Thread by @spacetwinks

yet again with "back to mother 3" thoughts

the mother series heavily deals in americana iconography, and thus, also deals with nostalgia, and in mother 3, deals with the nostalgia of its own self it has created

and how it can be toxic, weaponized, exploited

it's interesting, because mother 3 isn't necessarily tearing down nostalgia itself, but specifically an obsession with it, and how it can extend to wanting to control the *present*. mother deals with positive feelings of nostalgia too - so long as you let it pass.

this is present in mother 1 and mother 2/earthbound as well, using lullabies as a kind of nostalgia, and how it affects giygas and ness, how it affects them both. complex relationships with 'nostalgia', and how it's not inherently good or bad.

same goes for mother 3.

the sunflower scene is one example of it, letting these nostalgic feelings well up... and then pass. on the other extremes is the white ship, and porky. what you do with your memories, your feelings for the past, is not inherently *good*, and porky's use of it is what was feared.

"the world ended. naturally, it was humans that caused it." porky's on it on an accelerated time table. he introduces capitalism to a post-capital world, and then also rapidly introduces an unhealthy use of nostalgia, and capitalizing on *that* nostalgia.

then: ending the world.

the dragon's kind of a factor that obfuscates the fact that it's still humans ending the world, it's just doing it with a dragon's power. accelerated timetable, like i said. porky obsesses over his nostalgia, a highly fantasized version of his memories, then grows bored with it.

it's the thing: he recreates what he remembers, and what he rationalizes or modifies in his memory so it's kinder to him and glosses over his own mistakes, and he doesn't just *stop* time there. it's just not enough. any disobedience is too much. so: time to end it all.

lucas can let that nostalgia swell in him... and then move on. porky can't. think of it in the sense that, even with leder telling him and everyone else in the truth of them all having a real "past", they're able to move ahead regardless.

into an inky, uncertain "end?" even.

M3 is self-aware, and not just in terms of leaning on the 4th wall, but in that it understands that its own existence inspires nostalgia in its players. it pushes you to be able to let that nostalgia swell in you... and then move on.

you can't stay here. gotta make new things.

there's a very funny way to look at this in regards to itoi - there's the obvious fact that he's not just made endless Mother stories and games, but there's the fact that one of his other games is totally and completely unconnected to just so much of Mother:

a bass fishing game.