EarthBound/WMG

199X is 1994.
199X was used as a date meaning sometime in the '90's. '94 is most likely because that is the year the game was released in Japan. Or alternatively...

199X is 2000.
The X is 10 in roman numerals, and 1990 + 10= 2000.

Buzz Buzz is a older version of Ninten from Mother 1.
It sounds unlikely doesn't it? However you may change your mind after seeing the evidence....
 * 1) First off Buzz Buzz is not simply just a bug. When you first encounter him his first lines are " "A bee I am... not".
 * Not only this, but the starman also said "You are no longer a hero, Buzz Buzz, just a useless little insect!!". Why would he emphasize "insect", unless he wasn't an insect when he was a hero?
 * 1) Buzz Buzz/Ninten is presumably older than Ness. Ninten was born in 1975-76, and Buzz Buzz hails from about 200x, when Ninten would be 24-34. How is this relevant? Let me explain. Although Buzz Buzz may be older than Ness he doesn't seem to be too old. When you get the Sound Stone Buzz Buzz calls it an "awesome" item. That is not the kind of terminology I would expect a wise old sage to use, but a young adult? Yep.
 * Not that I disagree, but I'm compelled to say that perhaps he's using it in the original sense of the word, IE, a thing that inspires awe.
 * 1) The Starman Jr. that attacked Buzz Buzz seemed to have known him quite well. If it's the same Starman Jr. as the one in Mother, then he would have met Ninten (Buzz Buzz) in the first game, therefore knowing him quite well at the time they meet again in Earthbound.
 * 2) It would make sense that Ninten would seek out an individual that looked/seemed much like himself (Ness).
 * 3) In battle, Buzz Buzz uses physical attacks and PSI Shield, both specialties of Ninten. PSI Shield sigma from Mother II translates roughly into PSI Shield beta from Mother I. Healing and defense were not necessary, so the only other technique of Ninten that they could have had Buzz Buzz sensibly use would be Offense Up. Also, Ninten was fast (compared to Ana and Loid), and Buzz Buzz is fast.
 * Buzz Buzz isn't actually a bee in Mother 2. He is a dung beetle. Dung beetles in Egyptian mythology represent eternal recurrence. Quite a coincidence.
 * Wasn't it only Lardna that called him a dung beetle? It was implied she only called him that because of the disgustingness factor of the word dung, meaning she called him that because to her he's just some disgusting bug. Disgusting like dung.
 * I always thought it was because she's dumb and didn't realize he was a bee, not a dung beetle.
 * 1) I can easily see Itoi noticing the small sizes he had to work with on the NES and comparing the size to a bug. Take that thought, run a few miles, and suddenly Ninten is a bug-size NPC in Mother 2.

Alternatively, Buzz Buzz is Jeff.
As thought up by a friend of mine:

He would have the knowledge and ability to travel back in time, but due to his incomplete understanding without the Mr. Saturns, only a small life form could possibly make the journey back. So he transformed his body into that of a tiny fly. With this, he could return into the past and tell Ness what he needed to know. And with his mass all condensed into that tiny body, his attacks were able to hit much harder than they would as a human.

"But wait," you might say, "Buzz Buzz used PSI!" Well, you know what they say about any sufficiently advanced technology.

Alternatively, Buzz Buzz is Paula.
Both share in common the ability to use PSI/PK Shield, play defensively in battle, have very high speed and agility, and a weak consitiution [which could've been made worse in the conversion to Buzz Buzz or not at all depending on your own interpretation]. Then why can she hit for such high damage? A small body propelled at high speeds, becomes bullet-like, piercing through objects that larger masses of force at similar speeds might glance off of with only dents [and therefore lesser damage overall].

It's also possible that future Ness had died doing something that inspired Paula to take up a similar form of courage like him to undergo conversion into such a form and go back to warn a younger Ness, possibly out of respect or even a romantic type of feeling for him, creating a type of tragic sacrifice when Lardna kills her.

Buzz Buzz's gender can be interpretted either way since the body that was "Buzz Buzz" could've been a different gender from the person whose mind was transferred into it [like the transfer of the characters' minds into their robot bodies, which are genderless].

Giygas is an alternate future version of Ness.
Ness's adventure isn't just to get strong enough to defeat the Cosmic Horror from the Future... it's to prevent him from becoming said Horror.
 * 1) Yes, Giygas was the enemy of the first Mother game. Hearing his Mother's song was so powerful, though, it turned him into a human; to give him a second chance.
 * 2) The entire planet is working toward that goal: the Earth itself has provided the Ley Points that remind him of the love of his family and friends, a love which "Giegue" in Mother 1 (aka Earthbound Zero) rejected.
 * 3) As Ness progresses on his adventure, a darkness called "Ness's Nightmare" is growing within him. He eventually fights it in Magicant, which was the creation of Queen Maria, and defeats it, but had Ness not gone on his journey, it probably would have built to the boiling point and overwhelmed him.
 * 4) In the end, Ness and company give up their bodies (foreshadowed in Prince Poo's Zen training) to travel through time and confront Giygas. When they do, he has Ness's face and special attacks. Giygas is eventually defeated when the world itself, everybody Ness has touched, prays for him. This, if nothing else, tells him that he isn't alone, and never will be -- and what was to become Giygas again will never come to pass.
 * 5) In addition, according to the game's lead writer, Shigesato Itoi, Giygas's strange dialogue in the final battle is based on one of his own most traumatic childhood experiences; at the age of six, Itoi accidentally walked into a grindhouse theater showing an extremely violent porn film - certain snippets of dialogue were burned into his mind, and as a result they were the creepiest things he could think to put in his villain's mouth.
 * The movie that inspired Itoi was not a violent grindhouse porn film, it was a rape scene in a mature movie.
 * Actually, it wasn't a rape scene. It was a sex scene which led to a murder. Itoi interpreted the scene as a rape.
 * 1) On top of that, in this alternate universe, Ness would have remained "best friends" with Pokey, which would explain a lot. In Mother 3 Pokey is, after all, responsible for corrupting quite a dang bit.

Giygas is one of the forms of Nyarlathotep.
The above theory dovetails into this nicely. Ness, then, is a splinter of Nyarly's personality that rebelled and became an independent being.

