Hey everyone, thanks as always for the support ^^ As soon as NintendoBlackCrisis releases his video about Ikana I will update the description and add a card during the closing words! I'm tired and will go to sleep now!
Honestly, Hyrule and Termina being connected and the magic song that is Song of Storms being present in both games could explain the origin. The origin in Ocarina of Time is a mystery, but in Majora's Mask, the song was composed by the Composer Brothers, who are present in both games. It's not a stretch to think that the song could have reached Hyrule.
But even if the song originated from Termina, in Ocarina of time its still a time paradox. The man teaches it to link, who goes back and teaches it to him. Noone originally taught it to either one of them.
@@Sivanot Link learns in termina, returns, and teaches to him. That's the solution. Adult link learns it, then. Child link screws the windmill. And we can have the cycle.
@@junosoft Only Problem is that the timelines are no longer connected. Links present in and after Majoras Mask does not lead to the same future adult link was. Ganondorf never took over Hyrule, Zelda never left the castle with Impa and the citizens never went to Kakariko for refuge. So it doesn't matter if link taught the Song after he returned from Termina. In this timeline there is no adult Hero of time who tries to free the temples anymore.
@@btothekfromg5973 Yes, this doesn't work on the canon split timeline. But I guess it is the original intended solution, considering just these two games.
I always considerd Ikana to be the ancient seat of power in Termina. Much like Hyrule Castle is the current government of Hyrule, Ikana Castle is no longer the modern government of Termina, having fractured into four civilizations,the Hylians in Clocktown, the Deku Kingdom, the Gorons of Snowhead, and the Zora of Great Bay.
Y'know it's interesting you mention that because when he said it's a bit like if Hyrule went against the Sheika instead of siding together I had a weird thought of wondering if this is how Hyrule may have been if the Hylians didn't win. The nation fell apart and the different peoples developed independently from each other. Which makes for a weird scenario where BECAUSE they developed separately, sure there's miscommunication and possibly distrust between each region, but they all seem more advanced than Hyrule. It could be because the split happened so far back, they've had a lot more time to develop, or its possible there's some healthy competition between the region's that pushed each other to have these more complicated societies. Kind of plays into the parallel worlds idea
@@batcaveloner1383Terminan, not Terminian. Also, the term is Terminan Hylian. It’s not one or the other, it’s both. Terminan would encompass all races in Termina, including not just the Hylians there, but the Deku, Gorons and the Zora.
actually Link going down to find Termina, going upside down (and thus being upside down all game) and then flipping it rightside up, and falling down (and upwards in Termina's eyes) makes a lot of sense in terms how Link travels between the 2 places
What if Termina is a 'twisted' (pun intended) reflection of Hyrule and Lorule is a 'dark' reflection. They're both alternate worlds/lands that are connected to Hyrule in one way or another.
@@derrickdaniels3955 Termina could actually be Lorule's version of Holodrum from Oracle of Seasons since both Clock Town and Horon Village have mayors, and the Tarm Ruins could be parallel to the ruins of Ikana Kingdom.
It's also possible that Stone Tower Portal does not lead to another dimension, but merely to another far off location within the same dimension. There are people that think Hyrule and Termina are on the same planet/dimension/what have you and Link traveled the long distance there thanks to the magic of the Lost Woods making distance not what it actually is.
Great point and I wanted to think so myself for a long time... But the developers insisted that Termina is another dimension. They made it canon to make sure their use of OoT character models is plausable.
@@btothekfromg5973 there's a cut scene in Majora's mask where we get to see that the two fairies met the skull kid in termina ruclips.net/video/z07jmgnRQl4/видео.html so the world couldn't have been created by the skull kid
@@234zuscoutjango9 I never liked the thought that Skull kid or the mask created Termina... so I agree with you. I have my own little theory to termina and the connections... being created recently or as a manifastion if someones will like the Island in links awakening had been, is defintly not one of them. XD
@@btothekfromg5973 it can be both an actual place and link to memories as well. Meaning skull kid is from the lost woods that are a part of termina so he is the imp that the giants befriended but when they chose to become guardians of the land he got angery and caused problem for all the races of termina so the giants threatened to rip him apart unless he left, which he did and he ended up in hyrule for quite some time as it appears skullkids are basically immortal forest spirits. Young link ends up giving him the skull mask so he can look scary, but that is all undone when Zelda sends link back to before he even pulled the sword. So skull kid ambushes the happy mask sales men and steals majoras mask as he never was given the skull mask by young link. Skull kid then goes back to termina but upon entering termina his emotions get the best of him and majoras mask begins to feed on the negative emotions. Before skull kid enters termina he seems to still have some control over his actions afterwards the mask gains more power, which is why after link falls into termina he is dealing with a different skull kid entirely. Skull kid using the power of majoras mask goes and curses all the giants in the four regions as soon as he leaves from transforming link into a deku shrub. Majoras mask makes Skull kid's will alter reality itself.
Considering the Lost Woods already has warp points to Lake Hylia and Zora's Domain it's not impossible for the further you get in the woods the further you end up teleported
I've had a similar theory for years: the difference is that IMO, the portal leads to Hyrule - specifically the Haunted Wasteland of Lanayru's Gerudo Desert. I believe that the Garo built the Stone Tower TO reach the portal (you can see it hanging in the sky above Stone Tower from the center room in the temple), and in doing so left Termina and made on exodus to Hyrule. There, I believe they split into two factions: the people of the Sun (Gerudo), and the people of the Moon (Sheikah). This would explain why both races/cultures share so many similarities, both with customs and iconography, e.g. necromancy, portals, etc.. This would ALSO explain why there are Gossip Stones and the presence of the Mask of Truth in Termina; they even reference the Sheikah by name. Majora's Mask ALSO features Kotake and Koume, complete with the same names and outfits (even the tell-tale Gerudo markings), AND they're familiar with the Skull Kid. Link only killed them in the Adult Timeline, so in the Child Timeline perhaps they left Hyrule when the King moved against Ganondorf and the Gerudo and came to Termina via this portal somewhere in the desert, just as their ancestors had done long ago. This would also explain why the area you fight Twinmold appears to be a shrine of some sort, built to venerate the giant Moldorms (creatures that inhabit, you guessed it, the Lanayru Desert of Hyrule). The Twili heavily feature twin serpents in their iconography (see Zant's throne and the Fused Shadows), and Ganondorf in the Wind Waker wears a kimono type of garb with this twin serpent design. Maybe it's a reference to Twinmold.
Stone Tower has major Hourglass vibes. The temple flips. Sands settled on one side. And time has ended there, in a sense. It could very much just be inspiration for Ikana, not a theme.
I saw a fan made map of the World of Zelda many years ago that showed Termina on the left and Hyrule in the right, connected by a colossal desert in between Ikana Canyon and the Haunted Wasteland. Considering the battle with Twinmold takes place in a massive desert, it made sense!
Here's a fun idea: In Nayru's cutscene in twilight princess, the interlopers could have been portrayed as dark links, or mirror versions of link, because they were doppelgangers, or mirror versions of the people already in Hyrule.
there is some auditory similarity between the "garo" and the "gerudo". It's possible that once someone encountered one tribe and then, later, the other, but since they were both desert people (possibly in different parts of the same desert) they called them the same name, which became the name for all desert dwelling people in that language, before morphing into two different forms based on which side of the portal they were interacting with more as time went on. It would be similar to why "Greece" is called "Greece"
These areas in the game always had such extremely palpable atmosphere that's always stuck with me, but I'd never really thought deeply about it. This video is a blessing on my childhood heart, super interesting. I love this series lmfao, great job here!
One interesting addition to the idea of Stone Tower teleporting one to Hyrule is that Twinmold is the only boss in Majora's Mask which is also a creature known to inhabit Hyrule (being a pair of giant moldorms). Odolwa, Goht, and Gyorg are all creatures that haven't made an appearance in Hyrule (I'm pretty sure there've been killer fish in other Zelda games, but only after MM). However, we then need to consider how Majora, an entity tied to termina, could corrupt Twinmold if they're in a separate dimension? I guess it's possible that since Majora was controlling Skullkid, and Skullkid might've used the Stone Tower portal, Majora was able to cross over briefly in order to sew the seeds of its corruption in Hyrule (which is kind of terrifying, now that I think about it).
Skull Kid has been back and forth between Hyrule and Termina by the time Link enters Termina - he's already wearing Majora's Mask when he steals Epona in the Lost Woods, and he was friends with the Giants when they shaped Termina, so there's clearly nothing limiting Majora to Termina.
@@generaltechnomage306 It's a possibility but personally I find it unlikely. The Curse of Demise is all about hatred, we don't see hatred in Majora, just sadism. Majora doesn't commit its crimes because it hates the people of Termina, it commits them because it enjoys chaos. Remember that the bosses of the temples were either created/corrupted BY Majora or are the corrupted forms of the Giants, this is seen in how the boss masks house the Giants' souls. This can mean one of three things, Twinmold could have been an already existing fauna that was given a boss mask that enhanced its capabilities, Twinmold was created by Majora or the Giant was corrupted into the form of Twinmold. Assuming the theory is true, it's entirely possible that Majora knew it wasn't in Termina anymore and saw an opportunity to cause even more chaos, hence why it released Twinmold into the desert landscape. Who knows? Maybe once Termina was destroyed by the moon falling, Hyrule was going to be Majora's next target.
If Termina is upside-down, and Hyrule is under it, perhaps Lorule is above it-which would be even further below Hyrule due to the flipped nature of Termina. If we never see the Garudo in Lorule, aside from the clown that comes to Hyrule for the sages - who is, to my memory, never referred to as a Garudo - to revive Gan(n)on[dorf], it is possible that the Garo are the Lolian (Lorule's Hylian) counterpart to the Garudo. I'm likely spelling several things wrong, apologies for that…
There are hints in A link between worlds that suggest that Yuga is Ganondorf's parallel counterpart which would make him a lorulean Gerudo One of the hints is Yuga's appearance The sorcerer is wearing a circlet with a red jewel, he has long red hair with the main difference from Ganondorf being the dreadlocks,he has a pointy nose and pale green skin The second hint is found during the first boss encounter The music that plays is Ganon's battle theme from a link to the past in reverse
@@carljohansson3512 Yes, I know. But they never mention the Gerudo (Rose's Zen Garden* corrected my spelling an hour ago.) at all, if I recall correctly. By that I mean that like Lorule is called Lorule instead of being called another Hyrule, then it's possible other kingdoms and tribes would also have different names as well, such as Gerudo counterparts being called Garo instead, Which would make Yuga (I couldn't remember their name originally) a Garo king or whatever in the Lorule realm. And given the state of Lorule, and likely the world beyond it, if you lived there and found a magic hole that could take you from a slowly crumbling planet to a planet that (back before the Akala war started) is in a much better state than your own; and does not appear to need any kind of relic to maintain itself? Or, if it was long before even the destruction of the Lolian Triforce, Yuga doesn't seem to have any quams with invading other worlds to serve their own ambitions, so invading another world for resources wouldn't even be out of character for them.
@@RealmsCrossMyths I agree, for me the only question is whether demise went to lorule or not, and whether lorule has a different set of gods/goddesses (in my opinion the golden goddesses probably still have dominion over lorule but not hylia maybe a hylia equivalent exists named lolia or smth)
The claim that Hyrule is the heavens spoken of in the story isn't that far fetched. Recall what Shad said in Twilight Princess: that Hylians were the people closest to the gods. Perhaps the Terminans are a bit less close to the gods, and Hyrule seems as the heavens since they are close to the gods relatively.
@@MonsterMaze Thing is if you go into the Japanese version of twilight princess it reveals that the “Realm” often mentioned in the English translations is more so referring to Hyrule as THE Holy Land as it is where the tricorce shards landed. The line about them being closest to the gods refers to their religious devotion that is mentioned often in the Japanese versions, but often left out or muddled down in other versions. Also we’ve seen other realms present before such as the Realm of the Ocean King which despite what some claim is merely a realm created by the evil of the realm is its own realm entirely. The way I see Termina is as an alternate dimension or timeline that is linked via the lost woods. Even Majora’s Mask uses a similar design to the Mask Midna wears. The “ninja” clan who fought the Ikana family is clearly their form of the Yiga clan, with their leader even using a similar fighting style.
