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Chapter 7: The Power to Believe

Meet Ana, the psychokinetic preacher's daughter whose mom was abducted by aliens. She has unusual powers, but there's more under the surface of this precocious girl than even she knows. Joining Ninten and Lloyd, they travel to the ghost town of Spookane to investigate a city-wide disappearance and rumors of a haunted piano with a tragic history.

Sarah Rhea Werner, of the sci-fi audio drama Girl in Space, joins the cast as Ana and our audio drama segment EXPLODES in this double-length mid-season special. "MOTHER," She Wrote and Ninten's adventures will never be the same again.

CREDITS

Written, Produced, & Performed by:

Cat Blackard & Jessica Mudd

Original Score & Sound Design:

Jessica Mudd

Additional Voices:

Sarah Rhea Werner as Ana

Additional Sound Effects

Album Art: Cat Blackard

Sprites: Benichi

Special Thanks: kenisu

TRANSCRIPT

[Omniverse Audio Brand]

 

[90s phone ring and pick up]

 

CAT

Hey, this is Cat!

 

JESS

And Jess

 

CAT

You know, “MOTHER,” She Wrote is free to listen to, but it’s not free to make.
 

JESS

So please consider supporting our work on Patreon.

 

CAT
You’ll get early, ad-free episodes of this show and all the storytelling podcasts we create. 

 

JESS
Head to Patreon.com/OmniverseMedia to chip in and join our community of world-saving wunderkind.

 

CAT

Oh and - heads up: this episode contains discussions about some sensitive topics including: ableism, abuse, death, the loss of a parent, violent conflict, emotional trauma, slightly saucy language and mention of a pandemic.

 

JESS

Please use your best judgment when listening… and take care of yourself. 

 

CAT & JESS

Love youuuu.


[Phone disconnect sound]

 

[Train ambience]

 

NINTEN

Dear Mom, I’m coming home to see you soon, and I’m bringing a new friend! That girl who lost her hat - I was right about that feeling I had… More than I knew. She-

 

ANA

Oh! Ninten! Are you an epistolist too?

 

NINTEN

Uh- … I mean. My family only goes to church on holidays. I think we’re… Methodist?

 

ANA

[laughs] No, no- An epistolist. 

 

NINTEN

Ohh…

 

ANA

It’s an easy mistake. Apostles, epistles, epistoler, Episcipalian... An epistolist is someone who writes letters - I have pen pals too.

 

NINTEN

…I just write letters to my mom. 

 

ANA

[She sighs] Me too… Ah- I’ll leave you to it. 

 

NINTEN

She’s… different. Like Lloyd and I. 

 

[Twinkly wintery music plays]

 

NINTEN

Snowman is a really tiny town and even in the spring it’s really cold. We had to hike through some wilderness before we got there. Fun fact: bigfoots exist. And they can control ice with their minds. …Like the other people and wildlife, they’re not really mean - Just more victims of whatever’s messing with people’s brains. Lloyd and I were freezing and pretty banged up when we got to town. We put dad’s spending money to use and got some warm clothes. It was handy having scarves to pull up over our faces, because people were sick with the flu here too and we had to ask around to figure out who the hat belonged to. As it turned out, this “Ana” wasn’t hard to track down. She’s the pastor’s daughter.

 

[The music starts to fade]

 

NINTEN

The church was outside of town and Lloyd and I were dead tired, so we got a room at the inn but… as we laid down, distant organ music drifted through the clear, cold air - like it was calling to us. 

 

[Distant organ music plays]

 

NINTEN

[whispering] Lloyd… Lloyd! Are you asleep?

 

LLOYD

Signs point to, “no.”

 

NINTEN

Do you think we should…Do you think we should maybe go to the church? 

 

LLOYD

[stretches] Once more into the breach.

 

[Sheets are thrown off. Snowy footfall ambience fades in as the organ music continues]

 

NINTEN

It was so cold and tough going, but the moon was bright and it wasn’t long before we saw the glow of the church’s stained glass windows lit from within.

 

[A large door is pushed open, the organ music is now at full volume]

 

NINTEN

…Hello? …Hello?

 

[The organ music stops.] 

 

ANA

…Ninten?  L-…Lloyd?

 

LLOYD

I see our reputation precedes us. 

 

NINTEN

This blonde girl wearing a nightgown stood up from the organ and-

 

[Footsteps as she runs up to them and hugs them]

 

NINTEN

The next thing I knew she was hugging us like old friends.

 

ANA

Oh! You’re here!

 

NINTEN

Oh uh-


 

ANA

Oh, thank God - you’re finally here!

 

NINTEN

Uh hi… we-

 

ANA

You brought my hat! Haha! Every-thing-happens-for-a-reason. [She giggles] Gosh- oh, I’m not even dressed. And you’ve got to meet Papa. But! I’m all packed and ready to go!

 

NINTEN

Uh - I’m sorry… Packed?

 

ANA

Don’t get silly on me now. 

 

NINTEN & LLOYD

[Uncomfortable murmuring]

 

LLOYD

Ninten…

 

ANA

Oh- OH. You’re the transmitter, I’M the receiver. Duh, Ana. [She chuckles] 

 

[Plucky, mellow  music starts]

 

ANA

I’m so sorry. It’s just -I’ve spent so much time with you it’s like I know you already.

 

NINTEN

Woah woah woah woah - hold on.

 

PASTOR

[Distantly] Ana? Do we have visitors?

 

ANA

Papa! Come meet the boys from my dreams!


 

NINTEN

W- What?

 

LLOYD

Excuse me?


 

NINTEN

Ana had seen us in her dreams every night, through all our adventures. She knew everything.

 

ANA

I can’t wait to see Magicant with my own eyes! Oh, you both look so cold. Papa, could you make us some cocoa? Lloyd likes his with extra marshmallows. 

 

LLOYD

An accurate supposition.

 

NINTEN

She has powers like I do, but she doesn’t just read minds - she has visions. She knew we’d find our way to her and that we… need each other to save the Earth. But also, to save her mom. She was abducted - just like Great Grandpa George and Great Grandma Maria. Just like a lot of people. Ana’s mom was in Youngtown when she was taken and rumor is… the entire town has disappeared. 

 

PASTOR

Ana, you’ve been my strength since your mother-

 

ANA

It’s going to be okay, papa. I- I promise. When I come back, momma will be with me. God granted me these powers, He sent Ninten and Lloyd here. We’re going to save momma and we’re going to save the world. Believe in us.

 

PASTOR

I do. Join us in prayer, boys?

 

LLOYD

Well, I don’t-

 

ANA

[Whispering] Just- Just hold my hand. 

 

NINTEN

Youngtown is on the other side of the Holy Loly Mountains, across the Yucca Desert, and last we saw: the Paradise Line’s bridge over the canyon to the desert had been destroyed. But Youngtown isn’t the only place where people vanished. 

 

[Music fades out]

 

NINTEN

Spookane, the next town over from Snowman - no one is sure what happened there, so we decided to check it out. Folks had been calling it a ghost town. We didn’t realize how literally we should have taken that.

 

[The sound of a pencil on paper, writing. Bright, but melancholy piano music plays]

 

ANA

Dear Momma, back home there aren’t many people who’d call me brave and mean it. I startle easily. Things get too intense and I’m huddled up counting backwards, reciting verses, trying not to lose control. When you were taken, I did my best. People called me “brave”, but it’s just a word to say they were surprised that I hadn’t fallen to pieces. I stepped into some of your routines. I helped papa... I don’t think I’d have been able to keep my head up without my visions - seeing Ninten, Lloyd, and I together. I didn’t feel powerless. I knew they’d find me, and I know we’ll find you. God shows me what I need to see to keep going and… I’m thankful for it. I don’t know if that’s brave. I think being brave must be the confidence to stare down something scary and know who you are in the face of it. If you’d asked me before today I would’ve said, “of course I know who I am,” but… [she sighs] the truth is more complicated, isn’t it? 

 

[The piano music becomes a little more upbeat]

 

ANA

I’ve been holding back something inside me for as long as I can remember, and so I’ve always been scared. …Today I started learning to be brave, because today my world changed. Today I learned something about me.

 

[The music fades out, desolate ambience with ominous tones fades in]

 

ANA

The streets of Spookane were empty. A whole city… abandoned in chaos. There were signs of panic everywhere, but no people. Nature was already taking back the land. Bears and bobcats roamed the neighborhoods, and like back home a malignancy buzzed in their minds. Then I saw the saucers- 

 

[A sinister high pitched frequency fades in]

 

ANA

-Hovering in weird formations in the sky, moving suddenly in impossible patterns and directions. It was a nightmare; this empty town… It was like they’d already won. 

 

[The frequency fades out]

 

ANA

When we saw a neon sign lit on a hotel at the edge of town, we were drawn to it like moths.

 

[Spooky droning tones. A door is pushed open]

 

NINTEN

Hellooo?

 

STRANGER

[Sounds modulated, unusual] Hello.

 

NINTEN

[whispering] Oh good, someone’s here. [Projecting] 

Wow, it’s a relief to finally find somebody. What happened?

 

STRANGER

What happened? Would you like to spend the night?

 

NINTEN

No… We’re okay.

 

ANA

They turned around and something looked wrong about them 

 

NINTEN

Uh… Are you okay? I- is anyone else here?

 

STRANGER

Bed bugs. Ha. Ha. Ha. [A weird chuckle]

 

ANA

Ninten…

 

STRANGER

Bed bugs.

 

ANA

Ninten- their mind... 

 

STRANGER

Okay?

 

ANA

There’s- There’s nothing-!

 

STRANGER

Hello.

 

ANA

I pushed Ninten and Lloyd to the ground. 

 

LLOYD

Hey!

 

STRANGER

Hello.

 

[A bass-heavy laser blasts and crackles]

 

ANA

A beam shot over our heads. 

 

STRANGER

Hellooo.

 

ANA

When we looked back, the unblinking illusion of a human being was gone. 

 

STRANGER

[Voice modulating deeper] Bed bugs. 

