that doesn't mean it didn't happen after all their symbol is on the door to the shadow temple and I don't need to say much about that place high rules bloody history as the game puts it is much darker than the history books would have you believe so we have a secret tribe under direct rule of the political powerhouse of the kingdom their symbol plastered on the entrance to the most disturbing location in hyrule filled with the remains of countless dead bodies and horrifying monsters all vaguely human and this tribe is said to control things from the background keeping watch over the land perhaps helping protect Hyrule in a more direct manner watching everything passing secrets carving rounded decorative masks infused with dark magic that only they can use don't believe me majora has some extra proof in that game you find that someone looking for a place to hide from the falling moon comes across the spider house where he's told that a mask could make him rich but after putting it on he's cursed and transformed into a Skulltula the mask he wears the mask of truth proudly emblazoned with the mark of the sheikah a bit odd for any kind of righteous group to curse their artifact to turn the where into a mutated spider monster of course link breaks the curse and takes it for himself but what exactly does this all mean it certainly stands to reason that the sheikah can still be on the side of right but as they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions it's entirely possible that it was the sheikah who created majora's mask maybe even Impa herself while we're at it why does she keep coming back it makes sense her the Triforce trio to keep popping up as they're all connected to each other by fate and all that jazz but what's so special about Impa she never even looks the same so what's up with that well you ever see The Princess Bride I'm serious well if you haven't in that movie we learn of the Dread Pirate Roberts who's said to be a giant inhuman beast of a man that's terrifying and merciless striking fear into the hearts of every man woman and child that hears his name he's also retired along with his predecessors the point is maybe EMPA isn't a reincarnation it's just a name a title given to a chosen member of the sheikah that serves as the public ambassador staying close to the princess as her bodyguard and servant hiding her true identity for her own protection we're told time and time again that Impa is the last of the sheikah if that's true it would seem that every new incarnation is a descendent of the previous one trained to serve the royal family and keep the world safe from their biggest mistake hell maybe when Impa and zelda escaped from Ganondorf at the end of the first art Impa started training Zelda as her successor to become the next Impa in case something happens to her after all Ganondorf pretty much rules the kingdom at this point making things like Royal bloodlines pretty much moot and an item like Majora's Mask would make him impossible to stop if he ever found it of course that's in the adult timeline and the focus of this collection of theories is the child timeline but I'm trying to establish a motive and a series of events that result in what we know as Majora's Mask as well as piece together everything that we have to work with so far into something that fits in some kind of satisfying way and I think it's entirely possible that what I've said about the sheikah is true and we've put together a plausible origin they created the mask and Impa is the only one that knows where it is as for where she kept it the only place that makes any sense would be the shadow temple as it's the only location besides the hidden village in Twilight Princess to have a clear connection to the sheikah and said village only has the sky book as a quick side note before anyone tries to use this place as a counter-argument saying the sheikah settlement housing only empaths notably does not have Majora's Mask anywhere in or near it don't forget the mask magic is gone by the end of the game so it's just a colorful piece of wood by the time Twilight Princess rolls around meaning that EMPA and her descendants would no longer have any need to defend it from anyone just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page they're back on topic Impa hikes the masks in the shadow temple seems possible and certainly fits the theme but what happened next after all she's the only one that knows probably through research magic or whatever else someone may have discovered that the ancient mask exists and who knows maybe a certain someone was finally able to obtain the mask for himself while its Guardian was away maybe after finding out where it was hidden he set up a shop in the castle market so he could look for it without raising suspicion keeping his precious belongings packed and ready in case he needed to suddenly leave after all why would you buy a shop and then leave only a few days later let's not forget the happy mask shop opened up not long after you beat the first dungeon in fact it's just as you're beginning to go up Death Mountain and yet after you go back in time and you along with Zelda warned the king about ganondorf's intentions the amount of time that the shop exists and is open for business couldn't be any longer than maybe a few in-game months since we discover in majora's mask he already up and left and he has the mask and for that matter why would he go into the Lost Woods not only has he barely spent any time operating the shop selling his one true passion in life why would he just leave and go into the middle of nowhere into somewhere he knows he has to know is extremely dangerous a place where no one would follow him the evidence seems to fit it's reasonable to me that it was really the sheikah that created majora's mask doing their best to keep it away from the innocent civilians until they screwed up in losta the timeline matches as well we know for sure that it had to be made early on and the sheikah existed long before even Skyward Sword takes place so it's possible they made the mask even before the events of that game when everything is said and done though no matter what we can put together based on facts there is evidence or whatever we only know a few things for sure and none of them point toward any one thing definitively hell we don't even know if the thing's name is majora that could have been the person that made the mask or all we know so I searched and searched and searched for some kind of clue about what this thing could be to the point where I almost gave up entirely it would be easy to just come up with some kind of creature that doesn't actually appear anywhere but that's hardly satisfying based on what we've discussed so far it would need to be a very powerful being that existed somewhere very early on in the timeline have at least a good chunk of these powers and have an evil childish mind what if is that even possible this whole time could majora possibly be could it be could it at the end of Skyward Sword it's revealed that Ghirahim is a sword spirit that belongs to demise much like fee is to link however after his defeat the sword just disappears it's worth mentioning that this takes place in the distant past even relevant to Skyward Sword and after demise is defeated and the good guys go back to their own time who else is there but Impa staying behind in her own time maybe she knew dirham would be able to return and decided to take the initiative a wacko like him would certainly be driven even more insane after his glorious masters defeated and then being sealed away as a tool to be used by someone unworthy of him and eventually being abandoned for at least several centuries with that much time to think he would eventually start to wonder how he failed and why link succeeded even as messed up as he is it's not impossible that he wondered if the companionship link shared with Zelda EMPA and even groose made a difference it's possible he started to consider things he never had before with nothing but his own thoughts to listen to a conflict like that going on for several centuries is not very likely to end well but some say that contemplating yourself can help lead to inner peace maybe with enough time he could have changed and he may have been close right before the pivotal moment where his existence ended instead after a long and difficult struggle against the heroes he fails and the one being in the world he respects is gone his one purpose in life was an utter failure and after they destroy his chance of success they run away back to their own time where they couldn't possibly be confronted again from his warped perspective we can see how he might feel like a victim in this situation and someone in links image would certainly look like a villain to him I'd imagine having your whole existence come crashing down can be pretty rough couple that with being transformed into a mask against your will you have a recipe for disaster and now let's put it all together a timeline that explains everything about majora where it came from what it is and what happened to it let's begin the Demon Lord Ghirahim works to revive his master demise he succeeds and demise rises again but is defeated by Link and Zelda causing dirham to try and escape after Lincoln Zelda returned to their own time Impa finds and confronts him using her own dark magic to change the sword into a mask thinking the power is contained the sheikah use it to try and protect Hyrule in any way possible no matter how dark or cruel it may seem however as time passes it gets stronger and starts to rebel against them realizing that Ghirahim is fighting back they seal the mask away guarding it for as long as they have to as generations go by the name Impa is passed down from one guardian to the next keeping it safely hidden away while staying close to Zelda knowing she would be his first target the system stayed in place for centuries and even longer in one timeline until the latest Impa is called on by the king of hyrule to join the other sages in the trial of Ganon Dorf after Lincoln Zelda reveal his intentions while she's gone the mask salesman appears using his brief opportunity while the temple is unguarded to sneak in and steal the mask he flees into the forest with a mask is stolen by the Skull Kid bitter about feeling abandoned by his friends Skull Kid uses the mask to terrorize anyone unfortunate enough to encounter him and the mask allows him to use its power feeling the same overwhelming isolation and desire for revenge gira him now called majora battles link in one final attempt to confront the source of all his troubles and we all know how that turned out majora met a fitting end defeated at the hands of link the one he could never best but finally removed from the mask that was his prison for so long if I'm right in all this maybe he's even a bit grateful in fact now that I think about it the manga parallels the story an empty timeless land with a single occupant housing unimaginable power sought after by countless souls that only wind up consumed then a weathered adventurer appears playing music that makes majora dance for three days and three nights and on the fourth day he dies and a mask is left behind we haven't seen the last of majora I guarantee it you