This theory really presents a fascinating concept for how the dimensions of Hyrule and Termina are arranged relative to one another. It's as if they both share the same sky, but from opposite directions somehow, and yet also share the same underworld if you go down deep enough, in a sort of 'loop'. If you went into the sky far enough in one world, maybe you'd find yourself landing back in the other, and if you went underground far enough, the same thing would happen. There aren't multiple iterations of the worlds stacked on each other, but rather more of an Ouroboros situation. It also seems to me that the people that built the Stone Tower and mocked the gods were likely Triforce seekers, aiming to build into the heavens to invade Hyrule and claim the power of the gods. That does fit with the goals of the Interlopers, and I find it more fun than the idea of them being two completely unrelated groups from who-knows-where. As for the future of Ikana, I think Link's actions started the process of soothing the hatred and allowed the dead to, slowly, start to move on, and they'll start to fade away and find peace eventually. :)
Huh... When you put it like that, adding to what the video said about Hyrule being connected to several worlds, I'm starting to think the Zelda world is less like a globe and more like an M.C. Escher painting. Which funny enough the franchise has made references to before. 😂
When the Stone Tower Temple is turned upside down, the big structure in the back of the first room resembles Majora's Mask. It has a heart shape with spikes protruding from it, as well as two eyes. Stone Tower Temple was probably built by the dark tribe, since we know they made the mask in the first place and there are other parts of the canyon that reference the mask (such as the Secret Shrine). Also, since the Happy Mask Salesman obtained Majoras's Mask before the Skull Kid, I wonder if he was the one who opened the gates to the stone tower to get it?
Old comment, I know, but I thought it was obvious the Dark Tribe made the tower. The statues in the tower depict figures licking the triforce, which is a sign in religious iconography of hatred or blasphemy.
Until this video, I had never considered that the Garo had entered Ikana through the portal in Stone Tower, and it's PERFECT! For years now, I have theorized that the Garo were ancient Sheikah, sent to spy on the tribe in Stone Tower, and that the Stone Tower tribe were the ancient Interlopers. (REALLY happy to see this mentioned at the end of this video!) As NBC mentioned at 30:55, the group of individuals who became the interlopers "emerged", and it never occurred to me until now, that they could have emerged from a portal somewhere deep in Hyrules desert. So a brief summary of the theory goes like this; -Stone Tower tribe, creates Majora's Mask, but due to it's power, seals it away to prevent misuse. -Tribe eventually creates the portal to the desert (Hyrule) -Sheikah (Garo) sent to spy/investigate this emergent tribe (interlopers) -Tribe creates Fused Shadow (similar in design to Majora's Mask) -Sheikah intervene in order to prevent it's misuse. -Sheikah seal the tribe away using the Mirror of Twilight in Arbiter's Grounds (in a DESERT!) -Sheikah return to seal the tower and keep watch over Ikana, to make sure no one enters Stone Tower/discovers the tribes secrets. (This part of the theory works in tandem with Zeltik's theory about the redeads, the Sheikah's involvement with them, and their use. Zeltik's video: ruclips.net/video/eNJsfP_7lbc/видео.html ) -Once sealed, the Sheikah using their own dark magic, fill the tower with walking dead, as an extra deterrent. -MANY years later the Skull Kid/Majora's Mask unseal the temple, releasing the dead to plague Ikana. -Lastly, as of BotW, there are TWO tribes known for "dying without leaving a corpse," the Garo, and the ancient Sheikah monks in BotW. Sorry for the wall of text, I tried to keep it brief, and sorry if anything is vague. So happy to see a video on Ikana, and I'd love to see more deep dives on this location! Can't wait for the colab on NBC's channel!
For the exterior of the Stone Tower I recommend looking at the painting from Bruegel: "De kleine Toren van Babel". It resembles it quite nice with the colors and all the arches. And just some small coincidences: - The city of Babel is said to be in the east, so is Stone Tower - In the story of the tower of Babel, people are scattered all over the world to prevent the tower from finishing. With this in mind, it's almost symbolism that Link has to make statues of the main races (Deku, Goron, Zora, "Human"). Because only together they can finish the job.
Another cool fact is that the people originally were building the tower of babel as a means of navigation so no one would get lost and they could “live without God” and in MM the stone tower can be seen in almost every region as they mentioned
@@spectral2316 so, would that mean that Stone Tower would've been a tourist attraction like the swamp boat ride inside the swamp? If so that doesn't make sense by how you reach the valley since most of the areas where you'd need to use the hookshot are out of reach for normal people (since high cliffs connecting to withered trees) Though again Kafei and Sakon can get there with no problem (which always bothered me)
@@intermediateingrid5746 aye kids, lets take the weekend off to visit the cursed-demonpossessed-bloodstained temple where people possibly sacrificed their children to satan. sounds like a good idea.
Skyward sword has many many swirls, in various styles. There's more than "the swirl with the ticks" on the walls of the labyrinths. The korok's block puzzles also share that design and others that don't have it found on the labyrinths. Their timer rings also share the swirl as well. Speaking of sharing the same symbols, the final upgraded wooden shield in skyward sword shares the exact same symbol found at lanayru's mining facility, where you use the gust bellows to open the doors. Neat way of showing it was effectively the same civilization before skyloft became skyloft (or sky people as they are called in twilight princess)
@@ShadowSkyX another cool thing you might not have noticed is i believe that koroks and wizzrobes in boty both disappear and reappear with the same particle effect. What do you think about that?
Majora’s Mask is such an unique and intriguing piece of art… It’s awesome that after 20 years of its release, the game is still inspiring people to craft amazing theories like this one. Keep it up with the great content!
If Hyrule is in fact the heavens, and we go to Termina by going underground, then how Demise appeared in Hyrule makes even more sense of a crack in the ground. Perhaps the reason the triforce resides in Hyrule in the first place is because its the world closest to the Realm of the Gods, with all other worlds beneath it
Oh I LOVE an Ikana analysis/theory. This is really interesting honestly. Never considered that stone tower temple would be an interdimensional portal. I wonder if that means the land of the Garo is completely barren now? And also how Twin Rova got there if Majora only has control over Termina and not Hyrule. Really fun to think about. Great video guys!
Always down to watch a theory about my favorite location inside of my favorite game. I'd say the theory is definitely possible considering how many times to use a gate to warp to a different location or different time across virtually all of the Zelda series. One thing I hope to see In BOTW's sequel is some sort of horror/undead themed region to explore, similar to Ikana Canyon.
I'm not going to lie, I played Majora's mask day and night and finished it multiple times as a kid. Every time I watch videos about the Ikana region though, I feel like I never went there at all. Just remembering the Stone tower. Everything else is blank, as if I refused to remember wholeheartedly.
I really like this theory. It got me thinking….It would be interesting if in BOTW2 the developers make link travel through Termina to reach the Twili. Super speculative, but what if the twilight realm (shadow realm) possesses a sacred shrine to cleanse the darkness from the master sword. Since we know that the mirror was destroyed at the end of TP, what if the only way to reach the twilight realm is by going back to Ikana or somewhere else in Termina, where a twilight portal or another mirror is kept. It would be a really interesting way to connect the fallen timeline to BOTW. Better yet, what if link must go on a quest to different areas from all three timelines. We haven’t been explained the back story of how the timelines converged. I have been speculating for years this was caused by a singular event. What if Termina played a role in unifying the timelines. It could connect Lorule, and the great sea, ect. I’ve clearly flown off the rails of speculation, but like I said, you got me thinking.
I would really like the idea of traveling to as many not-hyrule locations from previous games as possible, thus making every land to that point accessible in the one game.
The mirror of twilight was only destroyed in the child timeline. It may still exist in botw. The Arbiters grounds is in botw. The mirror could be held underground.
Considering the parallels between the Shadow Temple and the Stone Tower Temple, is it possible the Garo were at some point in time a branch of the Sheikah? It would explain the spying, and other secretive things that they were doing much like the Sheikah. And the act of killing themselves to avoid being captured is in line with the ninja idea, which the Sheikah are very ninja like themselves. The Sheikah also would know how to create a portal that could possible traverse dimensions as they have always been more advanced than other races in Hyrule, granted they have never been as advanced as the ones depicted in Breath of the Wild, but they still were always way more advanced than the other races. The other idea is that they might have been Gerudo that Ganondorf sent through a portal he created, but that seems a little less likely.
What if the Garo are an ancient common ancestor of both Gerudo and Sheikah who discovered the portal created by the builders of Stone Tower, sent most of their members through who then became stuck with no way to return? If time moves differently between Hyrule and Termina like a Narnia type of thing it could make chronological sense
The Garo have three paralels that make it plausible that the portal leads to the Gerudo Desert. For one, they dress like people who live in hot and arid environs, such as a desert; secondly, their name, Garo, sounds reminiscent to Gerudo; and thirdly, they are stealthy assassins who specialise in dual wielding blades and in popping into and out of existence in a puff of smoke, like a certain desert dwelling clan in BotW. Add to that that the boss monster in that desert location is a variant of the boss monster native to Gerudo Desert, it is pretty much definite.
Well I feel even more scared of the Ikana region now than I was before. Majoras mask is honestly terrifying. Whoever wrote that game needs to get a therapist, along with most of the players with gibdo ptsd. and how strange to think, that out of these 90,300 or more people, I was the 347th subscriber. I feel weird about how massive this channel got so fast. Not trying to assert dominance, just a commentary on how awesome these videos are.
IKR? those gibdos were TERRIFYING! I wonder what Zelda's got cooking considering Nintendo has said that BOTW2 is going to be darker than Majora's Mask.
@@davidfitzpatrick2684 He said that in a Iwata Asks interview and I think he's coming from a gameplay perspective, but he refers to Majora's Mask's development as a "trauma" and a "bitter experience" from the past he had to overcome for the remake, so who knows.
@@setteplays Paychological issues do suck really really hard, but you have to admit some of the most mind-blowing shit comes from it. I wouldn't ask someone to do something they find uncomfortable or traumatizing for my own enjoyment, or for money, or whatever, but I'm still curious about what gems are waiting in Aonuma's shadows. That sounded far creepier than it did in my head...my bad...
the somebody who opened the doors was not skull kid, it was the happy mask salesman who went looking for majoras mask which was deep within the temple.
Just saying, the Ancients sealed Majora's Mask somewhere where it should never have been found. And Ikana, a land filled with ancient imagery resembling Majora's Mask, has a portal to essentially a destroyed wasteland. There is also a second thing in Stone Tower. Remember Gomess? Additionally, the peoples of Termina once lived together before being scattered to the corners of the land. And something made the Giants need to rest. A war in Ikana that ruined Termina's tranquility would explain this. And calamities caused by Majora's Mask were great...
It is worth noting that the Garo could be nearly any race, under those hoods. If the Zoni taught us nothing else, it is that there are absolutely groups out there, with histories we barely have hints at.
24:14 or Just another thought here. Could the Garo be the Shiekah with a different name? Perhaps they came as SHiekah but then were given the name Garo by the Ikana kingdom and their descendants adopted that name?
They definitely have similarities. Then again, they also have some small similarities to the Gerudo. The robes make it hard to say for sure, since we don't see their face proper. But still interesting to think about!
What a difference two years can make when it comes to understanding lore. The Zonai being so well-explored in TotK now is crazy to think about how mysterious they used to be. And they're still pretty mysterious! Anyways I dunno if you noticed but the bas reliefs on the tower @14:00 resemble the "bigger enemy" silhouettes from Zelda 2.
Ikana is one of my favourite areas in the Zelda series. The undead knights/stalfos and the kingdom it once was is interesting. The Garos that fought against the Ikana Kingdom have an interesting history as they imply that they don’t leave their corpse when they lose in battle. Another thing I like is watching the Redeads dance inside of the Ikana Castle when wearing one of the 3 masks linked to Ikana. The Igos du Ikana battle is really fun and watching his reaction when wearing Captain Keeta’s hat. Stone Tower Temple is a really fun dungeon especially since it flips when shooting the red jewel with light arrows and also remixing the music too. I really like that the stalchildren are more friendly in this game and can actually talk, so long as Link is wearing Captain Keeta’s hat. Majora’s Mask I would say is one of my favourite Zelda games and the land of Ikana being the undead is a cool theme.
