Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Six Reasons Hinting at Playable Skull Kid

For the last two months I've been quite active on the Smash Ultimate boards of GameFAQs, fighting the same battle over and over again: I'm an advocate of playable Skull Kid, mainly because there have been many signs pointing at his inclusion as a fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate since the Direct in August.

But there have been some fierce detractors, who are very outspoken against Skull Kid. Some of it has to do with the board's obsession of self-proclaimed "leakers", like LeakyPandy, who claims that Skull Kid will only appear as a boss. One other "leaker", who supported Skull Kid after the August Direct, lost all of his credibility later on, which took the wind out of Skull Kid's sails and even worse, gave the Skull Kid detractors the thought-terminating cliché that Skull Kid's support only came from said leaker.

But that's far from the truth, because there have been many reasons, why people might believe that Skull Kid is finally playable this time. I took the time to compile the six most convincing reasons as a reference:

• His Assist Trophy wasn't shown yet, while we got a new Assist Trophy from Majora's Mask, the Moon, completely without him, which is suspicious and puts him into a similar position to Isabelle (or Shadow).
• Young Link is the only Zelda character, where we haven't seen his Final Smash yet. It might be Fierce Deity Link, where they want to save it for Skull Kid's reveal, where his Final Smash might be a form of Majora (e.g. Incarnation or Wrath).
• Majora's Mask was a Mii costume item in Smash 4, much like Chrom, Isabelle or K. Rool, showing its popularity. It was even tagged as "bring Skull Kid into Smash", which shows that this wasn't just about the mask.
• Both Metroid and Donkey Kong got a new rep in form of a villain. Zelda is very popular and also long overdue of a new rep (nothing in Smash 4, only a clone in Brawl), where Skull Kid is arguably the most popular and recognizable choice for a new playable character and a villain. Skull Kid was also a recurring character in the Zelda series, appearing also in Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, while Majora's Mask was included in both A Link Between Worlds and Breath of the Wild as an item.
• Majora's Mask 3D was freshly released in 2015, when development of Ultimate began. Fans had been asking for this remake for years in the "Project Moonfall" campaign, showing its popularity to Nintendo.
• During E3 the room decoration with a barrel and a rope ladder eventually hinted at a Donkey Kong newcomer in the colors of King K. Rool (red, yellow and green). During the August Smash Direct, where King K. Rool finally got revealed at the end, we had another suspicious room decoration with a sofa and two chairs in the colors of Skull Kid's rags and his fairies. This is commonly known as "chair theory".

Especially the latter gets a lot of bashing - even the name "chair theory" is just an insult, because the people like to reduce it to the yellow and purple chairs, which could hint at a number of characters, like Waluigi, or at nothing at all... It's often dismissed that there's a suspicious sofa as well and that the same thing apparently happened for King K. Rool during E3. So, this theory gets ridiculed all the time and a lot of laughs.

Of course none of this confirms Skull Kid as a playable character, but all of this is strongly suggesting the possibility. And because of this I've been defending the idea since the last two months. I still might be completely wrong and really end up being disappointed, because Skull Kid was only a boss after all. But I would be disappointed in that case either way, because it would be the same situation as in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U, where the most promising Zelda characters end up as non-playable.