Happy Mask Salesman: Villain or Hero? (Legend of Zelda Lore)

A look at the lore and mysteries surrounding the Happy Mask Salesman.

or Instagram: @zeltikinsta
► Music in this video:
Nintendo

Sources:

Gameplay footage used:

ZeldaMaster, ZorZelda

#Zelda #Nintendo #LegendofZelda

[Zeltik]

Somehow forgot to mention that the children inside Majora's Mask's moon resemble the Happy Mask Salesman. They too talk about the happiness inside Link's masks, and give him the Fierce Deity Mask in return for all of them. Makes the Mask Salesman all the more mysterious- how are they related to him? does he know about them?

[davidker]

“The Happy Mask Salesman smiles even when enraged…”

So basically, he’s every retail employee ever.

[DarkRavenWolf]

It is also worth mentioning that the HMS seems to know that Link can time travel. When he goes back in time, Link is essentially transported to the exact time when he exits the inside of clock tower. So when the HMS sees Link for the first time and sees him go through the doors, it is LITERAL seconds from his pov when Link comes back and yet he does not question how Link got his ocarina back in those mere seconds and even expects Link to have the mask already.

[_pitako]

It's super awesome that years later we're still trying to figure things out about Majora's Mask's story behind the scenes. That's something I consider to be a mark of a good game; that people, years later, still talk about it. If Majora's Mask wasn't so infamously dark and mysterious, I wonder if we'd be talking about it to this day

[perativeX]

The Happy Mask Salesman's demeanor is on a par with anyone else who has worked in retail for that long. Customers drive him into insanity, his outbursts are the effect, Karens are the cause.

[anonymousfellow]

Happy Mask Salesman strikes me as a minor kami—extremely unsettling, chaotic, and destructive…but can be called on for assistance. Nevermind his actions are the catalyst for Termina’s current misfortune, and he quite literally demands Link to fix the mess he indirectly caused…but that’s gods for you. Especially the ones that cannot be called good by any means, but aren’t quite direct enough to easily qualify as evil

[teebone]

One interpretation of the HMS I've always found interesting was that of him being an avatar of the developers of the game (Miyamoto, Aonuma, etc.). For one thing, he's seemingly capable of manifesting objects and manipulating spaces to suit his needs (his room exists outside of the game's internal timeline, and he is able to produce that huge pipe organ out of thin air, not unlike a developer dropping in assets). He also has seemingly omniscient knowledge of the world, it's rules, and its characters, yet despite this he chooses to send Link out on a quest in the interest of "making people happy". The people in question that Link has made happy in the end may not just be the people of Termina, but on a meta level, all of the players of the game itself. He also claims that he has a tight deadline, and will leave Termina in three days, and (the game) Majora's Mask notoriously had a strict development cycle of ~one year in real life. Not to mention, his jerky animations and uncanny expressions also lend themselves to the idea of an entity that appears as though its being puppeted by some external force. There's also the appearance of the Mario mask on his backpack which again hints at a knowledge or even involvement of worlds beyond Termina and Hyrule.

Definitely not the only way to interpret the HMS, but I've always found the idea fun and intriguing.

[FoxFighter-HellBringer]

It seems like the Happy Mask salesman is a time walker. Every game he or his ancestors have been in, time travel occurs. This can't be a mistake.

[MumboJ]

You suggest an ancestor from Skyward Sword, yet no mention of Batreaux!!
The friendly demon merchant with a creepy smile who literally uses the power of gratitude (from making people happy) to transform himself into a human.
Forget the ancestor, I'm convinced that Batreaux IS the Happy Mask Salesman!!

[mana]

I like to imagine the Happy Mask Salesman is probably designed to be similar to a DM's OC kind of thing. Where it's a NPC that, suspiciously, knows way too much about the session (or game in this case) and wants to not be directly involved with the game, but will help give a little push to guide the player to victory

[thecycloneappears]

When completing Majora’s Mask recently, i realised how when talking to the happy mask salesman he makes jittery movements without animations. For example, when he teaches you the song of healing, he goes from standing up to immediately sitting down in front of a piano that had suddenly appeared.i thought this was a slightly creepy detail about him.

[adithya]

The Happy Mask Salesman is such a creepy character at times he gives out darker vibes than Majora's Mask itself. He is so interesting because i have never seen on the character so truly supporting the main character and his actions but at the same time seems to influence everything he does and seems to have the best idea about what is truly going on.

[Tustin]

I love that comparison: The Happy Mask Salesman is the dungeon master of the Majora’s Mask game. Especially since he seems to exist outside time and knows everything that’s going on (which I’m surprised you didn’t mention: he literally pulls Link back to the start of the time loop if Link fails to play the song of time before the moon crashes).

[joshuabittar]

I wonder about 2 things:

- Could the Mask Salesman have a curse on himself or some secret reason that require him to collect masks?.

- Did Link need to perform certain tasks to obtain those specific masks for a specific reason? There were a lot of people in Termina that needed help but he only received masks from some specific ones.

Just some doubts, though. Great video 💪🏻

[CZsWorld]

One of his masks is cut from the flesh of Mario's face...

[TysonASMR]

I just love that he’s such a minor character in OOT but made into a main character in MM, which is such a mysterious game and doesn’t feature ganondorf. One of the reasons MM is my favorite Zelda game of all time

[Cellosis]

The analogy at 16:03 made me laugh because I'm running a D&D game set in Termina and that's exactly what the Happy Mask Salesman's role is going to be for the party

[zachm]

I feel like the mask salesman is a chaotic good entity. Someone who wants to do good, but in their own, untraditional way

[wayfarer]

Awesome video, as usual!

I always liked that theory about the Happy Mask Salesman being based on Miyamoto. In this context, I usually think that the relationship between the Mask Salesman and Link in Majora's Mask is a metaphor for the relationship between Miyamoto and Aonuma during the development process of the game in real life.

For example... The Mask Salesman gives Link a 3 day deadline to retrieve the mask, in the same way that Miyamoto gives Aonuma a 1 year deadline to create the game.

Besides that, after asking Link to get the mask back, the Mask Salesman says: "What? Is that not a simple task? Why, to someone like you, it should be by no means be a difficult task." and then "You'll do fine. I see you are young and have tremendous courage. I'm sure you'll find it right away. Well then, I am counting on you...". This could easily have been said by Miyamoto to Aonuma after explaining his mission of creating the game in just a year.

Later, when Link comes back without the mask, after nearly choking Link and giving the whole speech about the origins of Majora, the Salesman encourages Link, telling him: "You'll be fine! Surely you can do it. Believe in your strengths... Believe...". I can easily imagine Miyamoto getting angry at times during the usual struggles of the development process of the game, and then encouraging the team to overcome the challenges.

At the end of the game, the Mask Salesman tells Link that he "sure have managed to make quite a number of people happy." In the same way Aonuma and the Zelda team have managed to make quite a number of people happy (like us) by creating this masterpiece called Majora's Mask. :)

[Danosauruscrecks]

I don't think he's a hero or a villain, I think he's probably a collector of artifacts that may be under the influence of some of them.