During the course of its 32-year lifespan, the World Wide Web has completely revolutionized the way that we acquire and share information. Vast encyclopedic knowledge from all across the globe is made available to us within a fraction of a second in the form of text, pictures, audio files, videos, or a combination of all four. But while surfing the web has allowed us to explore an ocean of previously unattainable wonders, the sheer volume of information (and misinformation) can be incredibly daunting to sort through. So every once in a while, one should step away from the Internet and take a trip to that quiet sanctuary where hidden treasures must be actively sought within the pages of books: the public library.
I’ve loved libraries ever since I was a little kid. There’s just something so satisfying about finding the perfect book and tucking yourself into a cozy nook to unlock the secrets inside. But unlike the towns I’ve lived in, which had at least one school library and one public library each, the only noteworthy one I’ve encountered in the Zelda series is the Royal Hyrule Library in The Minish Cap. It involves an essential sidequest where you must obtain overdue books from three residents of Castle Town, but if you take a little extra time to explore, you will be rewarded with some interesting Easter eggs to quench your thirst for knowledge of the Zelda universe. So let’s take a tour, shall we?
(Note: Most of these Easter eggs come into conflict with the timeline from Hyrule Historia, so for the purposes of this article, I will only be looking at the games in terms of when they were released chronologically.)
First, let us head to the second floor of the library, where our good friend Sturgeon from The Wind Waker is hanging around, waiting for an opportunity to restock books on the shelves. While we can’t read any books ourselves, shrinking down to the size of a Minish will allow us to read the titles on some of the spines. If you’re not familiar, the Hylian writing system in this game is the same as that of The Wind Waker, where the symbols correspond to Japanese kana. If the spines are translated from Japanese to English, most of them reveal standard titles that one would expect to find in a library, such as Ancient Civilizations, Flower Encyclopedia, and Philosophy. However, there is one very odd translation that stands out above all the others: Bucket and Hose.
It would be perfectly understandable for one to think that it’s a simple translation error, but as it turns out, this bizarre title was completely intentional. You may remember from The Wind Waker that the Fishman mistakenly referred to the Triforce as the “Triumph Forks.” Well, apparently the Japanese name for the Triumph Forks is たらいとホース, which — you guessed it — also translates to “bucket and hose.” So it’s a cute visual pun for those who understand Japanese as well as a callback to a silly moment in a previous game. And the pun makes even more sense when you realize that たらいとホース and トライフォース (the actual word for Triforce) look quite similar when translated to Hylian.
Now for our next part of the tour, we’re actually going to leave the library and take a short jaunt over to Mayor Hagen’s office in Castle Town. The mayor has a bit of an unhealthy obsession with making and collecting masks, a trait that most Zelda fans are used to at this point because of a certain misunderstood traveling salesman. When we enter Hagen’s house for the first time, Ezlo remarks that the room has a peculiar vibe to it, suspecting that the mayor is hiding something. But for some odd reason, nothing ever comes of this cryptic observation in the game. We do find out about the underground survival bunker the mayor built in his backyard, but why would Ezlo make that comment about his office if there’s nothing to it?
The hunt for the overdue library books later provides us with a possible clue, as we find out that Mayor Hagen checked out a book called A History of Masks. Call me crazy, but it sounds like Hagen may have stumbled across an unusual mask that he is now attempting to identify from the book. And if Ezlo can sense its presence in the mayor’s office, could it be because it once possessed dark powers capable of obliterating an entire world?
No, probably not. But it’s still quite fun to speculate.
Speaking of Majora’s Mask, let’s head back to the library and check out the billboard near the front desk. This billboard contains a list of the “Top 3 Best-Selling Books” of the week, and at No. 2, we find a book entitled Gorman’s Guide to Good Grub. This is a rather bittersweet story, as Gorman from Majora’s Mask appears to have abandoned his dream of becoming an actor and cut ties with his family in Termina to live in the big city. But the book tells us that his time in the traveling circus troupe wasn’t a total waste: He discovered the places where one can find the best food and compiled them all together into one convenient package. And with his new business of building and renting out houses, it seems that Gorman’s life may finally be falling into place after all this time. Kudos to him for never giving up!
But perhaps the most interesting Easter egg of all can be found with the No. 1 best-selling book, Married to the Moblin. Clever puns aside, this title doesn’t actually hold that much significance until we find out that the head librarian’s name is Maggie. Fans of The Wind Waker should be quite familiar with that name, as Maggie was the rags-to-riches girl from Windfall Island who fell in love with a Moblin named Moe at the Forsaken Fortress. And according to her figurine description in the Nintendo Gallery, Maggie had started dabbling in poetry and was about to publish her first piece, “A Woman’s Heart is Blue.” Someone with such a strong passion for the written word would probably make a great librarian, right?
Assuming that Maggie the librarian really is the same lovestruck teenager we met on the Great Sea, then The Minish Cap has gifted her with the happiest of endings: She landed a job that caters to her passion, married her true love, and then wrote a saucy tell-all book that became a No.1 best-seller. What more could a girl possibly ask for?
So the next time you feel like taking a break from surfing the web, I definitely encourage you to mosey on over to your local branch. You just never know what kind of mind-blowing secrets you’ll find lurking among the shelves!
