Mother 3/Headscratchers

• Oh, a empty Mother 3 page... Well, something that bugs me in this game... Claus. Not Claus as in, "himself", but the OTHER Claus(es). He just... bugs me. ...In my sleep, too! Will we ever find out what he was really supposed to do in the game?
  • I'm assuming you're talking about the Claus backgrounds. A good theory out there is they're supposed to represent Claus' [and Lucas's] current mood in the fight. Check out this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbvvbgVC1U
    • Actually, Claus was supposed to become The Lancer of the Five-Man Band. The robot represents how Lucas thought Claus was just an robot, the angel represents how Lucas thought Claus was dead and this wasn't his brother, and Lucas and Claus together was Hinawa telling Lucas that Claus was just as he remembered him. The rest might continue that pattern or be Giygas.
• How do you pronounce Claus, anyway? Chuggaaconroy says it Cl-ow-s, but the handbook makes a pun - Claus for concern.
  • You can pronounce it either the German way (Cl-ow-s) or the French way (Clow), whichever tickles your fancy. Both are canon. Same with Lucas' name, you can leave off the s if you want.
  • Nintendo spelled his name as Klaus in Lucas' Brawl trophy so it could be "claws."
  • The original Japanese is クラウス, which is pronounced like Chuggaaconroy does.

• Why did Locria (or Fassad) help the Pigmasks get the needles? He should have known he would have faded away if his needle was pulled like the other Magypsies. So did he have a death wish?
  • "If I'm going to disappear, I'm taking the world with me."
• If the Masked Man pulled more Needles than Lucas, NOTHING. WOULD HAVE. HAPPENED! When Ionia was explaining the story to Lucas, s/he said that legend told that if someone with a heart of evil pulled the needles, the heart would be passed on to the Dragon to satisfy wicked ambition. But, as Ionia pointed out in the very same scene, the one who pulled the Needle HAD NO HEART AT ALL.
  • Pretty sure the implication was that if the Masked Man pulled more needles, his lack of soul would be reflected in the dragon, meaning that the dragon, and with it the world, would blip out of existence. A heart of good or evil could control the dragon and make it do their bidding, but no heart at all would create a destructive void that may very well take the universe with it. Porky knew this, and that's why he set up the unique conditions of making the Masked Man in the first place
    • Yes, Word of God confirmed this.
      • This troper wonders...Claus obviously still had a heart, otherwise Mother 3 would have ended with Lucas getting killed by the Masked Man. Perhaps the Dragon would be able to sense the heart that the others couldn't?
        • Claus had a heart. The Masked Man didn't. Between Lucas and Hinawa's ghost's efforts, he regained lucidity for a few moments and killed himself; if he hadn't he'd have gone back to being a heartless machine.

• How old is Kumatora again? No-one I know seems to agree, with the only estimate being 'somewhere between Lucas and Duster'.
  • The debug mode lists her as a kid (Pre-Timeskip) and adolescent (Post-Timeskip). So she's not an adult.
  • Well, if she's an adolescent, then how is it that she gets to work at Club Titiboo, but Lucas can't get in because he's "Underage"?
• Why oh why did the good people of Tazmily feel the need to bury Hinawa IMMEDIATELY, while Flint was in jail? I mean, how long was he going to be in there- two, three days tops? They just couldn't possibly put it off long enough for the poor guy to attend his own wife's funeral?
  • Because the sooner they got it out of the way, the sooner they could return to their "perfectly normal" lifestyle. As someone mentioned in the Main page, it's also why they act so cold towards Lucas when he's grieving.
  • There's also the fact that because they've been mind-wiped so that everything is innocent and idyllic, the people in Tazmily are strongly implied to not know how to cope with truly bad situations. It's one of the reasons why, when Hinawa dies, Flint gets the news in such a bad way. They simply don't know how to effectively deal with something outside of their utopia anymore.

• Why didn't Lucas just use Lifeup on Flint after the Masked Man hit him with PK Love?
  • Because when you revive your other party members, the Masked Man uses a powerful attack (granted, it's usually PK Thunder). The same thing would probably happen if Flint was revived.

• If you use Boney's Sniff command on the Masked Man, the game says "But he didn't smell anything." However, at the end of the final battle, we get the line "Lucas remembered Claus's scent." How come Lucas, a human, can remember a scent better than Boney, a dog?
  • Claus had taken his mask off? Or, you know, to remember something and to actually do it are quite different things.

• How is Dr. Andonuts still alive? I mean, does this mean that the events of Mother 3 really take place only a few years or so after EarthBound? But Porky said he traveled through centuries to get to when Mother 3 takes place. I always assumed that Dr. Andonuts used a time machine because he's a scientist, but I can't ignore the possible Inferred Holocaust of everyone and everything we know and love from EarthBound.
  • Who said he time traveled voluntarily?

• I've always wondered this ever since I found the FF.Net section for Earthbound. Why, oh WHY does everyone pair up Lucas with Ness?! They don't even EXIST WITHIN THE SAME TIME PERIOD! And, the only time they saw eachother was in Brawl, and on the movie screen at NPC. Now, you might be saying, "Oh! There was Ho Yay with them in the Ruined Zoo!", which I don't believe at all. They were friends, but not lovers, and besides, if a boy just randomly came to save your life, and when you saw him get shot down you ran like a coward, wouldn't you feel guilty and disappointed with yourself that you couldn't find him and repay his kindness?
  • Shippers gonna ship, dude. It's best to leave it be.

• This might be a touchy subject, but why didn't Lucas just use PK Healing after Claus/The Masked Man dies?
  • If we don't go the Story and Gameplay Segregation route, it says that characters "got hurt and collapsed" if they lose all their HP in battle, so they're probably not dying, just falling unconscious or whatever. So PK Healing just returns them to consciousness, rather than outright bringing them back from the dead. Alternatively, Lucas knew that he couldn't truly resurrect his brother - he'd just be bringing back the Masked Man, who would continue killing them all and then pull the last needle. Alternatively alternatively, Lucas did plan on resurrecting his brother, but he pulled the needle first, and well...

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