The Imprisonment of Majora’s Mask

“The mask that was stolen from me… It is called Majora’s Mask.
It is an accursed item from legend that is said to have been used by an ancient tribe in its hexing rituals. It is said that an evil and wicked power is bestowed upon the one who wears that mask.”

“According to legend…the troubles caused by Majora’s Mask were so great…the ancient ones, fearing such catastrophe, sealed the mask in shadow forever, preventing its misuse. But now, that tribe from the legend has vanished, so no one really knows the true nature of the mask’s power…
…But I feel it.”

“I went to great lengths to get that legendary mask. When I finally had it… I could sense the doom of a dark omen brewing. It was that unwelcome feeling that makes your hair stand on end.
And now… that imp has it…”

—The Happy Mask Salesman

There is a piece missing from the Salesman’s story. If the mask was sealed away, why was the Salesman worried about it? Are we to presume that the Salesman himself broke the seal and freed Majora from her prison, thinking that he could do a better job of guarding the evil artifact(2)? This doesn’t seem to make complete sense, but the game dodges this detail at first.

An alternate explanation would be that someone else had broken the seal and found Majora’s Mask. The people who found it didn’t understand the true nature of the mask’s power, but the Salesman could sense its evil radiating from afar. To prevent catastrophe, the Salesman tracked down the mask to prevent its further misuse himself.

Indeed, there is evidence for this. Twinmold’s desert lair is filled with monuments in honor of Majora’s Mask. And in the first room of the Stone Tower Temple, there is an enormous statue. At first, the statue seems to depict a grotesque face sticking out its tongue, but when the tower is reversed the statue bears a striking resemblance to Majora’s Mask. (I assume the designers of the game didn’t want this revelation to be too obvious; I think they wanted the inverted statue to be uncannily familiar.) It is not heart-shaped like Majora’s Mask, but if you look closely, you can see that an emblem was painted at the bottom of the statue. Part of the emblem is missing, indicating that part of the statue is also missing. Before the stone fragments had fallen into the sky, the statue had, in fact, been shaped like a heart. It was originally a statue of Majora’s Mask.

The Stone Tower architects had broken the seal of the ancient tribe. They found Majora’s Mask in the desert realm. They built the monuments there in honor of it. They brought it back with them into their world, and in the temple they built the gigantic statue of the mask. Above the statue is a doorway, and beyond the door there is a straight path to the portal to the desert. This path can be accessed no other way, so the statue of Majora’s Mask serves as the gateway to the desert.

(2) I think that Majora is most likely to be female. The form of Majora’s Wrath acts rather feminine and has a female voice. And, there are also markings between its legs that could represent ovaries. The distorted image of Majora’s Mask appears on the Wrath’s chest, and in this position the eyes of the mask resemble breasts. And how appropriate it is for the female Goddesses to unleash a female demon in response to those phalluses and Termina’s masculine pride.

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