 

LLOYD

Is that one of the-!?

 

NINTEN

Yeah- a Starman, like at the zoo.

 

[Intense ominous music builds]

 

LLOYD

Franklin Badges at the ready!

 

NINTEN

Good save, Ana- stay behind us, okay?

 

ANA

Hovering up from behind the counter, fingerless hands on its hips, was a white-skinned automaton. 

 

NINTEN

[A nonverbal battlecry]

 

ANA

Lloyd and Ninten rushed into action and… 

 

[Grunts and laser blasts]

 

ANA

I froze. 

 

NINTEN

Hey!

 

STARMAN

What happened?

 

LLOYD

Hey, you! Take your dang hands off him! 

 

[Metal clatter, crunching, sparks]

 

LLOYD

You broke my plasma beam!

 

NINTEN

[choking noises]

 

LLOYD

Okay, you-

 

STARMAN

Hello.

 

[A cash register is thrown at Lloyd. It hits him and change spills everywhere]

 

ANA

Lloyd!

 

LLOYD

[Yelp of impact and pain]

 

ANA

I froze and I could feel something in me. Like a sneeze. A tension. A word stuck in my throat- painful to choke back, but clenched off on reflex. I could feel something in my fingers, like magnets, drawing me to a point. It ached. Lloyd’s nose was bloody and Ninten’s face was going purple. His eyes met mine. Then that thing looked at me. And-

 

[All music and sound stop.]

 

ANA

…I let go.

 

[Ana unleashes an intense sound - painful, angry, exhausted. A scream like a sob she can’t hold back any more. It’s shrill and echoes harshly and ice crackles all around and wind and debris fly. It fades to a long silence.]

 

NINTEN

[Muffled] Ana! Ana are you okay?

 

LLOYD

[Muffled] The sasquatch’s cryokinesis was nowhere near this devastating…

 

NINTEN

[Muffled] Ana? Ana!?

 

[A subtle airy ambience fades in]

 

ANA

Ninten, I-I’m sorry. I froze. 

 

NINTEN

Yeah, you did! You froze him good! Can you teach me to do that?

 

ANA

When I came to, I saw its body hanging limply against the far wall - Pinned there by large icicles. Black fluid leaked down the ice from the punctures in its “skin”. 

 

NINTEN

You were amazing! You were all like, whoosh! How come you didn’t say you had ice powers?

 

ANA

I… didn’t know.

 

LLOYD

Do you have any other special abilities we should know about?

 

ANA

I don’t know…

 

[Ambience fades]

 

ANA

But I did know… deep down somewhere. 

 

[Mellow organ music plays]

 

ANA

“Speak evil of no one, avoid quarreling, be gentle, show perfect courtesy toward all people.” Grandma’s needlepoint of Apostle Paul’s words. You and papa would point to it. I’d recite it. You warned me about getting too angry but… that’s not it. Me having visions and talking to animals is all well and good. Those were safe, but I’d done other things, hadn’t I? You and papa were afraid of what I could do. I thought you were afraid of me. I was afraid of me too. I’d forgotten why. Did I hurt you, Momma? I’m sorry if I hurt you. I wasn’t there to save you. But… maybe I could have been. I just… I didn’t know. I built a levee in me to hold all this back. A levee so high I couldn’t see the other half of the sky. Now that it’s broken, I’m starting to make out the whole horizon… 

 

[The organ playing ends, fireside ambience fades in.]

 

NINTEN

By the time we’d made it to the wilderness east of town, we’d given up hope of finding any human alive in Spookane. But that’s where we found them: in the hills. A bunch of the townspeople had abandoned the city and took shelter in cabins and rich folks’ vacation homes. They said the trouble started months back around Halloween. A crowd of kids all fainted at the same time while rehearsing for a pageant at the All Hallows Eve festival. No one knows why. They said in the weeks that followed a “madness” spread through the town. Now the people that remain just live out here. It seems like they’re doing okay. We couldn’t help but notice that there was an enormous mansion up on a hillside, as big as a hotel. It could house so many people, but it was vacant and no one would go near it. It turns out it’s the old Rosemary Mansion! I heard about it on Unresolved Mysteries - they say it’s the most haunted place in Eagleland and that inside there’s a haunted piano that plays itself. Well… it’s all true - and just like back home: the spirits are restless. 

 

[Fireside ambience fades to the kids walking through the woods]

 

LLOYD

It’s not that I don’t believe you, Ninten - there just has to be another explanation.

 

NINTEN

You’ve seen aliens and a magical world in the clouds, but you draw the line at ghosts and zombies?

 

LLOYD

What do ghosts and zombies have to do with extraterrestrial intervention? 

 

NINTEN

Beats me, but it’s not a coincidence. 

 

ANA

Maybe it has to do with psychokinetic energy?

 

LLOYD

How so…?

 

ANA

Well… Imagine the planet is… an attic - covered in dust. The dust collects over time and it doesn’t really do anything… it’s inert - just like the residual psychic energy that people leave behind when they die. 

 

LLOYD

…”Residual psychic-”? Do they teach you that in church?

 

ANA

No, they talk about heaven and hell, but what Ninten’s talking about doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with either. Haven’t you ever seen Ghostbusters?

 

LLOYD

…No…

 

NINTEN

Wow. I think you’d like it. 

 

ANA

You really would, but anyway - you’ve got this dusty attic. And then the aliens show up and they’re like a big… psychokinetic fan. They wanna control people’s minds - or whatever it is they’re doing - so they turn on their fan, and while they’re blowing their psychic influence around they can’t help but stir up all this dust! All of the dormant psychokinetic energy is kicked up everywhere and the next thing you know…

 

NINTEN

Your lamp attacks you.

 

LLOYD

It’s… not an unreasonable theory… 

 

[Outdoor ambience fades to heavy interior ambience. A door opens.]

 

NINTEN

Inside the mansion, the electricity was out and the furniture was covered in plastic. It was like a crypt. A really fancy crypt.

 

ANA

[whispering] Why does anyone have a suit of armor in their home? Let alone two suits of armor?

 

[Two knocks on thick metal]

 

LLOYD

They do appear to be authentic. Hmmm. This would be a great place to hide…

 

A door creaks open]

 

ANA

What are we looking for?

 

NINTEN

Stairs to the basement. And then an even deeper basement. Maybe a secret basement?

 

ANA

What’s a piano doing in a secret basement?

 

NINTEN

Well- 

 

[Ominous music starts]

 

NINTEN

Legend has it that one of the Rosemarys was born freakishly deformed. The family was so ashamed that, when they built this house, they put in a massive basement to keep her hidden away, even from the rest of her family. 

 

ANA

That’s horrible.

 

NINTEN

It’s worse. She lived her entire life underground, never seeing the sunlight. That might be why she died young. Just a kid our age. The only thing that brought her happiness was playing a piano in the deepest, darkest depths of the basement. And ever since her death… she’s kept playing. 

 

ANA

So this house was haunted before everything happened?


 

NINTEN

Yup.

 

LLOYD

[Distant] Allegedly. 


 

ANA

Great. …I get that we’re looking for fragments of a song, but so far they’ve come from a bird, a monkey, a… music box in a doll… What makes you think a haunted piano is part of it?

 

NINTEN

It just… seems suspicious.

 

ANA

That’s it?

 

NINTEN

Hey, you get visions. I get feelings about things. Heh- This fireplace is big enough somebody could live in it.

 

MOUSE

Somebody does live in it. 

 

[A surprise stinger]

 

NINTEN

Ah-!

 

LLOYD

[Distant] What is it?!

 

ANA

Oh-! Hello Mr. Mouse. 

 

NINTEN

Oh hey.

 

LLOYD

[Distant] I will never get used to you two talking to animals…

 

MOUSE

So ya wanna hear the piano play?

 

LLOYD

[Distant] Oh my!

 

ANA

Yes please!

 

NINTEN

Do you know the way?

 

MOUSE

Well see…

 

LLOYD

[Distant] Ah- Ninten…

 

MOUSE

I think the best place to hear it is… 

 

LLOYD

[Distant] Ana…

 

MOUSE

-From ya graves! [Maniacal laughter]

 

[A strange, distant rustling builds]

 

ANA

That’s very rude.

 

LLOYD

Ghost!

 

ANA & NINTEN

[Gasp]

 

[Glass cracks, ghostly gasps and howls well up]

 

ANA, LLOYD, & NINTEN

[All scream]

 

MOUSE

Ya mother eats cheese in hell! Ha ha! Get ‘em! Get ‘em while they’re alive and kickin’!

 

[The chaos of ghosts and objects and furniture intensify as the kids run. Scary music builds]

 

NINTEN

They came from everywhere, Mom! Screaming, translucent shapes. Poltergeists throwing stuff around until they took shape into exploding piles of garbage. And worst of all: the suits of armor!

 

[Heavy metallic footfalls stomp after them. Lloyd fires a laser at it, it hits but glances off the armor]

 

LLOYD

They’re not stopping!

 

ANA

There was no going back the way we came. We ran - Deeper and deeper into the house and further and further down hallways and staircases. We were bleeding and bruised.

 

NINTEN

In here!

 

[A door slams shut]

 

ANA

We were tired.

 

[The suit of armor punches through the door] 

 

ANA, LLOYD, NINTEN

[All scream]

 

ANA

But ghosts don’t tire.

 

LLOYD

There’s no method of egress! 

 

NINTEN

Lloyd, do you have any bombs? 

 

ANA

[Whispers her times tables to herself]

 

LLOYD

No, I… used them all!

 

NINTEN

Well then… It’s just us and Sir Rust Bucket, here. But we're not stuck in here with you. You’re stuck in here with us. 

 

[The scary music is blotted out by a powerful stinger and a note that fades into ponderous, mysterious, hopeful music]

 

NINTEN

Right, Ana?

 

ANA

I’d chalked up Ninten’s bravery to experience - but that’s not it. He was scared too. It’s the way he feels things. 

 

[The music becomes brassier, more serious.]

