Mother: The Original Story

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The cover of the book

Mother: The Original Story (Japanese: マザー) is a novel released exclusively in Japan which is loosely based on the plot of EarthBound Beginnings. It was written by Saori Kumi (a pen name for Ineko Hatano ), and notably follows Ana's point of view, rather than Ninten's, covering the plot of the game from Snowman up until its ending. Though it largely follows the plot of the game, it takes a few other liberties such as adding characters, renaming characters, or focusing on portions of the game in greater detail.

Plot Summary

Chapter 1: Village of the Midnight Sun

In the small town of Snowman, a devout 12-year-old Christian Snowman resident named Ana is the sole possessor of uncontrollable psychic powers in her town. When her mother travels to Youngtown for missionary business, she unexpectedly vanishes, leaving her and her father alone in the run-down church where they reside. During one week, her mind becomes bombarded with strange, unconsciousness mental images, which she eventually determines are the experiences of another PSI user in the world who trying to communicate to her through them: a 12-year-old boy named Ken, who is energetic, courageous and righteous yet has an impulsive, impolite, aggressive and insensitive behavior. His traveling companion is an 11-year-old boy named Lloyd, a bespectacled child genius who is kind, sensitive and loving but is extremely weak and has no fighting skills in battle. The boys both exhibit traits indicative of being a mama's boy and while also being immature, which greatly aggravates Ana. While Lloyd's personal mission is to recover a Kannon flower to save his dying mother, he and Ken's current mission is to save all of mankind from a potentially world-ending event. While Ana is conscious of these events, her efforts to communicate with the seemingly psychic communications are prone to dismal failure.

One snowy night, Ana finds her father praying to God in the chapel and prays along with him for a righteous person to come and save God's people from the world's terrible troubles; rumors that aliens from Mt. Itoi have abducted all the adults from Youngtown have spread, among other events such as darkening skies, crazed animals, evil machinery, and undead zombies. While praying, Ana decides to find her mother despite her physical weakness and young age; she becomes resolute in her mission, however, believing it is a task set to her by the Lord. Immediately afterwards, Ken and Lloyd arrive at the chapel with Ana's missing hat, claiming they received it at the Reindeer train station after hearing about its owner and her PSI abilities with the intent of returning it to her; Ken acts patronizing towards Ana while introducing themselves to her. Ana states that she is familiar with them, which astonishes both her father and the two boys--neither the father or the boys were privy to her psychic visions of the boy's travels--and states her intention to journey with them to help save the world. When her father objects, stating that the trio are just children, Ken's internal dialogue of frustration suddenly bursts into Ana's mind, stating that the world should just fall apart if adults keep taking advantage of children while they belittle them. When he lustfully thinks of Ana’s appearance, he receives a slap in the face, proving his unwitting "broadcast" of his internal thoughts and feelings.

Chapter 2: Warriors

After persuading her sobbing father to go with them, and after the boys have washed themselves and eaten their fill of food, they leave for the Snowman train station, using a hidden mountainside shortcut along the way. On the way to the station, Ken seemingly becomes aware of something, intermittently pausing before continuing. While Ana is aggravated by this, wanting to reach the station before dusk, Ken's suspicions are proven correct when the trio is suddenly attacked by a herd of white wolves. While Ken and Lloyd defeat the creatures with ease, Ana huddles up on the ground in fright; When a wolf directly attacks her, her efforts to evade the wolf leave her with a sliced braid of hair until the wolf is knocked away by Ken's bat. While Ken acts condescending towards Ana’s inability to fight, Lloyd acts kindly toward Ana, helping a near-paralyzed Ana up to her feet and asking if she needs anything. While Ana is distraught over the loss over part of her hair, she tells Lloyd that she is fine. Lloyd then admits that while Ken patronizes and belittles him, Lloyd recognizes that their skills balance the other out and realizes that "the only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing". Lloyd suspects that although Ken has a hard heart, he enjoys his friends’ companionship. He also admits his gladness about Ana’s presence in the “Global Defence Force”, hoping that the trio will become great friends and “well-adjusted” people by the end of their adventure. Ana then decides to become friends with Ken and Lloyd; in particular Ken, as she knows his thoughts but "not his mind”. After Ana and Lloyd share a moment, a furious Ken confronts them and urges them to move on. Wordlessly communicating with the other, Lloyd assures Ana that Ken is a good kid, and the two hurry to catch up with Ken.

