Stone Temple Pilots: Majora's Mask part 21

    Link goes to the stone temple and solves the puzzle of the floating cubes.  This puzzle relies heavily on using the song Elegy of Emptiness.  By performing this song, Ben (yeah we're just gonna keep calling it that and hope no one gets possessed), appears over a pressure plate.  This pressure plate moves a floating block around.  As different plates are pressed with different weight, the blocks rearrange in different positions.  In order to accomplish this, Link has to perform the Elegy of Emptiness using the goron, zora, and deku masks he has acquired thus far as well as when using Ben.  When playing the song in each of these forms, the statue that forms is not of Link but of the three souls that inhabit each mask, Darmani, Mikau, and the deku steward's son.  It suggests with all the souls Link has helped thus far, he has not been alone on this quest.  That said, I feel like the meaning behind the song Elegy of Emptiness is, well, empty.  There's all sorts of creepy things in the canyon including Ben, but something about the actual application of this song is a little disappointing.  This disappointment will continue through the rest of this section.  I am sorry for this but prepare for probably the dullest post of this series.

It's like that Roald Dahl story about the serial killer who was a taxidermist.  

   Link enters the temple, does some puzzles that involve standing on the ceiling and stuff, fights some worms, does so with a mask that makes him big enough to fight the worms, frees the giant and calls it a day.

   Yeah, there's really nothing to say here.  The whole surrounding area is death themed, but once you go in the temple, that all ends.  Link runs into the master of the Garo ninjas somewhere in there, fights him a bit, and then the guy blasts himself to pieces with a bomb so as to probably not fall under the curse of the land.  Link gets some holy arrows or something.

   Personally, I feel like this is the weakest part of the game's overall themes and story.  Sure, that whole bit with the puzzles was cool using the Elegy of Emptiness and the flipping of the temple upside down, but beyond that it is sort out of place when considering how interesting the surroundings are.  There is an entire canyon full of the undead and tormented souls, and this temple revolves around earth, wind, and fire (the elements, not the band).  Sure worms are the boss and there's that whole bit in Hamlet about dietary worms and Polonius and stuff (sorry if I left someone in the dust there with the Shakespeare, but spoilers:  Hamlet kills Polonius and then jokes about him being at dinner with worms).  This temple feels like it should've been in Ocarina of Time, and they didn't have enough done so they put it in Majora's Mask.

  The great thing is despite this temple's shortcomings, the game is less built around dungeons than more traditional Zelda titles.  Since the player is timed in completing each dungeon, these dungeons have to be short and there is a lot more additional content outside of the dungeons.  I feel like there is enough that go on outside of each of these temples that it gives me something more to talk about than the actual dungeons do.  With that said, Link saved the giant. He's got all four giants woot woot, wakka wakka.  With the giants back, the curses across the four lands have been lifted.  The sorrows of the people of Termina can now be lifted.  So now Link can prepare for the final showdown, but before that, I want to talk about a few other things before the ending.  I promise those things will be more interesting than this post.


Here, for your trouble, a picture of RDJ and Conan being awesome.

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.