Alternatively, he is Azathoth.
Pokey did call him a mindless idiot, as if it wasn't obvious enough. In the final battle he is simply a mass of smoke with a horror face uttering and babbling random quotes from "questionable" movies. He is damningly idiot. Plus, the final battle stage seems it could be the Center of the Universe.
 * User:Pro-Mole wonders, though: would that mean Pokey is one of the Outer Gods?
 * This would make Pokey analoguous to Nyarlathotep, the messager and soul of the Outer Gods. It does match the role he plays as Giygas' servant.

Ness's father is The Dragon
A powerful spirit dwelling in Magicant, he really doesn't have a physical form, hence only being on the phone. Upon being woken by Ninten in Mother 1, he battled him and found him worthy of the Song. He then took steps to ensure that Giygas was eventually reborn as Ness. Centuries later, after Ness died as a normal human, the Psi-Powers that were part of his, Paula's and Poo's lineage led humanity to try and make a Dream Utopia. The Dragon disapproved, but was chained and his own Psi-Power was used to fuel the new World.

Ness's dad is Ninten
Not entirely compatable with the Buzz-Buzz theory, but still fits with the Ness is Giygas theory...and makes it even more ironic!
 * Mother takes place in the 80's and Earthbound takes place in the 90's - not long enough for Ninten to grow up and have an 8 to 12 year old child. Believe me, I thought it through...
 * The "Earthbound takes place in 2000" WMG above.
 * Even then, Earthbound Zero takes place in 1989, meaning that if Ninten was 12 then, he would've been 23 by Earthbound.
 * Ninten could be old enough. He has a former classmate in Podunk Town who works at the burger shop.
 * Actually, the beginning of the game explicitly states that it takes place in 1980, not 1989, so it's perfectly plausible.

Pokey and Giygas swapped bodies
"Ness...it hurts Ness!" makes more sense as Pokey's mind crying out for help.
 * In Mother 3, a point is made of the fact that while Pokey's body has aged, his still retains the same bratty, immature mind - contrasted with Giygas, who before his transformation into Nightmare Fuel, was quite serious and ruthless.

The Devil's Machine was built by Tabuu, who is Giygas from an alternate future.
Tabuu, being the result of Giygas mastering his power rather than being destroyed by it, created the Devil's Machine in order to contain his alternate self, and instructed Pokey in its use. Really, who else has the authority over Giygas to imprison him? And how can Giygas give orders if he can't even think? Tabuu had Pokey carry out orders on his behalf - wether Pokey turned off the Devil's Machine at Tabuu's instruction was an order or not is left to be determined, but it can't have been that big a deal, since Tabuu allowed him into the Subspace Army after the events of Mother 3.
 * ...And I thought about this some more. Perhaps Tabuu's intention was to destroy Giygas, who would be able to match him in power. Since Tabuu is not weak against human emotion as Giygas is, he must have figured after Giygas was out of the way, he could dispose of Ness easily if the time came. This proved not to be the case - with the help of Sonic the Hedgehog and the intervention of King Dedede, Ness does not fail to be present at the final battle and end Tabuu's machinations.
 * ...I don't even need to say anything. This theory is retarded for expecting a connection like that between Mother and Super Smash Bros
 * Welcome to WMG, my friend.
 * I agree, Super Smash Bros has its own canon with its only connection to any other Nintendo or HAL series being that representations of their characters (trophies) are featured. However, this theory would be worlds better if instead of assuming that Tabuu is involved at all, it was simply "Giegue in the alternate future in which he does not become Giygas."

During the final battle, Giygas is a fetus, and Ness and Friends are killing him inside the womb
Old, Old theory that started when someone pointed out that the battle background during the fight with Giygas resembled an ultrasound. Further evidence includes the fact that Ness and Friends are sent back in time to the far past, that they're in robot bodies, and there are no familiar objects nearby to gauge the size of those bodies, that Giygas knows nothing, like a fetus or an infant, and that to get to him, you pass through a slit between two cliff faces spread like a pair of legs, then up a long, fleshy canal.
 * Giygas is a metaphorical and symbolic abortion. It's not meant to be taken literally. It's merely used as disturbing symbolism.
 * You could probably gauge the size of their robot bodies by the presence of Pokey and the Phase Distorter. So it's a very big fetus.
 * This theory led to this fanart.
 * No, we DO have something to gauge the sizes of everything. Ness's hat.
 * However, as they appear to have shrunk very easily if the above theory is true, then its not too hard to image Ness's hat simply retaining similar size.
 * I've talked about this before on other websites. It is credible, but a look at the timeline proves it wrong. The final battle takes place before the start of the game, but AFTER Mother 1, where Giygas was an adult alien.
 * Based on both Robert Frost's interpretation of the validity of metaphor and Vladmir Nabokov's repeated analysis of literature (and, actually by extension, all media), this fan theory can be considered both Jossed and accurate. You know, "if the shoe fits" and all. One can never "debunk" the fetus theory... there's time travel involved.

You are fighting Giygas' Ghost.
Think about it. Giygas' mind and body were destroyed. What does that leave? His spirit! Why do you think he takes the form of a bloody skull? Look at the picture of giygas. It really looks like a ghost.

Giygas made contact with U-DO, which is what made him lose his mind.
His change in form between Mother 1 and Mother 2 is quite drastic; he was originally just an alien with psychic powers, so where would he get enough power to mutate him into his latter form? It's somewhat more plausible if his change was caused by some outside force. Also, his swirly red background form bears a strong resemblance to U-DO (when it is shown), which is also a swirling mass of redness which damages people's sanity and causes surreal events to take place. So when Giygas was trying to gain power, he managed to develop his psychic powers enough to make contact with U-DO, which drove him insane and altered his form.

