The Children of the Moon, Disturbing, yet fascinating.

I have recently continued playing Majora's Mask, and while I haven't gotten this far into the game (I'm currently trying to find Lulu's eggs), I know that there are five children living on the moon. On Zelda Wiki, the behavior of the children is described as "odd" (they ask for different amounts of masks and refer to the life-threatening dungeons they send Link into as games), and they will each ask Link an "enigmatic, slightly disturbing" question (well, four of the children do; I don't think the one wearing Majora's Mask asks a question):

I'm not sure if these questions are meant to actually be disturbing, but it does make you wonder why these questions are asked by the children at all. For that matter, why are those kids on the moon? What is their story? It all sounds interesting to me, even if it is a little disturbing.

This particular scene is something I have pondered ever since buying the game back in October of last year.

My thoughts are that the beautiful meadow in the Moon is a figment of Majora's imagination. The Skull Kid is no longer in the picture at this point, so it is just Link and Majora. When you meet the kids with the boss masks and Majora's Mask, the four boss mask kids are playing, dancing under the tree and occasionally gazing up at the sky. The child wearing Majora's Mask is sitting under the tree and stares at the ground - he is not playing with the other masked children.

With each of the boss masked children, they all demand varying amounts of the masks you carry. They ask for masks, you "play" with them as they requested, and then you are forced to give them more masks. When you are returned to the meadow, the masked child you just played with has disappeared. I think of this part as the spirits of the masks being released. They only wanted someone to "play" with them, and while you sacrificed the hard work that your masks symbolize, the boss-masked children can rest in peace.

Also, when they come up and talk to each of the kids, they say (to the effect of) "Will you be a mask salesman, too?" This makes me think that the Happy Mask Salesman once had the masks that the bosses had, and they were either stolen from him or he gave the masks to the kids. That or, the children's spirits were sealed inside the masks long before the OoT/MM as I am about to discuss with Majora's Mask.

When you come to the child with Majora's Mask, he says something to the effect of, "They are all gone, aren't they?" referring to the other kids who wouldn't play with him. Then he asks Link to play with him, and says that Link is "the bad guy" and that "the bad guy chases the good guy" (paraphrased). To me, the desire to "play" symbolizes Majora's spirit at one time. Aside from the manga, I think we could make a case that Majora was in fact a human at one point. She/he may have even be a child at the time his/her spirit was encased in what became Majora's Mask. We know that the Skull Kid identified with Majora's Mask in a way - that's why Skull Kid took it. We also know how Skull Kids are created. I believe there could be a link between Skull Kid's perpetual childhood and Majora's Mask childhood that we get a glimpse of in the meadow on the Moon.

I think what the masked children on the moon said on the moon was disturbing because their words were simple to understand and cover incredible depths of meaning. They reflect how twisted a childhood can become, and how their perceptions created monsters. These kids were wearing masks - they had something to hide, and yet their questions of Link revealed an innocence inside them that was still there, even if it was damaged.

I don't know if I'm making any sense at all. I'm starving to death (dinnertime here), and I don't make sense when I'm hungry. But thanks for reading this far!

That is interesting, even if it was a little difficult to understand. I always thought the meadow (which is inside the moon, right?) was supposed to be an illusion, but I suppose a case can be made that the masked children simply want someone to "play" (even if their definition of the word is twisted at best) with them and find peace.

But why didn't they want to play with the child wearing Majora's Mask? I heard a theory that Majora's Mask once waged war on Termina, and the five children are the spirits of the temple bosses/Majora's Mask.

There is also another theory that says that Majora was once worshiped by the Terminians - so much so that the Goddesses placed a curse on Termina. "Terminating" it in a way, if you will.

I think the whole reason the other masked kids weren't playing with the Majora-masked kid is because Majora didn't want to play. He could have gotten up and danced with them, but he sat stubbornly under the tree.

But did you notice that none of the kids were playing with each other? Yeah, I picked up the video as I was replying, and I just now noticed it. They were playing with themselves, hoping for someone to come along and do the hide and seek game with them. Link turned out to be that person, but he had to sacrifice all the hard work he had done to get all those masks in order to release their spirits.

Hey, you're right; I'm watching a video on Youtube about it, and the kids are simply running around the tree, entertaining themselves. They're not playing with each other. Maybe they each have a dissocial personality disorder?

So what you're saying is that they're simply waiting around for someone to drop in and "play" with them? And that Link has to give up the masks he worked for so their spirits can find peace? That's a plausible theory.

But the questions they ask still nag at me. I don't think Nintendo would put them there for no reason.

See, I don't believe they would do that either. MM is probably the most symbolism-heavy game out of the entire Zelda series. That whole moon-tree-meadow scene MAY also have something to do with Japanese culture as well. I will make a small observation that childhood seems to be a universal preoccupation among Japanese culture, but since I am anything but an expert on Japanese ancient and modern culture, I'll see if someone else can jump in.

Angel Zelda, your theory that the kids might have dissocial personality disorders might be exactly on target. The psychology behind MM is enormous. I believe someone could easily write a thesis or dissertation on the psychology threads going through MM - it is that heavy. There is Link's psychology, there is the Children of the Moon psychology, there is Anju and Kafei psychology, there is Cremia/Romani psychology, Skull Kid/Tatl/Tael psychology, Skull Kid/Majora's Mask psychology, Skull Kid/Link psychology, Happy Mask Salesman psychology, the psychology of the masks themselves, etc. You get the picture - a list the circumference of the earth could be made of the different psychologies could be made.

I've always thought the beautiful meadow was supposed to be some kind of an illusion, as I said before. That's mainly because Majora's Mask is probably the darkest Zelda game in the series, especially when it's compared to its prequel, Ocarina of Time (yes, I believe it's safe to assume that MM is a sequel to OoT, no matter how crazy timeline theories can be). In OoT, bad things happen, but there is always that hope that one day, things will get better. With MM, it seems much more gloomy and scary, and the characters are all depressed for some reason or another. In other words, the hope that was in OoT is not present in MM.

To get back to what I was trying to say before, I think the meadow might be an illusion because it seems too out of place for it be real. I mean, the moon--which is, as one of the juggling brothers said, "a really, really scary, red-eyed moon"--basically eats Link and he finds himself in a beautiful/tranquil/ethereal meadow. Not only does it seem out of place for what ought to be inside a very threatening moon, it seems out of place for the game as a whole.

You know, I never thought of it that way, but you're right. And I was joking about the dissocial personality disorder thing.