Some where at the beginning of the game. When entering termina. there is painting on the walls that somewhat resembles the Ikana style. Not sure if you didnt notice it or didnt think it was worth mentioning. But it was there.
I actually thought initially that this video was going to suggest that Ikana and the Gero are a foil to Hyrule and the Sheikah. I still don't wonder if they aren't. Not only that but if the Gero come from the desert, look at the Yiga who branched off the Sheikah, and lived in the desert in Breath of the Wild. Just an extra note, Gero also sounds similiar to Gerudo. Ganondorf was a Gerudo, and the Yiga follow Ganon. Also while looking some stuff up, I realized Agahnim has a sheikah looking eye on his robes, and looks like he's from the desert. Just some stuff to toy with.
One potential problem with this theory is that when you talk to the poe-collector character in the secret shrine after beating Twinmold, they say to you: "It seems, somehow, you have managed to send Ikana's wandering spirits to a peaceful rest..." Did the developers just forget to make these words true for post-Twinmold Ikana? It almost seems like there were two ideas of what Ikana was supposed to look like once Stone Tower was conquered, and that neither version was implemented fully. The mini-bosses in the shrine come from other places in Termina, so we know why these enemies, at least, are "lingering." I think that maybe the gibdos and enemies in the well can be explained by the fact that the undead usually thrive in the underworld. Maybe because the well is underground, the dead in that location were not affected by the end of the curse? Furthermore, is it not the case that the bubble enemies around the music house are eliminated? At the very least, the Poe Sisters disappear from the Spirit House (as darkychao pointed out in this comment section). So there's at least one example of the curse being mitigated. I recognize there are undead in other locations that can't be explained. If I recall right the redeads in Ikana Castle still persist after the curse supposedly ends, and I think this is true for the stalchildren in the graveyard. (I need to locate my copy of the game to check these things.) However for the stalchildren, it is possible that they are not really normal, revivified skeletons. In one of Zeltik's videos he talks about how the stalchildren have some inhuman features, like their long red fingernails. So perhaps the stalchildren remaining undead could be explained by the fact that they are not typical undead creatures? You made a great connection between Stone Tower and the wooded area connecting the Lost Woods to Clock Town. The flipping effect in both locations definitely seems important. My interpretation differs with respect to the success of Stone Tower in reaching Hyrule. You suggested the project was successful, whereas I think it failed. My view is that Stone Tower was reversed by the Golden Goddesses against the will of the builders, and that this is what resulted in Majora's Mask's entry into Termina. The punishment of the goddesses was to replace the heaven with hell-i.e. the desert containing Majoras's Mask. I believe there's thematic significance to the fact that the route between Hyrule and Termina can only be accessed by going down. The approach used in Stone Tower represents the arrogance of attempting to breach the divine. "High and mighty" is associated with arrogance. The path to Termina through the Lost Woods is the opposite. It is lowly, in a literal sense. It is also the home of skull kids and forest spirits, who may be interpreted as embodying the trickster archetype. The trickster, to me, is one who has unconventional methods of attaining wisdom or enlightenment. Thus it's fitting that Skull Kid was able to traverse the gap between dimensions, whereas the builders of Stone Tower were not. It also fits with the idea of "having to lose yourself to find your way." Continuing this archetypal interpretation, I think this Carl Jung quote is apt here: "Modern people can't find God because they don't look low enough." This is why it makes sense that the path to Hyrule is found in the Lost Woods, and not Stone Tower. There may be evidence against this view, if it is true what I think I heard another commenter say: that somewhere in the game, it's stated that the Happy Mask Salesman had never been to the Lost Woods before the events of the game. (Maybe I'm just thinking the comments on your "The Return of Majora video" that speculate the Happy Mask Salesman had Majora's Mask before going to Hyrule.) If this is true, then the Mask may have indeed come from Hyrule, and the desert with the Majora's Mask insignias might be in Hyrule after all. I suppose it's still possible that Majora's Mask came neither from Termina nor Hyrule, but this would complicate things further.
I would love to see a sequel to Majora's Mask where you return to Termina and the return of Majora. Majora's Mask / Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess are my top most favorite Zelda games. I am 29 and still love these game to this day.
Great video guys, thank you! ♥ I think of Stone Tower as a sort of prison where the undead reside to serve out their sentence before they depart for the afterlife. The existence of interdimensional portals that supersede familiar Euclidean geometry and spacetime locality may have something to do with the spiritual magic addressed in your guys' Kakariko Village video...
This is an intriguing video but I disagree with some of the conclusions you've made. It's unlikely the arena for Twinmold is in another realm, as the entrance to the Giant Realm is there and you still die within if the moon falls. Your bias is also apparent when you only use the 3DS version to demonstrate civilization in the arena, when it didn't exist in the original then dismiss removal of the Triforce as possible errors. Using the original alone I thought the tower was built to reach out to the golden Goddesses, the tongue statues are used as entrances, so a triforce on one would be metaphorically laying out the red carpet and bidding them welcome. I have some aside notes: There is a correction you need to the ending point. Killing Twinmold does affect the region, the undead no longer roam the canyon, (such as Sharp, the outdoor Gibdo, Garo and Pamelas father), but remain in the castle, graveyard and well. It's likely Majora exacerbated the curse, but it still exists. I would also point out the builders of the tower are likely good people. The Mechanism for flipping the tower uses the light of justice from the Light Arrow. You could also address why the Giants Mask can only work in this area.
Great theory as for the heavens portal. I never thought about it for a sec. It makes perfect sense! I would add that the Garos are purposely leaving no trace of their history or civilization as they are mysterious on purpose. Even their own body is a piece of information for their enemy.
This is the theory that I personally believe, it ties up all the loose ends in a satisfying way, which I love. Thank you for putting together this theory Monster Maze!
So, imagine this: If Termina is a parallel dimension to Hyrule, and Hyrule has a dark dimension called Lorule, is there also a dark(er) version of Termina? Maybe it's a light version? Joke theories aside, the portal in the Tower could also 'just' be a portal to another place on the same world Termina resides in. It doesn't have to be another dimension alltogether. Or maybe it is a portal to Termina's 'Lorule' version and the Garo are a sneaky version of the brute force army of Ikana and now these two parallel versions of the same people are at war with eachother across dimensions. (Though, given the very different body builds of the two, and Termina's/Hyrule's people being the almost exact same, that would be unlikely). ANYWAY, aweome video to one of my favourite regions and histories within the franchine!
The theory that the interloper tribe was also the tribe of Majora had always been one of my favorites, and the idea that they could have come through the portal to Termina discussed here just adds an even more interesting twist to it, and would explain why they’re called “Interlopers” as they didn’t originate in Hyrule.
Brain- "I'm going to watch something else." Brain- "It's half an hour long." Brain- "Come on, put it in watch later." Hand- *Click* "Was there another option?"
So Majora's mask could be a proto interloper mask. Also I'm convinced now that majora isn't a dream or the after life or anything but a solid place in the multiverse of Hyrule.
It's interesting that the area you teleport to from the stone tower is surrounded by other, similar towers. It's possible that this is the true terminal, and that you can access other realms through the desert plane with all of the other stone towers.
Something just struck me : if the Garo came through that portal in the Stone Tower and that portal leads to a deset in Hyrule, why can't the Garo be some sort of ancient Gerudo ? There's even a similarity in the names of the people (Garo ~ Geru) one could even theorise that Geru is an evolution of the word Garo, and that somewhere in ancient times, the suffix do was attached to this name). And I mean, it's even said in the video how both peoples use resembling weapons, and after all I wouldn't put it past a people known as thieves, to be good at producing spies. And, if I remember correctly, it is said somewhere in OoT that the Gerudo used to worship the Golden Goddesses (hence why the triforce symbol would appear in Ikana), before worshipping the Colossus in OoT's Spirit Temple.
I've dove so deep into the lore of the ikanan empire. I wish so badly they would do more with termina using your ideas and I strongly believe that you are correct on this. Is there any chance you could revisit this topic and do more videos about Ikana? Because when you really pay attention to all the little details, it is extremely interesting
I always liked the idea that the Ikana kingdom and the Garo were the Terminian equivalent of the Hylians and the Sheikah. Only, instead of being devoted to protecting the royal family in the shadows, the Garo had some kind of falling out with Ikana. Something akin to the Yiga Clan's situation in BoTW, only much more severe and ending in the mutual destruction of both groups.
21:38 I actually found an excerpt from Zeldapedia that might explain why they removed the Triforce on those blocks: "Another theory suggests that Stone Tower was built by the ancients of Termina to persecute Din, Nayru, and Farore. One of the leading clues for this theory is the obscured appearance of the Triforce, as it appears on the moving stone blocks within the tower, depicted as being licked under the crotch of a sitting creature - a motif suggested to be an expression of profanity, as a statement of rejecting the Triforce and Golden Goddesses." If the people who remade Majora's Mask read this or realized this, it's not much of a stretch that they removed those depictions of the Triforce in order to keep the game E10.
Might be unconnected, but in the Ocarina of Time Forest Temple, there is a hallway that flips sideways. And if the theory that the Phantom Ganon boss room was meant as a portal to the Sacred Realm is true, then that could be connected. Not to mention that both the Termina portal and Forest Temple are both in the Lost Woods.
Throwing my hat in the ring, I'd like to suggest that there are a few more interesting connections regarding the Stone Tower with Hyrule. The Red Jewel that flips the tower looks rather similar to the brooch Princess Zelda wears as a child. Then, we have the Light Arrow, which is an important treasure of Hyrule, found within the Stone Tower Temple. As for Twinmold's arena in the original game, there are pillars with Majora's Mask on them. If the mask is of Hyrule origin, then that would make a good amount of sense. The only major problem (besides how Majora's Mask appears on the blocks and switches) is that Link is still affected by the time limit and the Moon's destructive power inside the arena (or at least until Twinmold is eliminated). That compromises the possibility that the arena is in another world besides Termina.
Actually… isn’t there a scene where we see how Skull Kid got Majora’s Mask? Isn’t that also in the Lost Woods? Considering we know that Link is mugged in the Lost Woods as well by Skull Kid already wearing the mask, that implies to me that the mask very well may be of Hyrule origin. Consider: the Happy Mask Salesman is only in Termina because of the Skull Kid, at least it appears so. If that’s the case… then it may be that the Mask and its tribe were in the world of Hyrule originally. Perhaps the Stone Tower portal was then opened between Termina and Hyrule and then they migrated to Termina after sealing the mask in Hyrule? Perhaps in that very desert.
@@badbeardbill9956 Well, I can't argue how Majora's Mask is from anywhere besides Termina. Even if it's not from Hyrule, the mask is more than likely from somewhere on that same plane of existence. I won't even rule out the possibility of the Mask Salesman finding Majora's Mask in the same desert.
Have you considered that the curse of Ikana WAS caused by Majora, but long before Skull Kid or even the Salesman ever acquired it? The mask strongly resembles he designs in the tower
I did consider it, but aside from that one statue inside Stone Tower Temple I couldn't find all that much proof for it. The problem is that we don't know when Majora's Mask was created and when the ancient sealed it away. So there's no telling if that happened long before the war between the Garo and Ikana, or around the same time. But Majora could of course be responsible. It's powers are incredible! ^^
I really like some of the new ideas pitched in this video. However, I was disappointed that you guys didn’t cover more of the connections that Majora imagery had to the stone tower. Aren’t those pillars where you fight twinmold that depict Majora’s Mask significant? This is a great separate theory from the Tower of Babel classic fan theory. Well done!
Yeah, and the fact that there's a giant stone version of Majora's Mask in the temple "foyer" (first room). It leads me to believe that the stone tower was constructed by the tribe that made Majora's Mask.