Giygas is a female.
The "XX" symbols (two x chromosomes) are littered throughout the first game. In addition, it thematically fits the game that Earth would be the "good" mother while Giygas is the "evil" mother.
 * Don't most people only have one mother, though?
 * There can be exceptions!
 * In Japan, its called Mother 2. Think about it. (two mothers...?)
 * There's a con man in Threed who says he thinks Giygas might be female, but then admits that he doesn't really know if Giygas is a male or a female. He disappears mysteriously after the party beats Master Belch, though, perhaps because he got too close to the truth. I'm a helpful troper, don't you think?
 * Stomping this idea flat (Awww...), but the reason the guy disappears is due to a glitch. He was supposed to remain in Threed and joke on how he could capture a ghost from the tunnel and keep it as a pet. Unfortunately, the glitch causes him to vanish along with a detective that gives some rather important exposition about the Mani Mani Statue.
 * A glitch? Maybe that's what Giygas wants you to think.
 * Given some of the things I have seen... Also, some people discussing said things implied Giygas goes crazy becuase Pokey raped her, which gives the last battle dialog a whole new twist, considering it's inspiration...

The whole game is a fantastic Reconstruction of Shigesato Itoi's childhood.
The Runaway Five are remembering how much he loved rock & roll, especially The Beatles. Giygas represents the last time he considered himself innocent. Ness's father is absent because Shigesato Itoi's was.
 * The reason behind the baseball bat based combat has been sealed by court order.
 * So Itoi is Shonen Bat?
 * I always thought Shonen Bat looked like Ness.

Giygas becomes a small universe at the end.
Pokey basically says "You are the only ones in this universe fighting for justice." and I took that kind of literally. But it does make sense. The wobbling of the background is caused by distortions in Giygas, because he is inherently unstable. Later, the universe's topology changes, which explains why you see multiples of the Giygas image. The reason "you cannot grasp the form of Giygas's attack" is because you are being directly attacked by the local space. Similarly, this explains why you cannot simply defeat him: you cannot directly fight the universe itself, because you're inside it. The reason why prayer works is because it's directing energy from outside the closed space into it, which inflicts damage directly to Giygas. When you (the player) start praying for the heroes, it works even better because you are on a higher level of reality than they are, which translates directly into destructive energy.
 * Actually, Giygas's attacks being incomprehensible is just something he's capable of; he did it in the first game. Hell, Porky does it in the third.
 * I remember Pokey saying that the inside of the devil machine and Giygas' new form were another dimension.
 * Well, the Phase Distorter brought the gang to a location outside of space and time. Therefore, they were already in another dimension/universe.

Giygas isn't evil.
His dialogue includes a lot of pleas to stop fighting. Not to mention "Friends...". Giygas wants to join Ness. Pokey lies when he talks about Giygas's evil. He's just egging Ness on to get him to fight Giygas, and he's totally sure that Giygas will kill Ness (wouldn't you assume that an all-powerful Eldritch Abomination would kill a small boy in any fight?) because he wants to get his old enemy out of the way. In short, Pokey masterminded this all.
 * This troper was thinking this as well. I mean, if Giygas can't think rationally that would make him VERY easy to manipulate, eh?
 * This Troper doubt Porky/Pokey was that manipulative, although he was indeed quite manipulative. I don't think Giygas was evil though. He seemed more tragic, he had nothing left, he gave everything up. Even the goal he was striving for was gone, all that is left is his hatred and madness, but somewhere deep inside is a tiny fragment of his emotions, the thing he bottled away, the love he felt, this was to great for him to ever truely remove, thus your prays and the prays of those who love you bring out the small fragment of what once was and cause him pain, his calls to you for friendship and love where reactions to emotions that where hidden inside him.
 * This WMG can be supported by the fact that everything Pokey said in the entire game were, basically, lies.
 * It crossed this Troper's mind as a kid while playing. It could simply be that Giygas in trying to bottle up the love he felt, remove the reason the song affected him drove him more towards madness. There may have been a point, insane but still capable of sentience, he gave the orders to begin the attacks, but afterward lost control. Becoming the equivalent of an all powerful autistic child throwing a tantrum.
 * Then enter Pokey/Porkey. He somehow begins putting two and two together. Organization ran by an immensely powerful being now self-reduced to a toddler's mindset, and a powerful army too loyal to even question it. Perhaps not even thinking to check why they haven't received any recent orders...
 * This theory also ties in quite nicely to another description/AlternativeCharacterInterpretation I've heard concerning Giegue/Giygas, although it's more based in the original Mother. Consider this: Giegue was raised by George and Maria, particularly Maria, and explicitly tells Ninten that he's grateful to his family, to the point where he's willing to invite Ninten to join him to spare him from being killed. This might not be considered "good", but consider this as well: The PSI abilities that all the Kid Heroes of the Mother series were originally exclusive to whatever race Giegue is a member of, and only found their way to Earth due to George researching it without permission and then running off with said information, which Giegue also tells the player can be used to betray his people, so, regardless of his intentions, George basically stole classified information, which created a considerable national/planetary security threat to Giegue's planet. Given some of the description you get from Queen Mary, it seems like he was very attached to her, and it seems very possible that he was invading more because he felt that he had to rather than because he fully wanted to. It's also possible that, as Maria's descendant, he may have thought of Ninten as practically family, hence why he was willing to save him, but the final straw comes from the method in which you defeat him: Remember that Queen Mary's lullaby is the same song Giegue's "mother" used to sing him to sleep as a baby. If, as the theory posits, he was invading more because he felt that he had to than because he wanted to, and still held a reasonable degree to attachment to Maria, I think that little reminder would have severely taxed his resolve to the point where he'd be torn over which was more important to him: His duty to his people, or his lingering feelings for his "mother", which contributes to his declining mental state, and though there are probably other factors involved (For one, I can't imagine his people being too happy about Giegue's failure to wipe out humanity), eventually leads to, well, what we see in Earthbound.
 * While it's still fully possible that Giygas isn't trying to destroy everything, it's strongly hinted at in Mother 3 that Pokey considered Ness to be his only friend. That fact that he doesn't have any friends Assuming this to be the case, it is unlikely that he would try to have his only friend killed.