 

ANA

His intuition, his belief. He believed in himself. That somehow he’d keep fighting, that somehow he’d make it. In that moment I saw that he believed in me. He believed in us. And I could believe in me too.

 

[The suit of armor heavily steps forward]

 

NINTEN

Right, Ana?

 

ANA

Right.

 

[The rest of the door breaks down, wood cracks, the scary music returns]

 

ANA

You… You stay away from my friends!

 

ARMOR

[Menacing spectral laughter]

 

[A powerful flame roars. The armor groans and melts]

 

LLOYD

[Distant] You can make fire too!?

 

NINTEN

[Distant] Woohoo! That’s incredible!

 

ANA 

I let that little light of mine shine, momma. And it melted the darkness away. 

 

[The music fades out, hopeful. There’s silence, and then a distant, mysterious piano playing fades in.]

 

ANA

Just like Ninten said: in the deepest, darkest depths of the mansion… we heard it: a piano playing by itself.

 

[A door slowly creaks open.]

 

NINTEN

[Whispering] There it is.

 

ANA

[Whispering] Is that the melody?

 

NINTEN

[Whispering] I don’t think so…

 

[The door creaks open loudly - the piano stops]

 

NINTEN

Aw darn it. 

 

LLOYD

Did we scare it away?

 

NINTEN

I don’t think you can scare a ghost.

 

LLOYD

Maybe we should be ready for another attack…

 

ANA

The playing was so lonely. I could hear her voice in the notes - this poor girl, locked away alone in here, even after her body had gone. She was still trying to reach out… So I sat at the keys and said, “hello.”

 

NINTEN

[Whispering] Ana! What are you doing!?

 

ANA

Shh!

 

[Ana plays a few notes on the piano, mimicking what she heard. There’s a pause and the responding notes are played. Ana plays again, and the ghost responds - slowly at first and the two increase in speed.]


 

LLOYD

[Whispering] Ninten The keys! Did you see that!?

 

NINTEN

[Whispering] Woah! Oh my gosh.


 

THE GHOST

[Giggles]

 

[The playing has progressed into a full song, the two playing a beautiful song together, strings fade in, accompanying them.]

 

ANA

At first the keys were just moving on their own but then, in the glow of Lloyd’s flashlight, I could see her - the faintest outline of the girl who had been, slowly glittering to the surface. She was smiling.

 

THE GHOST

[Giggles]

 

[The song slows as the ghost starts playing a new melody.]

 

NINTEN

[Whispering] Wait… Wait- That’s it! That’s the melody!

 

ANA

Her eyes shone at me and I smiled back. 

 

[Ana starts playing the melody along with the ghost.]

 

ANA

I could feel her… ascending. The room trembled… and released. The weight of all the pain that had held her here fell away… and at last she was free. 

 

[The song builds and comes to life, accompanied by spectral strings]

 

THE GHOST

[Giggles and laughter]

ANA, LLOYD, & NINTEN

[Laughing and playfully talking in the distant background]

 

ANA

We emerged from that miserable mansion weary and wounded, but laughing. Holding each other in the full moonlight. 

 

LLOYD

[Distant] We discovered paranormal apparitions!

 

NINTEN

[Distant] I can’t believe that. That was- That was so crazy!

 

ANA

Three friends-

 

NINTEN

The best friends I’ve ever had. 

 

ANA

Each of us, stronger than we ever knew.

 

NINTEN

But together? There’s no obstacle we can’t face.

 

ANA

No leap we can’t take. 

 

NINTEN & ANA

Because we have each other. 

 

NINTEN

I’ll see you soon mom.

 

ANA

We’ll find you soon momma.

 

NINTEN

Love, Ninten.

 

ANA

Love, Ana.

 

[The song swells and fades out. The “MOTHER,” She Wrote theme starts playing.]

 

CAT

Welcome to “MOTHER,” She Wrote - a travelogue diary through the strangest, most thought-provoking, most heart-rending video games ever made: MOTHER as it’s called in Japan, and EarthBound - as it’s called everywhere else. 

 

This is the story of the first game in that series: EarthBound Beginnings.

I’m your creepy chronicler of cursed châteaus, your maleficent mistress of mesmerizing MOTHER minutia, your deeply haunted host, Cat Blackard. I’m joined by my gregarious, game-galavanting ghoul-friend… 

 

JESS

Jessica Mudd. And I feel like I must’ve fallen asleep at an Ed Wood double feature, because the Sleepy Hollow of Spookane, situated between Snowman and Reindeer, is a literal Nightmare Before Christmas. Mars Attacks the Dark Shadows of this Planet of the Apes, so we have Big Fish to fry. We’d better head to this Home for Peculiar Children and get some help because we’re going to need it faster than you can say Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetl…

 

[A record scratches and the music ends]
 

CAT

AAAAA-bap-bap-bap. Come on now, we don’t need that Dumbo showing up! Holy filmographies, Batman, what were you thinking?!

 

JESS

Sorry. I don’t want to be a Burton to anyone.

 

CAT

[Laughs] Well, if you’re looking for a sinister circus aesthetic, this is not the game for you. Tim Burton’s career was just getting started when MOTHER debuted, his movies don’t really have anything to do with the games so…

 

JESS

Look, I started playing with Spookane being next to Reindeer and Snowman as a “Nightmare Before Christmas” and it just went from there.

 

CAT

Heh… I know how it is. You get those Big Eyes and you start seeing a Wonderland of possibilities… 

 

JESS

Exactly. Now you’re getting it. 

 

[The Mother’s Day Times theme starts]

 

CAT

Well, I’d better quit before I’m a Corpse Bride. Strap in Frankenweenies - let’s read the Mother’s Day Times!

 

[The theme flourishes and ends]

 

JESS

Let me just be the first to say… Wowza and hello to all our new friends. 

 

Between this episode and the last, the 2023 Mother Direct happened and it was dazzling. There are so many cool projects and games… If you haven’t seen it, you absolutely must check it out - just go to mother dot direct - but we know a lot of you have seen it already because gosh there’s been a lot of new listeners.

 

CAT

So hiiiiiiiii.

 

JESS

Hiiiiii. We’re really glad you’re here. 

 

CAT

Really, really glad. Thanks for hanging out with us! In this Mother’s Day Times we’ve got a lot to cover, we’re going to hear from some listeners and share some announcements you need to know - but first, some housekeeping.

 

JESS

Housekeeping?

 

CAT

Exciting housekeeping!

 

JESS

…I’ll allow it.

 

CAT

For all you listeners in Foggyland! We’re coming to the UK! Jess and I are attending London Podcast Fest on their audio drama spotlight day: Sunday, September 10th. 

 

JESS

Come hang out with us and see live performances of some of our favorite audio dramas and actual plays like Realms of Peril and Glory and We Fix Space Junk!

 

CAT

If you’re in or around London… maaaybe we can stage a MOTHER meet up at that event, or some other place and time that weekend? But that’s not all! If we’ve got any listeners in the north - I’ll be in Glasgow for most of September. If you live in either of those locales and want to say hey: drop us a line at dearmothershewrote@gmail.com or on our Discord! 

 

Now, in this episode… You may have noticed our audio drama segment was BIG. Like, full-length? Well… That was a bit of a surprise for us too. I loved writing all the characters together.

 

JESS

And then she turned in an enormous script… which was great, so… we just went for it. ,laughs.

 

CAT

Our powers combined, we turned this podcast up to 11, and this has become our mid-season special… and also it heralds a mid-season break… kind of.

 

JESS

We can’t put this genie back in the bottle. If you liked this more intense audio drama format, that’s basically what the rest of the season sounds like - but expanding our production means we need some more time to work on the second half of the season… 

 

CAT

So we’re taking a page from the MOTHER Encyclopedia and stepping into a Dimensional Slip. You see, occasionally, the Encyclopedia interrupts its journey through the game with articles called “Dimensional Slips”. They’re all written by different people, from a wide range of backgrounds, discussing specific aspects of the story or world of MOTHER - and now we’re doing the same thing… in podcast form!

 

JESS

In our first installment, we’re talking with Sarah Rhea Werner, who you just heard as the voice of Ana. Sarah is a writer, best known for their all-ages sci-fi audio drama Girl in Space. Cat and I talk with them about the parallels between their childhood and Ana’s… and A Wrinkle in Time - a 1960s young adult novel about psychic children that laid the foundation for everything that came after it - including MOTHER.

 

CAT

Look for that episode the week after next - same MOTHER time, same MOTHER channel. Now, Jess… We’ve got some letters.

 

JESS

Hoooo we sure do! Some awesome folks wrote to us at dearmothershewrote@gmail.com! Like Hilijix, who said “I (PK) Love This Show!!!!”

 

“Tonda Gossa, Cat and Jess! I heard about your podcast from Mother Direct, and I was SMAAAAAASHED away! I binged through the entire catalog in just a few days and am eagerly waiting for the next episode!”

 

CAT

Like, oh my gosh. That’s just- so cool.

 

JESS

Super cool. “The research and production quality are so good! Even as a big EarthBound fan myself, you two are teaching me new things!”

 

CAT

Thank you Hilijix!. That’s everything I could hope for - and more. We’ve also got a letter from Ryan who says:

 

“I am a massive Mother fan (I even wrote a paper about the series and Starmen.net for a college class at one point). I love how seriously you take the series as a work of art. EarthBound Beginnings is a tough game but I really love it and I feel like it’s often overlooked in favor of its younger siblings. I had one little thing I wanted to mention: Spookane should be pronounced more like the Washington city Spokane - “spook-anne” I could be wrong, but that’s how I read it as a Pacific Northwest native.”

 

JESS

<laughs> Uh, oops! We’d already recorded this episode before your letter came in, Ryan. 

 

CAT

You do raise a valid point. I’m from basically the opposite corner of the continent, so… yeah. “Spook-anne!” …You’re gonna hear it the other way throughout the episode. Oops.

 

JESS

I eagerly await controversy about how to say the first town name in EarthBound.