@@ophereon Absolutely. The mask is connected to that building somehow, along with the portal to another world. They also take the buildings in the desert from the remake as canon even though I don’t think they appear in the original version. N64 twinmold fight doesn’t have those buildings in the background in addition to having the mask symbols from the pillars that get removed in the remake. It always made sense to me that Majora was originally a person or spirit that was sealed into a mask that became dangerous enough to have to be sealed away again. An abandoned desert seemed like a good place to leave a cursed artifact where it couldn’t hurt anyone.
@@robinita46853 another thought I had was that the desert may have been Majora's original home, be it a separate realm or just a place on the planet. I also view Majora as a spirit / person, similar to how its portrayed in the mini comic by Himekawa. I'm actually writing a Majora fanfic at the moment based on the dark tribe and Majora, before it was turned into a mask. I interpret the dark tribe as a group of rogue Sheikah who refused to serve the Hylians after they came down from Skyloft, bitter that they were left to fight on the surface while Hylia took her chosen people to safety, so they became disenfranchised with the goddess and looked to other means of survival (namely, powerful magic).
The Inca were not a lost civilization, they were THE ruler civilization of the vast majority of the South American continent, they were very much alive and thriving when the Spanish conquistadores arrived on the continent
Just to be clear explorers didn’t find the lost ruins of the Inca. They found the thriving empire of the Inca and then killed them all leaving only ruins. There was a solid 100 years of western exchanges with Inca before the genocide began. Same goes for the Maya.
I absolutely love this channel, all the content and most of all the obvious and pure love you guys have for this series. It makes my week every time I see that you’ve uploaded. Thank you!!!
I was playing Botw yesterday when I noticed something,I was halfway through the Yiga Clan hideout when I got cornered and had to fight a blademaster,I had this theory before but the blademaster did not reform from the pieces of paper.I believe that the Yiga could be descendants of the Garo,or a split off of the tribe.Not exactly sure how this could work lore-wise but the similarities are incredible,they both die withought leaving a corpse,they both have a religious base in the desert and they are both at war with another desert tribe
This video has left me speechless O_O I love Majora's Mask, and the garo was its race that always caused me the biggest interest and curiosity. All your theories are so well thought out and constructed, it makes them sound truly logical and possible! Particularly the detail about the hole where the garo master jumps from being also the entrance to the boss battleground. My brain exploded at that! ô_ô
I think the greatest mystery here is how was Dampe born. Who was willing to breed with a guy who looks like Dampe and lives in a haunted graveyard in the middle of an abandoned warzone?
I loved the theory, but I found one inconsistency (I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it before, sorry) as the sun is represented in yellow inside the Ikana castle (the block with an eye behind the dancing redead), and being part of Termina it should be red according with your theory. On and on, I loved it and it all makes pretty much sense, thanks for sharing it!
I love how you all but called out the clearly untrue statement that the encyclopedia made about Termina not being real; by basically saying: of course the giants are real, why would that be called into question?
Hey Monster Maze, since Skull Kid is an imp, and Midna(prior to her true form being revealed) was transformed into an imp, would that mean that Midna and the Skull Kid are technically related?
I didn't end up watching this video for a few days because I didn't actually remember what Ikana was, but it ended up being a brilliant theory. I really love the fact that hyrule is likely the heavens, since by the naming conventions of hyrule and lorule, hyrule is 'high' up.
The thing about the war between dimensions is something I think is the main plot of the game series and nobody has really figured it out. Every game sees either a sealing or an invasion or another dimension and frome the perspective of one dimension sealing Gannon away seems like an invasion by Gannon, for example. There are two hyrules and a tug of war with the Tri-Force.
Holy cow! It never occurred to me that the room you fight the Garo Master is the same one as the boss entrance! I was even obsessed with looking over the dungeon map in the manual and comparing the two sets and it never clicked! Very excited to see a video about the Ikana Canyon and Kingdom, it was honestly my favorite area in the entire game and the mystery behind all of it still peaks my attention since I was a kid! One thing, since I figured Termina was a parallel world to Hyrule, I figured that the Garo was the Terminan counterpart of the Sheikah. Even the Sheikah origin in Hyrule is still a bit of a mystery(the first Impa from SS just says she's a Sheikah but it's not really elaborated beyond that) so I figured the Garo could have potentially went the same route as serving the Ikana royal family but instead spied and raged war with them or never had a reason(like serving Hyila and her reincarnations) to devote themselves to them. I also love the fact that the Ikana royal empire breaking down lead to the four regions staying separated and governed by their own rules while the people of Termina must have created Clock Town later as their main settlement. The fact that they did still inhabited the area of Ikana also explains not just Dampe, the music box house and the other abandon homes but also the lone guard that was cursed to be invisible by the skull kid. Unlike the other regions where there is no guards the Ikana guard must have had a post because there was still Terminan citizens activity living there. It's kinda the same way there were originally guards stationed at Kakariko village due to Hylian people being allowed to live there after the war(they're not present in the future). It's all an interesting outlook of what could have happen to Hyrule after the civil war if it was never unified under their realm's royal family. In fact the way Clock Town is run under the mayor is still a bit odd. It's never stated if the mayor was elected or if it's an inherent titled since it seems he's more of a figurehead instead of an active leader, especially with his wishy-washy additude about such an possible disaster as the moon falling? Even the head carpenter doesn't talk about not re-electing him or kicking him out of office when he was the most against canceling the carnival and neither was the head of the guard for his own reason. Makes me think that their might be more to the mayor, Kafei and their family's status then what the game suggests. Maybe some type of nobility or something? Well anyway keep up the great work and hopefully we'll see something awesome about Ikana from NBC soon!!
These are all really good points. It's also curious you bring up survivors of the war establishing somewhere else after the fall of the royal family because I hadn't thought much of the Ikana citizens surviving since the kingdom was overthrown but there's possibility that the Garo did have descendents living in Termina. Both the debate if whether the the Garo fought are alive or lingering spirits from the war, and the numerous questions about why the Gorman brothers (I think is their name? Been a while for me) have a pair of Garo masks. Wonder how many other people are related to the Garo or if it's possible, given the weird skeletal structure of the Ikana, that the Terminian people we see in Clocktown are all Garo centuries later because they really did win the war and fled the wasteland they came from.
The Twinmold room makes me think of a similar dreamscape to the Moon's tree field. I was thinking maybe Twinmold was a being similar to a world devouring species trapped in a pocket dimension under the stone tower main temple. Love these videos, just found ya today!
The room inside the moon does indeed have some similarities. And it's equally as weird. The moon is a bit more dream-like, with a sort of blur and floating particles etc. It's very surreal as well! Pocket dimensions are so interesting!
Wow. I never comment, but I just had to say what an amazing theory. I love how in depth your research goes and the amount of care you put into each of your videos. Videos like this make me love Zelda even more!!
with this theory, perhaps the Interlopers from Twilight Princess were the soldiers of Ikana, I mean they are called the Interlopers, implying they weren't from Hyrule
If Termina truly is a "terminal", a place used to travel to other places, could this mean Termina may be the key connection between the 3 timelines? A terminal or "station" that connects various dimensions - or timelines - together?
I don't know why they removed the Triforces off the blocks in the 3DS versions. It's weird because I remembered theroies on how it was a jab at the Triforces since the stones are not only licking it but also it's under their butts.
I think it's very likely that the gold bars are what's known as a "post-mortem" asset for oot3d-- updates or assets that didn't quite meet the deadline to be implemented in the release, but were close enough to getting finished that they decided to finish them to get archived and used later.
The theory of the both Suns (the Red one representing termina and the yellow one representing hyrule) sounds interesting. Now we just need to look at a clock in hyrule and search for a yellow Sun in its drawings.
I frickin loved this video but I was a bit bugged that you didn’t mention gomess or “sold his soul to the devil” throughout the whole video, the video could’ve been about 10 minutes longer if you would’ve mentioned it. But I still love this video and your content. Keep up the good work!
I loved this! Majoras Mask holds so many secrets and its great to hear some theories about them. That the stone tower is a portal between Hyrule and Termina is a theory that I absolutely love. Looking forward to your next collab!
Always feels great to go into a theory video thinking I knew everything only to be blown away repeatedly by all those special details and connections! Great video!
I like it! Here's some things to note, In skyward sword Zelda broke out of the crystal 3 times, while she was only sealed once. in one of those timelines demise was defeated and the cycle never started. Termina has almost mirrored characters. The worlds are also connected in the lost woods. Taking this into account with the stone tower, and how the sheikah were managing the gates of time that just kind of disappeared with impa standing there. It would make sense if the two alternate timelines were still connected, being treated as two different worlds as history diverged so drastically. Also the forest temple, in the lost forest, in ocarina of time, was built by the royal family who was leading the sheikah. The lost woods clearly have some spatial issues and also happen to lead to termina. This the farron region near lanayru (which also has time travel stuff in skyward sword). But the farron region is where demise was sealed, destroyed, and again sealed, with lots of time travel. Deep woods almost certainly later becomes lost woods. Also the gates of time looked like clock gears. The lost woods portal leads to the clock tower. You find redead in the stone tower, which you only really find with sheikah stuff.... So yea. Maybe I missed some stuff, but it seems pretty supported
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Hey everyone, thanks as always for the support ^^
As soon as NintendoBlackCrisis releases his video about Ikana I will update the description and add a card during the closing words!
I'm tired and will go to sleep now!
Hi
Awesome Video
Glad you're back
@Omar Saavedra I will always remain unshackled ;)
Aww yeah! Nice comeback, stay blessed dude. Hope u get more inspiration like this 👍 hardcore minecraft with Chap C is the bomb too btw ;)
Legend of Zelda theories are like virtual archeology
Agreed
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My guy whatttttttttttttttt best comment
@@undead7365 i came up with an even better name since: Ludoarchaeology (meaning archeology of games)
@@FeeshUnofficial interesting low-key not gonna lie I know more about hyrules history than I do American history
Honestly, Hyrule and Termina being connected and the magic song that is Song of Storms being present in both games could explain the origin. The origin in Ocarina of Time is a mystery, but in Majora's Mask, the song was composed by the Composer Brothers, who are present in both games. It's not a stretch to think that the song could have reached Hyrule.
But even if the song originated from Termina, in Ocarina of time its still a time paradox. The man teaches it to link, who goes back and teaches it to him. Noone originally taught it to either one of them.
@@Sivanot Link learns in termina, returns, and teaches to him. That's the solution.
Adult link learns it, then. Child link screws the windmill. And we can have the cycle.
@@junosoft
Only Problem is that the timelines are no longer connected.
Links present in and after Majoras Mask does not lead to the same future adult link was.
Ganondorf never took over Hyrule, Zelda never left the castle with Impa and the citizens never went to Kakariko for refuge.
So it doesn't matter if link taught the Song after he returned from Termina. In this timeline there is no adult Hero of time who tries to free the temples anymore.
@@btothekfromg5973 Yes, this doesn't work on the canon split timeline.
But I guess it is the original intended solution, considering just these two games.
@Brandon Winters
We know a little bit more than that.
I always considerd Ikana to be the ancient seat of power in Termina. Much like Hyrule Castle is the current government of Hyrule, Ikana Castle is no longer the modern government of Termina, having fractured into four civilizations,the Hylians in Clocktown, the Deku Kingdom, the Gorons of Snowhead, and the Zora of Great Bay.
Yes, it does say that the 4 worlds were once united as one.
Y'know it's interesting you mention that because when he said it's a bit like if Hyrule went against the Sheika instead of siding together I had a weird thought of wondering if this is how Hyrule may have been if the Hylians didn't win. The nation fell apart and the different peoples developed independently from each other. Which makes for a weird scenario where BECAUSE they developed separately, sure there's miscommunication and possibly distrust between each region, but they all seem more advanced than Hyrule. It could be because the split happened so far back, they've had a lot more time to develop, or its possible there's some healthy competition between the region's that pushed each other to have these more complicated societies. Kind of plays into the parallel worlds idea
@@Kahtisemo i never looked at Ikana like it was the hyrulian civil war. Neat take my friend.