Giygas doesn't exist and the entire final battle is metaphorical.
This one requires a bit of extra speculation, but if you think about it just enough, it might actually make sense.
 * 1) The original Giygas was defeated by Ninten and Co. The aliens came back, and people assumed Giygas was behind the second attack, even though no one actually saw him. And the aliens went with it, since it was a good scare tactic.
 * 2) Whenever a person started acting against the best interest of society, people claimed it was because of Giygas's influence (See: Buzz Buzz). So Giygas became the embodiment of evil as an excuse for people to avoid being forced to believe that the evil was within them all along. So, Ness and Co. aren't actually fighting Giygas, they're just fighting the standard maniacs and feral animals (and the aliens, which are evil because they're Giygas' followers) - but because of Buzz Buzz, they think they're fighting Giygas.
 * 3) Ness and Co. are also chasing Pokey, who has decided that Evil Is Cool and likes the idea of serving the ultimate evil. This could perhaps be partially blamed on his upbrining, but the fact remains that he promotes this idea of an ultimate evil existing.
 * 4) The last battle takes place entirely within Ness and Co.'s minds. They want to fight Giygas, but they can't, because there is no Giygas - so they make him up. This is why you only see the background, because a formless enemy can't be confronted and is thus more frightening. Same goes for the attacks - they never heard what Giygas could do in direct battle, so they make up the worst possible attacks - attacks they can't understand and thus can't fight against. Thus, Giygas becomes a symbol of evil, despite the fact that there is actually nothing there. The party suffers because they are reminded of all the evil they came across, which gives this ultimate evil power.
 * 5) Paula's Pray command works because Pokey reminds them of the good people they've come across in the world (it seems unlikely to This Troper that this was what he intended). When they summon up images and memories of these people supporting them, it affects Giygas; they represent people fighting against evil, which weakens the force of evil and strengthens good.
 * 6) When it isn't enough, when Paula can't think of any other person, she does the only thing possible: she creates one. The person she creates is the ultimate force of good that can never be beaten by evil, no matter how strong the evil is. Giygas falls to this creation because it represents his weakness - the ceaseless, unwavering devotion that good will always find a way to triumph, no matter how great the evil. This reasoning could ostensibly be used to prove that the player doesn't actually exist - a philosophical discussion on that would be a lot of fun.
 * This last part has a possible alternative. Paula doesn't make up someone who is the ultimate force of good, she prays to someone she believes is the ultimate force of good: God. Though religion is rarely if ever explicitly mentioned, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine that there was some sort of theistic religion that people, including her family, followed. This means that, when the end comes and she prays to God, the player responds...which means the player becomes God.

Giygas doesn't truely die in the end.
Perhaps Giygas is givin a second chance to live life in a world where he will not have to suffer. If you pay attention Giygas seems to mantain a small amount of emotion somewhere withing, perhaps some greater force or even his own will let him be reborn in a happier place. Perhaps as a young timid boy named Lucas?
 * OK, even though I support them, I think we got enough "Gygas and Ness and Ninten and Lucas are related/The same person" theories now. Even though they're pretty cool. All of them.
 * Just asking, I recall reading a theory that Giygas and Queen Mary were actually the same person, but I can't recall any specifics and I haven't beaten the first or third games yet. Does anyone else out there have it?

After the final battle in Earthbound, Pokey becomes Giygas' vessel.
The game makes it fairly obvious that Giygas is not completely within the physical realm. After his death in Mother, his psychic abilities probably allowed him to stay in the world of mortals as a spiritual being, where he was unable to affect anything directly, relying on influencing the weak minded and the wicked of heart (perhaps the Mani Mani statue was a device he used to control the weak hearted through greed.) The Devils Machine was a device he had some of his followers build him to give him a physical form again. During the final battle, he was physical enough to directly affect people, but not physical enough for his actions to manifest properly. In the battle, his quazi-body had been destroyed, and his psychic foothold had been completely scrambled by the prayer, pushing him into the hereafter. With one last move of desperation, he retreated into his only present ally, Pokey, who would lead the rest of his existence housing 2 souls in his body. In Mother 3, Giygas was using the same strategy to conquer the world, only with a more widespread approach: corrupt the people first, via the use of happy boxes. When Lucas and his group directly confronted him, he was forced to use the same spectral manner of attack as before, channeling it through Porky and his life support mech, knowing that he could not afford to lose his shell.
 * An additional bit of story this could make would explain what would happen to Porky after he is encased in the Absolutely Safe Capsule in Mother 3: They begin a romance in a very detailed magicant like simulation. It would be easy to assume the two would grow at least close professionally throughout their time traveling exploits, but when they are faced with an eternity stuck with each other, it becomes hard not to imagine they would begin to see each other in a more romantic way. Remembering past battles, schemes, plots, the like, they have time to reflect on what they've been on together. When left with nothing left to reminisce about, Giygas decides to use the same power (s)he used in Mother 1. With a world made from the memories of past experiences, the two life out the rest of their existence in their own personal happy ending for all eternity. Perhaps it is the end they deserved, as well, both being little more than confused, lonely people to begin with, they finally get what little good karma they had coming for them.

Jeff doesn't have a mother because he's a test-tube experiment and an abomination in the eyes of God.
He's the project of a terrible genetic experiment and came out of a test tube. He may not actually have any of Dr. Andonutts' genetic material at all. With no emotional connection of actual parenthood Dr. Andonutts could easily send Jeff away to boarding school at a young age. While Ness and Paula are making moon-eyes at each other, Jeff is playing with gizmos, because for him, never mind girls (or Tony)--science is how you make new life!

== Giygas is a Fobby, a race that became round and orange due to overconsumption of orange sharpie-tainted sweet tea. He was the only not-fat and orange one left due to detesting all things sweet-tea related, and this hatred eventually grew to encompass hating all of humanity and becoming the embodiment of evil. == Oh wait.

Ness is The Scout as a child.
That will explain why his likes baseball bats.
 * Then where are the Scout's awesome psychic powers? Also, Team Fortress 2 takes place somewhere in 1968 where Earthbound takes place in the 90s.
 * The psychic powers have transformed into a source of Genre Savvy, and time travel. Alternatively, The Scout is Ness's Dad.
 * "Hey there Chucklenuts, I've deposited $500 into your account. NOW GET ON THE FREAKING POINT DUMBASS!"

