Whistle and I'll Come to You: The Ghosts of Majora's Mask

Faith is tested, hearts are redeemed, but the monster never dies.  The time has come once again to discuss one of the most mysterious video games in history.  It has been two years to the day since I started my series on the themes and story of Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.  I wanted to write this follow-up post because not only does the game mean the world to me, but the blog series remains the only series I have followed through to completion.  The writing featured on this blog was very much a labor of love and I was determined to see those thirty posts through with reflection.  I also sorta want to get the Great Mighty Poo off of my front page, so there's kinda an ulterior motive in making this post, but you'd do it too if it meant scrubbing the giant singing turd off your front page.  In all seriousness, I'd decided to follow up on my musings on Majora's Mask for some time now, but decided to hold off on posting until today.

The glorious news that accompanies this post is The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is getting an HD remake on the Nintendo 3DS/2DS/and New 3DS.  This is one more reason for a post and for you to go out and get a 3DS/2DS/or New 3DS dependent upon your budget.  It's true that the game is a little difficult, but there are countless walkthroughs on the internet in this day and age so you don't have to be some sort of major league gamer to play it.  Also, the 3DS is a solid gaming platform with many excellent titles for all ages and such apps as netflix, hulu, and youtube, so consider that as well.  All the phone minus the phone, but you probably bought an iPad, so this isn't your first rodeo.  Admit it... you'll buy anything with a screen and buttons on it.  I've got you figured out, muahahaha.

So then, what in particular do I want to talk about for the anniversary.  I've already said a lot and there are countless other people saying countless other things about this game.  The Game Theorists have pointed out that the falling Moon wouldn't actually be much of a threat to the world given the velocity and mass of the moon and the possibility of Link being dead, and recently there has been a series by the brilliant Gaijin Goombah on the African roots of the game's cultural elements.  It's a popular game that inspires discussion, so I'm gonna link all of those videos at the end of the post as well as Jirard "Dragon Rider" Khalil's Completionist video on the game to give those who are new to the game a fast and dirty look at the game itself (I say fast and dirty, but Jirard does a really good job putting those videos together so show him some love).

However, what do I personally bring to this to the discussion that I haven't brought before?  Why not just put it off to the 3 year anniversary of my blog series?  Well, recently I have completed a class on the study of supernatural fiction focusing on ghost stories.  After studying many critical debates in ghost stories, I've realized Majora's Mask is among the great ghost stories of video games, up there with Silent Hill 2, Fatal Frame, and even Metal Gear Solid (I'll talk about that when Phantom Pain comes out, remind me if I forget).  So in the spirit of the season, I'm gonna write a blog post every day from now until Christmas on the Ghosts of Majora's Mask.  You're thinking "Christmas isn't a time for ghost stories!" and I'm saying "uhhh, Christmas Carol, and 'tell scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long long ago.'" Apparently it's a very English thing to tell ghost stories around Christmas, in America we just buy stuff so that our children don't grow up to be cowboys because we didn't get them a Tickle Me Elmo one year.  Pretty sure there's a bit in the Bible where the spirits of dead saints were proclaiming the birth of Jesus at the nativity, so you could go at it from that angle too.

Things you can expect from this series is a discussion of the abodes of the ghosts (Lost Woods, Clock Town, Ikana Valley, things like that), a discussion of desire among haunts, accursed objects, the role of gods in ghost stories, and the inability to let go.  So with that, get yourself a glass of milk (or some chateau romani if you're 21 or older or 18 and not American) and we'll meet back here tomorrow and get started.

Praise the Moon!

Link is Dead Game Theory

Majora's Mask Completionist

Gaijin Goombah on the African Roots of Majora's Mask

The Walking Dead: Majora's Mask part 20

   Link climbs a hill up to a well.  Like pretty much everything in Ikana Canyon, the well is dry.  Crawling down into the well reveals that it is full of mummies.  Using the wraps that came off the guy from earlier, Link passes off as a mummy capable of jogging that also wears green.  The mummies in the well each ask for stuff, and Link brings each thing so that the souls of the mummies can be laid to rest.  At the far end of the well is a chamber with an image of the sun in it.  There is also a treasure chest.  Within the treasure chest is a mirror shield.  Upon the mirror shield is the most unpleasant face of what would seem to be a gorgon.  By standing in the light shining into this chamber, Link reflects the light onto the walls with the sun on them.  The sun gives a creepy smile, opening the way to another chamber.  Then in a long bit of puzzle solving and slaying the dead, Link works his way through the castle of the Ikana royal family.

   Link finally reaches the throne room.  The drapes over the lights descend as the dead king of the Ikana people admonishes Link for entering the throne room.  The room descends to darkness as two armed guards  approach Link.  Link fights with these guys a bit, but because of the darkness the spirits reenter the bones.  As it turns out, while drapes can block out all light in a room, they are quite old and subject to burn easily.  Using fire arrows, Link completely burns away the drapes filling the throne room with light.  In the light, the bodies of the guards cannot reform.  The king of the Ikana then challenges Link, but Link beats him as well.

