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Why does the moon in Majora's Mask look the way it does? [Endgame Spoilers]

Uncle at Nintendo

Uncle at Nintendo

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Jan 3, 2018
8,606
zelda-majoras-mask-89-moon.jpg


Nearly 20 years later and I still don't understand it. Also why is the sun inside the moon?
 
WestEgg

WestEgg

One Winged Slayer
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Oct 25, 2017
14,047
Because, like the boss arena and the mask kid challenges, it's not actually the surface of the moon, but some kind of pocket dimension created by the power of Majora's Mask.
 
Martin

Martin

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Oct 25, 2017
2,432
Because it is awesome and a stark contrast to the games theme.
Still remember being 8 and how blown away I was because of this! Didn't expect it at all.
 
DarkSora

DarkSora

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Oct 28, 2017
6,186
Wow, I never actually noticed the sun, lol. Granted, I was 11 when I played this game but always figured it was perfect for it being the final area.

Termina is such a depressing land and in crisis and the inside of the very thing you're trying to stop is LITERALLY flowers and butterflies.
 
Rotobit

Rotobit

Editor at Nintendo Wire
Verified
Oct 27, 2017
10,196
it's still honestly the prettiest thing on the N64, if not that entire generation (outside of lavish pixel art at least). And I'm not even the biggest fan of Majora's Mask.

But yeah it's almost certainly some kinda metaphorical magic realm. IIRC the actual final boss fight takes place in the moon too, and it looks totally different.
 
Datajoy

Datajoy

use of an alt account
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Oct 27, 2017
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Angola / Zaire border region.
Wow what happened to the old thread? Did people honestly complaim about Majora's Mask spoilers? Lmao

On topic: termina is a warped nether-realm that doesn't follow the logic of standard Hyrule. It's a nightmare-scape that reflects the inner workings of link and the skull kids minds.
 
Glio

Glio

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Oct 27, 2017
24,533
Spain
Because the official explanation is that Termina is a creation of Majora's Mask and since it is a magical parallel world, nothing has to make sense.
 
Sir Hound

Sir Hound

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Oct 28, 2017
2,206
Even though it's just a fucking tree something about that scene almost felt next gen to me.

Also the facade of the stone dungeon. You could hear the n64 creaking.
 
Spring-Loaded

Spring-Loaded

Member
Oct 27, 2017
19,904
I first played the game in like 2010-11 and that moment was still haunting and impressive for me. I'd heard you reach them moon by the end of the game, but had no idea it would look like that.
 
Stopdoor

Stopdoor

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,779
Toronto
Yeah, I'm struggling to imagine what this thread could've been before "reboot", lol.

And honestly I was expecting this to be a question about its face, which imo is a much weirder scenario because for some reason the whole land of Termina doesn't find it out of the ordinary at all. Not at all convenient that the moon an evil demon possesses to crash into the earth already has a contorted, evil face?
 
thehellofitall

thehellofitall

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
678
The moon in Majora's Mask bears an uncanny resemblance to the father of a childhood friend, and we were never able to unsee it once we realised.

I have nothing useful to add, I just thought someone might find it funny that there's a man out there who looks like the moon from Majora's Mask.
 
Soneji

Soneji

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
1,454
There are many theories as to why, the best summation of them being in Hylian Dan's Immortal Childhood article :

In Ocarina, players see the world of adulthood from the perspective of a child. Majorathen transforms players so that they see the world from the perspective of an adult, and realize that it is not as bad as it once seemed. And finally, towards the end of the story, players see childhood through the eyes of an adult.

This takes place during the finale of Majora, when players enter the world beyond the moon. There is a serene field where children play beneath a magnificent tree. This setting and the events that unfold here contain several layers of allegory that, once understood, reveal the central meaning of the story.

Once again, the scene when Koholint's ghost returns to his house is important here. The field offers Link a glimpse of a beautiful world that he no longer belongs to. The image of the children playing beneath the tree recalls Link's own childhood, when he lived with the Kokiri in the forest of the Great Deku Tree. Though the children here are strangers, the scene is hauntingly familiar.
"
…Nostalgia… …unchanged…"

Like the ghost who took one last look at his earthly home before going to his eternal resting place, Link returns to the world of his childhood one last time before he leaves it behind forever to become the Fierce Deity.