 

CAT

I dunno, maybe we should do a poll when the time comes, you know?

 

JESS

That’s a great idea. That way it’s not on us if we say it wrong!

 

CAT

‘Cause there is no wrong. It’ll be their decision.

 

JESS

That’s true. Pronunciation through democracy, that’s the way to go. 

 

CAT

Yeah! Consensus!

 

JESS

One last letter! Will H said, “I’ve been a fan of the MOTHER series for as long as I’ve had Internet access.” 

 

They shared how YouTubers chuggaconroy and stephenplays got them into the games and made them aware of Starmen.net, and they go on to say, “your podcast really puts me in the characters shoes. Thank you for giving me a new perspective of my favorite game series.”

 

CAT

Thanks Will, and thanks to Nolan and Diggy who also wrote in. We’re so, so, so, so glad this show is hitting the mark. I mean, it came to me in a dream and then we made it - That’s kindof a risky play! But hey - speaking of Starmen.net: shout out to Vid, who posted “MOTHER,” She Wrote to the Starmen.net front page! My heart skipped a beat seeing us up on the site I used to haunt as a teenager. We mentioned that site’s history and my history with it back in episode zero, and we also mentioned a forthcoming feature film, called EarthBound USA, which tells the story of that site and the MOTHER fandom in America. At the time, it didn’t have a release date, but it does now.

 

JESS

Yeah, the show-stopping surprise finale of Mother Direct was the launch of the EarthBound USA trailer and the announcement of its long-awaited release: November 27th, 2023. It looks incredible - you should see it for yourself. Head to earthboundusa.com to watch the trailer and sign up for updates. 

 

CAT

Oh and before wrap this segment, there’s one more thing… just a little side note…

 

[Mother’s Day Times theme starts to play]

CAT & JESS

We’re getting married!

 

[a party noise maker sounds and fireworks go off]

 

CAT

<laughs> This has been the Mother’s Day Times.

 

CAT & JESS

We’ll see you next Times!

 

[They kiss, Mother’s Day Times outro fanfare]

 

[A wintery musical transition]

 

CAT:

We're in Snowman.

 

JESS:

The winter wonderland. A very small little town, so small that it doesn't even seem to have a hospital or a real hotel. It has just a little bed and breakfast as far as I can tell, that's just called "Jack"?

 

CAT:

Yeah. And that confused me for ages, but in the MOTHER Encyclopedia, it specifically calls them Jack Shops. This is not the only one you're gonna see and it's like a kind of small chain of stores in the more rural towns in the game.

 

JESS:

Oh, I thought maybe it was like "Jack Frost" or something since we were in like a wintery setting.

 

CAT:

Yeah, that makes complete sense. I have no data on what that culturally could mean, why it's Jack, what any of that has it to do with anything. But yeah, that's what's going on.

 

JESS:

But there is no hospital, right? This is like a small town.

 

CAT:

Yes.

 

JESS:

Okay.

 

CAT:

No hospital.

 

JESS:

And everyone there of course has a cold... Again.

 

CAT:

Mm-hmm.

 

JESS:

And if you catch it, they do sell mouthwash there.

 

CAT:

But they're charging premium prices.

 

JESS:

They do charge a lot of money for it. But you know what, I was a captive audience because I still have not returned that old man's dentures yet.

 

CAT:

Oh well...

 

JESS:

I gotta get on it.

 

CAT:

Someday. Someday you will be rich with mouthwash.

 

JESS:

You know what? I wanna support small business, so, you know, I'm happy to pay for the overpriced mouthwash.

 

CAT:

So the Jack Shops is not just the Inn, it's also the actual chain of like general store. What they sell is kind of weird. It's bread mouthwash, life up cream, and a frying pan.

 

JESS:

It's like your old country trading post.

 

CAT:

Now, the inn, I know a little something about, it's just a little side note. It's run by a middle-aged widow who lost her husband during the war. Dunno which one. The major industries of snowman are forestry and agriculture. No surprise there. The Encyclopedia says, "there's a legend about why it snows so much in this town. It used to be this is a region that never got much snow. But when a girl made a wish to Santa Claus saying, 'I wanna wake up to a white Christmas,' it was granted."

 

JESS:

And it never stops snowing.

 

CAT:

In order to get to Snowman, you do have to hike a bit from the train station to the town, through the woods. And if you're not ready for it... You're gonna be beset upon by some pretty vicious wildlife.

 

JESS:

So some of the enemies that are in this area include the silver wolf and the polar bear.

 

CAT:

Yeah. They're just pallet swaps of the other wolves and bears that we've seen so far, but they're different and harder. You'll also see Bigfoot - as they call 'em in the Encyclopedia, "America's abominable snowman". Interestingly, as you heard in the letters from Ninten they use PK freeze and they use actually a bunch of different PK freezes. The psycho kinetic abilities come in a variety of different levels from like alpha, to beta, to gamma, and so forth. And uh, Bigfoots use a bunch of 'em. They don't ever hit you with their hands, they just use psychic abilities, which is an interesting feature of them.

 

JESS:

Yeah. So are the aliens unlocking these abilities in the wildlife and people that they are influencing? Or is this something they've always had?

 

CAT:

We don't see psychokinetic abilities in other earth creatures. I think the game is actually telling us something about Bigfoot. They might not have the same kind of civilizations that we have, but they are advanced in other ways that we are not.

 

JESS:

Ohhhh okay.

 

CAT:

And that's not important. It's just an enemy in the game, but it's an interesting bit of flavor to this world.

 

JESS:

For sure. I fortunately only encountered Bigfoot once and I was able to get past them. So no problem there.

 

CAT:

Not as bad as the polar bears. Polar bears are trouble.

 

JESS:

They hit like a truck. They have a lot of health and a lot of defense.

 

CAT:

Jess, you mentioned that Snowman has a lot of folks with the flu. There's an indication in the Encyclopedia that "a new species of cold virus spread throughout Snowman." So it seems likely that it came from here, and it spread because the people of Snowman have a habit of traveling - because of them living, like all these cold winters and stuff, they tend to leave town. That's reflected in a lot of the dialogue. And for all that interesting information, the Bigfoot is my Smashable enemy of this chapter.

 

JESS:

<Laugh> Good choice. It caught me so off guard when I was hiking to Snowman and then suddenly got attacked by Bigfoot. I don't know why it caught me off guard. It shouldn't have, knowing this game, but it was just like, "oh, okay. Yeah, Bigfoot. All right. That makes sense. Oh my gosh! He's using psychokinetic powers on me! Ouch!"

 

CAT:

It is jarring. Snowman is a small town, but it's also home to my memorable melody, because it has such a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful song that plays in that entire area. A song that is used again in EarthBound and, via all of this exposure, has become, in the video game music scene (or VGM), one of the like kind of Christmas or Yuletide classics of this era of game music. Like if you're looking at compilations of different wintery, Christmasy game music, you're almost always gonna see "Snowman" on there. It's rendered as best it could be in this game, but the production of it gets even better the next time you hear it.

 

JESS:

Yeah, it's fantastic. It's, I think, one of the few tracks on the soundtrack that is in three-four time. So it has this sort of like swaying beat to it. It's like almost kind of a waltz.

 

CAT:

Yeah, a wintery waltz.

 

JESS:

Sort of light and airy and jolly, but it's not harrowing...

CAT:

It's also a bit haunting in some ways, but in like a kind of beautiful way, the way that winter itself is haunting.

 

JESS:

Yeah - Exactly. I love that track too. And it would've been my memorable melody, except that we didn't have a whole lot of new music this time around and I figured you would probably be picking that one. So I chose a different one.

 

CAT:

Okay, well I'm excited to hear what it was.

 

JESS:

<laugh> Some of the interesting quotes from the people in Snowman... One person said, "please say hello to the camel's Bones in Yucca Desert. I knew that Camel once upon a time." W-what? Say hello to the bones? What <laugh> What's he talking about?

 

CAT:

Uh, I, it's just - guess it's just gonna be important at some point. <laugh>

 

JESS:

Okay, go talk to the bones. All right. Well we've already been to the Yucca Desert once and uh, I suppose now we have a good reason to go back.

 

CAT:

This part of the game starts seeding the knowledge of other places. Like for example, Youngtown. At the train station at Snowman, there's a girl and her father there and she says that her mom left for Youngtown and they haven't heard from her in days, and that she and her dad are going to look for her, but they can't do that because the bridge is out crossing the desert. You also hear that everybody in Youngtown has disappeared. Like, that's the rumor and that's where Ana wants to go,

 

JESS:

But we can't go there yet. We got other things to take care of first.

 

CAT:

We're hearing about a ghost house in Spookane. We're hearing about this yuca desert really for the first time. 'cause there's nothing, the game doesn't really encourage you to go there. You just are capable of doing so. And then also Youngtown - you could see where it is on the map. So that's the only reason you'd have any way of knowing like... What any of that means.

 

JESS:

Well, it makes sense that the people in Snowman would be telling you about all these places if they do travel a lot.

 

CAT:

Yeah. But of course that's something that I only know because of the Encyclopedia.

 

JESS:

Somebody else said, "oh my, your nose is running." And they said this to me right after I caught the cold from somebody else. And then I had this moment of panic and I thought to myself, "oh my gosh, am I spreading this virus around to the populace not knowing it?" Like, do I need to stop right now, get some mouthwash, take care of this before I talk to anybody else or <laugh>, you know, I don't wanna be a super spreader!

 

CAT:

<laugh> Again, the game... It's getting you a bit because, like, if you doubt what it will or won't do, it'll surprise you. But no, nothing that advanced is happening here.

 

JESS:

Yeah, I know. I figured I was like, "the responsible thing for me to do is to go heal myself." But I didn't do the responsible thing - I just went around and talked to everybody 'cause I didn't wanna buy a bunch of mouthwash.

 

CAT:

And that's a reasonable thing to do. And also that girl says that to you regardless of whether you have a cold or not.

 

JESS:

Does she give you the cold if you don't have it already?

 

CAT:

She does not.