   With the spirits of the king freed, he reveals that the reason the souls of Ikana Canyon have been stirred is because of, yep you guess it, Skull Kid.  Well, probably Skull Kid, the King just says "the masked one."  It would seem the dead have been roaming this place for a while.  Its hard to say when Skull Kid came and started causing trouble with the mask, but it is most likely him.  The Mask Salesman is also not outside of the realm of possibility (what? I don't trust him).  He mentions that all this trouble began with the dead raising when the Skull Kid (probably) entered the Stone Temple.  Unfortunately, all the armies of the dead were perplexed by the puzzle that guards the temple (yeah it's one of those "really?" kinda things.  but how many fairy tale kings can't figure out puzzles and stuff which calls for a hero to do it?)  It does require more than one person to enter the temple, and Link is only one person, so the king teaches Link a song.  The Elegy of Emptiness.

You shouldn't have done that...

   This is a creepy song, not because of what it sounds like, but because of what it does.  When Link plays the song a statue of himself appears in his place but it just doesn't look quite right.  This statue is now known as Ben, due to a creepy internet story (otherwise known as a creepypasta if you want to look it up) called Ben Drowned.  Basically, the story goes that somebody received a cursed copy of Majora's Mask that contained the damned soul of the child (named Ben) who previously owned the game but died by drowning in a lake and now manifests himself in the form of the statue.  Ben's spirit becomes a demon that torments the writer of the tale before the writer finally goes insane.  This story is hardly the only one of its kind, there are too many stories of cursed games for all of them to be of good quality.  The writer provides footage of how the game messes with him, and I must admit it's some eerie stuff.  I encourage you to read it.  It is probably one of the creepiest things I've ever read.  Sure it's fiction, but still I enjoyed it

Link takes this song to the temple.  Where we will pick up next time.

Abandon Hope, Ye Who Enter Here: Majora's Mask part 18

    Link approaches Ikana Canyon to the east.  Before I say any more, I'd like to point out the literary significance of going east.  To the Japanese living on an island, to go west was to go to China, but to go east was just ocean.  In the Chinese Odyssey "Journey to the West," the monk Xuanzang goes west to India to acquire the sacred texts of Buddhism in order to return east to reform the morally loose frivolity of his home.  In Jewish tradition, Cain, after killing his brother Abel, fled from God's presence east of Eden.  East of Eden became the title of a John Steinbeck work and the character Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby goes east to Long Island, NY where he witnesses the immorality of the Roaring Twenties.

Shi means death

   It sort of makes sense that going east has such a negative connotation in these cultures.  The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, so if a people were to spread out, it would make sense to go west with the sun so that they would not be travelling in the dark.  Ikana Canyon is a place full of darkness.  It is also the fourth geographical location Link has gone to this journey.  The significance of the number for is that in older Japanese, the word for four was shi.  Shi sounds remarkably similar to the Japanese word for death.  As such, the number four is unlucky (I'm having the wildest sense of deja vu. Did I write that before?) Ikana Canyon is also really the only place thus far in the journey that Link gets the option of turning back upon reaching it.  He rides to the canyon to find a large cliff with an odd hermit sitting on top.  The hermit's entire face is hidden save for one glowing red eye and his decaying bony legs swaying over the cliff's edge.  This fellow is the doppelganger of someone Link met on his previous adventure.  The original person's trade was the buying and selling of tormented souls known as Poes (named after the American poet and short story writer, it's no secret the creators of these games love literature just as the makers of the Mega Man series love music, and this is why Legend of Zelda has excellent stories while Mega Man has excellent music).  He will not let Link through unless Link comes back with a certain mask due to the dangers of the land.

(From OoT) What does one do with purchased tortured souls?

   Link acquires the necessary mask by challenging the bandits who tried to plunder the ranch's wagon in a race.  This mask is the Garo Ninja mask.  It is sort of a double edged sword.  The history of Ikana Canyon was that the kingdom of Ikana went to war with the Garo Ninjas.  It ended poorly for the Kingdom and now only the Garo Ninjas wander the ruins.  While wearing the mask, Link is safe from the tortured spirits of the land, but Link also attracts the attention of the Garo Ninjas.  They frequently mistake him for their leader, but upon realizing their fault challenge Link to a duel in a ring of mystical fire.  They aren't too difficult to beat, but they do come out of nowhere frequently and must be fought to go any farther.  Upon recognizing Link's strength, they give him some information before performing self-cremation.  They always say it is the way of their order to die without leaving a body.  It suggests that perhaps there is a curse on the dead of this land and to burn is the only way to be sure one's spirit will not linger.

Now imagine it coming out of nowhere and attacking.  

   We will continue upon Link's journey through the land of the dead in the next post.