Part 17: Sunflower Fields
Chapter 6: Sunflower Fields
To get the full experience, you must watch this next video, with the volume on.
A bright, sunny sky shines over the land. Birds are singing their lovely songs. Lucas arises in a field of blossoming sunflowers. He turns his head in all directions, and yellow is the only color in sight. Lucas takes a few steps along the infinite life surrounding him, before looking around once more. A vision possesses his eyes, and he is taken home. Faintly, his name is uttered. “Lucas.” He returns to the world of the Brilliant, Young Sun. A short distance away, new life is found: Boney! Lucas’s pet stares intently at something in the distance. When Lucas gets closer, Hinawa is found, in all her beauty! But she’s walking away! Her son follows close after her, but she continues. He marches firmly ahead, determined to be with his mother. Finally, Lucas looks into her soul, but only for a moment. She continues to pass away from him. Boney chases after her, leaving Lucas all alone. At the end of the road, Hinawa stands before Lucas in the heavens. He leaps with all his might to be with her one last time, but fails to reach her. Hinawa waves goodbye, and Lucas plummets back to Earth.
Boney safely lands on a giant haystack. Alec and Wess investigate as Lucas falls shortly after. We are now shown the name of the next chapter:
Chapter 7: The Seven Needles
Wait a second, let’s unpack everything that happened first. Lucas had a vision of his mother; he is very obviously still thinking about where she is. These thoughts follow him at all times – even in his dreams. I don’t have to tell you this, but Chapter 6 is the shortest chapter in the game. However, it is easily just as impactful as any of the others. Chapter 6 is the definition of “short and sweet.” The less time it takes someone to experience something, the more time you can spend making the experience as powerful as possible.
I think the music is mostly what makes this chapter as emotional as it is, so let’s take a listen.
This song is very soft. The music box and strings are the only instruments – and they’re both extremely emotional. The music box plays the melody, and it gives the song its feeling of intimacy. I love how it’s composed, too. It quickly goes up the scale, stays high for a bit, then drops down low. It sounds like how I’d imagine a dandelion to be, floating along the whims of the wind. It doesn’t sound very concrete – it’s dreamy, as the title suggests. The strings work in the background of the music box in the first half, adding tenderness to the song. In the second half, the strings get their time to shine. Going along with the theme of this song, it doesn’t stay in one place for very long. The volume rises and lowers as the notes do as well. If the music box was the dandelion, the strings are the wind that moves it along.
Once again, we hear the Mother 3 Love Theme. It plays as Lucas is taken back to a more familiar time in his life, when Hinawa was still with him. When it plays here, the song cuts out just as the strings come in. This is the very core of the Love Theme – it’s just the melody when it’s played for the first time. The very essence of this entire game lies in this song.
This plays when Lucas finds Hinawa. I really like how this song is used. It’s as if Lucas is saying, with tears running down his eyes, “Mom! It’s you! It’s really you! Yes!” The strings are just so uplifting. Lucas and his mother are finally together again! The flute plays four notes, symbolizing when everything was normal and simpler. The music box that comes next plays essentially what is Hinawa’s theme – it also played when she sent the letter to Flint and when he received it. This is the part of the song when the initial excitement wears off, and it’s becoming clearer that what Lucas sees is only an illusion. The music box goes down to a lower octave as it plays the melody. That wasn’t really her, but it sure felt like it for a short time. If you re-watch the video, the timing of this song is absolutely perfect. It ends exactly as Lucas jumps off the field and the screen fades to black. The title of this song is great too: Mother?! This is Hinawa’s song. It’s great to see her again! But isn’t it odd that she’s here? There’s both excitement and confusion – Sunflowers and Illusions.
This plays when Boney and Lucas fall onto the haystack. It’s a second version of the song that played in the prayer sanctuary. This makes sense, because as the title implies, it’s a miracle that they fell hundreds of feet from an aircraft and landed safely on this haystack. Itoi had to come up with some way for Lucas to survive the fall, and this is what he came up with. As you might have noticed, logic only applies to this game when it’s convenient. To make it more excusable, Alec had a vision from Hinawa to put the haystack where it was, making it the second time she saved his life. Where are Duster and Kumatora at, though? We’ll investigate in the next chapter:
Chapter 7: The Seven Needles
This concludes part 17 of the analysis.