


Ahh, Youtube theories about videogames.
Hours upon hours of hard work crafting moving imagery to go along the voiced script meticulously written to properly build up hype and suspense, often laden with meme-y injokes and long explanations of the foundations of the series leading up to a possible conclusion.
The only issue is, sometimes the theorist is simply wrong and at times, obnoxiously wrong

Zelda Universe embraces the philosophy of everlasting debate about the tiniest details, picking theories to shreds and burning the remains in the hopes that from the ashes, a proper answer may arise.
YouTube on the other hand, feels more like a TED talk; if you disagree, you're welcome to take the stage to refute whoever is orating afterwards. Provided you're a highly influential and known content creator who can't make a point without stretching it over 10 minutes to get that sweet sweet adsense.
Going into the comment section is basically like going to the ocean and throwing your message in a bottle to the indifferent waves. Your audience is most likely going to be the mental equivalent of fish and mollusks that picked up some choice expletives from sailors.
So if like me, you absolutely loathe how the most famous Zelda theorists are people who sometimes fling turds into the masses from their impenetrable ivory tower, here's a thread to voice your disagreement about a shitty Youtube theory to a group of people who actually know things about the series without resorting to edgy fanfiction

========================================================================================================
Let me kick this thread off by giving an example of how this thread works, more or less, by immediately going on the warpath against the theory that many seasoned theorists on this board have lost hairs over in frustration:
Game theory: Is Link Dead in Majora's Mask?
(Disclaimer: gamtos hates fun and gets irrationally angry at the sound of Matthew Patrick's voice)
Abbreviated version and watch guide:
- The first minute and 39 seconds are an absurdly long intro intended to amuse long-time viewers and fans of Peanut Butter Gamer. If you're neither, skip this.
- Supposedly, the five areas of Majora's Mask mirror the five stages of the Kubler-Ross Model of Grief, a psychological model that states if someone is confronted with DEATH, they go through five emotional phases.
- Clock Town is Denial, because "all the people" in Clock Town are in denial of the moon falling.
- Woodfall is Anger, because the Deku King is angry. Anger as a stage of grief is pointlessly lashing out at anyone and anything, mirroring how the Deku King treats the monkey.
- Snowhead is Bargaining, where the grieving party is pointlessly appealing to either a higher power, bemoaning what they should have done or clinging to very unlikely strands of hope. All to regain a semblance of control. The argument is that Darmani is bargaining by asking Link to revive him with his magic, somehow hoping to escape the inevitability of his death.
- Great Bay is depression, where the grieving person is unable to muster the energy to deny, be angry, bargain or recover. They retreat inwards. Lulu is used here as she has lost her voice along with her children and now just stares at the ocean.
- Ikana Valley is acceptance, because Link helps people come to terms with their death and because people reach "enlightenment" in the Stone Tower by climbing upwards and receiving the Light Arrows. Also, the Garo Master is described as "emptiness cloaked in darkness" so defeating him = defeating grief = acceptance. Also he commits suicide.
- Clock Town is Denial, because "all the people" in Clock Town are in denial of the moon falling.
- Matpat proceeds to ask at 5:38 what Link is grieving. He points out that maybe Navi died and Link is grieving HER loss, but dismisses that as he thinks there is more evidence to suggest Link is in purgatory and the game is about Link accepting his death.
- Termina = Terminal = death.
- Termina is definitely not next to Hyrule because the weird moon can't be seen in Hyrule.
- Link fell a very far way and should not have survived.
- The intro mirrors Alice in Wonderland which turned out to be a bad dream.
- Epona is transported ridiculously far in a very short time so Termina isn't real.
- The NPC copies in Termina mirror Dorothy's story in the Wizard of Oz where all her relatives played an entirely different role while she was dreaming of the land of Oz.
- The transformation masks all belong to dead characters. The Elegy of Emptiness allows you to create clones of these dead people, and Link gets a clone, ergo Link is also dead.
- Termina = Terminal = death.
- From 9:13 on, he goes on about how Link's supposed death fits into the timeline.
- The Hero's Shade from Twilight Princess is called the Hero of Time in Hyrule Historia. Matpat bolsters this by saying that the Hero's Shade is left-handed and the Howling Stones feature songs from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.
- Ocarina of Time states that those who become lost in the woods are fated to become a Stalfos.
- The Hero's Shade is shackled to the mortal realm because he was unable to pass on his teachings. Matpat blames this on Link dying prematurely and becoming a Stalfos in the Lost Woods.
- The Hero's Shade from Twilight Princess is called the Hero of Time in Hyrule Historia. Matpat bolsters this by saying that the Hero's Shade is left-handed and the Howling Stones feature songs from Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.
- At 10:31, Matpat says that the Happy Mask Salesman's arc words "you've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" indicate Link's death, also because it shows up after Link lets the moon crash.
- 11:22 Matpat acknowledges that ultimately, dead or not, Majora's Mask is a very deep and artistic game and can be interpreted in any number of ways and people will see what they want to see.
- A GYAAAAAME THEORY
Starting with:
The entire premise of the video.
In the world of media theories, there's a very pervasive, go-to way of making sure a theory spreads, and it usually leaves a bad aftertaste because it's a cliched narrative trope that lives off of shock-value and repackaging Plato's Allegory of the Cave to appear deep.

