A Coach, A Writer, A Scientist, And A King

A coach, a writer, a scientist, and a king

Fallin’ love

whats your favorite food, mom?

individual picturrs of them ٩(＾◡＾)۶

I can totally see that in Mario RPG 👀😂

Art/animatic are mine dont copy/repost

#bowser

#mariorpg

#geno

#mallow

#princesspeach

#supermariobros

#animatic

hey!! i was wondering your thoughts on porky minch? i have a lot of thoughts on him but i'm not too good with words, and i always love your meta

oh boy. yknow, i used to say i could write an essay on porky minch. its been a few years since then though, so i might have a lil trouble collecting my thoughts. 

to sum it up, i think porky is an incredibly complex and tragic character, and the perfect villain to the mother series. he’s tragic because we see his origins with no idea of where they would lead him- he was just a bratty little kid, not evil for evil’s sake, just petty and childish. porky is annoying by nature when you meet him at the beginning of earthbound, but he’s also scared and hurt. his parents are physically abusive, rotten people, and i think that’s where his craving for power came from- a mixture of his family’s belief in their superiority, and the lack of control over his surroundings. to top that off, he’s clearly extremely jealous of ness, his best and only friend. we dont know exactly what porky and ness’s relationship was like, but i can guess that ness wasn’t nearly as fond of porky as porky was of him. porky NEEDED ness, he was the only person who would put up with porky, but also the person who infuriated him the most. and that melting pot of emotional issues made him the perfect pawn for giygas.

like most terrible things, it started out small. porky’s jealousy of ness’s “chosen one” status was overtaken by his fear of such an adventure- but i think it was loneliness that tipped him over the edge. suddenly ness wasn’t going to be a part of his life anymore, he was off to do some big cool cosmic THING while porky had to stay home, stay normal, stay hated and alone. and then giygas comes to him- offering him power over a whole town, just a bunch of brainwashed people who would do whatever he said. giygas offers him liberation from his old life, and status over those who would otherwise look down on him. and more than that- he offers him a place back in ness’s narrative, the opportunity to rise above his old friend and finally be better at something, even if it means ending the world.

over the course of the game, porky’s power only grows until he becomes giygas’s right-hand man, always staying one step ahead of ness and his new friends. in the end it’s not completely clear who’s really in control, whether it’s giygas manipulating porky or the other way around. personally, i think it was both. giygas molded porky into the cruel, power-hungry leader he needed to command his armies while still following his orders, but giygas wound up falling victim to his own energy, leaving porky in almost complete control. even after giygas is defeated and the credits roll, it’s made clear that porky is not done. he still has his power, and he still has his desire to beat ness. then he actually succeeds, of all things. his story outlives ness’s, his actions have consequences far beyond anything ness could ever touch.

so that’s where mother 3 comes in.

although porky himself is not present until the very end of the game, he makes an enormous impact (he should, being the main villain). this is also where porky’s character arc comes to an unhappy close, and where i build my “porky is the perfect villain for this series” opinion. in mother 3, we see that porky’s motivations are very childish still. he’s driven by his old lust for power, boredom, and, most importantly, nostalgia. it is made incredibly clear that porky misses ness so, so, so much. despite the rest of new pork city being themed around himself, he still sells equipment based around ness’s old clothes and weapons, has a museum dedicated to artifacts from earthbound, and is constantly playing a movie about ness’s adventures [edit: I can’t believe i forgot to mention the friends yoyo oh my god]. and this in particular could’ve been porky’s perfect opportunity to one-up ness even long after the events of earthbound, to show himself constantly beating ness at his own game and emerging on top. but instead, it’s merely just ness and friends exactly as they were, a preserved relic of porky’s childhood. i actually believe he may have even planted the “real bat” and “real hat” for lucas to pick up near the end of the final dungeon, in an attempt to recreate his old battles with ness.

when porky finally reveals himself to the player in mother 3, he’s physically aged hundreds of years. he’s an old, old, old man, kept eternally alive by life support systems. and yet his personal room is full of toys and the city built by him is just a giant amusement park. this is the key point- porky has grown old, but not grown up. his entire existence is a farce of him growing up, like a child wearing his father’s clothes. right down to his hired bikini-clad servants, something he may have known is something an “adult” would want, yet all he has them do is give him presents and feed him sweets. which brings us to porky’s ultimate fate, his great undoing. in the end, he locks himself within the “absolutely safe capsule”, ensuring nothing can hurt him ever again. nobody will ever again threaten his power, or his happiness, but he can never, ever leave. and with his immortality, nor will he ever die, not even when the whole universe is gone. to the end, he is stagnant, trapped by memories and resistance to change.

and that’s what makes porky the perfect villain for the mother series. sure, giygas is more well-known, and probably more intimidating, but porky, even long past the events of earthbound, is the ideal foil to ness and to a major theme of the series in general. that being, cliche as it might sound, growing up. for better or worse, ninten, ness, lucas, they all grow up, grow into different, stronger, wiser people over the course of their respective adventures. and it is not always an easy process (just ask lucas). growing up involves change, loss, letting go, moving on, all things that porky never allowed himself to experience. he refused to change his ways, he refused to grow as a person, and he refused to leave the memory of ness behind. and now he will never grow up, suspended forever exactly as he has been for so long in his own self-made prison while life goes on around him. generations will be born, live, die, change the world, end the world, morph eternally in the great circle of life, while porky minch can only watch and remember.