That Link is dead, and Termina is his own personal purgatory. I mean, it makes sense right off the bat- you consider that everything that he sees in Termina is a bizarre, twisted version of something that he had already seen in Hyrule; everything that he is doing is a macabre echo of what he has already achieved in Hryule as well. Plus the entire three day cycle is Link being trapped in Termina, in his own personal hell in his mind because he is unable to reconcile himself with the fact that he cannot save everyone at once, that he can't be a hero to everybody every time, a fact that he is having trouble facing, because being a hero to everyone is exactly what he accomplished at the end of Ocarina of Time... except then his accomplishments were erased, so no one ever realized he was a hero, and he never got anything for all of his troubles. That empty feeling that came from that deflation of his accomplishment, coupled with Navi abandoning him, and presumably death in the forest right at the beginning of Majora's Mask, led him to this very confused and vulnerable state of mind, a state of mind that he must overcome and reconcile himself with, before he can move on.
The very interesting thing here is how masks come into play here- when Link solves problems in Majora's Mask, he is trying to do everything all at once before the world ends, but he is not solving those problems as himself.He has to disguise himself using his masks, he is always solving the problems as someone else- which, I think, is him gradually coming to terms with the fact, as he saves people over and over again, that even when he is being a hero and solving people's problems, he is not getting credit for them- the people who he was impersonating with his masks are the ones who got the credit. And over time, I think Link is realizing that he does not need the credit or the recognition from being the hero, that the act itself may be enough, thereby facing his biggest problem from the end of Ocarina of Time.
Which leads me to the most interesting mask of them all- assuming we are going for the true ending in Majora's Mask, Link will eventually give all his masks away, before he faces Majora. Majora, in this scenario, I am assuming represents Link's dark psyche- his 'shadow self' so to speak, his resentment, his frustration, his suppressed chaos, and before Link faces his dark self, he wants to be sure that he is doing it himself, as himself, otherwise there really is no point- unless he can overcome his darkness by himself with no aids, he hasn't overcome it at all. And that brings us to Fierce Deity. Fierce Deity is extremely powerful, and probably Link's most powerful and strong incarnation across all Zelda games, yet. It's basically a Ganonization of Link, so to speak, and it is morally extremely suspect. And I think that Link wearing the Fierce Deity mask before his battle with Majora represents him accepting that he is not perfect, that he has issues, and him embracing those issues and the strength gained from embracing those issues, and then turning all of them upon his demons, represented by Majora. At the end, of course, Link beats Majora, and I think he is able to move on from his purgatory, having reconciled himself to his shortcomings, accepting his successes and his failures, and finally finding peace in death,
I think this theory makes a lot of sense- not only is Majora's Mask, already a game about death, littered with references to this idea, but this would explain so much stuff- for instance, the aforementioned everything in Termina being a bizarre dreamland take on things Link already achieved in Hyrule, but modified in almost dreamlike ways (such as how the Ocarina and the Song of Time function differently this time around, as an example). And when you consider this with how Link first gets into Termina in the first place:
It all makes sense. It all makes so much sense, now.
So I think I am going with this. Albeit I don't know if I can reconcile this with the Hero's Shade in Twilight Princess, who is also supposed to be Link, except Link grown up, and in this theory, Link died as a child. But that's the only discrepancy, and viewing OoT and MM together as one work, everything fits together beautifully in this light.
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