*Terminians not Hyruleans……
@@batcaveloner1383Terminan, not Terminian. Also, the term is Terminan Hylian. It’s not one or the other, it’s both. Terminan would encompass all races in Termina, including not just the Hylians there, but the Deku, Gorons and the Zora.
actually Link going down to find Termina, going upside down (and thus being upside down all game) and then flipping it rightside up, and falling down (and upwards in Termina's eyes) makes a lot of sense in terms how Link travels between the 2 places
What if Termina is a 'twisted' (pun intended) reflection of Hyrule and Lorule is a 'dark' reflection. They're both alternate worlds/lands that are connected to Hyrule in one way or another.
@@derrickdaniels3955 Termina could actually be Lorule's version of Holodrum from Oracle of Seasons since both Clock Town and Horon Village have mayors, and the Tarm Ruins could be parallel to the ruins of Ikana Kingdom.
@@isaic.4339 that's exactly what I thought, either Holodrum or Labyrnna
@@isaic.4339 I've always loved the theory that Termina was in the same universe as Lorule, like a neighboring country or something.
Stone tower represents the tower of bable... but it was reversed.. to punish them.. majoras mask was then found.
It's also possible that Stone Tower Portal does not lead to another dimension, but merely to another far off location within the same dimension. There are people that think Hyrule and Termina are on the same planet/dimension/what have you and Link traveled the long distance there thanks to the magic of the Lost Woods making distance not what it actually is.
Great point and I wanted to think so myself for a long time...
But the developers insisted that Termina is another dimension. They made it canon to make sure their use of OoT character models is plausable.
@@btothekfromg5973 there's a cut scene in Majora's mask where we get to see that the two fairies met the skull kid in termina ruclips.net/video/z07jmgnRQl4/видео.html
so the world couldn't have been created by the skull kid
@@234zuscoutjango9
I never liked the thought that Skull kid or the mask created Termina... so I agree with you.
I have my own little theory to termina and the connections... being created recently or as a manifastion if someones will like the Island in links awakening had been, is defintly not one of them. XD
@@btothekfromg5973 it can be both an actual place and link to memories as well. Meaning skull kid is from the lost woods that are a part of termina so he is the imp that the giants befriended but when they chose to become guardians of the land he got angery and caused problem for all the races of termina so the giants threatened to rip him apart unless he left, which he did and he ended up in hyrule for quite some time as it appears skullkids are basically immortal forest spirits. Young link ends up giving him the skull mask so he can look scary, but that is all undone when Zelda sends link back to before he even pulled the sword. So skull kid ambushes the happy mask sales men and steals majoras mask as he never was given the skull mask by young link. Skull kid then goes back to termina but upon entering termina his emotions get the best of him and majoras mask begins to feed on the negative emotions. Before skull kid enters termina he seems to still have some control over his actions afterwards the mask gains more power, which is why after link falls into termina he is dealing with a different skull kid entirely. Skull kid using the power of majoras mask goes and curses all the giants in the four regions as soon as he leaves from transforming link into a deku shrub. Majoras mask makes Skull kid's will alter reality itself.
Considering the Lost Woods already has warp points to Lake Hylia and Zora's Domain it's not impossible for the further you get in the woods the further you end up teleported
The land of Ikana is definitely one of the coolest and most mysterious locations in Zelda
I'm always excited for a Majora's Mask theory.
Same
I've had a similar theory for years: the difference is that IMO, the portal leads to Hyrule - specifically the Haunted Wasteland of Lanayru's Gerudo Desert. I believe that the Garo built the Stone Tower TO reach the portal (you can see it hanging in the sky above Stone Tower from the center room in the temple), and in doing so left Termina and made on exodus to Hyrule. There, I believe they split into two factions: the people of the Sun (Gerudo), and the people of the Moon (Sheikah).
This would explain why both races/cultures share so many similarities, both with customs and iconography, e.g. necromancy, portals, etc.. This would ALSO explain why there are Gossip Stones and the presence of the Mask of Truth in Termina; they even reference the Sheikah by name. Majora's Mask ALSO features Kotake and Koume, complete with the same names and outfits (even the tell-tale Gerudo markings), AND they're familiar with the Skull Kid. Link only killed them in the Adult Timeline, so in the Child Timeline perhaps they left Hyrule when the King moved against Ganondorf and the Gerudo and came to Termina via this portal somewhere in the desert, just as their ancestors had done long ago.
This would also explain why the area you fight Twinmold appears to be a shrine of some sort, built to venerate the giant Moldorms (creatures that inhabit, you guessed it, the Lanayru Desert of Hyrule). The Twili heavily feature twin serpents in their iconography (see Zant's throne and the Fused Shadows), and Ganondorf in the Wind Waker wears a kimono type of garb with this twin serpent design. Maybe it's a reference to Twinmold.
Sure you are because you love consuming everything
Hell yeah man
Always!
Stone Tower has major Hourglass vibes. The temple flips. Sands settled on one side. And time has ended there, in a sense. It could very much just be inspiration for Ikana, not a theme.
I think it's the other way around, no? If I'm not wrong, Majora came before Hourglass in some years.
@@sarenarterius6217they’re talking about an actual hourglass, not “Phantom Hourglass”
@@sarenarterius6217Uh, I don’t think they were talking about Phantom Hourglass at all.
I saw a fan made map of the World of Zelda many years ago that showed Termina on the left and Hyrule in the right, connected by a colossal desert in between Ikana Canyon and the Haunted Wasteland. Considering the battle with Twinmold takes place in a massive desert, it made sense!
Ooh, cool theory!🤔
Would explain the Gerudo desert being endless in Botw and Totk.
@@banditoincognito8950I mean the gerudo desert definitely ends u can see it on the islands
Where does the forest Link enters Termina in at?
Here's a fun idea: In Nayru's cutscene in twilight princess, the interlopers could have been portrayed as dark links, or mirror versions of link, because they were doppelgangers, or mirror versions of the people already in Hyrule.
there is some auditory similarity between the "garo" and the "gerudo". It's possible that once someone encountered one tribe and then, later, the other, but since they were both desert people (possibly in different parts of the same desert) they called them the same name, which became the name for all desert dwelling people in that language, before morphing into two different forms based on which side of the portal they were interacting with more as time went on. It would be similar to why "Greece" is called "Greece"
Your Theory Seems To Be A Good Explanation Which Really Connect it
its like The Grekos Tribe Of Greek That Made the romans Called it Graecia
These areas in the game always had such extremely palpable atmosphere that's always stuck with me, but I'd never really thought deeply about it. This video is a blessing on my childhood heart, super interesting. I love this series lmfao, great job here!
Hey Beats.
One interesting addition to the idea of Stone Tower teleporting one to Hyrule is that Twinmold is the only boss in Majora's Mask which is also a creature known to inhabit Hyrule (being a pair of giant moldorms). Odolwa, Goht, and Gyorg are all creatures that haven't made an appearance in Hyrule (I'm pretty sure there've been killer fish in other Zelda games, but only after MM).
However, we then need to consider how Majora, an entity tied to termina, could corrupt Twinmold if they're in a separate dimension? I guess it's possible that since Majora was controlling Skullkid, and Skullkid might've used the Stone Tower portal, Majora was able to cross over briefly in order to sew the seeds of its corruption in Hyrule (which is kind of terrifying, now that I think about it).
Skull Kid has been back and forth between Hyrule and Termina by the time Link enters Termina - he's already wearing Majora's Mask when he steals Epona in the Lost Woods, and he was friends with the Giants when they shaped Termina, so there's clearly nothing limiting Majora to Termina.
Sew its seeds of corruption in Hyrule? Does that mean that Majora was spawned from the Curse of Demise?
@@generaltechnomage306 It's a possibility but personally I find it unlikely. The Curse of Demise is all about hatred, we don't see hatred in Majora, just sadism. Majora doesn't commit its crimes because it hates the people of Termina, it commits them because it enjoys chaos. Remember that the bosses of the temples were either created/corrupted BY Majora or are the corrupted forms of the Giants, this is seen in how the boss masks house the Giants' souls.
This can mean one of three things, Twinmold could have been an already existing fauna that was given a boss mask that enhanced its capabilities, Twinmold was created by Majora or the Giant was corrupted into the form of Twinmold.
Assuming the theory is true, it's entirely possible that Majora knew it wasn't in Termina anymore and saw an opportunity to cause even more chaos, hence why it released Twinmold into the desert landscape. Who knows? Maybe once Termina was destroyed by the moon falling, Hyrule was going to be Majora's next target.
If Termina is upside-down, and Hyrule is under it, perhaps Lorule is above it-which would be even further below Hyrule due to the flipped nature of Termina.
If we never see the Garudo in Lorule, aside from the clown that comes to Hyrule for the sages - who is, to my memory, never referred to as a Garudo - to revive Gan(n)on[dorf], it is possible that the Garo are the Lolian (Lorule's Hylian) counterpart to the Garudo.
I'm likely spelling several things wrong, apologies for that…
There are hints in A link between worlds that suggest that Yuga is Ganondorf's parallel counterpart which would make him a lorulean Gerudo
One of the hints is Yuga's appearance
The sorcerer is wearing a circlet with a red jewel, he has long red hair with the main difference from Ganondorf being the dreadlocks,he has a pointy nose and pale green skin
The second hint is found during the first boss encounter
The music that plays is Ganon's battle theme from a link to the past in reverse
@@carljohansson3512
Yes, I know.
But they never mention the Gerudo (Rose's Zen Garden* corrected my spelling an hour ago.) at all, if I recall correctly. By that I mean that like Lorule is called Lorule instead of being called another Hyrule, then it's possible other kingdoms and tribes would also have different names as well, such as Gerudo counterparts being called Garo instead, Which would make Yuga (I couldn't remember their name originally) a Garo king or whatever in the Lorule realm.
And given the state of Lorule, and likely the world beyond it, if you lived there and found a magic hole that could take you from a slowly crumbling planet to a planet that (back before the Akala war started) is in a much better state than your own; and does not appear to need any kind of relic to maintain itself?
Or, if it was long before even the destruction of the Lolian Triforce, Yuga doesn't seem to have any quams with invading other worlds to serve their own ambitions, so invading another world for resources wouldn't even be out of character for them.
@@RealmsCrossMyths well done
I was going to comment something similar, I'm glad someone had worded it in a much better way than I could!
@@RealmsCrossMyths I agree, for me the only question is whether demise went to lorule or not, and whether lorule has a different set of gods/goddesses (in my opinion the golden goddesses probably still have dominion over lorule but not hylia maybe a hylia equivalent exists named lolia or smth)
The claim that Hyrule is the heavens spoken of in the story isn't that far fetched. Recall what Shad said in Twilight Princess: that Hylians were the people closest to the gods. Perhaps the Terminans are a bit less close to the gods, and Hyrule seems as the heavens since they are close to the gods relatively.
Yes. Hyrule's dimensions are clearly "layered" so to speak. For instance, the Minish Realm is said to be even closer to the heavens than Hyrule is.
@@MonsterMaze Thing is if you go into the Japanese version of twilight princess it reveals that the “Realm” often mentioned in the English translations is more so referring to Hyrule as THE Holy Land as it is where the tricorce shards landed. The line about them being closest to the gods refers to their religious devotion that is mentioned often in the Japanese versions, but often left out or muddled down in other versions. Also we’ve seen other realms present before such as the Realm of the Ocean King which despite what some claim is merely a realm created by the evil of the realm is its own realm entirely. The way I see Termina is as an alternate dimension or timeline that is linked via the lost woods. Even Majora’s Mask uses a similar design to the Mask Midna wears. The “ninja” clan who fought the Ikana family is clearly their form of the Yiga clan, with their leader even using a similar fighting style.
@@hiddendesire3076 *triforce
@@pustota7254 feel good about being included?
This theory really presents a fascinating concept for how the dimensions of Hyrule and Termina are arranged relative to one another. It's as if they both share the same sky, but from opposite directions somehow, and yet also share the same underworld if you go down deep enough, in a sort of 'loop'. If you went into the sky far enough in one world, maybe you'd find yourself landing back in the other, and if you went underground far enough, the same thing would happen. There aren't multiple iterations of the worlds stacked on each other, but rather more of an Ouroboros situation.