The Mother games are in an infinite temporal loop.
At the end of Earthbound, Porky runs away and travels through time. A lot. At the end of Mother 3, he locks himself in the Incredibly Safe Capsule, but retains the ability to travel through time. He bounces around time, slowly going insane and shriveling up. He starts thinking about how Ness caused all this by killing Giygas and making him run away (from his perspective), and is found, shriveled into a smooth, white humanoid, repeating "Why, Ness" again and again. The couple who found him interpret this as "Giygas", and raise him as their own child, making him forget everything and believe he is an alien. The events of Mother 1 and 2 occur, and he recruits the person closest to him - himself. This would explain "Friends...", at the very least.
 * That doesn't make sense, becasue Giygas is pronounced 'Geeg' in Japan. Giygas is just a localization difference. However, considering at the end of Mother 3 the player is one recreating the universe it could start off with Mother 1, and the events could repeat through the player. Maybe the end to Mother 3 just represented the videogame 'reset' button, and when you replay the series you are actually replaying the second, third, etc. 'loop' of the timeline.

The real reason why the road from Onett to Twoson was closed was for construction of a better road.
Think about it for moment; no two towns the size of Onett and Twoson would wan just a dirt path between them, and considering they have similar roads with sidewalks, it would make sense that to allow traffic between the towns to flow smoothly, one would want a paved two lane road. And being that construction is dangerous work, the police would be there first to make sure no one would trespass before the construction company got there.

Giygas was Shigesato Itoi's attack on Munchkins.
Giygas was basically a character was Min Maxing so much, he has attacks too powerful to comprehend, and his stats are so high he can only be defeated by praying for help. Of course, in order to do so, he had to give up communication, coherent thought, a physical form...
 * And I have to wonder if there's any significance to the Giygas->Gygax thing? Father of the game that is second-most famous for Munchkins?

Ness in the womb and the stable time loop.
The end of Earthbound takes place in a metaphysical representation of Ness's Mom's womb. The face that appears in the Devil's Machine is Ness as a fetus calling out to the older Ness to save him. Giygas is attempting to corrupt Ness in the womb in order to remove him as the one destined to defeat him (foretold by the Apple of Enlightenment).
 * 1) At the end of Earthbound, though Paula's praying stops Giygas, Giygas isn't completely destroyed. A small part of him still lies within Ness and over the next 10 years slowly corrupts Ness's friend and neighbor Porky into stopping Ness, that way Ness will never go back in time to defeat Giygas and Giygas can corrupt Ness in the past as planned. The first thing Porky does in the game is to try and keep Ness away from the meteor crash site where Ness is fated to meet Buzz-Buzz and begin the chain of events that lead to Giygas's doom.
 * 2) It is only after Porky's little brother is in trouble that Porky frantically calls on Ness to help, overcoming Giygas's influence for just a moment out of love for his little brother. But the effects of Giygas's power on Porky grows deeper and deeper throughout the game as can be seen in Porky continually standing in Ness's way, Porky's phsyical changes (like his skin color), and Porky's immortality.
 * 3) When Ness fights Ness's Nightmare in Magicant, he's actually fighting the remains of Giygas still deep inside his mind, left over from Giygas being destroyed in the womb. You'll note that the next time Ness meets Porky after beating the Nightmare, Porky's no longer obeying Giygas, but instead mocking him, calling him an idiot, etc, which shows that while Porky still remains tainted by Giygas's evil influence, he is no longer under the control of the part of Giygas that once existed in Ness.
 * 4) The game ends with the cycle coming full circle. Giygas is defeated in the womb dimension, the remains of Giygas corrupt Porky in the future, Porky and Ness go back in time and it all happens again.

Ninten and Ness are Nicknames
Ninten's actual name is Vincent. He couldn't pronounce it correctly as a baby and instead said "Ninten". It stuck.

In Ness's case, he had an ancestor named Ernest, Ness for short. Our hero Ness is named after this ancestor, and his parents decided to just call him Ness since no one called great-grandpa Ernest anyway.

Alternately, Ness is short for Vanessa
Making Ness a girl. As for why the prophecy said '3 boys and 1 girl', it was either to protect Ness or out of respect for the preferred gender. Cracky yes. This troper apologizes, as she read a fic about it and the idea made her laugh.

Picky and Porky are nicknames as well.
Picky's real name is Bateau, and Porky's real name is something similarly exotic. Obviously, Lardna and Aloysius were too lazy to say their full names, and stuck to giving them nicknames that suited their eating habits.
 * Porky's real name is Dudley.

Everyone heard Paula's last prayer.
Getting desprate, she called out to anyone who can hear her. The prayer was intertwined with a psychic message that basically said, "We're a bunch of kids who are far from home and in a lot of danger. Help us." Pretty much anyone could sympathise with them at that point. Even the simplest "God, please help them." adds up against Gigyas. From their odd position in time, they may have ended up calling out to every person who ever lived. Including you. Granted, you could stop and analyse how every human receiving the same psychic message at some point in their lives would affect culture or the general attitude of people, but you'd be thinking too hard then.
 * Not so hard if you posit that "Before you die, you hear the prayer".

Mother 1 and 2 tell the same story of two universes colliding
They are the same story, with the player taking control of a different side between the two games. In Mother 1, you control Ninten with the objective to kill Giegue, who is the avatar for the other universe. In Mother 2, you control Ness as you take on Giygas, who is the avatar for Ninten's universe. It doesn't matter which universe it is, the hero still comes from the same family. The reason for the small differences between the two heroic families (and the two universes as a whole) is what separated the two worlds in the first place- a long time ago.
 * No, the canon states that the 2 games are sequential
 * But wouldn't that explain why the beginning of giygas's theme is 8-bit-esque?
 * ...why is it that people always think that a song called "Porky Means Buissness" is Giygas' theme?
 * Because the track in question doesn't actually have an official name. Seeing as "Porky Means Business" is a fan given name and that he isn't the focal point of the final boss, it would be Giygas' theme, not Porky's.

Ninten and Ness are half-brothers
It's obvious! Ness' dad is a cheater, and he's leading a double life! Where is Ninten's father while Giegue draws near? He's off tending to his other family! Where's Ness' father while the Happy-Happyists plan to sacrifice Paula? Spending some time with Ninten. Why would such a man lead a double life? To breed new heroes! His sperm is packed awesomeness, at least for the ones that turn male.
 * So, he's Chuck Norris?