Basically, the easiest and most universally applicable theory to almost anything is the idea that an important character is either dead, in a coma, dying, mentally ill or dreaming to escape their depressing lives, and we're just never explicitly told by the creators. TFW your CHILDHOOD RUINED, am I right, GAMERS? SMASH that SUBSCRIBE button Audible has over 10.000 books check out my Patreon.
(Disclaimer: gamtos is an old and joyless man.)
What these theories have in common is that they are unnecessarily edgy and do not accept the idea of anything in fiction being zany, magical, whimsical or generally happy.
It's incredibly easy to slap this idea on to any piece of media, and these theories do not gain traction because of their strong arguments but rather because their shock value matters more than logic. The Ancient Cistern is based on a Buddhist allegory, that's neat, but what if I told you that ZELDA IS DEAD IN SKYWARD SWORD but also LINK IN BOTW IS ACTUALLY DARK LINK???!!
And this misery porn / soap opera plot interpretation is unfortunately what Matpat thrives on.




Mario is a psychopath, Earthbound is even more twisted, Cappy is evil, E. Gadd is a criminal puppeteer, Pokemon are victims to what looks like real life animal abuse, the Triforce is evil, Peach is banging either Bowser or Luigi or Waluigi or whatever and she's also dead, Phoenix Wright is a criminal, Miis have a tragic origin, Rosalina is Luigi and Peach's time travelling wonderchild, Ness is dead and depressed and plays the trombone, "The Origin of Zelda's Epona will RUIN your Childhood", Toad is terrifying, and every single attack in videogames would gruesomely murder you in real life.
As such, anything that comes from "Game Theory" does not always aim for the most logical conclusion, but rather the most upsetting and controversial one. Right from the get-go, anyone familiar with media theories are getting a huge sigh moment because they know where this video is going and why the title is how it is.
Aside from that, PBG's character solely exists to ask the initial baffled question and then is completely swayed by everything Matpat says, thereby removing any purpose behind the idea of having a dialogue between the two YouTubers and making PBG just a face that sometimes shows up for no particular reason other than fanservice. The lack of Devil's Advocate in the video is palpable, with no one questioning the conclusions Matpat is drawing at almost any point of the video aside from the classic "if you disagree remember this is JUST A THEORY" get-out-of-being-called-a-hack-free-card.
Section 2: The stages of grief.
The grief theory is a famous one that was floating around for a while before Matpat got his grubby little paws on it. While at first the connections seem to make sense, and I have to admit there are some very nice thematic parallels, the logical fallacy being used in this argument and many others is massive cherry picking.
Let's look at the characters that are used to prove these steps:
- Predominantly Mutoh as the face of denial.
- The Deku King (and arguably his daughter) as the face of anger.
- Lulu as the face of depression.
- Darmani III as the face of bargaining.
- Sharp as the face of acceptance.





Now, here's what these characters have in common:
~ Jack Shit. ~
They are sometimes the deceased hero, sometimes the antagonist, sometimes the hapless victim close to the deceased hero, and in the case of Mutoh, a randomly picked NPC that fits the narrative.
Clock Town is filled with denizens who take issue with the moon, and by the third day, Mutoh is only one of the very few left. Some flee, some meet the end with a drink in hand, some latch on to their jobs, some cower in fear and pray to be saved, and hell, Mutoh eventually shouts at the moon to just fall already. To say the whole town is in denial is an extremely gross exaggeration, especially because it's the only town where people actually even bother to talk about how scary the moon is to them.
The Deku Butler is dealing with grief but certainly not anger. The Deku Princess' anger is justified and productive and aimed at the right people, ergo not the Kubler Ross definition.
Mikau is every bit as much bargaining as Darmani is, but because Lulu fits the depression narrative better, she is treated as the face of Great Bay.
The Goron Elder's Son is crying out of impotent sadness and anger, not bargaining. No one else really exhibits any sign of bargaining either, and arguably since Link does control Darmani's resurrection, it can't even be counted as the futile kind of bargaining that Kubler Ross indicates.
And for Ikana, suddenly, the theory focuses on the after state of the region rather than the initial state. People reach acceptance only after Link solves their problems. Sharp's lashing out at people is treated as eventual acceptance rather than his current display of anger.
Defeating an enemy is now considered reaching acceptance, despite Link doing this throughout the entire game.
Link's journey up into the Stone Tower is called "reaching enlightenment", ignoring the entire second half of the dungeon where up becomes down.
All of this just ties into the fact that while the grief theory still has its merits, its easily-found myriads of flaws are never brought up or talked about.
Section 3: Termina is Purgatory

