The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Boss Fight Books #26

by Gabe Durham

You’ve met with a terrible fate, haven’t you? Those grim words hang over the entirety of Majora Mask, the sixth entry in the Legend of Zelda series. In his darkest adventure, Link must relive the same three days over and over again to prevent the moon from colliding into the kingdom of Termina and ending the world.

Made with a small team in a single year for the Nintendo 64 from the assets of its predecessor, Majora’s Mask could have been a shameless cash-in—but instead has gained wide recognition as the most mysterious, mature, and touching game in the series. It’s also the Zelda game that has inspired more inventive fan theories and bone-chilling internet horror stories than might be expected from a high-fantasy adventure.

Through rigorous research and a new in-depth interview with Majora’s North American localizer, Jason Leung, writer and editor Gabe Durham investigates the relationship between Majora’s fast-paced, adaptive development and the meaning projected onto its story by players—and shines a light on the strange and tumultuous romance between art and fandom.

Genres: Video Games, Nonfiction, Gaming, Game Design, Games

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2020

About the author

Gabe Durham is the author of a novel, FUN CAMP, and a book about 90s Christian Nintendo games, BIBLE ADVENTURES. He is the editor of Boss Fight Books. He lives in Los Angeles.

http://www.bossfightbooks.com

Reviews

[Colby · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Majora’s Mask is about loving the people you meet on your journey. It’s about helping people when you can and making peace with not being able to please everyone at once. It’s about forgiving good people who did bad things. It’s about making good use of the little time you’ve got."

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that Majora's Mask is not only my favorite Legend of Zelda game—it's my favorite game of all time and it always will be. After two decades of my love affair with this game, Gabe Durham has written a fascinating book about it, diving into its creation, its fandom, its prevailing theories, et cetera. This book was a couple hundred pages long, but I could've read Gabe's writing on this book for another couple hundred, easily. He writes about the nuances of Majora's Mask with such love and appreciation that I feel myself set to explode with it as I fall in love with this game over and over again.

It is the strangest and darkest Zelda game to date and it has so much sheer depth to it that I've played it several times since it released and every time I discover new dialogue, new things I hadn't discovered before, new ways the beloved folks of Clock Town react to different masks, different realities. It is a game that truly feels endless and the insight we gain into the creation, reception, and interpretation of the game in these pages feels just as valuable and priceless as the game itself.

As anxiety-inducing and bleak as Majora's Mask can seem at times, it is full enough of hope, love, faith, and relationships to make your heart break and come back together again. It's about doing what you can with the time you've got and amidst the chaos and hopelessness of the world, Majora's Mask might just be the world to lose yourself in for a healthy dose of humanity and perhaps even a new favorite game. I truly can't express my love for this game and this book enough. If you're at all a fan of Zelda or just of video games in general, this glimpse into the world of Majora's Mask is something you can't miss out on.

[Andrew Whitehead · Rating 3 out of 5]

The problem with Boss Fight Books is you never know what you're going to get. The Jagged Alliance book is an in-depth look at how that game was made, then you get throwaway books like the Metal Gear Solid one that could be written by anyone with access to Google.

This book, it's in the middle, but better than I expected. There's one original interview with the translator for Majora's Mask, and the rest of the information about how the game was made is pulled from other sources. It's not ideal, but I get it, and the author does a good job pulling it all together.

I also liked the chapters about authorial intent and fan theories, given how often Majora's Mask is the subject of YouTube videos and forum threads. But the author leans on this a little too much, especially towards the end. The final chapter... my god, I don't think they knew how to finish the book, so they talk to their father about the bible and the book of John.

Frankly, the author should write a book about authorial intent in video games and use Majora's Mask as an example. If they did that, I have zero doubt it would be a great read. They seem to have a lot to say on the subject, and there's big passages in this book that stick in my mind. Hence the 3-stars.

But it loses 2-stars for the sections I see as filler. Again, that final chapter goes off the rails and starts talking about anti-vaxxers and how much the author dislikes Trump. I'm serious. There's also very little technical discussion about the game, and the mentions of the 3DS port fail to bring up how different that version is.

Also, the book straight up says Ocarina of Time is now obsolete now that Breath of the Wild is on the market. Are you... serious? I like Breath of the Wild, but take a screenshot from anyone of those dungeons and ask people where it is. They all look the same! It's a good game, but 99% of the effort went into the overworld, and the game sorely lacks dungeon variety. It's as ridiculous as saying "We don't need Star Wars: A New Hope now that we have The Force Awakens". You can like both, see the merits in each, and acknowledge the foundations build by one are vital for the other.