At the station in the afternoon, the trio finds out that the train will not go past a place called Spookane, who only makes Ken's mood worse. Upon boarding the train, Ana fails to read Ken's mind, and speculates with Lloyd on what he could be feeling. Lloyd discusses his hometown, Merrysville, with Ana, as she has never heard of it before; when Ana confirms the reality of her mental image receiving by accurately stating the location of Lloyd's first meeting with Ken, she begins to explain it before Ken interrupts and states that she has to go home. When she inquires at the reason, Ken explains that something very strange is happening with the station keepers and people, before speculating that devilish monsters have replaced them and that they are being dragged into a trap at Spookane. At the Spookane station, Ken angrily reacts when he finds out that no trains are heading back to Snowman, leaving Ana to remain in the party; a train worker states that an avalanche has caused the disruptions, a fact that Ken heavily denies afterwards, stating that everyone is "alien spies". When he complains about the situation, Ana disproves of it, internally thinking him childish for doing so; Lloyd suggests they stay at a Hotel for the night, while Ken states he probably has to call his father anyway. When Ana is amused, Ken angrily explains that his father works for a news network and that the only way he can obtain any real information about the world's affairs is to talk to him. Ana realizes that Ken is an extremely lucky kid, as she compares his relatively-easy living to her own poor life. When Ken roughly urges everyone to go, Ana is internally agitated by him shouting at everyone all the time, yet Ana obliges. Lloyd tries to help her, but Ana kindly rebukes his offer; when she asks about Lloyd's own home-life, he reveals his parents are divorced and expresses his agitation that while he is good at mechanical engineering, he cannot fix humans the same way he can computers. Ana wonders whether Lloyd is trying to compensate for his father's inability to help others, and tries to do so himself to avoid ending up like him. She also realizes that Lloyd is trying to give his mother what his father could never give him, wondering if he would even risk his own life for it.

When Lloyd stares at Ken with a hateful look in his eyes, Ana notices and tells him that while Ken went out to save the world, that they went out to save their mothers and asks if that is pathetic. She then reassures him that in a way, they are both heroes. Lloyd then kisses her hand, affirming that they are both "warriors of battle" and promises to protect her even if it costs him his own life, which greatly surprises Ana. When she reminds Lloyd of his mission to obtain a Kannon flower, she begins to reveal her ability to see Lloyd and Ken's events at Lloyd's astonishment when Ken furiously interjects on the false pretense that the two are romantically involved. Suddenly, all of Spookane's street lights go dark and the trio are surrounded by all the adults in the town, who appear to be possessed by an evil force. Ken extrapolates from the adults' previous speech that a piano in a haunted house has a melody in it. After Ana returns the attacking adults to normal with Extra-Mocha Spray, Ken returns an unconscious Lloyd to normal with Psycho-Healing, and the trio journey to the haunted house with Ana realizing that she strangely enough doesn't mind Ken's complaining and moodiness, even if Ken neglected to completely heal her of her injuries.

Chapter 3: The Haunted House

At the house, Ana refuses to journey inside, opting to find a place to rest; Lloyd and Ken are both agitated by this before Lloyd explains that the piano in the house contains one of the eight melodies that they have been searching for in order to save the world. Ken then explains his story; after ridding his house of a poltergeist and finding the first melody in his sister's doll, he had journeyed out into the world to protect his home, discover his abilities, and find out what the sources for the strange events befalling the world were coming from. After recovering a girl named Pippi from a graveyard, he had recovered the second and third melodies from the Canary Village and the Choucream Zoo, respectively. Afterwards, he had journeyed to Magicant, where a mysterious queen named Mary had tasked him with recovering eight important melodies to save the world, with Ken having already recovered three out of the eight. At Merrysville, he had found Lloyd, and together the two were trying to find the rest of the melodies in order to save the planet. After hearing this and the incomplete tune, Ana sets out to the haunted house, though Ken decides the group should eat first, with Ana and Lloyd hungrily conceding.