It also seems to me that the people that built the Stone Tower and mocked the gods were likely Triforce seekers, aiming to build into the heavens to invade Hyrule and claim the power of the gods. That does fit with the goals of the Interlopers, and I find it more fun than the idea of them being two completely unrelated groups from who-knows-where.
As for the future of Ikana, I think Link's actions started the process of soothing the hatred and allowed the dead to, slowly, start to move on, and they'll start to fade away and find peace eventually. :)
Huh... When you put it like that, adding to what the video said about Hyrule being connected to several worlds, I'm starting to think the Zelda world is less like a globe and more like an M.C. Escher painting. Which funny enough the franchise has made references to before. 😂
I always thought the Triforce symbolism near Ikana implied some connection to Hyrule, so the portal theory honestly makes complete sense
When the Stone Tower Temple is turned upside down, the big structure in the back of the first room resembles Majora's Mask. It has a heart shape with spikes protruding from it, as well as two eyes. Stone Tower Temple was probably built by the dark tribe, since we know they made the mask in the first place and there are other parts of the canyon that reference the mask (such as the Secret Shrine). Also, since the Happy Mask Salesman obtained Majoras's Mask before the Skull Kid, I wonder if he was the one who opened the gates to the stone tower to get it?
Old comment, I know, but I thought it was obvious the Dark Tribe made the tower. The statues in the tower depict figures licking the triforce, which is a sign in religious iconography of hatred or blasphemy.
Until this video, I had never considered that the Garo had entered Ikana through the portal in Stone Tower, and it's PERFECT! For years now, I have theorized that the Garo were ancient Sheikah, sent to spy on the tribe in Stone Tower, and that the Stone Tower tribe were the ancient Interlopers. (REALLY happy to see this mentioned at the end of this video!) As NBC mentioned at 30:55, the group of individuals who became the interlopers "emerged", and it never occurred to me until now, that they could have emerged from a portal somewhere deep in Hyrules desert.
So a brief summary of the theory goes like this;
-Stone Tower tribe, creates Majora's Mask, but due to it's power, seals it away to prevent misuse.
-Tribe eventually creates the portal to the desert (Hyrule)
-Sheikah (Garo) sent to spy/investigate this emergent tribe (interlopers)
-Tribe creates Fused Shadow (similar in design to Majora's Mask)
-Sheikah intervene in order to prevent it's misuse.
-Sheikah seal the tribe away using the Mirror of Twilight in Arbiter's Grounds (in a DESERT!)
-Sheikah return to seal the tower and keep watch over Ikana, to make sure no one enters Stone Tower/discovers the tribes secrets.
(This part of the theory works in tandem with Zeltik's theory about the redeads, the Sheikah's involvement with them, and their use. Zeltik's video: ruclips.net/video/eNJsfP_7lbc/видео.html )
-Once sealed, the Sheikah using their own dark magic, fill the tower with walking dead, as an extra deterrent.
-MANY years later the Skull Kid/Majora's Mask unseal the temple, releasing the dead to plague Ikana.
-Lastly, as of BotW, there are TWO tribes known for "dying without leaving a corpse," the Garo, and the ancient Sheikah monks in BotW.
Sorry for the wall of text, I tried to keep it brief, and sorry if anything is vague.
So happy to see a video on Ikana, and I'd love to see more deep dives on this location! Can't wait for the colab on NBC's channel!
For the exterior of the Stone Tower I recommend looking at the painting from Bruegel: "De kleine Toren van Babel". It resembles it quite nice with the colors and all the arches.
And just some small coincidences:
- The city of Babel is said to be in the east, so is Stone Tower
- In the story of the tower of Babel, people are scattered all over the world to prevent the tower from finishing. With this in mind, it's almost symbolism that Link has to make statues of the main races (Deku, Goron, Zora, "Human"). Because only together they can finish the job.
Another cool fact is that the people originally were building the tower of babel as a means of navigation so no one would get lost and they could “live without God” and in MM the stone tower can be seen in almost every region as they mentioned
@@spectral2316 so, would that mean that Stone Tower would've been a tourist attraction like the swamp boat ride inside the swamp? If so that doesn't make sense by how you reach the valley since most of the areas where you'd need to use the hookshot are out of reach for normal people (since high cliffs connecting to withered trees)
Though again Kafei and Sakon can get there with no problem (which always bothered me)
@@intermediateingrid5746 aye kids, lets take the weekend off to visit the cursed-demonpossessed-bloodstained temple where people possibly sacrificed their children to satan. sounds like a good idea.
amazing theory, I just wished we got a "OH MY GOSH IS THAT A ZONAI SWIRL???"
Oh damn! I totally forgot!
Skyward sword has many many swirls, in various styles. There's more than "the swirl with the ticks" on the walls of the labyrinths. The korok's block puzzles also share that design and others that don't have it found on the labyrinths. Their timer rings also share the swirl as well. Speaking of sharing the same symbols, the final upgraded wooden shield in skyward sword shares the exact same symbol found at lanayru's mining facility, where you use the gust bellows to open the doors. Neat way of showing it was effectively the same civilization before skyloft became skyloft (or sky people as they are called in twilight princess)
@@ShadowSkyX another cool thing you might not have noticed is i believe that koroks and wizzrobes in boty both disappear and reappear with the same particle effect. What do you think about that?
Majora’s Mask is such an unique and intriguing piece of art… It’s awesome that after 20 years of its release, the game is still inspiring people to craft amazing theories like this one. Keep it up with the great content!
If Hyrule is in fact the heavens, and we go to Termina by going underground, then how Demise appeared in Hyrule makes even more sense of a crack in the ground. Perhaps the reason the triforce resides in Hyrule in the first place is because its the world closest to the Realm of the Gods, with all other worlds beneath it
Wow!!
Another neat take
Oh I LOVE an Ikana analysis/theory. This is really interesting honestly. Never considered that stone tower temple would be an interdimensional portal. I wonder if that means the land of the Garo is completely barren now? And also how Twin Rova got there if Majora only has control over Termina and not Hyrule. Really fun to think about. Great video guys!
molduga kinda looks like twinrova i guess
Always down to watch a theory about my favorite location inside of my favorite game. I'd say the theory is definitely possible considering how many times to use a gate to warp to a different location or different time across virtually all of the Zelda series. One thing I hope to see In BOTW's sequel is some sort of horror/undead themed region to explore, similar to Ikana Canyon.
Yes! Bring back the spookies for BotW2!
Reading this after being in the Underground in Totk. Looks like you essentially got your wish!
I'm not going to lie, I played Majora's mask day and night and finished it multiple times as a kid. Every time I watch videos about the Ikana region though, I feel like I never went there at all. Just remembering the Stone tower. Everything else is blank, as if I refused to remember wholeheartedly.
Your videos are always such a treat. The "nature" shots and the calming pacing. A true master of telling stories.
Thank you so much!
I really like this theory. It got me thinking….It would be interesting if in BOTW2 the developers make link travel through Termina to reach the Twili. Super speculative, but what if the twilight realm (shadow realm) possesses a sacred shrine to cleanse the darkness from the master sword. Since we know that the mirror was destroyed at the end of TP, what if the only way to reach the twilight realm is by going back to Ikana or somewhere else in Termina, where a twilight portal or another mirror is kept. It would be a really interesting way to connect the fallen timeline to BOTW.
Better yet, what if link must go on a quest to different areas from all three timelines. We haven’t been explained the back story of how the timelines converged. I have been speculating for years this was caused by a singular event. What if Termina played a role in unifying the timelines. It could connect Lorule, and the great sea, ect. I’ve clearly flown off the rails of speculation, but like I said, you got me thinking.
We need this in the Botw 2
I would really like the idea of traveling to as many not-hyrule locations from previous games as possible, thus making every land to that point accessible in the one game.
The mirror of twilight was only destroyed in the child timeline. It may still exist in botw. The Arbiters grounds is in botw. The mirror could be held underground.
Considering the parallels between the Shadow Temple and the Stone Tower Temple, is it possible the Garo were at some point in time a branch of the Sheikah? It would explain the spying, and other secretive things that they were doing much like the Sheikah. And the act of killing themselves to avoid being captured is in line with the ninja idea, which the Sheikah are very ninja like themselves. The Sheikah also would know how to create a portal that could possible traverse dimensions as they have always been more advanced than other races in Hyrule, granted they have never been as advanced as the ones depicted in Breath of the Wild, but they still were always way more advanced than the other races.
The other idea is that they might have been Gerudo that Ganondorf sent through a portal he created, but that seems a little less likely.
What if the Garo are an ancient common ancestor of both Gerudo and Sheikah who discovered the portal created by the builders of Stone Tower, sent most of their members through who then became stuck with no way to return? If time moves differently between Hyrule and Termina like a Narnia type of thing it could make chronological sense
The Garo have three paralels that make it plausible that the portal leads to the Gerudo Desert. For one, they dress like people who live in hot and arid environs, such as a desert; secondly, their name, Garo, sounds reminiscent to Gerudo; and thirdly, they are stealthy assassins who specialise in dual wielding blades and in popping into and out of existence in a puff of smoke, like a certain desert dwelling clan in BotW.
Add to that that the boss monster in that desert location is a variant of the boss monster native to Gerudo Desert, it is pretty much definite.
Well I feel even more scared of the Ikana region now than I was before. Majoras mask is honestly terrifying. Whoever wrote that game needs to get a therapist, along with most of the players with gibdo ptsd. and how strange to think, that out of these 90,300 or more people, I was the 347th subscriber. I feel weird about how massive this channel got so fast. Not trying to assert dominance, just a commentary on how awesome these videos are.
IKR? those gibdos were TERRIFYING! I wonder what Zelda's got cooking considering Nintendo has said that BOTW2 is going to be darker than Majora's Mask.
Eiji Aonuma himself said he was in a dark place at the time and he really didn't want to revisit it for the remake.
@@setteplays I'm guessing that he was suffering from depression maybe? As someone who has experienced Depression yeah u don't want to revisit it.
@@davidfitzpatrick2684 He said that in a Iwata Asks interview and I think he's coming from a gameplay perspective, but he refers to Majora's Mask's development as a "trauma" and a "bitter experience" from the past he had to overcome for the remake, so who knows.
@@setteplays Paychological issues do suck really really hard, but you have to admit some of the most mind-blowing shit comes from it. I wouldn't ask someone to do something they find uncomfortable or traumatizing for my own enjoyment, or for money, or whatever, but I'm still curious about what gems are waiting in Aonuma's shadows.
That sounded far creepier than it did in my head...my bad...
I've always seen Termina as a sort of Halloween Town that connects the various parallel universes of Hyrule.
That sounds Interesting!!
the somebody who opened the doors was not skull kid, it was the happy mask salesman who went looking for majoras mask which was deep within the temple.
Just saying, the Ancients sealed Majora's Mask somewhere where it should never have been found. And Ikana, a land filled with ancient imagery resembling Majora's Mask, has a portal to essentially a destroyed wasteland.
There is also a second thing in Stone Tower. Remember Gomess?
Additionally, the peoples of Termina once lived together before being scattered to the corners of the land. And something made the Giants need to rest.
A war in Ikana that ruined Termina's tranquility would explain this. And calamities caused by Majora's Mask were great...
It is worth noting that the Garo could be nearly any race, under those hoods. If the Zoni taught us nothing else, it is that there are absolutely groups out there, with histories we barely have hints at.
24:14 or Just another thought here. Could the Garo be the Shiekah with a different name? Perhaps they came as SHiekah but then were given the name Garo by the Ikana kingdom and their descendants adopted that name?
That's a very fun theory
@@Margar02 Thank u!
They definitely have similarities. Then again, they also have some small similarities to the Gerudo. The robes make it hard to say for sure, since we don't see their face proper. But still interesting to think about!
And then you remember BOTW has an evil ninja clan living in the desert near a mysterious hole...
@@WaitingForAMistspren watch that hole he the portal
What a difference two years can make when it comes to understanding lore. The Zonai being so well-explored in TotK now is crazy to think about how mysterious they used to be. And they're still pretty mysterious!