Not a bad book, and well worth reading... but like a kid trying to hit the word limit on an essay they're writing at the last minute, it needed a much harsher edit.

[Jonas · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish this book was better. It had a lot of potential.
Durham has no clue who his audience is. Or at least, I think he doesn't, but maybe I'm misinterpreting who this book is for. I would presume that someone who picks up a book called "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask" likely has a keen interest on video games, and that video game in particular. I would expect them to at least be somewhat, if not extremely familiar with the titular game. Durham writes this book to someone who has never heard of Majora's Mask, or at least never played it. He spends paragraphs explaining the mechanics of the game, and the different story moments, as if the reader has no knowledge of them. But this person he writes to is also intimately familiar with a very particular pop-culture zeitgeist, likely matching Durham's own experience. Durham explains sections of Majora's Mask with comparisons to albums like "Rage Against the Machine," or "Abbey Road," as if we were experts on those elements of pop-culture, and these fleeting comparisons completely elucidate the meaning behind the game. Why, Durham, would you expect your reader to have any knowledge on things so completely divorced from your subject matter? Who is this book for?? This wouldn't have been so bad if Durham had taken the time to explain why these things are related, but they're brief references, and they'll fly over your head if you aren't familiar with what Durham references.

The book is sort of a memoir about Durham's expereince with the game, mixed with a non-fiction recollection of the game's development, and other random elements of internet culture surrounding Majora's Mask. That's fine. My biggest issue with the book was it's atrocious thesis. He talks a lot about "fan theories," and essentially his claim is that our interpretation of a work is completely subjective, ending the book with the sentence "the truth is sitting right there on the surface, and sometimes the surface is enough." Durham completely denies any objective "deeper meaning," and denies deep analysis of the text as "subjective." He says in one section that a feminist or a communist could read the "text" of Majora's Mask and each make different claims based on their personal view-points. This is true. But in order for a claim to have any weight whatsoever, it must have evidence to back it up. Academic discussion of any literary text is far more academic than most realize - sure, you could make some sort of claim about how Majora's Mask represents some element of third-wave feminism, but unless you have sufficient evidence AND analysis to back it up, your claim can be easily torn apart. This is the purpose of academic discourse, something Durham completely denies.

I was shocked to read that Durham taught some sort of English course at a university, because the claims he makes are something I would expect from a high-schooler. He constantly presents the surface-level story of Majora's Mask as if that's all there is. Even when he references fan theories, he never takes the time to give us a "so what?" One 'theory' he constantly references is that Link is dead throughout the whole of Majora's Mask. Okay... so what? So what if he is? What does that mean to us? What can we learn about ourselves, about humanity/the human condition from that theory? Now much of this section is ripped directly from youtube videos, so I can't pin the blame wholly on Durham for making a claim without any meaning.
Durham is not a bad writer, not by any means. He's got the chops to make something really interesting. The sections about the development of Majora's Mask were well-researched and flowed nicely. In fact, the whole book flowed pretty well. There's just so much potential for a better discussion of this game.

He mentioned the success of the 3DS remake. Why didn't Durham take the time to discuss the controversy surrounding that release? That's a interesting story: the fans, crying for the 3DS remake, project moonfall, then the announcement and release. But then the release contained several large changes to key mechanics that some fans feel ruined the remaster. Why not talk about the George-Lucas-ing of Majora's Mask?

I didn't hate this book. I just had feelings about its execution.

[Colton · Rating 2 out of 5]

A free associative guide to the surrounding product that was Majora's Mask, but ultimately not a very interesting analysis of the game itself. Several chapters are dedicated to "coverage," like B-footage in a film. Coverage of other people's theories, coverage of theories in general.

There are some interesting chapters on the development of the game, which help to show the pieces, but there is hardly some cornerstone perspective that coalesces this work into a compelling thesis.

I don't think this is interesting enough for a purchase, let alone a read. Ideally, you would want someone with a deep understanding of the work as well as a forceful and cerebral attention, who can say something that has not been said about one of the greatest gnostic works not just in Nintendo's history, but of gaming in general. This book is about throwing up your hands and admitting, "it's hard to do" rather than actually doing it.

[Allison Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Majora's Mask, and Durham does a wonderful job of exploring its development and themes.

[Caleb Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gabe Durham has written my favorite kind of video game book. Sure, this book is about The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, but only superficially. Durham uses Majora’s Mask—the notoriously strange and fan-theory rich oddball in the The Legend of Zelda franchise—as an occasion to examine the varying ways in which creative narrative works are interpreted by critics and fans.