The setting itself, the playground of the masked children, has clear ties to Termina. The tree standing at the heart of the playground mirrors the Clock Tower standing at the heart of Termina. The Clock Tower counts down the hours as time passes by. Termina is bound to the flow of time, but the playground beyond the moon is eternal. The Clock Tower symbolizes mortality, while the tree symbolizes immortality.
The playground is a paradise untouched by time, an infinitely beautiful and comforting home to the masked children. In this sense, it is just like Koholint Island. However, the tranquility of the scene is disrupted by the roars of distant earthquakes. Like the Ballad of the Wind Fish, these tremors represent the call of the world beyond, a voice asking the dreamers to awaken.


Each of the masked children asks to play with Link when he appears in the playground. There are five children, akin to the five members of the Bombers who play with Link. Four of the masked children ask Link to play hide and seek once again.
When he finds each of the four children, they are waiting for him in a brightly painted room. Simple, colorful patterns adorn the walls, floor, and ceiling. The room is a child's playpen.

In these rooms, each child asks Link a question:
Your friends…What kind of…people are they?
I wonder… Do those people…think of you…as a friend?
You…What makes you…happy?
I wonder…What makes you happy… Does it make…others happy, too?
The right thing…What is it?
I wonder…If you do the right thing… Does it really make…everybody…happy?
Your true face…What kind of…face is it?
I wonder…The face under the mask… Is that…your true face?
—The Masked Children

The questions reveal that the kids are starting to grow up. They're starting to wonder about the feelings of the people around them, the nature of right and wrong, and whether they should accept things at face value. These questions are the first steps on the path to adulthood. When Link returns to the field, these children have left.

This process represents the end of childhood, but there is also a grander level of symbolism at work. The rooms where the children wait for Link contain four blocks, each with the face of the moon painted on its sides. The blocks are arranged in a compass pattern, representing the four giants and the four worlds of Termina. Termina is represented as a playpen.

The more time the player spends in Termina, the smaller the world seems to become. At first, it towers above the young Deku Scrub. But Link's body is a little taller, and the bodies of Darmani and Mikau are taller still. The player takes on larger forms as the game progresses, even becoming a giant briefly. The larger the player becomes, the smaller the surrounding world appears. When Link stands in the Termina-like playpens, the effect is similar to donning the Giant's Mask in Twinmold's arena. The world is so small because in his heart, Link has become a giant. He has outgrown Termina.

When the children vanish from the field, it does not simply represent a child entering the adult world. It also symbolizes a soul leaving Termina, letting go of the world of the living to see what lies beyond death.
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https://zeldauniverse.net/2011/09/14/immortal-childhood/#toc-the-childs-wrath
 
Spring-Loaded

Spring-Loaded

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Oct 27, 2017
19,904
Protome said:
Spoilerphobes bitched a bunch and the Mods caved and now we can't have anything even remotely descriptive in thread titles.
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What more does this new thread title need though? Anyone who beat them game knows what this thread title references, and people who played it late like I did can just skip past it. Why get so bent out of shape over it if this presumably doesn't affect you?
 
Gifmaker

Gifmaker

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
964
Repeating my previous post, it's a representation of the world Termina from the moon's perspective. The imposing structure of the clock tower in the center of the land is but a mere tree, and the four enormous giants are nothing more than small toddlers running around and playing games. The questions the kids ask Link are the things the moon, detached from the people and fates of Termina, is wondering about when trying to make sense of things from his unique perspective. Do your friends think of you as a friend? If so, why did they [giants] leave you [the imp]? Does that what makes you happy make others happy, too? Then why did the giants leave skull kid when it was happy. Did it not make them happy?
 
Plum

Plum

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May 31, 2018
17,305
Majora's Mask is full of weird geometry, weird places and just weird things in general; not much of it really needs to make 'sense' and the same goes for the Moon itself. I personally love that the game doesn't explain everything about itself and lets metaphor and feeling do a lot of the talking instead. The Moon would have been much less interesting if it were just a generic "final dungeon" area instead of what we actually had.

Yasumi said:
Yep.
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Reading the thread it seems like there were two-or-three complaints about spoilers then tens of complaints about those complaints about spoilers. I was expecting different from the way people were talking about it.
 
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