The Underlying Force

Power, Wisdom, and Courage.

The Triforce is a key part in Legend of Zelda. It’s three parts represent the three things above, power, wisdom, and courage, but there is a hidden piece, an underlying force in all of it.

Faith.

The inverted triangle, the space between the other three pieces. When you notice it, the mentions of faith appear quite often in the games; the owl in Majora’s Mask wants you to have faith as you jump onto the invisible platforms, one of the Goron Elders talks about having faith in Twilight Princess and so on.

Let’s think about it.

What is power and courage without the wisdom to not blindly run into things? Or wisdom and power without the courage to act? Or wisdom and courage without the power to accomplish difficult tasks? But what are any of these without faith? The faith in yourself to trust your wisdom, the faith in the power that you have to know that you can accomplish what you need, and the faith that you can make it through with your courage, and all together you need the faith of what you believe in to hold all them together and put them to use. Faith is intangible, no way to explain it, but it’s there in the heart holding everything together as it holds the three pieces of the Triforce.You can’t see it but you know it’s there, and when you lose faith it all falls apart and you lose your power, wisdom, and courage.

When the people of Hyrule all lose their faith, that’s when the Triforce breaks, and Link restores people’s faith in the goddesses and in their lives as he goes along and then the Triforce will stay together.

That is where the true power of the Triforce comes from.

What the Shadows Never See

Watching a man being beaten and robbed,

Watching short miracles and new hearts throbbed,

The end of a life,

The start of a life,

Seeing it all,

Rise and the fall,

But stretching behind

Creatures of all kind,

Hiding away from the eye that pursues us,

Creeping and crawling, but not making a fuss.

Beneath the hawk soaring high do we run,

Silently screaming to not see the sun.

Old Gods of the Sun and Moon

In my last Legend of Zelda post, I skipped over something pretty important. A side quest that gives you the couples mask.

Let’s review it real fast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGzWINuVbfA&feature=player_embedded

Ignoring the fact that Tatl points out how pedophilic this is, we see that these two have the masks of the sun and moon gods.

So then, how can Majora and Fierce Deity be the Sun and moon gods when there are already masks for the sun god and moon goddess? Here’s how, first off, look at Fierce Deity’s sword. It’s gold and silver just like these two masks. The color scheme matches the mood goddesses mask perfectly. He is most likely their offspring (they being the sun god and moon goddess, since the two masks make the couple’s mask), and the sword is a gift. One could also say that Majora was their child as well, since her name is latin for greater, she would probably be the older of the two. However, Fierce Deity would seem to have been favored over Majora.

Now, it would seem to me that the old sun and moon gods are gone, seeing as how their masks are simply trinkets two lover promised to each other, and they fuse together when they touch. Obviously no longer needed.

That brings up the questions:

“Why are the old son and moon gods dead?”

“How did they die?”

Well, perhaps they simply gave the sun and moon to their children and then fused together and became the god of couples. That is one possibility. Another is that Majora killed them in her jealousy, and took the sun (the more powerful of the two celestial bodies) for herself. This would explain why Majora and Fierce Deity are fighting, Majora is acting out of jealousy. It could also be that Fierce Deity was promised both the sun and the moon (hence the sword — one helix gold for the golden sun, the other silver for the silvery moon), and Majora wouldn’t have that.

These are simply my theories, and they explain how Majora and Fierce Deity are the current sun goddess and moon god.

Stardust

“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements – the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life – weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”

-Unknown

I find this quote to be absolutely beautiful. It’s true how poetic and beautiful knowing we are made from stardust. It truly is.

I am an atheist, and no, that does not mean I’m immoral or evil or go around killing whoever I want (I’ve heard all of these). I still live based on basic human decency (which sadly, most people have trouble even doing that). I don’t believe in any deities, although religion fascinates me. I figured I should put up a warning now before people start following me.

So remember,

DFTBA

-The Vlog Brothers

Legend of Zelda’s Majora’s Mask: Majora and Fierce Deity

First, I’m going to throw out some Legend of Zelda. Specifically, I will be talking about the Sun and Moon gods that are introduced in Majora’s Mask.

First things first, I would like to point out that Majora is the sun goddess and another character, Fierce Deity, is the moon god. Obviously most people will immediately think

“Hold on, Majora’s Mask was controlling the moon, and when you entered the moon to fight Majora a little boy was wearing the mask, so how can Majora be both female and the sun god if these are true?”

These both are true, yes, and at first I thought the little boy was Majora himself. However I came to find that he was a mere representation of the spirit that had possessed the moon, and as for the skull kid he simply stumbled upon the mask.

