Part 29: All Things…
Lucas walks up to the seventh and final Needle. His life, and everyone else’s depends on the contents of his heart. He pulls the Needle. The Earth itself trembles. The world rapidly changes color. A tremendous blast of smoke shoots out of the ground. The Dark Dragon has been awakened.
Make sure to watch this video to the very end, as well as having your volume on if possible:
The people of New Pork City begin to panic as an earthquake razes the land. All the Chimeras and the people who created them flee for safety. From New Pork, to Tazmily, to Tanetane island, the planet rumbles furiously. All volcanoes erupt violently, burning the forests, and several strong tornadoes sweep up their ashes. Meteors plummet from above, causing mass destruction. The Claymen continue their work, oblivious of the state of the world. Bridges collapse as the ground is ripped apart. The last stronghold of the old world, Osohe Castle, crumbles before the Dragon. Flames are visible from all directions, painting the atmosphere red and black; the world is ending. An airship escapes from the ground, where it is no longer safe to exist. However, neither is the sky safe, as meteors from space crash into anyone who attempts to leave Earth. Hurricanes shred the sea, and the Nowhere Islands become a vast caldera. The screen fades to black; the Dark is all that remains.
The song that plays during this scene is funereal. It’s a despondent medley of most of the leitmotifs from the game’s soundtrack. Everything we know about the world of Mother 3 is being erased.
END…?
Somehow, it doesn’t seem like this is how Mother 3’s story should conclude. If you press enough buttons on your Game Boy Advance, you will find out that you can walk around, and the “END?” text moves to the side as the camera focuses on your placement. The sounds of footsteps are heard.
“Oww!”
“Watch where you’re walking! Can’t you see where you’re going?”
You accidentally bump into people as you walk in the darkness.
“It’s okay. This isn’t a dream.”
“It’s a miracle. A real miracle. It seems everyone’s all right.”
“I thought everything was about to be destroyed… but everyone is alive! The only way to describe it is as a miracle.”
Somehow, nobody was killed by the Dark Dragon’s destruction. Nobody even got hurt! How is that possible?
“Did the Dragon’s revival give power to all life?”
“That nearly scared me to death. But I guess this is what they mean by, ‘A crisis gone is easily forgotten.’ In any case, everyone’s just peachy-keen now.”
“That was scary. That was the very definition of scary.”
Everybody is aware of what just happened. They saw the same things we did. They thought the end had come, too.
“Say, are you Andy? Oh! You’re okay! That’s great! What a relief! Hey, everybody! Andy is over here and doing just fine!”
Andy??? That’s my name! To you, reading this, replace “Andy” with your own name. The game asked for the player’s name a long time ago, and now it’s finally being used.
“Andy! Lucas said he wanted to meet you.”
We aren’t playing as Lucas anymore; we are in the shoes of someone else: yourself.
“Andy. Thank you so much for everything. And for helping Lucas and the others. This world might’ve been completely destroyed, had it not been for you.”
Somehow, these people know who you are, and thank the player personally for helping Lucas on his quest. After this piece of dialogue, we start to meet specific characters.
Kumatora begins to cry for the first time; someone nearby calls her cute.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Stop it! Stop it! Stop stepping on me! Even mole crickets are living creatures too, you know!”
Not only humans, but all life has been protected.
You get poked in the back by someone. Then, you meet Wess and Alec; neither one claims they did it, and truthfully, it could have been either one of them.
You come across more side characters, like the Oxygen supply machines, who weren’t destroyed. The Rope Snake, self-conscious as ever, asks to be thanked for his service. Salsa and his girlfriend make happy monkey noises. A save frog remarks that his job is done, and that he’ll settle down and take care of the tadpoles.
“TRIPPED DOWN. TRIPPED DOWN. HIT NOSE ON GROUND.”
“Woof! (I’m doing well, too!)”
You eventually bump into something rolling around, which wobbles happily. Whoever was inside of it still never got out of his confinement, even after the Dark Dragon laid waste to everything. At least he lives in a truly better world now.
Your foot hits something on the ground. When you pick it up, it’s revealed to be a doorknob. This time, the doorknob stays with you, not being thrown or confiscated or tossed or dropped. The doorknob represents the continuation of the game, always being put in different hands and going different places. Now that the game is over, though, it stays with you forever.
People begin to say goodbye to you.
“What’s the world there like? It looks like things will work out here, but what about your world? Will it be alright? Hey, other world. Be good to Andy!”
The characters know we aren’t of their world, and that our reality is different from theirs. They all give their goodbyes and thanks, before the voices become gradually fainter.
Thomas runs onscreen with his siren, marking the beginning of a parade with every character you’ve come across in Mother 3. Some of them play special animations, reminding you of all the game’s funny quirks. Interestingly, you can see the grave of Scamp, which turns into a puff of smoke and is replaced with the living Scamp. Nippolyte digs a hole, and zombies come out! It seems those who were once deceased have come back to life. Does that mean these zombies were always like that..? The only character in the game who doesn’t make an appearance here is Mike, who gave you the slightly unclean, and not very tasty cookies; I think the developers forgot him. We’re also revealed Salsa’s girlfriend’s name: Samba. How cute!
The song that plays during this parade is a much more upbeat medley than the one before it. In the last one, the song focused on the songs that play at certain settings. This song plays the themes of certain characters, who are all alive and dandy.
At the end of the parade, we are shown the Pigmask army, the Masked Man the last one in line. He takes off his mask and walks over and talks to Flint and Hinawa. Boney runs up and licks Claus’s face. At the very end, Lucas awaits him, and they march together, and run off into the distance. A doorknob is the last thing we see.
The staff credits scroll up the screen, with pictures of various events shown throughout the game. If you skipped the credits part of the video, go watch it and appreciate the people who made this game possible. The song that plays during the credits is among my favorite in the game. It includes all three of the main themes from all of the EarthBound titles, with a special emphasis on the Love Theme. The series as a whole has concluded.
After the credits are over, the black screen brightens, as the logo of Mother 3 appears. It is no longer covered in metal. You can finally see the Earth as the ‘O’ in all its natural beauty. The final song of Mother 3 plays here, and it is simply beautiful. It sounds as if it’s flourishing in the new life of the world you created.
What is this world? Who is the entity known as ‘the player’? How did they help Lucas? This is left to you to decide. The ending of Mother 3 is intentionally ambiguous. Here’s my theory as to what happens (which is the correct theory, since everyone’s is right):
You, the player, are the Dark Dragon. You have been asleep and unconscious on the Nowhere islands for an extremely long time. When you start to play the game, the Dragon begins to slowly arise from its slumber. You become aware of everything that happens on the island with your omnipotence over the video game, as the world comes ever closer to ending. You control fate itself, and thereby guide Lucas to grow stronger and stronger until he can completely awaken you. When the final Needle is pulled, Lucas’s heart, which you have been training, has been passed on to you, and you are given full control of the world. To create a world that is good, this current evil one must be completely demolished. When the game is finished, and you walk around in a black screen, you are blind, as you have lived underground for so long and had no need for vision. Everything that you have witnessed during the game was in the form of a psychic vision. These psychic powers were also granted to Claus and Lucas, who, when pulling the Needles, tapped into your power. When everybody starts to say goodbye, they realize that you will be returning to your own plain of existence.
And here you are, back in reality. This concludes part 29 of the analysis, and of the story of Mother 3. However, there will be another part, where I review the narrative themes of the game. But as far as the narration is concerned, Mother 3 is finished. Thank you for reading my narration, and I hope it helped you to see things in a new light.