Holding a creative work accountable to a single, definitive interpretation is futile but also something of a human need. Humans crave order. Order allows for survival. If we know x means x, then we will always know that x means x, meaning we should always avoid x, under any circumstance, if x is deadly. But “open text” fiction isn’t conducive to survival. This sort of literary philosophy is something I personally love, so much so that I started a book about the amazing game What Remains of Edith Finch (which you can read a few chapters of here; but sadly, it will not be completed).

But a single interpretation is not only impossible in most cases, but actually antithetical to the purpose of what Susan Sontag calls “real art.” Durham cites Sontag from her work “Against Interpretation”: “Real art has the capacity to make us nervous...By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one takes the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.” I’ll add, such reduction also makes art comfortable. But art shouldn’t be comfortable.

I’ve read all 26 of the Boss Fight Books books, including both of Gabe’s own books. This newest entry in the publisher’s catalog has become my favorite. It’s one I’ll look back to often.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Disclaimer: I read an early draft of this book at the author's request.)

Nobody knows the Boss Fight Books creed like Gabe Durham. That only makes sense: He's the founding editor of the publisher, and makes high-level decisions such as only permitting authors to contribute a single book to Boss Fight's library. The more voices in games journalism and critical analysis, the better. He also likes each author to write about a game with which they share a connection. Everything else, namely tone, structure, and message, Gabe leaves up to a book's author.

All this is to say that the author of an inevitable Boss Fight Books-published examination of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is fated to be scrutinized as thoroughly as Nintendo's classic game. "Majora" is arguably the most talked-about and dissected game in one of the multibillion-dollar games industry's most talked-about and dissected franchises. If any writer is up to the task, it's Durham, who—except for his own entry on the oft-maligned NES title Bible Adventures—usually prefers to play the role of editor and let his authors drive.

MAJORA'S MASK is not only the most thorough examination of the making of the titular game, it's the most thorough, thoughtful, and thought-provoking examination of the game's fandom and of fandom in general. The chapter on open texts, and how people tend to fixate on coming up with The One True Meaning Of That Thing You Like, is powerful and, for those like me who love to analyze for the sake of drawing their own conclusions, as soothing as a balm on irritated skin.

No matter your level of familiarity with Majora's Mask, the Zelda franchise, or video games, you will learn something (probably more than one something) as you read MAJORA'S MASK, and Durham will make you smile and laugh while you do it.

[Zach Koenig · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask" is the perfect video game to cover in this Boss Fight series. Sure, one could easily pen a similar tome about its more well-known predecessor "Ocarina of Time". But everyone loved that game--case closed. With "Majora", however, there is far more to dig into, which is exactly what author Gabe Durham does here.

Durham essentially takes a two-pronged approach:

First is a deep dive into the game's creation, including much material with/from its creators in Japan. It was fascinating to learn of its rushed, end-of-N64 timetable and how that contributed to the darker, more insular game it ultimately became. After "Ocarina" there was tremendous pressure on the franchise, and the team behind "Majora" managed to create something that largely lived up to such lofty expectations--even if it didn't happen right in the moment.

Secondly, Durham examines a lot of the fan theories about "what Majora's Mask is really about"--everything from the stages of grief to "Link is dead" to "it's all a dream!". Because Majora's Mask is such a quirky, different-from-all-the-other-Zeldas experience, it is rife with such theorizing.

Combined those two tacks and it creates another compelling Boss Fight installment. I've long had a complicated history with Majora's Mask, largely viewing it as a technically flawed concept-game that never measured up to the expansive, technically-perfect Ocarina. But after reading Durham's research and thoughts here, I have a much better understanding of how/game the game turned out like it did and why there are some who revere it.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really fun book to read.

At first I was concerned because the book seemed to get stuck talking about the merits of fan theories that I was already sick of talking about but I think by the end those discussions served as jumping off points for discussions on the development process and team which I found really interesting. I was lowkey bummed that the Tower of Babel theory wasn’t really discussed. It’s my absolute favorite example of deep (if gratuitous) lore hypothesizing that expands on the world for the sake of the world. The intent isn’t to arrive at some hackneyed stinger that makes you go “buwhaaaattt!??” But rather to expand your gaze to all of the little details that make Termina so rich. I thought all of the stories about the development process were super fascinating and it kinda rocked my world to consider that majora was developed under crunch and tough circumstances. The “it was developed in only a year and reused assets” talking point is often brought up in a way that’s almost dismissive, but the Gabe peels back the curtain and shows that even despite reused assets and riding a wave of post-ocarina enthusiasm, the Majora team was still over-delivering on an under resourced project. Absolutely humbling.