The gap of Mother 2 and 3 can be explained by...
The 2012 theory. Our world ends, and we go to the Nowhere Islands.

The "something" that the Mad Ducks make "spin around" to drain PP is... our heroes' PP meters.
The ducks aren't actually mad. They're all aware that they're in a videogame and aware of its mechanics; that's why they are called "mad" by other, less knowledgeable persons in this world.

You cannot grasp the true form of Giygas' attack!
It's actually very simple if you think about it.

You can grasp the true form of Giygas' attack!
You just aren't trying hard enough.

Giygas' attack isn't actually so bad when you can grasp its true form
It's basically an energy beam, or something. It's just being blown through several extra dimensions, so it looks worse than it is.
 * Basically, his attack is as close to "flailing" as a psychic mind can manage. Kind of like Pokemon, where when they run out of attacks they use struggle; they just start flailing around.

Ness is Maria reincarnated
Once she was free from Magicant, Maria came back as Ness to stop Giygas from destroying the world. Consider: And... well that's pretty much all I have. I like this theory.
 * Magicant only appeared twice in the series: Once as the land of Maria's mind, and then as the land of Ness' mind.
 * When Ninten collected the Eight Melodies, it was to restore Maria's memories & power. Ness, however, was collecting the melodies to raise his own power.
 * More details about this theory here:

Ness failed and the world was destroyed.
Giygas was only temporarily stopped. 10 years later he returned, and no one was able to stop him. A brave warrior named Buzz Buzz traveled back in time to change history, but to no avail. Only a small group of people survived and fled to another world, but that's another story.

Ioti designed Mewtwo and wrote the backstories.
Consider the common theory for Gigyas, he is raging because of being born evil from rape and look up his Mother appearance. Does it strike you as similar to any Pokemon? Mewtwo. He straight out is an expy. The designs are beyond similar and as are their backstories, just replace rape with 'a test tube'. Also keep in mind, Creatures INC is Ape INC, the makers of Pokemon and Mother respetively, just renamed
 * Wait, wait. Born evil from rape? Yes, rape is horrible and traumatic, but babies resulting for it aren't automatically evil.
 * MST3K Mantra+Fetus Theory+Mother 1?
 * Itoi didn't have anything to do with Pokemon.
 * Some of MOTHER 1(and 2)'s team did work on Red and Green, (Blue was the third version) they could of thrown somesuggestions to the design team.

Giygas' "Birth" caught the attention of other cosmic deities and entities, the ensuing war between them and Giygas destroyed the universe in the end
The "Birth" of Giygas caught the attention of Deities old and new along with many other cosmic entities that in the reality before Buzz Buzz went back in time caused a war between them and Giygas mainly because many of the "Older" Gods (Zeus, Odin, and YHWH to name a few) felt that Giygas was a threat to their supremacy. As Cosmic bolts of Psychic energy and ancient magic were thrown, they destroyed worlds, stars and even Galaxies. However one of the Cosmic Entities sent a messenger to the past to prevent this war and the destruction of the universe from happening.

Pokey really wanted to be Ness's friend
Despite Pokey's and Ness's families feuding at the start of the game, it is hinted that Ness and Pokey had been friends at some point in the past. Observing Ness's major weakness to be loneliness, Giygas endeavored to drive the two childhood friends apart by amplifying the evil in Pokey every time he got close to Ness. "Pokey: "Ness, let's be friends again. Please answer me. I promise to be good. ...uh...okay... (walks away slowly) Hah! I lied! See you, sucker!""
 * 1) This is first seen near the beginning of the game;

Because Pokey did not make any friends who could cultivate the good in him or have an opportunity to visit his own Magicant, Giygas' influence over Pokey just grew stronger and stronger.
 * 1) This ploy seemed to be at least partially successful in giving Ness a fear of abandonment, as even after making new friends he has to call his mom frequently to avoid becoming homesick.
 * 2) Pokey's line "I know you have telepathy, or something, so just try and call for help" was disguised as sarcastic hubris, but by that point Pokey had caught on to the fact that Giygas had been influencing his actions, and he wanted to help Ness defeat Giygas. Even his lines "And here you stand, waiting to be burned up with all the rest of the garbage of this universe..." "Haaaaah! That's so sad. I can't help but shed a tear. You know, my heart is beating incredibly fast, ...I must be experiencing absolute terror!" were false sarcasm. Some part of Pokey truly was saddened by the prospect of his (former) friend's death, and was terrified of the control Giygas had exerted over him.
 * 3) In the end, the evil in Pokey wins. After seeing numerous humans turned back to normal, having Giygas' evil influence banished after being defeated by Ness, Pokey's evil side makes him flee the battle before being fully defeated. Pokey's final taunt (delivered by Picky) "Come and get me, loser! Spankety, spankety, spankety!" was actually the final desperate plea of Pokey's good side to be rescued by Ness. But Pokey's evil side made sure he stayed hidden somewhere (or somewhen) that Ness could never find.
 * 4) You could go into further examples as Pokey says something along the lines of "This is my neighbor, Pig's Butt...no, Ness!" reflecting that Pokey did get Ness's name right as his "good side" was showing up.
 * 5) But all this is actually all a lie as Pokey does attempt to harm you in the end.
 * This Troper agrees with the above. In fact, I think that the good in Pokey is still there and he doesn't hate Ness at all. This because of the Easter eggs that you find in Chapter 8. In the final chapter, when Lucas and his friends, there are references to Ness. His adventures are being shown in a theater. In the same theater, you can buy replicas of Ness' bat and cap. And in the tower, on one of the floors, there's an entire level dedicated to items Ness used or interacted with during his adventure. In fact, even before this chapter, I think in chapter 4 or 5, beating the optional boss in the Lightning Tower in Porky's private room rewards you with the Friend's Yo-yo. If we assume this yo-yo was a gift from Ness, why would Porky keep it if he hated Ness, much less have it guarded?

Ness's father is the game's programmer

 * 1) He knows exactly how much to deposit in Ness's account based on the type and quantity of enemies defeated.
 * 2) He is the only one who can save the game.
 * 3) Why is it Ness's father who speaks to Ness when Ness is defeated? He offers encouragement because, as the game's programmer, he doesn't want Ness (and by extension, the player) to quit before he's seen the whole game he put so much work into!