 

JESS:

Okay. Well then I guess your nose... Yeah, it could be running from the cold weather or something.

 

CAT:

Weirdly, it's only people in blue who give you the cold.

 

JESS:

Ohhhh, that's a good tip. I'll have to remember that. Is that just for Snowman or is that everywhere?

 

CAT:

I think it's everywhere. I'm not sure. I mean not, it's not a guarantee either, but if it's a town that has a pandemic going on, don't talk to the people in blue.

 

JESS:

Watch out for the people in blue. Alright. And then somebody else said, "you kids are crazy running around with just t-shirts on." And I'm like, "dude, I hear you." I see kids running around in t-shirts in 30 degree weather and I'm like, "what are you doing? Stop that. Put something on. You're gonna catch cold!"

 

CAT:

And then that guy gives you the cold... 'cause he coughs all over you.

 

JESS:

<laugh>. Of course.

 

CAT:

Another thing folks talk about is Ana, 'cause you're looking for her, and they keep mentioning that she is in a chateau.

 

JESS:

"Not a mansion."

 

CAT:

Yeah. "Ana's house is a chateau, not a mansion. But I bet you already knew that." That is actually completely untrue because this is a major point of localization in the game. Ana lives in a church.

 

JESS:

Which is very apparent as soon as you walk into it. But there was nothing in the game to confirm that for me. So I was thinking to myself, "do they live in a church that was converted into a chateau? Or is this supposed to literally be a church?"

 

CAT:

Late eighties, early nineties, Nintendo censoring of all references to anything resembling religion, but mostly Christianity.

 

JESS:

And why the distinction? Why say "it's a chateau, not a mansion?"

 

CAT:

I don't know what the original line is. Maybe that was originally a distinction between the kind of church it was or something. So they're like, "well since now it's not a church, then we're gonna have to make another distinction."

 

JESS:

But as soon as you walk into it, you see stained glass windows are all around. It's very clear what it is. And I don't think there's any musical cues that would indicate that it's a church, but it's definitely what I thought of when I first walked in there. And as soon as you do walk in, you see Ana standing right there and you go up and talk to her and she says, "I must go on a trip to find my mom. And I needed your help. So I've been waiting for you Ninten. First, let's go see what's happening in Youngtown."

 

CAT:

It's kind of vague what happened in Youngtown, but the Encyclopedia says, "ever since her mother was kidnapped in a far away town, she's been a pillar to her father who's completely lost his spirit." So she's the daughter of the clergyman (that's how it's worded in the Encyclopedia) and I don't know what work brought her mom and someone else's mom to Youngtown, but that's the implication.

 

JESS:

So Anna's father is the pastor of Snowman and they all live in the church. And because people are traveling all the time, I guess the idea is that Ana's mother traveled at some point to Youngtown and is missing along with everyone else that used to live there. Right?

 

CAT:

Right.

 

JESS:

And so Ana is wanting to go and look for her and find her, but she's been waiting for Ninten and Lloyd to show up so that she can accompany them on their journey and they can sort of help each other.

 

CAT:

Yeah. She says, "you've appeared just like in my dream. The boy in my dream looks just like you." Now there's a little bit of dialogue that's in there, that I do love. It's not my Mother, She Quote, but... She asks, "are you Ninten?" If you say "no", she says, "don't get silly on me now."

 

JESS:

<laugh>.

 

CAT:

Which I liked so much. I shoved it in the intro.

 

JESS:

Uh-huh. <Laugh>. Yeah. I don't think I got that part, 'cause I don't mess around when it comes to main character dialogues. I don't wanna screw anything up, <laugh>. So I make sure to answer honestly. And I knew she was psychic, so I was like, I'm not fooling this girl. So

 

CAT:

I like to think that my Ninten was just nervous, like, "...no? I don't know. You're pretty. Stop it."

 

JESS:

<laugh>. But after she greets you, you walk over and you talk to Ana's father and she says, "next time mommy will come back with me. Believe in us." And he says, "I know success will be yours in the end. Surely our pleas will be heard in the near future." So he seems to be on board with all this.

 

CAT:

If you talk to him before you talk to Ana, he does have a different piece of dialogue. He says, "my daughter Ana has never been a brave girl, but she has a kind heart and has a secret strength."

 

JESS:

This all happens of course after you return Ana's hat to her, which you had picked up in the Reindeer train station. Yeah.

 

CAT:

And you know, in fact, you don't actually ever have to get Ana.

 

JESS:

...What?

 

CAT:

You don't have to get Ana to proceed.

 

JESS:

Really?

 

CAT:

Yeah. You don't have to do this at all. Because when the game opens up, it opens up.

 

JESS:

So you can complete the game without Ana.

 

CAT:

Yeah. I don't believe... Unless you glitch or something... That you can fire off the rockets at Dunkin's. But I mean, if your Ninten is strong enough, you can walk through the train tunnel and, you know, just keep walking, and keep walking, and keep walking.. walk all the way to Snowman and get Ana before you get Lloyd, if you wanted to

 

JESS:

<laugh> Ninten solos the world. <laugh>. That's an interesting idea.

 

CAT:

It's a thing you can do... Whether you should do it...

 

JESS:

But you wouldn't wanna leave her behind, because Ana has a wide variety of fantastic PSI powers.

 

CAT:

Yeah. She's very physically weak, when it comes to dealing out physical blows and so forth, but in this game, Ninten has no offensive psychokinetic abilities. He only has status abilities. And Ana is the only party member that has offensive psychokinetic abilities.

 

JESS:

She can kick some butt.

 

CAT:

Yeah... there's another character on the way, but the team has come together. You went very quickly from being like a solo person to like a full posse.

 

JESS:

And the game responds. It starts throwing larger groups of enemies at you too.

 

CAT:

And then you have to make decisions about like, "well there's the psychokinetic abilities that deal damage to one enemy.... Or there's the psychokinetic abilities that deal damage to all enemies..." And like how that damage disperses and so forth. So there's a bit of strategy involved.

 

JESS:

Which is pretty typical for RPGs. So I don't think we need to get into all that, but it's fairly standard offensive spell casting.

 

CAT:

Mm-hmm. Now we mentioned the frying pan at the general store, or the Jack store. That's because the standard battle implement in EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings, for female characters is, I'd say offensively, ...a frying pan.

 

JESS:

Yeah... It's always a frying pan though! It's always a frying pan! In so many games.

 

CAT:

If you're a girl in a video game during this era, you wear pink, you use ribbons as defensive items, and you hit things with frying pans - because you know women are from the kitchen.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

And I hate it. I hate it a lot. I've always hated it. But the good news is, in this game, we have items like the boomerang and the slingshot that anybody can use. So you don't need to give Ana a frying pan ever. You can just give her a boomerang or something similar to it.

 

JESS:

You don't have to give her any weapon, just let her rain down spells of death on everything.

 

CAT:

It's good to be able to hit something with your fists in a pinch if you run out of PSI power.

 

JESS:

Fair enough.

 

CAT:

Let's learn some more about Ana. She's age 12, just like Ninten. And she's the only character who we know the birthday of; she was born December 23rd. Children younger than her call her "little mother because" in Sunday School she teaches songs and reads to them from one of her favorite books, The Little Prince - which,I hear great things about. I've never read it.

 

JESS:

It's interesting that it appears in this game, because like one of the opening themes of the book is how grownups have an inability to perceive important things that children are able to perceive.

 

CAT:

Oh... Yeah, that is pretty on the nose for this entire series. Ana's also known for her skilled piano playing, which she does to relieve stress and give her clarity. She understands the language of music as well as she understands written or spoken word. As the Encyclopedia specifically says, "to Ana, a piano melody is simply words of another kind."

 

JESS:

I relate to that majorly <laugh>

 

CAT:

<laugh> Says the person who's scoring the show, yes. I would imagine you do <laugh> She loves to write letters to her friends and has both a stamp and envelope collection. And she has a Japanese pen pal named Yoshi who sent her what's become one of her favorite records, I'm Home, the 1981 record by Akiko Yano. As the Encyclopedia says, "she may not understand a foreign country's language, but has the mysterious ability to comprehend what a piano is trying to say." And Yano's later song "Greenfields" is quoted in the Encyclopedia in part of the section about the Underflow. I listened to these records and I'd never heard of Yano before. And she is amazing and kind of sounds like what if Kate Bush was Japanese and sung in a bunch of different genres?

 

JESS:

Oh, that sounds awesome.

 

CAT:

If you wanna hear what it sounds like for Kate Bush to sing yacht rock style music in Japanese. I've heard that now.

 

JESS:

<laugh>

 

CAT

It's wild. <laugh>

 

JESS:

Kate Bush yacht rock. Let's go.

 

CAT:

<laugh> In Japanese!

 

JESS:

In Japanese.

 

CAT:

Also, there's a story about Ana and some frogs. Once she was feeling really disturbed by an upcoming frog dissection in class - because she was worried about the frogs. The day of the dissection, she felt unwell enough that she stayed home from school, and while in bed she broke out in a fever. The next day, she heard about what people were calling "The Great Frog Escape," and, for reasons that are not elaborated on, she realized that her powers were somehow responsible. Like, during her fever. Powers that, according to the Encyclopedia, she liked to get by without using, if possible. On the way home from school, a frog said to her, "I owe you one dear Ana." And she replied telepathically, "next time you get caught, it's none of my concern."

 

JESS:

Oh, wow.

 

CAT:

Now this frog scene is very suspiciously similar to a scene from E.T. further cementing that Spielberg connection between MOTHER, especially this first game and the oeuvre of Spielberg at this time. E.T. seems to have been a pretty significant influence on the game, and there's a scene where E.T. gets drunk and psychically projects onto Elliot - influencing what he's doing at school... All the way to a famous scene where some frogs are being euthanized for dissection and Elliot goes on a rampage and starts freeing all of them and all the other kids join in. It sounds like Ana does the same thing... Somehow, but it's just her asleep doing it.

