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The Keaton Mask is an item in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. It is a fox mask, based on the character Keaton. Keaton, the three-tailed fox, is very popular with children in Hyrule and Termina and toys and clothing featuring him regularly sells out at the market. Link can wear the Keaton Mask while talking to NPCs in order to elicit various responses from them. Kids are often amazed if you talk to them while wearing the mask. Adults however, are not as thrilled. If you talk to them, than they will ether comment that you are wearing a mask or scream something like "Ahhhhhh! A fox!".

In Ocarina of Time, the Keaton Mask is the first mask Link receives during the Happy Mask side-quest. It can be given to the guard, standing at the gate to Death Mountain Trail. The guard's son his a huge fan of Keaton, however his guard duties take up most of the day, and by the time he gets off the clock all of the Keaton merchandise at the market is sold out.

Another Keaton Mask appears in Majora's Mask, this time owned by Kafei, the son of Clock Town's mayor. Kafei uses the Keaton Mask to hide his face as he was turned into a child on the day of his wedding by Skull Kid and is ashamed to let anyone know. Once Link agrees to help Kafei, he gives Link the Keaton Mask as thanks. In this game, the player is able to meet the actual Keaton by wearing the Keaton Mask and cutting a circle of strange, moving bushes that appear in various parts of Termina. When Keaton appears, he will ask the player a series of questions pertaining to the geography of Termina and award Link a Heart Piece if he correctly answers them all.

Trivia

It is thought that the Keaton Mask is designed after the Pokémon Pikachu.

Zelda Star Fox

The masks on top and the Star Fox character portraits on the bottom.

Another theory is that it's based off of Fox McCloud from the Star Fox series. This is thought because in Majora's Mask, there is a row of masks in the menu that features five different animal-based masks. They are, in order, the Keaton Mask (fox), a bird, a bunny, a frog, and a pig. Team Fox consists of Fox McCloud (fox), Falco Lombardi (bird), Peppy Hare (bunny), and Slippy Toad (frog), while a former member of Team Fox is Pigma Dengar (pig). The bird, frog, and pig masks all look very similar to the characters too, while it's assumed the Keaton Mask and bunny ears don't look like the characters because they had already appeared in the Zelda series before. It's likely that the mask isn't based on Fox, though was rather used in this context to reference the Star Fox series.

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