Definitely a recommended read

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

"You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?"

Haunting. I experienced Majora's Mask as a teenager, grasping at every first party Nintendo title that came out as a reason that my N64 was every bit as good a gaming machine as the PlayStation. (It wasn't, on the whole, but with Nintendo and Rare milking every shred of performance, story, and gameplay out of the system... I could make that argument until I had the time and money to access and experience more of the PSX's much larger library.)

This is still arguably in my top 3 Zelda games. Gabe Durham dives into the making of the game and succeeds at most of what he is trying to communicate here. I learned some about the making of, and particularly enjoyed the new interview with the localization lead Jason Leung. Gabe's time spent discussing and disproving various fan theories took up too much of the book for my tastes, and didn't add much. They did provide a good lead in to discussing authorial intent, and that was a fascinating discussion. I think the book would have been better if Gabe had spent more time diving into authorial intent by gathering more insights from the creative minds behind the game. The last chapter felt tacked-on and did not add anything to the discussion, for me.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very deeply researched and well written examination of the game itself and the cult following around it. This all impressed me very much.

I could have done without the political references specific to 2020 that were arbitrary and based upon ignorance. With those unnecessary and unwelcome statements, you cross the line and present your opinion as fact, exactly what you deride fan theorists for in their self-serving analyses of the game lore. It's a shame that you chose to sacrifice your integrity that way.

[Agnol · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boss Fight Books are always fascinating, because it’s never clear if you’re gonna get a book that’s actually about the game in question in some way, or if it’s going to be a rambling mess that never really comes together. This one is, unfortunately, one of the latter. There are moments where it comes close, and a reader might think “ah yes, there’s actually a thesis in here somewhere!”, only for said thesis to never actually materialize. It’s a book that spends its entire length trying and failing to find a point, and desperately hoping the reader doesn’t notice this.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Majora's Mask is probably my favorite of the Zelda series, just because it is so odd and moody. I didn't always feel this way - I probably could play at least parts of the old N64 version of Ocarina of Time blindfolded and by muscle memory/sound cues alone.

But Majora's Mask grew on me. And it's such a fascinating side-step from how the other Zelda games feel. So it was nice to have this in-depth look into what makes the game so special.

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating book about the development of Majora's mask and discussion about the games themes/meaning. Interesting "open-text" analysis/criticism about a game that is just as "open-text". This is the first book I've read in the "Boss Fight" series and it won't be the last. I've got several others already and I'm curious to see what games will be discussed in the future.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is equal parts a breakdown of Majora’s Mask and a rumination on the criticism and interpretation of the arts. I was only expecting the former, but its sections on the latter were really impressive. Because it is both well written and gives the reader (or at least me) more than expected, it earns a five star rating.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love Majora's Mask I would highly recommend checking this out. Lots of discussion about the game, its creation, and the theories and culture that sprung up around it. It had me yearning to go back and play it.

[Tim Vargulish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great read from Boss Fight Books. Great insight into the game, the production, popular culture around it. Again if you're a fan of these games these books are really fun, well paced reads.

[Chance Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Best when the author isn't writing about himself. His personal opinions and experience often feel disconnected from the rest of the themes evoked by the story of the game.

[Bob Makin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half this book is a great making of study, the other half is a rambling look at fan theories and a deep analysis of these theories and fan theories in general. Odd.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this exploration of the fandom balanced with the creative process.

[Jackie Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is equal parts about Majora’s Mask and about what it means to make theories about media, and I wish it was more about the former. Otherwise a good read for fans of the game.

[David Macpherson · Rating 4 out of 5]

an excellent book about fan theories and the intention of the game creator. Nicely done little book about expectations when playing a game

[Hamish · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good quick read. Appreciated that it was a history lesson and about the fan response, etc. I think I would have liked to spend more time "in" the game, though? Or am I just feeling nostalgic?

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read with a nice mix of production fun facts (the wedding origin story!) and meditation on 'video game as open text' set to the subject of one of my favorite video games of all time.

[Anthony · Rating 1 out of 5]

Things Gabe Durham would rather write about than Majora's Mask:

-Fan theories
-Creepy pastas
-YouTube
-Game developer politics
-COVID
-Anti vaxxers
-His other books
-His dad
-Donald Trump
-Susan Sontag
-The Bible
-Fucking anything else, really