 

JESS:

She seems aware of these powers in a way that Ninten wasn't. She hears the animals thinking, but she knows full well what it is and she understands the effect that she's having on the world.

 

CAT:

Yeah. Which is why, and we should make a point of saying this: there's a lot of things in this particular introduction to this episode that is me elaborating on what I've interpreted from the game and the Encyclopedia. Like, Ana's parents recognizing that she has special powers, but like putting constraints on whether or not she's destructive or not... That's all me. I invented that. That's not in the game. It's not the Encyclopedia, but things like this frog escape and trying to get by without using her powers and so forth. I interpreted it in that way.

 

JESS:

You took some creative license, using all the sources that you had available and we'll make sure to call those out when we get to those pieces so that you all know what is actually in the game and what is us sort of elaborating on that.

 

CAT:

Yeah, it's a little difficult with the main characters and getting into their heads when there are kind of holes in their stories. But I'd like to hope that I still have, you know, rendered all of them in a style that is true to the source material, even if it's kind of off the rails from what is provided.

 

[Energetic train music begins]

 

JESS:

Well, let's get back on the rails and let's head over to Spookane.

 

CAT:

Now, of course Ana has just said, "let's go to Youngtown," but there's this town in the middle... And you could have gone to Spookane at any point, it just makes sense to not do it until you have another party member 'cause... Gosh, I wouldn't wanna be here with any fewer party members.

 

JESS:

Yeah. And as I was traveling around on the Paradise Line, going back and visiting places, I actually heard more of that song. I was traveling from Marysville back to Snowman, which is a pretty long train trip. So I heard a good chunk of the song. And so, my Memorable Melody from the game is, again, "The Paradise Line" because I heard more of it. And you know, it may be used music, but it's new to me.

 

CAT:

Well, yeah. Hey look, "The Paradise Line" is so good <laugh> why not come back for seconds?

 

JESS:

<laugh> It might be my favorite track of the whole game. We'll have to see.

 

CAT:

"The whole game." Woah.

 

JESS:

It's so good. I love it so much.

 

CAT:

Okay, well on the theme of traveling, before we get to Spookane, we've talked about all the different folks from different places saying different things. My Mother, She Quote... Is a weird one. My Mother, She Quote comes from a person we've already talked to: a man outside the station at Reindeer, one of the people who gave you a clue that the hat belongs to Ana and she lives in Snowman. But when you talk to him again, once that information becomes superfluous, he says, "go ahead, poke your nose into other people's business. It's what makes playing the game so much fun."

 

JESS:

<laugh> I didn't encounter that 'cause I didn't talk to that guy again. But I love that so much. I love how self-aware this game is and I love that statement in particular - 'cause it's encouraging you to just... Stick your nose in every everybody's business.

 

CAT:

It's one of those fourth wall breaking moments, that happens throughout this series, that's really special. It's like, it's acknowledging different layers of reality. It's saying, "hey, you. The player of this game. You might not get to go up to any random person in your life and hear something fascinating that they've got to tell you, but this lets you do that. So just live it up."

 

JESS:

Once you get to Spookane, you're dropped off at the train station, you walk into town, and it seems to be abandoned. It seems like all the buildings are run down.

 

CAT:

Yeah.

 

JESS:

I didn't see anyone around and there was enemies attacking me the whole way. So for a while I was just wandering around thinking, "okay, well I, you know, I guess nobody is here also," but it turns out there is someone in the larger Spookane - 'cause there is kind of like a little smaller side community off a little bit of ways.

 

CAT:

Yeah.

 

JESS:

But if you go into the hotel, there is someone who is standing behind the counter that looks like a robotic Ninten.

 

CAT:

Oh, that's interesting...

 

JESS:

And when you talk to him, he says something about like, "do you want to stay the night?"

 

CAT:

It's for the most part the same dialogue that anybody at a hotel would say to you.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

Except there's some weird laughter.

 

JESS:

Right. And after you sleep, the person behind the counter attacks you and it's a Starman.

 

CAT:

What I think is really interesting about what you just said here is I've never thought, "oh, it's like a robotic Ninten." 'Cause I mean, the graphics are so simplified. It looks like somebody wearing a weird little kind of like gray green outfit and like maybe has a skull for a face.

 

JESS:

I thought it looked like he was wearing a ball cap. So...

 

CAT:

I mean it kind of kind of does, yeah. But like, there's also a skull... But making the correlation of like, it's like an evil Ninten robot... Like I've never thought about that.

 

JESS:

That's just what I thought when I first saw it. I might be making that up completely.

 

CAT:

Well it's a really interesting idea and something, I mean, uh, I don't really know... I don't have much information about that.... There is a living human being in Spookane Town and that is a doctor working at the hospital. He's the only one left.

 

JESS:

Okay. I didn't go into the hospital, so I didn't see that person.

 

CAT:

There's no nurse, so you can't recover people's bodies, but the doctor can do doctor stuff. In the Encyclopedia, it says, "even in the old district, as cut off as it is from human activity, there's still lights on at the hotel and the hospital. If you're about to hit the floor from exhaustion, you have the option of enduring the hotel manager and the ugly look in his eyes and staying the night. Even the lone, Flustered doctor whose nurse flew the coop will at least heal your injuries."

 

JESS:

Well, glad to know they still have some basic services and you know, hats off to that doctor for sticking around and taking care of anybody who might be wandering through. Now, I will say I went up to the second floor and I went to look for a third floor of the hotel to see if there was an interesting restaurant at the top of that. And I was fairly disappointed that there was not a restaurant-haunt-haunt up at the top.

 

CAT:

Oh Jess! No! NO!!

 

JESS:

<Laugh>

 

CAT:

That's too good! Arg!

 

JESS:

<laughs>

 

CAT:

Spookane is not called "Spookane" in Japan. It's called "Halloween".

 

JESS:

Halloween?

 

CAT:

Yeah. Its major industries were mining and commerce. "Roughly 100 years ago, a vein of gold was discovered in the nearby mountains. Here, in the barren wasteland, where the very rock face is harsh, a gold mining town appeared, flooded with men dreaming of striking it rich. Singing the praises of the gold they'd obtained, the townsfolk would let loose and whoop it up like crazy every night. It said that the state of things were that practically every night was Halloween and that's where the town got its name. Even now, copper and tin, in addition to gold, have been dug up.

 

JESS:

I was gonna say- those buildings are pretty large. It seems like Spookane was a large town.

 

CAT:

A lot of the apartment complexes you see, the ones north, the train station specifically, are for housing miners who are still doing that job somewhere out there... in the wilds. I mean... They would've been, if this hadn't happened. And what happened is that a bunch of kids fainted due to a "unknown force." And then everybody took refuge in the mountains to the east, and this old district has become a literal ghost town overrun by a "unseen madness", which mostly means the regular kind of woodland enemies - bears and then saucers and stuff.

 

JESS:

Typical world enemies that you've been fighting up until this point.

 

CAT:

Yeah. I did finally catch a red snake though, which is something that had been happening - Every now and then there's a snake that shows up that's not the usual blue snake that you've been fighting since the beginning of the game. It's a red snake and it usually runs away immediately. But I finally got 'em.

 

JESS:

I did encounter one of those as well. And yeah,, it bites you and then runs away.

 

CAT:

When you beat it, you get a lot of experience points. You get much more in the Japanese version, but it's still... If you can catch one, it's a worthwhile way to spend your time. "Follow the steep mountain path that lies east of the old district, until it goes up to the residential area, where the people of Halloween have taken refuge. By improving mountain cottages, making use of the old elementary schoolhouse, and recycling old vacation homes, the people are devising different ways of making a living."

 

JESS:

They're some really interesting folks, just like everywhere else in this game, but my Mother, She Quote, came from this area. I was walking along and I saw a woman standing there, and I went up and talked to her, and she said to me, "I'm not a resident of this town. I'm your assistant. Maybe you forgot to write something down. I'll sell you a hint for only a thousand dollars." And I was like, "no, I'm, I'm good. I don't need any help."

 

CAT:

You weren't like, "I'm just gonna go find a cash machine, Bunny Lebowski?"

 

JESS:

Yeah. And so she said, "oh, you don't need anyone's help do you? Fine and dandy. You can color me gone." And then she just disappeared into thin air.

 

CAT:

She vanishes. Yeah.

 

JESS:

Yeah. What's up with that?

 

CAT:

Well, she was telling the truth in a weird way. This is another person who's breaking the fourth wall. Their presence there is very specifically like, "hey look, this game's pretty confusing. You can go anywhere. I'll sell you hints for a thousand bucks." You could write all kinds of stories about who this person is, where they come from, how they operate, but it's definitely somebody who does not exist in reality as the rest of the characters in this game know it. If you say no, she is gone forever.

 

JESS:

Oh no.

 

CAT:

This person will never come back.

 

JESS:

So your only option is to spend a thousand dollars or lose the opportunity forever?

 

CAT:

Yeah. I mean, of course if you don't have a thousand dollars, she's like, "cool. Come back when you have a thousand dollars." I mean, that's not what she says, but something like that, you know?

 

JESS:

Yeah. What does she tell you if you spend the money?

 

CAT:

She tells you that she can only sell you three hints and then proceeds to tell you the first of the three ones, at least at this point in the game. I'm not really sure how the mechanics of it work - I assume it adjusts based on what you have or haven't done. But she said to me, "the ghost house is not a place for slaying monsters. There is a melody, hee hee. A haunting melody, hee hee hee."

 

JESS:

Which I guess that is kind of leading you towards exploring it and finding the melody that's inside of it? I mean, I guess if you didn't know that already, then...

 

CAT:

Yeah. I mean, Rosemary's Manor, which we're about to get to... It is a challenging and labyrinthine place... And you don't have to go there... Until you get to the part of the game where you need all those melodies, otherwise you can't beat the game.

 

JESS:

I was wondering about that. 'Cause those enemies in there were tough.

 

CAT:

Yeah. You could go in there anytime, and you gotta do it at some point, but you don't have to do it now.