Channel: Razanak

Views: 1,980,515

Rating: 4.8095899 out of 5

Keywords: zelda, majora's mask, loz, legend of zelda, mm, majora, mask, manga, theory, link, fierce deity, ocarina of time, skyward sword, origin, identity, timeline

Id: rE5_EACskE0

Length: 25min 17sec (1517 seconds)

Published: Thu May 12 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Hyrulus_Maximus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE5_EACskE0#t=8m28s

In this part of the video you say that we know for sure that the mask is over 100 years (where did you get this number?) old because of its appearance in Link's house in ALBW. As I've seen /u/henryuuk say time and time again, just because it's the first impression doesn't mean it's the only explanation. It could just be a wooden mask without any supernatural elements, and that makes a lot more sense to me than this Easter Egg having heavy lore implications.

I also wouldn't feel right if I didn't give you a bit of constructive criticism on the length of the video. I think you should've compressed this by cutting out points that address tangential topics instead of who you believe Majora is, you talking about the Sheikah/Ancient Tribe connection is a pretty notable example. Present your beliefs and sprinkle around breadcrumbs so people can find the deeper connections on their own, because as it stands a theory video that's longer than an episode of Arrested Development is a huge turn-off for me.

If this were 6 - 8 minutes and still showcased well-researched points with a focus on the being inside the mask... well.. it'd be hard for me to find a reason not to watch it.

[u/[deleted]]

As others have noted, we're not sure if the mask's appearence in ALBW is even canon. That being said, it was a very well done video. Although I could have done without some of the humor, but since this isn't OP's work I won't offer CC.

I don't necessarily believe Ghiriham is Majora. For one, we're assuming he teleported, and was not destroyed. But iirc, it was Demise that transformed him into a sword, implying he may have been trapped in that form. And although his powers fit to some extent (teleportation and transformation), why would he reappear without a master to serve? Unless he decides to follow Demise's hatred, and was then sealed into the mask.

But that doesn't fit with what we're told about the Ancient Tribe. They created the mask (or used it) for hexing rituals, which implies the mask has dark powers to begin with. I like the idea of the Shiekah guarding the mask and other dark objects via locking them in the Shadow Temple, a la Area 51 in Indiana Jones, but we really don't have enough evidence to suggest that they would create such a mask. Namely because they always have a Hero to rely on to save Hyrule. Except in two cases, but both of those are in different timelines/universes.

Also, the idea of Impa being a title doesn't make a lot of sense. SS heavily implied, if not outright states, that Impa is there to guard Hylia because she is in a vulnerable state as a human (Hylian? Can you be your own race?), sort of as a backup just in case the hero isn't available or awoken. So it would make sense for her to be reincarnated with the hero and Hylia. Although that begs the question of how she's incarnated, but I digress. Moreover, not many Zeldas and Links look similar to their other reincarnations, with some exceptions. So why the author brought up Impa's appearence is beyond me.