Majora

First, I’ll talk about why Majora is female. As I said before, the boy is merely a representation, but I’ll get to that later. Majora is the creature you fight at the end (Majora’s Mask, Majora’s Incarnation, And Majora’s Wrath). Now, Majora’s Wrath spins around as if it were a ballerina and also has a female voice. Not a young male, no, a definite female voice. Also, (now, you have to believe that Nintendo would use a phallus, which is talked about in this article by Hylian Dan (a fantastic article, you should seriously read it now. Right now. Go. You’re not allowed to finish reading this post until you do). Anyway, back to me. Believing that Nintendo would purposefully obscene images, we can look at Majora’s Mask’s eyes, which are on the chest of Majora’s Wrath, and, though they don’t protrude, they look like female breasts. I honestly don’t think they did this to get a perverted giggle out of the audience but simply to show that Majora was in fact, female.

Continuing on with her eyes, they are fairly simple. They are an orange-yellow and they look the same as the astronomical symbol for the sun and these appear on her chest in her full form of Majora’s wrath. Likewise, the symbol for the moon appears on Fierce Deity’s chest. Also a little known fact, the symbol for the sun was originally used by the Egyptians as the symbol for Ra, the god of the sun.

Now, for those of you who know a little bit about light physics, you know that when white light is refracted, you get all the colors to split apart making a rainbow. This is because white light has all colors in it (well, almost all, a few hews are left out. But I won’t get into that here). Anyway, we all know sunlight is the cause of rainbows, right? Well, look at the colors of the final boss room. Rainbow. Now also think about how when Skull Kid uses the power of the mask to cast spells, Majora’s power radiates from the mask in a circular beam, like it was emitting sunlight.

In the final temple, the entire thing is decorated with Majora’s Mask carvings and statues, as mentioned in Hylian Dan’s article (if you haven’t read it yet you need to doesn’t have that much to do with my post but it’s good). And hell, even the doors have pictures of suns on them. The Temple is located in the middle of the desert, where the sun beats down harshly. Also, in order to get through the temple, you need the light arrows, those filled with concentrated sunlight. And most of the puzzles involve reflecting sunlight into different objects.

If you’re still not convinced by the sun and moon symbols, the color schemes or science of color, or the multitude of sun-related elements littering the Stone Tower Temple, then let’s go back to the boss room real quick.

Look at the piece that Majora’s Mask comes off of. It’s a sun. I don’t think it gets more direct than that.

Majora represents the sun itself, and she is the sun goddess of Hyrulian mythology.

Fierce Deity

Majora being the sun goddess, Fierce Deity must be the moon god. As I mentioned before, Fierce Deity has the astronomer’s shorthand symbol for the moon on his chest: the crescent moon. He clearly is male so I don’t need to talk about that really.

Since I talked about color’s significance for Majora, I’ll talk about the colors of Fierce Deity, or, lack thereof. With the exception of his war paint, his only colors are pale blue and black, and this mask bears a striking resemblance to a slightly more pale Link, and is very powerful.

While the moon could simply hurtle into earth and destroy it easily, it doesn’t. It seems to be resisting because it is unnaturally being brought down on a path it’s not meant to take. Hence the moon tear that is said to be a rare occurrence. The creepy eyes we see in its face are identical to Majora’s eyes, and we do not hear it speak until Majora’s Mask enters into the moon and those unnatural eyes light up. The voice speaking is the voice of the creature possessing the moon, Majora (represented by the little boy inside the moon), not the voice of the moon itself. All of this shows that the moon is a sentient being on some level. It has consciousness enough to mourn and cry over the fate of the land, consciousness enough to resist Majora’s power. In the long run, however, the sun is much bigger than the moon, and has much more power.

Inside the moon is a peaceful field with a single tree on top of a hill where four boys with the masks of the bosses you defeated run around in circles and the aforementioned boy wearing Majora’s mask. Majora gives you the Fierce Deity mask, obviously in hopes that she (Majora) can destroy Fierce Deity, the moon god.

The Battle

This is obviously a fight that is far beyond link and really between Majora and Fierce Deity. Making me believe that neither are good nor evil. As stated by Hylian Dan, Termina was destined to be destroyed by the Goddesses. The quarrel between the sun and moon gods were predetermined long, long ago. It ended up being that Majora wanted the earth destroyed. For, without the Earth, the moon is nothing, but the sun is barely phased. Majora decided to hurtle the moon into the earth thus destroying both and killing Fierce Deity. What exactly the fight was about I am unsure of and it could be any number of things really. However, the Goddesses allowed for Link to intervene to allow Termina to have a second chance as well as end the lethal battle between the sun goddess, Majora, and the moon god, Fierce Deity.

Knave Wolf

That’s obviously not my real name (sadly) but you know, internet security and stuff of that sort.
Anyway this isn’t going to be the share-my-feelings sort of blog (although I may throw in some terrible poems when I feel like it (bear with me as I get better at it) and yes, I used parentheses inside parentheses). Instead, this is going to be a random, whatever-I-feel-like-talking-about kind. Expect a lot of Fan-based stuff and quotes.

Enjoy my ramblings!