 

JESS:

Yeah. So being that it's called the Rosemary's Manor, is that a reference to Rosemary's Baby?

 

CAT:

The answer is: probably. Because, Rosemary's Baby - an international hit from 1968, adapted and directed by Roman Polanski, it's a big deal in the horror world. But what does it have to do with this game? Nothing other than, you know, they're like, "here's a horror part of the game, let's pick an interesting name." And they picked "Rosemary". And that's the case in Japanese and English. It's Rosemary both ways. But, the game doesn't have any other like actual contextual reference to Rosemary's Baby. The only thing is that Rosemary's a mother and this is a game called MOTHER and maybe that's all we got.

 

JESS:

Well, it's the first thing I thought of when they said that. So, like you told me earlier, if it seems like it's a reference to something, it probably is. Yes.

 

CAT:

Yes. I think that's true in this case.

 

JESS:

Okay.

 

CAT:

It just doesn't really mean much.

 

JESS:

But you can't get into the house without a key. And when you find that person that will give you that key, they say, "oh, you're such a charming boy. Just looking at you makes me so confident. I'm sure you'll bring that house into control. Here's the key to it."

 

CAT:

Yep.

 

JESS:

Who's that that gives you the key?

 

CAT:

That is Mr. Rosemary's daughter, who is an adult woman - 'cause she has a child as you'll learn later... She has a baby. But... The baby's a child that can talk.

 

JESS:

Mm.

 

CAT:

The Rosemarys are clearly not well-liked by most anybody else in the community. They're, I guess, kind of wealthy eccentrics. Someone outright says, "I don't like the little Rosemary girl," but who she's talking about is... This woman who's a grown woman.

 

JESS:

Yeah, that was a little confusing. 'cause when you talk to people, it doesn't give you any like nameplate or anything like that. You're just supposed to guess from the context of the dialogue who this person actually is.

 

CAT:

Yeah.

 

JESS:

And in the case when you're talking to the Rosemarys, you kinda get the impression, "okay, they are probably the Rosemarys that lived in the house. That's why they have the key and they're giving it to you, and they know that it's haunted, and all that stuff." But there's nothing that outright calls that out to you.

 

CAT:

No. And there's a bunch of context about what the Rosemary Manor is that is not given to you in the game and is only given to you in the Encyclopedia. 'Cause around this little area that everybody's refuged in, you've heard things about a ghost house elsewhere in the world, you hear about a piano that plays itself, so if you're thinking about the melodies, you might think, "oh, I definitely should check that out." And then you also hear some stuff about the Rosemarys as like people to be aware of. What we learned about the Rosemarys from the Encyclopedia is that, "during the gold rush they struck a high quality vein and since then they've been important figures in the town. The Rosemary that struck it rich was the first mayor and all the Rosemarys were mayor until the current Mr. Rosemary's father's generation. The firstborn of Mr. Rosemary's mother was his sister, who was, they say so deformed at birth that she didn't appear human. Mr. Rosemary's father built a villa in the mountain recesses where she would go unnoticed. And, so that she would never set foot outside the house, he built a Labyrinthine basement keeping her away even from family and apparently shutting her up underground her entire life."

 

JESS:

Oh wow.

 

CAT:

"They say her only enjoyment came from playing the grand piano there in the backmost room."

 

JESS:

Oh my gosh.

 

CAT:

"Ever since that ominous day last year, possibly because of the child's curse, Mr. Rosemary's villa became a haunted mansion that lets no human being near it. From the very back of the intricately warped basement comes the sound of a piano. It goes without saying that this unhappy incident is the doing of some yet unknown enemy."

 

JESS:

Wow. No wonder that place is haunted.

 

CAT:

Yeah, it's pretty gnarly.

 

JESS:

There is a postman, a jolly postman, who likes to sing. He says, "la la la la la." And he says, "have you heard the Rosemary's new address?" And there's somebody else that says, "tell the postman that seeks the forwarding address that the Rosemarys have moved far away. La la la." It's a little girl that says that. So, I was trying to figure out what in the world are they trying to say here? The Rosemarys have moved far away. They have a forwarding address?

 

CAT:

This section has a lot of sloppy translation. There's even an outright typo. They use the wrong they're/their at one point. The translation of EarthBound Beginnings, as it was originally done by Nintendo of America, is not the best. And at places it gets increasingly rough around the edges and... Whatever the heck's happening with the postman or what they're trying to say about the Rosemarys, it's just not...

 

JESS:

It just doesn't land.

 

CAT:

Yeah.

 

JESS:

There's also another person that says, "I'm the only clown in Spookane. Everyone else is so serious." And actually it's kinda like they're asking you a question. Like you can say "yes" or "no" to that. And if you say "yes", he says, "truth is, by nature I'm not a jolly guy." And if you say "no", he says, "is that right? I may be the true pessimist myself." It's another one of those things that - there was something interesting there, but I just couldn't piece it together based off of what was being said.

 

CAT:

Yeah. Now, there has been some fan translation work, which in theory we're gonna talk about at some point. But... as we're playing the game as it's available on the Nintendo Switch, currently... This is what we're talking about.

 

JESS:

Mm-hmm.

 

CAT:

And we can talk about that other stuff later. An experience that I haven't had, and Jess hasn't had, is playing the game with a better translation.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

Which does exist.

 

JESS:

Okay. Another quote that did make sense that I found very delightful was, a little boy says, "a ghost appeared at my house too, but he didn't stay long. He thought my room was too small." <laugh> Like - this ghost is too picky. It's like, "sorry kid, your room's too small. I can't stay here." <laugh>.

 

CAT:

Yeah. Little vignettes like that that are one of the great pleasures of these games.

 

[Spooky musical transition]

 

JESS:

So you go up to the mansion, you use the key to get inside, and the mansion sucks. It's all dark. It's just a labyrinth of passageways. Typically, you walk into a room and there's two doors that exit on the other side of it. And you go through this just... chain of choosing left and right paths. Occasionally there is a staircase that goes down. Sometimes the staircase is really long, other times it's kind of short. But the entire house is filled with really difficult monsters. I died many times there.

 

CAT:

It's a bit of a slog, but I enjoy it so much more than either of the factories. For starters, it's easier to figure out where you are in some regards, like, because it's just different forking paths and so forth. And it's also punctuated by a strange phenomenon that I'm not really sure what to attribute to - But when you enter Rosemary's Manor, you talk to a mouse and the mouse says, "I'm just an ordinary mouse. The room with the piano... Hee hee hee hee." The "hee hee hee" is important because it may suggest that the mouse is the one who then proceeds to torment you throughout this entire ordeal. 'Cause every now and then you'll enter a room and... Something will happen. Like in one, you just walk through a place it goes, "aaaaarrrgh!" Like, you don't hear it, but you see "aaaaarrrgh" spelled out. And then one says, "nobody's here. He e hee hee." Or, "you'll never make it. Hee hee hee."

 

JESS:

"Turn back now."

 

CAT:

Yeah. So what's interesting about these things are - these are other ways, because they happen every time you get to certain points, that you can tell where you are if you get lost. You're like, "oh, I'm in the part that says 'nobody's here.'"

 

JESS:

Interesting.... That's really interesting. I did not pick up on that. That's really clever.

 

CAT:

The enemies, some of them are pushovers and some of them are - the worst <laugh>.

 

JESS:

There is an enemy that's called "armor" that frequently comes in pairs, hits really hard, has a ton of health and defense, and they don't really seem to be weak to a whole lot. I think they were weak to one of the elements... But usually Ana did not survive long because they would just hit for so much.

 

CAT:

And they use PK Thunder, which is not fun. There's a bunch of different things you can do - like, I was having Ninten use Defense Up like immediately to protect the party from certain doom, and just doing status stuff to make sure that my party could stay alive long enough to fight them, to get the experience from them, so maybe just maybe I could start getting better at fighting them. But it was tough. And I don't know if this is just a misnomer, or what, they're listed under the "robots" section in the enemy list. So I suppose you could think, "oh, is this armor, that's definitely appropriate in an old haunted mansion, actually an alien robot?" But I don't think that's the case. I think it's a haunted armor. I think that's what's going on here.

 

JESS:

Yeah, it's made a metal. That's the only thing that would make it seem robot-like.

 

CAT:

There is an enemy in there that does seem to indicate alien tampering, which is the bionic bat. Just like the bionic scorpion, aliens have engineered a bat that is bionic. However, as the Encyclopedia says, "if there's one aspect of Mr. Bat, they apparently weren't able to change, it was, of course, his personality. So the side of him that puts himself in others' shoes remains in place." As in - the way that Mr. Batty can get confused. However, these bionic bats, they attack with what is called in the English translation "stone origin", which turns a person to stone and is something that can be cured by Healing Gamma, but it's actually "stone needle" in Japanese.

 

JESS:

So like, it sticks you with a weapon or something...

 

CAT:

And it petrifies you.

 

JESS:

There's also the alarm ghost, which is the same sprite as the normal ghost that we've encountered before, but it's kind of more translucent and actually looks pretty cool. I liked that enemy.

 

CAT:

Yeah.

 

JESS:

Except for the fact that it calls other enemies to fight against you, including dust balls, which explode upon death. They don't hit you for any damage while you're fighting them normally, but as soon as you kill them, they explode and do a lot of fire damage.

 

CAT:

They're weird. They just look like a big kind of scribble with a face. I wasn't sure what to make of them. Like, is it literally a dust ball like the fireball maybe was literally a fireball back in Duncan's factory? But the way it's described is "a ghost born from within garbage."

 

JESS:

Oh... All the garbage that you left lying around, gets possessed and attacks you and blows up.

 

CAT:

Turns into a psychokinetic tumbleweed.

 

JESS:

Mm-hmm.

 

CAT:

Basically.

 

JESS:

Mm-hmm. That's a good way to describe it. That's exactly what it looks like.

 

CAT:

It can hit you in battle, but it almost always just "grins and bears it".

 

JESS:

I fought several of them and I don't think it ever actually attacked me. It always just "grinned and beared it" and then blew up <laugh>.