Anyways I dunno if you noticed but the bas reliefs on the tower @14:00 resemble the "bigger enemy" silhouettes from Zelda 2.
Ikana is one of my favourite areas in the Zelda series. The undead knights/stalfos and the kingdom it once was is interesting. The Garos that fought against the Ikana Kingdom have an interesting history as they imply that they don’t leave their corpse when they lose in battle. Another thing I like is watching the Redeads dance inside of the Ikana Castle when wearing one of the 3 masks linked to Ikana. The Igos du Ikana battle is really fun and watching his reaction when wearing Captain Keeta’s hat. Stone Tower Temple is a really fun dungeon especially since it flips when shooting the red jewel with light arrows and also remixing the music too. I really like that the stalchildren are more friendly in this game and can actually talk, so long as Link is wearing Captain Keeta’s hat. Majora’s Mask I would say is one of my favourite Zelda games and the land of Ikana being the undead is a cool theme.
Some where at the beginning of the game. When entering termina. there is painting on the walls that somewhat resembles the Ikana style. Not sure if you didnt notice it or didnt think it was worth mentioning. But it was there.
I actually thought initially that this video was going to suggest that Ikana and the Gero are a foil to Hyrule and the Sheikah. I still don't wonder if they aren't. Not only that but if the Gero come from the desert, look at the Yiga who branched off the Sheikah, and lived in the desert in Breath of the Wild. Just an extra note, Gero also sounds similiar to Gerudo. Ganondorf was a Gerudo, and the Yiga follow Ganon.
Also while looking some stuff up, I realized Agahnim has a sheikah looking eye on his robes, and looks like he's from the desert.
Just some stuff to toy with.
And the audio drama that was included with the ost for LttP refers to Agahnim as Ganondorf.
One potential problem with this theory is that when you talk to the poe-collector character in the secret shrine after beating Twinmold, they say to you: "It seems, somehow, you have managed to send Ikana's wandering spirits to a peaceful rest..." Did the developers just forget to make these words true for post-Twinmold Ikana? It almost seems like there were two ideas of what Ikana was supposed to look like once Stone Tower was conquered, and that neither version was implemented fully.
The mini-bosses in the shrine come from other places in Termina, so we know why these enemies, at least, are "lingering." I think that maybe the gibdos and enemies in the well can be explained by the fact that the undead usually thrive in the underworld. Maybe because the well is underground, the dead in that location were not affected by the end of the curse? Furthermore, is it not the case that the bubble enemies around the music house are eliminated? At the very least, the Poe Sisters disappear from the Spirit House (as darkychao pointed out in this comment section). So there's at least one example of the curse being mitigated.
I recognize there are undead in other locations that can't be explained. If I recall right the redeads in Ikana Castle still persist after the curse supposedly ends, and I think this is true for the stalchildren in the graveyard. (I need to locate my copy of the game to check these things.) However for the stalchildren, it is possible that they are not really normal, revivified skeletons. In one of Zeltik's videos he talks about how the stalchildren have some inhuman features, like their long red fingernails. So perhaps the stalchildren remaining undead could be explained by the fact that they are not typical undead creatures?
You made a great connection between Stone Tower and the wooded area connecting the Lost Woods to Clock Town. The flipping effect in both locations definitely seems important.
My interpretation differs with respect to the success of Stone Tower in reaching Hyrule. You suggested the project was successful, whereas I think it failed. My view is that Stone Tower was reversed by the Golden Goddesses against the will of the builders, and that this is what resulted in Majora's Mask's entry into Termina. The punishment of the goddesses was to replace the heaven with hell-i.e. the desert containing Majoras's Mask.
I believe there's thematic significance to the fact that the route between Hyrule and Termina can only be accessed by going down. The approach used in Stone Tower represents the arrogance of attempting to breach the divine. "High and mighty" is associated with arrogance. The path to Termina through the Lost Woods is the opposite. It is lowly, in a literal sense. It is also the home of skull kids and forest spirits, who may be interpreted as embodying the trickster archetype. The trickster, to me, is one who has unconventional methods of attaining wisdom or enlightenment. Thus it's fitting that Skull Kid was able to traverse the gap between dimensions, whereas the builders of Stone Tower were not. It also fits with the idea of "having to lose yourself to find your way." Continuing this archetypal interpretation, I think this Carl Jung quote is apt here: "Modern people can't find God because they don't look low enough." This is why it makes sense that the path to Hyrule is found in the Lost Woods, and not Stone Tower.
There may be evidence against this view, if it is true what I think I heard another commenter say: that somewhere in the game, it's stated that the Happy Mask Salesman had never been to the Lost Woods before the events of the game. (Maybe I'm just thinking the comments on your "The Return of Majora video" that speculate the Happy Mask Salesman had Majora's Mask before going to Hyrule.) If this is true, then the Mask may have indeed come from Hyrule, and the desert with the Majora's Mask insignias might be in Hyrule after all. I suppose it's still possible that Majora's Mask came neither from Termina nor Hyrule, but this would complicate things further.
I would love to see a sequel to Majora's Mask where you return to Termina and the return of Majora. Majora's Mask / Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess are my top most favorite Zelda games. I am 29 and still love these game to this day.
Great video guys, thank you! ♥
I think of Stone Tower as a sort of prison where the undead reside to serve out their sentence before they depart for the afterlife. The existence of interdimensional portals that supersede familiar Euclidean geometry and spacetime locality may have something to do with the spiritual magic addressed in your guys' Kakariko Village video...
This is an intriguing video but I disagree with some of the conclusions you've made.
It's unlikely the arena for Twinmold is in another realm, as the entrance to the Giant Realm is there and you still die within if the moon falls.
Your bias is also apparent when you only use the 3DS version to demonstrate civilization in the arena, when it didn't exist in the original then dismiss removal of the Triforce as possible errors.
Using the original alone I thought the tower was built to reach out to the golden Goddesses, the tongue statues are used as entrances, so a triforce on one would be metaphorically laying out the red carpet and bidding them welcome.
I have some aside notes: There is a correction you need to the ending point. Killing Twinmold does affect the region, the undead no longer roam the canyon, (such as Sharp, the outdoor Gibdo, Garo and Pamelas father), but remain in the castle, graveyard and well. It's likely Majora exacerbated the curse, but it still exists. I would also point out the builders of the tower are likely good people. The Mechanism for flipping the tower uses the light of justice from the Light Arrow.
You could also address why the Giants Mask can only work in this area.
Great theory as for the heavens portal. I never thought about it for a sec. It makes perfect sense! I would add that the Garos are purposely leaving no trace of their history or civilization as they are mysterious on purpose. Even their own body is a piece of information for their enemy.
I love the idea that the twilight and the creator of the Majora's mask are connected.
This is the theory that I personally believe, it ties up all the loose ends in a satisfying way, which I love. Thank you for putting together this theory Monster Maze!
So, imagine this: If Termina is a parallel dimension to Hyrule, and Hyrule has a dark dimension called Lorule, is there also a dark(er) version of Termina? Maybe it's a light version? Joke theories aside, the portal in the Tower could also 'just' be a portal to another place on the same world Termina resides in. It doesn't have to be another dimension alltogether. Or maybe it is a portal to Termina's 'Lorule' version and the Garo are a sneaky version of the brute force army of Ikana and now these two parallel versions of the same people are at war with eachother across dimensions. (Though, given the very different body builds of the two, and Termina's/Hyrule's people being the almost exact same, that would be unlikely).
ANYWAY, aweome video to one of my favourite regions and histories within the franchine!
The theory that the interloper tribe was also the tribe of Majora had always been one of my favorites, and the idea that they could have come through the portal to Termina discussed here just adds an even more interesting twist to it, and would explain why they’re called “Interlopers” as they didn’t originate in Hyrule.
Oh my gosh, this blew my hecking mind! This got me excited about Zelda again, thank you! Amazing work.
Brain- "I'm going to watch something else."
Brain- "It's half an hour long."
Brain- "Come on, put it in watch later."
Hand- *Click* "Was there another option?"
So Majora's mask could be a proto interloper mask. Also I'm convinced now that majora isn't a dream or the after life or anything but a solid place in the multiverse of Hyrule.
It's interesting that the area you teleport to from the stone tower is surrounded by other, similar towers. It's possible that this is the true terminal, and that you can access other realms through the desert plane with all of the other stone towers.
If not from the Kingdom of Hyrule itself, then the Garo could still easily be from another land on Hyrule's planet/realm.
I love to watch these type of videos before going to sleep thanks for this amazing theory !
Something just struck me : if the Garo came through that portal in the Stone Tower and that portal leads to a deset in Hyrule, why can't the Garo be some sort of ancient Gerudo ? There's even a similarity in the names of the people (Garo ~ Geru) one could even theorise that Geru is an evolution of the word Garo, and that somewhere in ancient times, the suffix do was attached to this name). And I mean, it's even said in the video how both peoples use resembling weapons, and after all I wouldn't put it past a people known as thieves, to be good at producing spies.
And, if I remember correctly, it is said somewhere in OoT that the Gerudo used to worship the Golden Goddesses (hence why the triforce symbol would appear in Ikana), before worshipping the Colossus in OoT's Spirit Temple.
I've dove so deep into the lore of the ikanan empire. I wish so badly they would do more with termina using your ideas and I strongly believe that you are correct on this. Is there any chance you could revisit this topic and do more videos about Ikana? Because when you really pay attention to all the little details, it is extremely interesting
I’ve always been fascinated with the Ikana region and there are so many details I never noticed/thought about. Great video.
I always liked the idea that the Ikana kingdom and the Garo were the Terminian equivalent of the Hylians and the Sheikah. Only, instead of being devoted to protecting the royal family in the shadows, the Garo had some kind of falling out with Ikana. Something akin to the Yiga Clan's situation in BoTW, only much more severe and ending in the mutual destruction of both groups.
21:38 I actually found an excerpt from Zeldapedia that might explain why they removed the Triforce on those blocks:
"Another theory suggests that Stone Tower was built by the ancients of Termina to persecute Din, Nayru, and Farore. One of the leading clues for this theory is the obscured appearance of the Triforce, as it appears on the moving stone blocks within the tower, depicted as being licked under the crotch of a sitting creature - a motif suggested to be an expression of profanity, as a statement of rejecting the Triforce and Golden Goddesses."
If the people who remade Majora's Mask read this or realized this, it's not much of a stretch that they removed those depictions of the Triforce in order to keep the game E10.
Might be unconnected, but in the Ocarina of Time Forest Temple, there is a hallway that flips sideways. And if the theory that the Phantom Ganon boss room was meant as a portal to the Sacred Realm is true, then that could be connected. Not to mention that both the Termina portal and Forest Temple are both in the Lost Woods.
20:40 Majora's Mask used a lot of OoT's unused assets. Those pillars were probably made for OoT, even if they never showed up in the game.
Throwing my hat in the ring, I'd like to suggest that there are a few more interesting connections regarding the Stone Tower with Hyrule. The Red Jewel that flips the tower looks rather similar to the brooch Princess Zelda wears as a child. Then, we have the Light Arrow, which is an important treasure of Hyrule, found within the Stone Tower Temple. As for Twinmold's arena in the original game, there are pillars with Majora's Mask on them. If the mask is of Hyrule origin, then that would make a good amount of sense.
The only major problem (besides how Majora's Mask appears on the blocks and switches) is that Link is still affected by the time limit and the Moon's destructive power inside the arena (or at least until Twinmold is eliminated). That compromises the possibility that the arena is in another world besides Termina.
Actually… isn’t there a scene where we see how Skull Kid got Majora’s Mask? Isn’t that also in the Lost Woods? Considering we know that Link is mugged in the Lost Woods as well by Skull Kid already wearing the mask, that implies to me that the mask very well may be of Hyrule origin. Consider: the Happy Mask Salesman is only in Termina because of the Skull Kid, at least it appears so. If that’s the case… then it may be that the Mask and its tribe were in the world of Hyrule originally. Perhaps the Stone Tower portal was then opened between Termina and Hyrule and then they migrated to Termina after sealing the mask in Hyrule? Perhaps in that very desert.
