AIM: Pancaek Beast | E-mail: shdwdde@gmail.com | Denny's House of Pancaeks
English, motherfucker!
It was the end of the year 2000. While all the politicians of the United States and of the world disputed the results of the presidential election, I was an ill-natured boy. I had entered my school in the last two years befroe junior high. All of the others students had known each other for a long time, and I was an alien. Knowing that I would not spend time with these people after six months, I believed that it was not important to meet new friends. So I was often rude, and I made fun of the students that tried to get to know me. I believed all of the words and biases of my French friend, which was my elder.
It was with this mentality that I received a Nintendo 64 game for Christmas that year. My dad had bought me The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. My friend had told me that Zelda games were a bad series, and I thought that playing this game could not be fun. But even at the age of eleven years, I appreciated what my dad tid to try to please me, and I did not complain about it.
Technically, Majora's Mask was brilliant. Visually, it was stunning. Link, the silent protagonist of the story, jumped, ran, and attacked with his sword, all in three dimensions. His body radiated detail, from the tips of his boots to the tip of his hat. Even though he never spoke, he seemed to have a lot of personality.
At first, Link was travelling on his horse, Epona, in a mystical forest. The fog surrouned him, and nothing was visible. Suddenly, two voices were heard. They belonged to two small fairies. They lated at our protagonist, and a little boy appeared, wearing a menacing mask. Laughter, fleeing, darkness. When Link came to, his body was not that which he knew - it wasn't even a human form. I was shocked when I saw him. I believed that I would like this hero, but he was so ugly now! And worse than that, Link had lost the power of his sword!
I was not all alone. One of the two fairies stayed with me. She was very unhappy; the boy had abandoned her. She and I didn't like one another at all, but we wanted to find the same boy, Skull-Kid. And so, against my will, she began to help me.
Continuing to play, I found the most surrealistic village that I had ever seen - even today, I shiver when I think about it. The first thing that leapt to my eyes was the moon. Even though the sun was shining, the moon threatened to fall into the Earth. The inhabitants of the village had very different reactions. Link and I quickly learned that the moon would destroy the village in exactly three days, seventy-two hours. Half of the villagers wanted to escape, but by the worst luck in the world, the most important festival of the decade had been scheduled to start in exactly three days, at midnight... And the most committed villagers couldn't free themselves of their bond to their village, and they decided from the start of the first day to stay in the village and to prepare for the festival.
Link and I obviously wanted to leave - we weren't part of this community. But the gardes didn't let us leave! Scared, I resigne myself to stop playing.. What type of game kills the player in three days? During the three days, I didn't do anything, except to go to the highest tower utnil the start of the carnival... All of a sudden, I saw him! The boy who had changed me! And he was holding something in my hand that belonged to me! I attacked him, and he tropped it. Voila - it was my ocarina. I took it and I played a song, and magically, the ocarina and the song sent me backwards in time. I arrived on the first day. What happened? It was definitely a miracle!
More importantly, I had returned to my former body. A mysterious man explained to me that Skull-Kid had stolen his mask and that it was the mask, Majora, that was evil and powerful. I accepted his demands and began to find means to defeat the stunning power of Skull-Kid and his stolen mask. To make myself stronger, I had to collect different masks, and on the way, I helped many different villagers. The mayor, the hotel, the farmer. Aritrated disputes, stopped thieves, united coiuples. I learned the problems, the fears, the dreams of almost every person who lived there. They all gave me rewards for my helping actions. I especially appreciated the changes in the characters that I helped; occasionally, a superficially very disagreeable man could show a really soft side of his personality after my help.
... But three days passed again and again... to survive, I had to play the ocarina all the time. Three days were simply not enough. Myself, I had more time than I needed because of my ocarina, but each time that I reversed time for myself, all of the other villagers forgot what I did to help them. I kept each thing that I ever won, but those who gave them to me, I did not often see the smiles or the eyes filled with tears of happiness on their faces - they were lost when I changed the time. I have loved The Legend of Zelda for six years now.
I finished the game before the return from vacation in January. When I came back, I had changed my attitude. I tried to find and to get to know new people. I was no longer rude to those who spoke to me about anything. For me, it was no longer important to know these people after this year. I knew that I would never again spoke to many of these classmates. But after the losses and the joy that I witnessed while playing the game over and over, I realised that knowing a friend even for a short period of time - six months - the joy of having this friend for this period of time greatly surpasses the sadness of the loss.
SD
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Thursday, January 04, 2007
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