 

CAT:

Yeah. I don't think it attacked me either, but it can.

 

JESS:

There's also my Smashable Enemy of this section of the game, which is shroudly - who is a green man in a brown cloak and he unfortunately uses an ability called "last blow", which just one shots you. Which I hate - But there was something about shroudly that I really found appealing.

 

CAT:

Shroudly is also my most Smashable Enemy. Shroudly's design is rad. The design is so cartoony and strange. It almost feels like it's outside of the EarthBound aesthetic and a little bit more into like the aesthetic of something like early nineties gross out toys that would come later - like Madballs or something like that.

 

JESS:

Mm-hmm.

 

CAT:

And originally the sprite was even cooler because he had blood dripping from his hands.

 

JESS:

Oh wow!

 

CAT:

Because shroudly's actual name is "blood-soaked zombie".

 

JESS:

"Blood soaked zombie"!

 

CAT:

"In order to make up for blood loss. He lives by sucking it from humans. People who've had their blood sucked, see a sharp decrease in their offense and defense."

 

JESS:

That's horrifying.

 

CAT:

Interesting thing about the "last blow" though: it deals an absurd amount of damage, but then the battle text says, "shroudly was exhausted" and the battle ends.

 

JESS:

Oh no.

 

CAT:

So that last blow - it ends the whole match.

 

JESS:

What a jerk! Just shows up, one shots one member of your party, and then goes away.

 

CAT:

Yeah. Something else of note here is that there are enemies that only show up when summoned by the alarm ghost. The alarm ghost can summon all kinds of stuff: dust balls, bionic bats, but also zombies - not pseudo zombies - regular zombies, which are worse because they use a brain shock technique. They also laugh at you sometimes, which is another different thing they do. And then the other thing is the, nasty zombie, which is the pallet swap of the gang zombie, and it's harder.

 

JESS:

Lots of stuff inside that haunted house that will ruin your day.

 

CAT:

Yeah. It keeps you on your toes. Ninten, at this point in the game, is probably your fastest character and he has status attack stuff, so you have to like make sure that Ninten does something to protect your other characters, who are weaker. And then Ana is last in speed up until a certain point. So most enemies are gonna get an attack before she actually manages to get her psychokinetic ability off. So you have to really pay attention to this like flow in the battle. This is the first time in the game where I've really... Now that you're playing with a set of three people... You actually do need to pay attention to battle strategy way more than usual.

 

JESS:

Yeah. Which I like. I think that is great. I love in RPGs when the fights get a little bit more complicated than just hitting the attack button over, and over, and over again. This haunted house is annoying in other ways too, though. There are gifts that don't contain anything. You open them up and they're just empty. There are looping passageways, at least I think they are. It seemed like I was kind of like, I would go in one side, go out the other, go in and out, and it just kinda like it took you back and forth around like the same loop over and over again.

 

CAT:

That does happen. Yeah.

 

JESS:

So it's really just this weird sort of death tunnel.

 

CAT:

<laugh>. Yeah, it is, it is, it is definitely a "death tunnel" <laugh>.

 

JESS:

But after you make your way to the bottom of the house, you find a room with a piano in it. And if you go up and you look at the piano, it plays a melody that you remember.

 

CAT:

And that is a very passive reference to a very famous Japanese movie, the 1977 film House. It's directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, and this movie is incredible. This movie is essential viewing for any fan of EarthBound for a lot of reasons. Obayashi, just like Shigesato Itoi, is somebody who was famous for kind of like a weird thing before he stepped into creating this movie. He was a famous commercial director, and this was his first feature film that he directed. It came into being because it was a commission from the studio. They're like, "we want Jaws! Give us a Japanese Jaws." And so he was like, "alright, I'll figure that out." And created what is easily one of the most visually, and just in every other regard, unique films I've ever seen in my life.

 

JESS:

Totally. You showed it to me a while ago, and they do things visually in that movie that I have never seen before, that I could really only even dream of. It's completely disarming at times. I'm curious to hear what it kind of has to do with EarthBound. Obviously there's the piano and in the movie there's a piano that eats people. But, other than that, what else is relevant about House as it appears in EarthBound?,

 

CAT:

Well, if you think about the kind of project it is, what we've just delivered so far is an oversimplification of how it got made. And Obayashi had to overcome a lot of different struggles, especially regarding how he was perceived by other film professionals, in terms of what genre-breaking and even like production-breaking way that he wanted to make this movie. It was extraordinarily against the grain from top to bottom. There's a Criterion release that has a bunch of wonderful documentary content on it that I highly recommend. It is as radical a movie as the MOTHER series are games. And it's a cultural touchstone to a degree that Shigesato Itoi - there was a kinship there. He felt emboldened by in a lot of ways. Having a piano that plays itself is, it's a kind of standard fare for a haunted house thing, but Obayashi got a lot of the ideas for all the spooky stuff in this film - which is a haunted house movie, and this is a haunted house that we're in here - from talking to his daughter. She would tell him her nightmares and he would turn them into parts of the movie. Then also the theme to House is a one finger piano melody, which is exactly the sort of thing that Shigesato Itoi asked for when it came to the eight melodies. Something that was beautiful, but simple, that a child could play with one finger, if they needed to. Now, of course, the piano, like all the other melodies - you just hear it and it's over. In the audio drama segment I did choose to combine Ana's piano playing and the history that we learned from the MOTHER Encyclopedia about the horrible things that happened in Rosemary's Manor and actually create a beautiful little scene there. But that's not something that happens in the game at all. That's another thing we've added.

 

JESS:

It's a creation, but it was a good one. That was a heart-touching story and I really enjoyed it.

 

CAT:

When I'm writing these, I do wanna replicate the actual experience as much as possible, but sometimes the adaptation commands something a bit more.

 

JESS:

Well, fortunately, the piano in this haunted house is a little bit friendlier and teaches you one of the melodies that you need to collect.

 

CAT:

Yeah. <laugh>. And once you leave the manor, you're done! You're good! And the ghosts are still there. But, if you go back, and you talk to the Rosemary lady again, she says, "oh, you know, the ghosts aren't gone... But what a brave boy you are! I've renamed my son Ninten after you."

 

JESS:

Awwww. Renamed?

 

CAT:

Renamed her son. She had a son and you can talk to her son. Her son's just walking around. And he says, "hi there, my name is Ninten. I used to be Buggerror Rosemary." You heard me right. I said, "buggerror" not "buggerer". B-U-G-G-E-R-R-O-R. And, as this is an all ages podcast, I'm not going to explain what that word means. Don't look it up. It's not for you to know if you don't know already.

 

JESS:

<laugh>

 

CAT:

But it's not something you would expect in a game that's been censored so intensely as this game. However, kenisu did come up with a very interesting theory, all because of The Legend of Zelda 2. In Legend of Zelda 2, there is a mysterious, but correctly translated, line of dialogue that reads "I am Error." And there's also a character named Bagu. Well, "Bagu" is likely a misinterpretation of the Japanese word for "bug". There's a reasonable suggestion that these are intentional technical jokes, "bug" and "error". So if this was happening, in a similar timeline, in a Nintendo game, because the actual content that's been translated, B-U-G-G-E-R-R-O-R is correct - that's what that character says and they translated it directly. It may be that it's a joke about like... This NPC had its name changed to Ninten and is now glitching out - bug error! And that's what's happening here. It's a joke about glitching.

 

JESS:

Maybe it's a direct homage to Zelda 2.

 

CAT:

As kenisu pointed out, Shigeru Miyamoto worked on both games.

 

JESS:

Well, I wonder if anything bad happens if you say his name three times in a row...

 

CAT:

<laugh>.

 

JESS:

Buggerror, Buggerror, Bu- No, I, you know what? I'm not gonna chance it. I don't wanna do that.

 

CAT:

<laugh> Good job bringing it back, Jess! Well done <laugh>! We've got more adventuring to come, but for now, I'm Cat.

 

JESS:

I'm Jess.

 

CAT:

And that's all she wrote.

 

JESS:

<laugh>

 

[music stops]

 

[upbeat music plays]

 

CAT

“MOTHER,” She Wrote is made possible thanks to the generous support of our Patreon Producers: Amber Devereux, Becky Scott Fairley, Bob Hogan, C B, Joe “Tank” Ricciardelli, Josh King, McDibble Deluxe, MjolnirMK86, Patrick Webster, Sean Hutchinson, Sean T. Redd…

 

And our Super-Deluxe Executive Patreon Producers:

BigBadShadowMan, Marcus Larsson, and Jaimeson LaLone

 

JESS

You can join the team at Patreon.com/OmniverseMedia! And if you think “MOTHER,” She Wrote is simply smashing, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser  - and be sure to subscribe via your favorite podcast player.

 

CAT

This series is recorded and produced in Orlando, Florida and Louisville, Kentucky on lands stolen from their Indigenous people: the Timucua and Seminole, and Shawnee, Cherokee, Osage, Seneca-Iroquois, Miami, Hopewell and Adena.

 

JESS

Acknowledgement of the first peoples of these lands, and the lasting repercussions of colonization is just the beginning of the restorative work that is necessary. Through awareness, we can prompt allyship, action, and ultimately decolonization. 

 

CAT

For links to aid Indigenous efforts and to learn more about the first nations of the land where you live: visit omniverse.media/landback

 

JESS

“MOTHER,” She Wrote is written, produced, and performed by me: Jessica Mudd.

 

CAT

And me: Cat Blackard. Our original score is composed and performed by Jess and Ana is performed by Sarah Rhea Werner.

 

JESS

Special thanks to Kenisu for his invaluable work translating the MOTHER Encyclopedia. Find a link to his translation, other media we’ve referenced, and full episode transcripts at mothershewrote.earth

 

CAT

“MOTHER” She Wrote is not affiliated with Nintendo, Shigesato Itoi, or any rights holders of the MOTHER and EarthBound intellectual properties. Please play the games' official Nintendo releases.

 

[Omniverse Audio Brand]

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