Jeff has limited PSI

 * 1) He can communicate with animals.
 * 2) Lots of animals in EB are telepathic, though (the monkeys, for instance).
 * 3) His 'spy' ability could be him searching the enemy's mind with telepathy.
 * 4) The reason he doesn't have a PSI menu or use PSI in battle is because his powers are only limited- He only has telepathy.

Apple Kid was responsible for the Iron Statues blocking your way
Also, the Threed zombie invasion. He knew all his inventions were useless, so he purposely blocked the protagonists' paths just so the machines would have some kind of use.
 * This actually explains a lot. How else would he have known that you'd need an Eraser Eraser?
 * However, this led to some problems when he was captured and kept in a secret alien base blocked off by an iron statue that he himself had set there.

Frank put Ness into a coma; everything from that point in the game onward is a dream
That would explain all the crazy crap that makes Earthbound what it is.
 * Because everything else up to that point made perfect sense.
 * Alternatively, the meteor didn't actually have anything to do with Buzz Buzz. It caused a minor earthquake, which made something on Ness's ceiling fall on him, putting him in a coma.

Giygas isn't just any female. Giygas is Maria.
Maria and George were abducted by aliens planning to run some experiments on humans. George managed to escape from them after some experiments and stole important information about PSI. Maria didn't manage to escape, however. The aliens mentally and physically altered her. She was turned into a shriveled, pale humanoid, and was also brainwashed by these aliens, although she eventually developed fond memories of her former self.
 * As for George, he didn't fully recover from his mental alterations. From the moment the aliens screwed him up, he started seeing things that weren't there. Things like Maria taking care of a small alien, or huge robots towering over him (He recorded the latter visions to build EVE). He also studied what he could about PSI, which was then learned by Ninten and Ana, and possibly passed down to Ness, Paula and/or Poo. Before long, his insane hallucinations grew too strong, and he eventually died as an old, lonely and insane human being.
 * Maria was locked in a capsule and taught many of the aliens' secrets, including PSI. She was now one of them. But before they could do anything else, Maria (now being known as Giygas) started unleashing an inexplicable power (PSI), and proclaimed herself the ruler of the aliens. Due to Giygas' incomprehensibly mighty power, they had no choice but to comply. She then ordered them to invade Earth, and the events of Earthbound Zero began.
 * After the events of the first game, Giygas vowed revenge upon the humans who defeated her, including her own great-grandson, Ninten, and fled back to space. She stayed in her vessel orbiting the Earth. When Ninten started singing the 8 Melodies, something cracked in her mind. It made her snap, and her alien mind took over most of her former memories. Her mind ripped apart from her body. The vessel eventually crash-landed on Earth, on a small town called Onett. There, she brought chaos and darkness upon the whole world, until Buzz Buzz decided to go back in time and find Ninten's descendant. Buzz Buzz was one of the aliens under Giygas' clutches, who went to Earth after notice of how her vessel had crashed there. While Buzz Buzz was searching for clues inside the crashe vessel, he heard voices outside. He found a boy who surprisingly looked a lot like Ninten, and assumed that this was the kid he was looking for. He then warned, the boy, Ness, of the horrible future that awaited the universe if he didn't stop her at all costs. This caused a rift in the space-time continuum, and Giygas, now just a mind existing without a body, was trapped by it in a land where time can't exist, inside a demonic capsule called the Devil's Machine.
 * After many adventures, Ness and company reached this place and encountered Giygas. Porky claimed that he was working with Giygas, even though he didn't know of her existance until she started influencing the minds of animals and weak humans. He just did that because he was a massive jerk, ready to build the most ridiculous plans and do the most vile actions just to mess with Ness. Thus, Giygas was freed from the Devil's Machine by Porky, ready to finally unleash her revenge on who she thought was Ninten. She was stopped, however, by Paula's praying. This insignificant soul was blocking her thoughts. Why? Because...
 * Er...so, what's the deal with Magicant, then? If Maria is Giygas, what's with Queen Mary?
 * Reincarnation of Maria's good side, the one before she was corrupted.

Paula is a descendant of Ninten, Ana or Lloyd, and she saved the world by breaking the limit of her PSI.
Paula was the only one who could put a stop to Giygas' madness because she was a descendant of the boys who put a stop to Giygas before. She prayed for someone to help them, and Giygas caught whiff of Paula's familiar thoughts. This started breaking down Giygas' mind even further, warping into unintelligible forms and corrupting itself. Giygas did one last attempt to stop them by devouring Paula's thoughts. Paula panicked, and wished for anyone, anyone to help her. Her PSI powers powered a plea was so strong that it warped through space, time, dimensions and reality itself, until it reached the player. This incredible breach between reality couldn't be fathomed by Giygas, and her mind devoured itself to stop this agonizing realization, erasing the chunk of time and space where the Chosen Four were, and their souls went back to their bodies.

Giygas is Cthulhu.
Why not? He's got power so great you can't grasp his true form, and the sprite actually looks a bit like Cthulhu's head. He's also insanely powerful, and doesn't have to move to kill all of your teammates (And You! with even more ease than is possible to imagine.

Earthbound takes place in the Fallout universe's Resource wars. Mother 3 takes place after 2077, in a remote island far from all the radiation.
This is why the game, despite taking place in 199X, is still like 1950s America and has things like housetaker robots for rich people. Mother 3 takes place on a remote island never hit by any nukes, and not suffering nuclear fallout - the day everybody got on "The Ship" was when the bombs fell, and the ship itself is a metaphor for a flying Vault-Tec vault.

Giygas is a Pokemon/Protoss Hybrid.
Giygas was a product of the Xel'Naga of Starcraft. Giygas was made from the DNA of Mew and the DNA of Protoss. Later on the scientists of the Pokemon world modeled Mewtwo after Giygas.

The Mani Mani Statue is the statue you get from Tom Nook
Obvious with hindsight

The game is set around 1990-1992
Due to the fact that the game plays the trope Two Decades Behind straight and that the game is stated to take place in The Nineties, it seems unlikely that the game is set very far into this decade.

