Spoiler Majora's Mask: Link's Friend

[JuicieJ]

Gonna put my two cents in again.

Let's look at some reasons, that to me, make it so that it's gotta be Navi and not Saria.

1. Right after the MM intro when it says "in search of a lost friend" (or something along the lines of that) it plays a fairy noise.

2. Navi leaves Link immediately after OoT, and Link heads to the castle courtyard to warn Zelda with the Triforce of Courage in hand. This would mean that this time would have to be atleast after Link receives the Kokiri Emerald to fill Zelda's prophacey (slaughtered that spelling I know it xD) meaning the Great Deku tree is dead, so why would Navi head back to her old dead friend? The only other place she would likely be is in the Lost Woods, (fairies aren't found outside the forest, atleast not the ones like Navi, so non-healing fairies).

3. The Forest Meadow is Saria's hang out spot. So if she's not in the village she's there right? Heck she went there so often that a town member tells you that she's in the usual spot, so why would Link get lost? And Saria doesn't enter the Forest Temple until Ganondorf comes to power and she hears a voice crying from inside. Makes it very unlikely Saria would be lost, or missing in general.

Have a few more things, but I think this just about covers the gist of it. Again just my two cents.

We don't even know if he was in the Lost Woods. I think the guidebook said he was (the official Nintendo guidebook, not Prima or anyone else), but even if it didn't, it does make the most sense that it was deep in the Lost Woods. I mean, what other forest had we seen at the time?

 

[insanity76]

1. There's nothing that exemplifies "parting ways after fulfilling one's destiny" more concretely than the clip of Navi flying away from Link after he's defeated Ganon and returned to the Temple of Time. The only times OoT shows anything remotely close to a parting of ways with Saria is in the beginning when she gives him the Fairy Ocarina, which is long before he fulfills his HoT destiny, and the bit after he awakens her as a Sage, which once again is pre-destiny fulfillment.

2. The fairy jingle in the MM intro .. it's a carbon copy of Navi's jingle, which is nothing like Tatl/Tael's jingle. I've always figured the jingle was added as their way of saying "Just in case you're not sure who this special friend is we were just talking about, here's an obvious hint."

3. If Saria isn't away in the Sacred Realm when Link returns to his childhood (which is the only reason he could even try to reunite with her in the first place), then Link at some point would most definitely find her at her home ... which is literally right next door to his home in the Kokiri Forest. I'm sure she goes to her own place once in a while ... why would he go on some long expedition to track her down?

 

[Fierce]

@Insanity's post (In regards to #2)

Can you confirm this? I would like to see the sound files played side by side. I played it recently to try and confirm this and I really couldn't tell.

 

[insanity76]

@Insanity's post (In regards to #2)

Can you confirm this? I would like to see the sound files played side by side. I played it recently to try and confirm this and I really couldn't tell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PsCgs8rVHE&feature=player_embedded#at=36

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbupiD5axgw&feature=player_embedded#at=176



The links should forward right up to the jingle in each video. In case it doesn't, it's at about 0:36 for the MM intro and 2:56 for the OoT intro.

 

[Fierce]

That's really all the proof anyone should need.

/Topic.


Tatl's Jingle is more like a bell ringing if I'm not mistaken.
Comparison between the begining of MM and OOT... it's the exact same noise.

 

[blackenedktulu]

I always assumed it was Navi.
But upon reading this thread, I can see why some would think it was Saria (although, I'd be more inclined to side with Navi as the friend)

In relation to the skull kid.... Doesn't the Giant after the stone tower temple in MM say "Forgive your friend" or something to that extent. That could be seen as a motivation for this view, perhaps. The fairy-jingle heard being tatl/tael, etc.

I haven't really thought things through extensively, and I haven't played MM in a few months... I'll get back to this properly after some thought.
But for now: it's Navi.

 

[Locke]

In relation to the skull kid.... Doesn't the Giant after the stone tower temple in MM say "Forgive your friend" or something to that extent. That could be seen as a motivation for this view, perhaps.

The entire plot of MM revolves around friendship. SK seeks revenge because he thinks his friends abandoned him. Tatl and Tael become his friends in a touching flashback scene. The Ikana kingdom fell because the concept of friendship left their hearts. Tingle sells maps as a sign of his friendship. Kaepora Gaebora becomes Link's eternal friend. The children in the moon ask questions about friendship. Finally, SK asks Link to be his friend at the end. Looking at MM by itself, it is very strange for the friend in the intro not to refer to the same friend in the outro. However, throw OoT back in and the intro's perfect description of Navi's departure coupled with the sound right afterward outweighs all of this.

 

[Hylian Wolf]

It's not like I want to be like everybody else, haha but I always thought it was Navi...but I doubt it sometimes. I don't think it was Saria because Link understood that they couldn't really have much contact anymore due to her role as a sage....
Another reason I doubt the Navi theory is because when she leaves there seems to be a feeling of closure...not like she left suddenly and in a distraught way... :fairy:
It also could be a "make your own story" type of thing...
I definitely don't think he went to an alternate dimension or anyhting weird like that, I think he just found a pathway out of Hyrule through a part of forest somewhere....I mean there has to be more to the whole world of Hyrule than that. :nerd:

 

[Wolf Sage]

There is no truly established "friend". Heed my words. The friend mentioned in the story could be anybody you want it to be, and the Nintendo team made it this way on purpose. What we should be focusing on is our "probability pool". By pool, I mean a group of strong probable characters. So far we have Navi, Skull Kid, and Saria(?). Then, YOU decide who you want the character to be; it's all left up to the imagination. There is no established "friend" for whom Link is searching. This "friend" will for the time being be a random person from our "probability pool". That is until Word of God tells us otherwise. Even still it'll be ret-conned.

I'm aware I could very well be wrong, and it may very well be Navi. She's the strongest probable character from MY pool.

 

[Seth]

The tingle and all proves it is very obviously Navi. I think the only reason Nintendo did not explicitly state it was for new players who hadn't played OoT and didn't know who Navi was, it would confuse them. New players could see he was looking for a friend and that was all they needed to know.

 

[Wolf Sage]

The tingle and all proves it is very obviously Navi. I think the only reason Nintendo did not explicitly state it was for new players who hadn't played OoT and didn't know who Navi was, it would confuse them. New players could see he was looking for a friend and that was all they needed to know.

This^ I considered this, too, a huge possibility. They do this a lot in video game sequels for new players and fans who've only purchased the sequel, as to avoid confusion. A flashback from OoT or something could have sufficed to show us who this friend was, but direct referencing and flashbacks doesn't seem to be the Zelda team's style...so yeah.

 

[JuicieJ]

The tingle and all proves it is very obviously Navi. I think the only reason Nintendo did not explicitly state it was for new players who hadn't played OoT and didn't know who Navi was, it would confuse them. New players could see he was looking for a friend and that was all they needed to know.

That is a very good point. I never thought of that.

 

[Scrub]

I think he was looking for Guru-Guru.

 

[JuicieJ]

I think he was looking for Guru-Guru.

O_O What?? Hahahaha, I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that was a joke.