The trio then dine in the household of the owner of the haunted manor, Mr. Rosewater, who the next morning then blackmails a furious Ken with an official contract (with Lloyd's agreement and signatures) by having him promise to be wed to Mr. Rosewater's shy daughter, Evangeline, in exchange for the haunted manor's door-key on the basis that only her bride-to-be and his closest friends would be allowed on the manor's grounds, the manor being Evangeline's future dwelling. Initially, Ken incurs that Lloyd and Ana set him up so that they could be a couple, but Ana violently slaps him in response. Eventually, the trio head off wordlessly to the haunted manor, with Ken expressing his disappointment towards Lloyd long after entering. A naughty mouse suddenly appears, which sends legions of attacking mice towards the children after telling Ana (only she could understand its language) that it does not know the whereabouts of the piano after Ana enquires the mouse about it. After fending off the mice, Ken carries an exhausted Ana in his arms as he and Lloyd search the labyrinthine manor for the piano containing the fourth melody, defeating other attacking things along the way. When he and Lloyd’s searches prove fruitless, Ana decides to go home after leaving the manor as she realizes that she might be just a burden to her friends after all. Ken gently helps Ana to her feet, and after the group encounters a pair of sentient knight statues and an Alarm Ghost, Ken apologizes for being a jerk as they are soon overwhelmed to the point of near-death. After Lloyd wordlessly asks Ana to forgive him for not protecting her, Ana summons up her power and powerfully lashes outwards with a psychic shockwave of light, instantly disintegrating the trio's brutal foes. After reverting to his condescending behavior, Ken quickly prevents another slap from Ana while Lloyd admires her psychic power after realizing she was the source of the attack. Ana is horrified by the intensity and destruction of her power and the realization that the group's journey would be full of murder in order to accomplish their goal, and sobs into an embarrassed Ken’s shirt in a fit of sorrow after accepting its responsibility, believing it to be a gift from God. Lloyd then finds the piano, and the trio discover the fourth melody as it magically emanates from the piano.

Back at the Rosewater household, Mr. Rosewater refutes Ken's contractual marriage on Evangeline's behalf, as all of the mirrors in the household shattered simultaneously while Evangeline thought of Ken, which Evangeline interprets as a bad omen due to her book on fortune-telling and good luck charms. Realizing the cause was Ana’s psychic shockwave, the trio depart a now-normal Spookane with high spirits.

Chapter 4: The Desert

In the Yucca Desert, on their way to Mt. Itoi, the weary trio make camp near a sand dune after Lloyd collapses from heat exhaustion. After Ana shares a can of sports drink with Ken, she hears the sound of a baby calling out to her in intelligible speech before a fleet of spaceships begin to fly over the group. Flattening themselves against the sand dunes, the group tries to hide from them before Lloyd comes to and begins to climb the mount to see the flying saucers, much to Ken and Ana’s chagrin. Ana calls out to Lloyd to stop, as a threatening scorpion is only inches away from his ear; after telepathically communicating with it and urging it to not sting Lloyd, he is successfully able to get away from the scorpion before Ken sends it flying away with a well-placed hit. After Ken and Ana argue about Ken’s malicious nature, they hide once more and watch the aliens fly over them into the distance. Ken then excitedly notices a military plane flying alongside the alien fleet, before despairing about its poor condition; it then suddenly goes down and prepares for a crash landing-right on the dune that the trio is on. While Ana and Lloyd duck as the plane crashes behind them, Ken stands with his arms wide open-as the planes lands only inches from him. After initially thinking herself dead, Ana internally berates Ken before he collapses. The plane’s pilot, an old war veteran, then introduces himself before inviting the young trio over for

Ana shares a romantic moment with Ken while Teddy is gravely wounded by the robot nearby.

When Ana uses her powers to inflict damage on the people crowding around her, her hair turns a pale white from the stress of her psychic exertion.

Ken then telepathically communicates with Ana.

Trivia

• Ana's hair turning white could be a possible reference to her in-game sprite, which has a pale-color hair the same color as her skin.
• The author of this novel has expressed interest in publishing a fully-translated version of her Mother novels, though she is unsure of the series' copyright in order to accomplish such a proposition.

References

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