This is where y'all are gonna turn against me because for a large part, I can actually agree.
Point one though, according to Word of God, "Terminal" here is used as its noun definition; a station on a transport route. A place where people come and go. Not the adjective form about deadly conditions. And that's a huge blow against the idea that Termina's world is an afterlife.
But the astrology comment makes sense; Termina definitely does not seem to be part of the world of Hyrule, Aonuma interview from 2015 be damned.
Epona's sudden transport IS weird. The intro DOES resemble Alice in Wonderland. The NPC's ARE twisted copies of Hyrule's inhabitants, Oz-style.
All of that makes sense, and I'm not going to deny something is odd about Termina.
Problem is, when did Link ever meet these guys in Hyrule?

















And before we state he just has an active imagination:
.png?version=d98ac26f2da53c5487c2d3e2bc143cc5)
.gif?version=e2b679d03da0967b84cf8eef5b7f556f)
.gif?version=46f92222d5cf8ae72d4ffa6e9229da5a)
Gorman and the Postman had Hyrule counterparts, sure, but their ancestors from Hyrule have the same names / occupations as the Terminans.
And Tingle does not even slightly appear in OoT, but his ancestors are definitely real in Hyrule.
Then there's the argument Link should not have survived his initial fall. He lands on a Deku Flower though, which actually negates all fall-damage in the game.
The Elegy of Emptiness statue argument bothers me as well. Firstly, the reasoning that because the four transformation masks that all have distinct statues are based on dead people, so should Link. Matpat goes on and on about them being funeral memorial effigies for the dead without any real base in what's said about the song.
He's equating correlation with causation here, that dead people getting statues means all statues are novelty headstones.
An entirely different plausible argument is that the Elegy of Emptiness creates a soulless copy of Link's physical form, thereby removing the element of death entirely. And both the name of the song and Igos' description of it match this interpretation to a T.

Even so, if we want to bring death back into the equation, just look at the white eyes of Darmani and Mikau or even the listless red of the Deku Butler's son missing that characteristic yellow glow, and now look at statue-Link's eyes.

Unlike the 100% eye whites of the other statues, Link's statue would indicate he's alive, and keen on brushing his teeth.
I've been throwing around agreement and disagreement about this section, and that leads me to an alternate interpretation given by Hyrule Encyclopedia which I defend here.
My largest reason for championing that interpretation over Matpat's is my sense that Majora's Mask is not about grieving the death of a loved one; it is about forgiving and believing in the friends you parted ways with. It's Skull Kid and the Four Giants becoming friends again. It's Link accepting his separation from Navi because he's still capable of making new friends and fighting evil. It is about Anju and Kafei holding on to hope, about Igos' du Ikana's words about forgiving your friends.
It's about something not edgy and stupid.
Section 4: The Stalfos of Time.
Now, the easiest, and shortest thing I have to get out of the way first: There is no logical way for Link to have died at such a young age and become the Hero's Shade from Twilight Princess if you go by Hyrule Historia's word. And the best part is that Matpat delivers this proof himself, yet conveniently doesn't mention it.

Note the words "The spirit of Link's ancestor". This statement is mirrored in Hyrule Historia page 115, and the Hero's Shade calls Link "son" in a dramatic fashion which is a weird thing to name a non-relative.
The issue with this bit is that Link could not have descendants if he left Hyrule as a child and unceremoniously died in the woods.
Now, I have two theories for how this oversight could have somehow made it into the video:
- Matpat is a hack.
- Matpat is a lying sensationalist hack.





The Stal family of Twilight Princess have a fairly unified design. Inhuman skeletal structure, all physical bone, and completely void of rational conversation.
The Hero's Shade is:
- Very much humanoid in shape.
- Has one hud po-cent fleshblud leggies and arms rather than bones.
- Does not even exist in the physical world, taking on the shape of a golden wolf instead.

Ghost who died in the line of duty wearing the clothes they wore at the time of death, invisible to the living humans.
Some other issues:
- The woods at the start of Majora's Mask are never called the Lost Woods.
- The lore also states that children who get lost in the Lost Woods become Skull Kids, not Stalfos.
- The Hero's Shade's appearance is absolutely nothing like an adolescent boy in a green tunic, and nothing about his appearance is mirrored in his supposed "purgatory".
Section 5: The Happy Ma--
No. This is just something that gets said at the start of the game, and is ironically echoed at the end to indicate both:
- how the statement can apply to Link's failure and
- how time has rewound back to the dawn of the first day, when we had that conversation.
This has already taken me too long and I am done with pointing out the easy.
In conclusion, this theory is rife with holes and does not deserve the mindless parroting it gets everywhere I go and also I don't like Matpat.
========================================================================================================
So there you have it folks, the way this thread works. By no means do you have to go into this level of detail.
Hope it's as cathartic for you guys as it was for me. Stay tuned because I'll be using this thread more often.