The Stone Tower Temple, A theory behind the architecture

[Saami]

Okay, while clicking around the Zelda Wiki, I happened to stumble across this article about the Stone Tower Temple in Majora's Mask. (I haven't gotten that far in the game yet, but spoilers don't bother me. So don't worry about about it). As a reference down at the bottom, it mentions a theory someone wrote up about this very temple being a direct blaspheme at Nayru, Din, and Farore, as it is littered with Triforce symbols on the crotches of the statues (Front View of Statue and Bottom view with Triforce Symbol). Not to mention the four statues outside of the temple look very phallic. I won't post the links to the screenshots since I don't want to offend anyone. But if you want to see for yourself, you can do so here.

The basic gist of the theory states that perhaps the Terminians rejected the Goddesses (which makes sense since they are not blessed as their Hylian counterparts are) and as a result built this temple to gain access to the heavens and perhaps slay the Goddesses. However, the Goddesses instead tricked them and so when a Light Arrow was shot into the blood stained switch, it flips upside down and instead of those who rejected the Goddesses going to heaven as the it seems the tower's original purpose was, they are sent to hell, or some Terminian equivalent. It also stated that Kaepora Gaebora (or his equivalent in Termina) mentioned that Termina was doomed from the start. Why was this? Because the Goddesses were punishing those who had sinned against them. Therefore unleashing Majora's Mask on them.

I think it would make more sense if you read it yourself since this slowly becoming tl;dr. But if anyone else finds this interesting, do share your thoughts

[Zeruda]

Whatever reasons they are there for, they're odd... only thing is, Termina doesn't have the same goddesses as Hyrule, being a parallel world and all (not universe). Remember, Din, Nayru, and Farore made Hyrule (the world). Their "triforce" has a different shape ( http://img481.imageshack.us/img481/1116/triangles2mf7.jpg ), and one of their goddesses is the Goddess of Time.

I'm pretty sure that the normal triforce symbols that can be found in the game are just "easter eggs" the programmers/designers threw in there for us. Miyamoto has stated that he likes it when people can find things from other or previous games (like mario pictures in OoT castle). Also, keep in mind that neither Wikipedia or its Zelda counterpart is official in any way.

[Saami]

According to Zelda.com, Termina was created while the Goddesses were creating Hyrule. So (if this how it was truly created) I would take it as them being indirectly responsible for Termina's creation. With that in mind, I would think they would make themselves known to the Terminians because even if they were only an indirect creation, they were still the Goddesses creations and I would think it very cruel of them to ignore the Terminians simply because they were a mistake so to speak. And if that is the case, I wouldn't think it unusual at all for the Goddesses to have put something of the Triforce there in Termina. But perhaps they weren't expecting to be rejected by the Terminians.

Yeah, I know the wiki's ran by fans. The article I read was only about a paragraph long and had that theory posted on the Zelda Universe forums listed as a reference for the bit of trivia on the theories about the architecture in Majora's Mask. That's the reason the theorist doesn't necessarily see the Triforce symbols as simple easter eggs. I haven't quite decided if they're easter eggs or not, since I haven't reached that far in the game myself and all I really know about the temple is what I've read in walkthroughs and in that thread.

[Zeruda]

Yeah, that's the odd part of the creation... while the goddesses indirectly created other worlds, perhaps it's possible that they created parallel goddesses who created the other worlds. Who knows. Nintendo likes to leave holes in their stories, and they need to fill them and give the fans some solid stories. >_<

But what I think throws the whole theory off is that the towers are phallic... I mean, sure, that kind of stuff sneaks past designers (like in Disney movies), but with Nintendo? Not so easy... there were some "dirty" hints back in the older games (like AoL Link getting laid when women heal him), but even that isn't anywhere near as offensive as something phallic. If it really was phallic, then it'd have never been put into the game. I think the theorists just have dirty minds. :x

[Kitty_savior]

I wouldn't put it past the developers. For a game like Majora's Mask there should have been a pretty large work team - someone must have thought "Hey, maybe that temple design looks a bit too phallic in general," though evidently nobody did something about it since it's in our games.

I thought the temple's design as a whole screamed phallic, and I can bet someone working on Majora - maybe the mail carrier, maybe Miyamoto himself - was dirty-minded too.

That's the other thing, though - while the general perception of phallic is negative, ancient cultures are known to implement it quite organically to their religious practices. Under this view the temple itself might not be blasphemic - it might honor the goddesses' fecundity, the fact that the world and the triforce was born from them. It's a stretch, I'll admit. I'll also admit the blasphemy theory is much more interesting and believable.

[Saami]

I agree. I don't think it went without notice. The developers probably just didn't care. Or perhaps they were trying to leave clues as to how and where Majora came from. Because it is never truly explained in the game, is it? I've stopped playing so I can't remember.

I suppose it's pretty safe to say that Termina wasn't exactly a bad place to live before Skull Kid came. But it makes me wonder what the Terminians had done in the past in order for Kaepora to tell Link that it had always been doomed.

[Love_of_Zelda]

I have read that article by Hylian Dan, and I think it is very well done and an excellent interpretation of what the original Terminians might have thought and done with Majora's Mask. According to my recollection, I believe that the manual that came with the game stated that during the creation of Hyrule many other parallel worlds were created at the same time. This obviously applies to Termina.

There is also another article that I believe was originally published on ZUthat can be found here. This one by The Sheikah makes a possible link between the Fused Shadows in Twilight Princess and Majora's Mask.

It is definitely worth a read when you have a spare ten minutes, but it made me consider the possiblity that Termina fell sometime AFTER Link left. If indeed Termina fell afterwards, then that could mean that the people "gave the finger" to the Goddesses again as the article by Hylian Dan stated. If the Terminians "gave the finger" to the Goddesses, then They might have finally gotten fed up with the Terminians rebelliousness and banned them to the dimension that is called Twilight in TP.

But why would the Terminians do such a thing after they had been graciously saved by the Hero of Time and the Goddesses who sent him? Obviously, those kinds of things don't take place overnight, but consider the statistics of the people who started going to church immediately after 9/11 and then a year later after 9/11. People forgot what drove them into those churches in the first place, and everything went back to the normal hum-drum of life.

If the Terminians had made a habit beforehand of flipping off the Goddesses, then one single, catastrophic savior in the form of Link wouldn't change that habit. And, like any of the stories you read of any culture's mythical gods and goddesses, immortals seem to get fed up with people they created who don't respect them as they should.

In conclusion to this post that has turned out to be three times longer than I expected ( ), I believe that the Terminians were *nearly* destroyed before Link arrived and were finally, completely destroyed after he left for their insubordinate behavior. Thoughts, anyone?