@@badbeardbill9956 Well, I can't argue how Majora's Mask is from anywhere besides Termina. Even if it's not from Hyrule, the mask is more than likely from somewhere on that same plane of existence. I won't even rule out the possibility of the Mask Salesman finding Majora's Mask in the same desert.
Have you considered that the curse of Ikana WAS caused by Majora, but long before Skull Kid or even the Salesman ever acquired it? The mask strongly resembles he designs in the tower
I did consider it, but aside from that one statue inside Stone Tower Temple I couldn't find all that much proof for it. The problem is that we don't know when Majora's Mask was created and when the ancient sealed it away. So there's no telling if that happened long before the war between the Garo and Ikana, or around the same time. But Majora could of course be responsible. It's powers are incredible! ^^
I really like some of the new ideas pitched in this video. However, I was disappointed that you guys didn’t cover more of the connections that Majora imagery had to the stone tower. Aren’t those pillars where you fight twinmold that depict Majora’s Mask significant? This is a great separate theory from the Tower of Babel classic fan theory. Well done!
Yeah, and the fact that there's a giant stone version of Majora's Mask in the temple "foyer" (first room). It leads me to believe that the stone tower was constructed by the tribe that made Majora's Mask.
@@ophereon Absolutely. The mask is connected to that building somehow, along with the portal to another world. They also take the buildings in the desert from the remake as canon even though I don’t think they appear in the original version. N64 twinmold fight doesn’t have those buildings in the background in addition to having the mask symbols from the pillars that get removed in the remake. It always made sense to me that Majora was originally a person or spirit that was sealed into a mask that became dangerous enough to have to be sealed away again. An abandoned desert seemed like a good place to leave a cursed artifact where it couldn’t hurt anyone.
@@robinita46853 another thought I had was that the desert may have been Majora's original home, be it a separate realm or just a place on the planet. I also view Majora as a spirit / person, similar to how its portrayed in the mini comic by Himekawa. I'm actually writing a Majora fanfic at the moment based on the dark tribe and Majora, before it was turned into a mask. I interpret the dark tribe as a group of rogue Sheikah who refused to serve the Hylians after they came down from Skyloft, bitter that they were left to fight on the surface while Hylia took her chosen people to safety, so they became disenfranchised with the goddess and looked to other means of survival (namely, powerful magic).
08:34 "Dampe may have felt a sworn duty to stay and tend to this historic place"
hahahahah, no, he was diggin up graves for treasure
The Inca were not a lost civilization, they were THE ruler civilization of the vast majority of the South American continent, they were very much alive and thriving when the Spanish conquistadores arrived on the continent
You guys definitely hit the hammer on the nail for this one; it definitely makes the most sense and is very probable. Excellent job!
Just to be clear explorers didn’t find the lost ruins of the Inca. They found the thriving empire of the Inca and then killed them all leaving only ruins.
There was a solid 100 years of western exchanges with Inca before the genocide began.
Same goes for the Maya.
And what caused their downfall was colonization.
I give up.
@@ZyrdalfGive up on what? I don’t see any other replies.
I absolutely love this channel, all the content and most of all the obvious and pure love you guys have for this series. It makes my week every time I see that you’ve uploaded. Thank you!!!
I was playing Botw yesterday when I noticed something,I was halfway through the Yiga Clan hideout when I got cornered and had to fight a blademaster,I had this theory before but the blademaster did not reform from the pieces of paper.I believe that the Yiga could be descendants of the Garo,or a split off of the tribe.Not exactly sure how this could work lore-wise but the similarities are incredible,they both die withought leaving a corpse,they both have a religious base in the desert and they are both at war with another desert tribe
I’ve seen some maps connecting ikana to the wasteland
This video has left me speechless O_O
I love Majora's Mask, and the garo was its race that always caused me the biggest interest and curiosity. All your theories are so well thought out and constructed, it makes them sound truly logical and possible! Particularly the detail about the hole where the garo master jumps from being also the entrance to the boss battleground. My brain exploded at that! ô_ô
I think the greatest mystery here is how was Dampe born. Who was willing to breed with a guy who looks like Dampe and lives in a haunted graveyard in the middle of an abandoned warzone?
the guy w the one red eye who sits on the cliff, that's who
I loved the theory, but I found one inconsistency (I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it before, sorry) as the sun is represented in yellow inside the Ikana castle (the block with an eye behind the dancing redead), and being part of Termina it should be red according with your theory. On and on, I loved it and it all makes pretty much sense, thanks for sharing it!
I love how you all but called out the clearly untrue statement that the encyclopedia made about Termina not being real; by basically saying: of course the giants are real, why would that be called into question?
I never liked that statement. There's so much in Majora's Mask to contradict it.
Interesting, well structured and well detailed. Great work guys! Can’t wait for more of this
Hey Monster Maze, since Skull Kid is an imp, and Midna(prior to her true form being revealed) was transformed into an imp, would that mean that Midna and the Skull Kid are technically related?
Perhaps! Obviously Midna was turned into an imp by Zant/Ganondorf's magic. But who knows.. maybe involved the same kind of magic ^^
I like this. pretty solid points and thought provoking. Good job
I didn't end up watching this video for a few days because I didn't actually remember what Ikana was, but it ended up being a brilliant theory. I really love the fact that hyrule is likely the heavens, since by the naming conventions of hyrule and lorule, hyrule is 'high' up.
The thing about the war between dimensions is something I think is the main plot of the game series and nobody has really figured it out.
Every game sees either a sealing or an invasion or another dimension and frome the perspective of one dimension sealing Gannon away seems like an invasion by Gannon, for example.
There are two hyrules and a tug of war with the Tri-Force.
Holy cow! It never occurred to me that the room you fight the Garo Master is the same one as the boss entrance! I was even obsessed with looking over the dungeon map in the manual and comparing the two sets and it never clicked!
Very excited to see a video about the Ikana Canyon and Kingdom, it was honestly my favorite area in the entire game and the mystery behind all of it still peaks my attention since I was a kid!
One thing, since I figured Termina was a parallel world to Hyrule, I figured that the Garo was the Terminan counterpart of the Sheikah. Even the Sheikah origin in Hyrule is still a bit of a mystery(the first Impa from SS just says she's a Sheikah but it's not really elaborated beyond that) so I figured the Garo could have potentially went the same route as serving the Ikana royal family but instead spied and raged war with them or never had a reason(like serving Hyila and her reincarnations) to devote themselves to them.
I also love the fact that the Ikana royal empire breaking down lead to the four regions staying separated and governed by their own rules while the people of Termina must have created Clock Town later as their main settlement. The fact that they did still inhabited the area of Ikana also explains not just Dampe, the music box house and the other abandon homes but also the lone guard that was cursed to be invisible by the skull kid. Unlike the other regions where there is no guards the Ikana guard must have had a post because there was still Terminan citizens activity living there. It's kinda the same way there were originally guards stationed at Kakariko village due to Hylian people being allowed to live there after the war(they're not present in the future).
It's all an interesting outlook of what could have happen to Hyrule after the civil war if it was never unified under their realm's royal family. In fact the way Clock Town is run under the mayor is still a bit odd. It's never stated if the mayor was elected or if it's an inherent titled since it seems he's more of a figurehead instead of an active leader, especially with his wishy-washy additude about such an possible disaster as the moon falling? Even the head carpenter doesn't talk about not re-electing him or kicking him out of office when he was the most against canceling the carnival and neither was the head of the guard for his own reason. Makes me think that their might be more to the mayor, Kafei and their family's status then what the game suggests. Maybe some type of nobility or something?
Well anyway keep up the great work and hopefully we'll see something awesome about Ikana from NBC soon!!
These are all really good points. It's also curious you bring up survivors of the war establishing somewhere else after the fall of the royal family because I hadn't thought much of the Ikana citizens surviving since the kingdom was overthrown but there's possibility that the Garo did have descendents living in Termina. Both the debate if whether the the Garo fought are alive or lingering spirits from the war, and the numerous questions about why the Gorman brothers (I think is their name? Been a while for me) have a pair of Garo masks. Wonder how many other people are related to the Garo or if it's possible, given the weird skeletal structure of the Ikana, that the Terminian people we see in Clocktown are all Garo centuries later because they really did win the war and fled the wasteland they came from.
The Twinmold room makes me think of a similar dreamscape to the Moon's tree field.
I was thinking maybe Twinmold was a being similar to a world devouring species trapped in a pocket dimension under the stone tower main temple.
Love these videos, just found ya today!
The room inside the moon does indeed have some similarities. And it's equally as weird. The moon is a bit more dream-like, with a sort of blur and floating particles etc. It's very surreal as well! Pocket dimensions are so interesting!
Wow. I never comment, but I just had to say what an amazing theory. I love how in depth your research goes and the amount of care you put into each of your videos. Videos like this make me love Zelda even more!!
with this theory, perhaps the Interlopers from Twilight Princess were the soldiers of Ikana, I mean they are called the Interlopers, implying they weren't from Hyrule
I have played this game multiple times. Why am I just now realizing the portal is the same hole the Master hops down from.
dude you have no idea how long i have been waiting for an in-depth video about ikana and stone tower.
If Termina truly is a "terminal", a place used to travel to other places, could this mean Termina may be the key connection between the 3 timelines? A terminal or "station" that connects various dimensions - or timelines - together?
I don't know why they removed the Triforces off the blocks in the 3DS versions. It's weird because I remembered theroies on how it was a jab at the Triforces since the stones are not only licking it but also it's under their butts.
2 years later and this is still the best majora's mask theory. possibly best zelda theory too imo.
This has got to be one of the only theories out there that I actually like, thank you so much for sharing!
I think it's very likely that the gold bars are what's known as a "post-mortem" asset for oot3d-- updates or assets that didn't quite meet the deadline to be implemented in the release, but were close enough to getting finished that they decided to finish them to get archived and used later.
The theory of the both Suns (the Red one representing termina and the yellow one representing hyrule) sounds interesting. Now we just need to look at a clock in hyrule and search for a yellow Sun in its drawings.
I frickin loved this video but I was a bit bugged that you didn’t mention gomess or “sold his soul to the devil” throughout the whole video, the video could’ve been about 10 minutes longer if you would’ve mentioned it. But I still love this video and your content. Keep up the good work!
I loved this! Majoras Mask holds so many secrets and its great to hear some theories about them. That the stone tower is a portal between Hyrule and Termina is a theory that I absolutely love. Looking forward to your next collab!
Always feels great to go into a theory video thinking I knew everything only to be blown away repeatedly by all those special details and connections! Great video!
I like it! Here's some things to note, In skyward sword Zelda broke out of the crystal 3 times, while she was only sealed once. in one of those timelines demise was defeated and the cycle never started. Termina has almost mirrored characters. The worlds are also connected in the lost woods. Taking this into account with the stone tower, and how the sheikah were managing the gates of time that just kind of disappeared with impa standing there. It would make sense if the two alternate timelines were still connected, being treated as two different worlds as history diverged so drastically. Also the forest temple, in the lost forest, in ocarina of time, was built by the royal family who was leading the sheikah. The lost woods clearly have some spatial issues and also happen to lead to termina. This the farron region near lanayru (which also has time travel stuff in skyward sword). But the farron region is where demise was sealed, destroyed, and again sealed, with lots of time travel. Deep woods almost certainly later becomes lost woods. Also the gates of time looked like clock gears. The lost woods portal leads to the clock tower. You find redead in the stone tower, which you only really find with sheikah stuff.... So yea. Maybe I missed some stuff, but it seems pretty supported
Specifically the timeline where Demise was defeated by the triforce
Also the game calls the garo ninja.... Seems a lot like the Sheikah to me
Majora's Mask is actually just links brain halucinating and rotting away while he's turning into a stalphos.
Nice video, but who opened the doors of Stone Tower was not Skull Kid. It was the owner of the mask: Happy Mask Salesman.
What is your source for this information?
A 33 min theory is awsome thank you mr maze i’m enjoying it so far!