Is Link dead in Majora's Mask?

My friend keeps talking about a theory that links the 5 areas of Termina to the 5 stages of grief, and various other items in the game show that Link is dead. What do you think? Is Link meant to be dead/ in purgatory, and not realizing it?

I’m pretty sure that there isn’t a book/movie/play/videogame in existence where someone hasn’t thrown out the “maybe the protagonist is in purgatory the whole time” interpretation. It works for about anything.

Not according to the timeline:

Not necessarily. There has been numerous Links, it’s kind of a legacy title. In fact, it’s implied the ghost warrior (the guy who teaches your character sword techniques) in Twilight Princess is a previous Link.

However, he clearly died as an adult, so…

I think it’s pretty clear that, before the timeline and bringing him back in Twilight Princess, the authors intended to at least make it possible to interpret Link as being dead. He goes to Terminus, gets into some alternate spirit world, and he doesn’t come back out.

It’s much better than the one about Link’s Awakening, where the hopeful tone taken at the end does not imply that Link died on that raft.

Isn’t that game a dream? But the dream world was somehow real as well?