Ness's dad is a businessman who is working abroard during the events of the game.
The same applies for Ninten's father.
 * I think this one's canon.

The Giygas you beat at the end of the game is Porky.
At some point of the game, Giygas switches bodies with Porky. That would explain why is Porky so evil, why did Giygas want to befriend Ness, how did he know his name and why is Porky still evil without Giygas' influence in Mother 3. Now someone crush my theory. Beating Giygas was depressing enough, but beating him while knowing that it's Porky trapped in Giygas' body is just heartbreaking.
 * Alternatively, (warning: crack theory approaching)
 * You frickin' kidding me? This is awesome! I love it!

The 8 melodies collecting plot was all made up
In the end, going to Magicant turns out to be totally useless to Ness, as the final battle is defeated by praying. Collecting the melodies with the sound stone was an excuse by Buzz Buzz to get Ness and his friends to travel the world and befriend people who had been possessed by Giygas's evil, slowly weakening his power over the Earth and allowing him to be defeated by all the people they had met along the way praying.
 * But if Ness didn't collect all 8 melodies, he would have been corrupted by the Mani Mani statue.

Ness is a Time Lord
Give me one good reason why not.
 * And the Phase Distorter III is the TARDIS.

Dr. Andonuts killed Ness and friends, and everybody else followed suit.
Dr. Andonuts tells the children (and the audience) that the Phase Distorter III is capable only of sending non-living objects through time. So, he performs a surgery to transfer what he calls the children's "brain programs" into robot bodies. Brains are complex biological structures that don't have any "programming," and it isn't possible in the 90's to make a robot that is actually sentient, has the same consciousness as something else without a brain, and capable of psychic powers that originate from the mind and body. Using his insane "brain program" theory, Dr. Andonuts fatally damages the brains of Ness and his group during surgery, killing them. The rest of the game as we see it is one of their dying dreams. Life goes on as usual aside from the tragic loss of the four children and Dr. Andonuts most likely getting locked up, until ten years later when Giygas causes the apocalypse that kicks off the plot of Mother 3. Porky still teamed up with Giygas, however, and was still interested in kidnapping Dr. Andonuts as is canon.

Giygas exists only as a mass of psionic energy.
This is explains Giygas' state at the end of Earthbound as opposed to Earthbound Zero
 * Giygas, desperate for revenge, continues to build up his psychic abilities over time, however, Ninten may die long before Giygas becomes strong enough, and so decides to use time travel to go so far back as the formation of the world.
 * As Dr. Andonuts states: living matter can not travel backwards in time. Powerful as Giygas is, he is unaware of these consequences. In spite of his psi abilities, the journey destroys his physical body and leaves behind only his mind, which is likely in a state of dissipation, preventing Giygas from focusing on anything without the aid of the Devil's Machine.
 * Although in a time and place where Giygas can ensure he is powerful enough by the time Ninten is born, Giygas' fractured state causes him to telepathically reach out, across time and space, which no longer hinders him since he is no longer living in a strict sense, and find individuals whom he can corrupt.
 * Ness and co. go back to a point where Giygas is vulnerable, which for the sake of efficiency could mean only going back as far as need be. In this case, that would be right before Giygas can become focused enough to begin his plans anew, which is roughly when the party gets there.
 * The future Buzz Buzz alludes to is one where they fail to stop Porky from aiding Giygas, which would seem t invoke a paradox, unless one accepts one of the above WMGs that Porky was always evil and would aid Giygas regardless of Buzz Buzz's intervention.
 * Porky aids Giygas because of their similarities: Giygas could not understand his adoptive parents love for him and Porky likely never received any from his.
 * The reason Giygas' attacks are indescribable is because, as a purely psionic entity, he merely as to launch part of himself at Ness. Ness cannot understand these attacks because they do not use a natural medium. (Fire, Ice, Neon Lights/Rockin') It functions in that respect like Mind Rape. The Player can damage Giygas because the ability to break the Fourth Wall and appeal to a higher Universe trumps PSI any day.

Praying didn't kill Giygas
It was just a diversion. When the player wasn't looking, the Chosen Four beat the everloving crap out of him. And then did the same to Pokey. For a twelve days nonstop. And recorded it. And brought it back to 199X. Then Jeff built another time machine and they went to the year 201X, where they posted it on the internet. It got 12 million views.

Poo isn't really Poo when he meets Ness.
During Poo's Mu training, his ancestor was talking about taking over his mind so he won't have to think anymore. Some entity or whatnot probably took him over.
 * Uh...no it didn't. And even if it did, it also took his limbs and eyes and ears, so it's clearly a metaphor.

Pokey becomes Giygas
Pokey becomes Giygas like so:
 * Pokey travels through time to Mother 3 and fights Lucas, getting trapped in the Absolutely Safe Capsule.
 * The universe ends and begins, Pokey safe in the capsule, and his body still aging and the capsule damaged from the big bang. Pokey creates the Starmen somehow to repair/modify the capsule.
 * Pokey becomes Giygas and his body's aged to the point where he looks like he did in Mother. The events of Mother happen.
 * Events of Mother 2 happen. Giygas at this time no longer has a physical body, and is just a now mind, unstable and shapeless within the Absolutely Safe Capsule, which has eroded to the point where it needs to be sustained by the Devil's Machine. Pokey meets Giygas and becomes his right-hand man. Giygas, mentally unstable, only remembers Ness from all this and attempts contacting Ness before finally dying as Pokey escapes.
 * Mother 3 happens, and the loop is complete.

Poo's Mu Training is all in the mind.
His ancestor didn't really take his limbs, sight, and hearing. His mind was trained enough to simulate the pain caused by removal of the limbs, blindness, and deafness.
 * Well yes, this is made explicitly obvious within the game itself.

The crazy cultists attack you with paintbrushes because they`re trying to assimilate you into their vision.
Think about it, anything not blue in their town is painted blue to fit their grand vision. Why else would they attack you with paintbrushes unless they were trying to force you to become blue? They`re trying to convert you by force.

In a strange, twisting Stable Time Loop, Porky, Giygas, Ninten, Ness, and Lucas are all the same being.
Okay, hear me out. Just warning you, this is a bit of a mash-up of some previous guesses. (Warning: Wall of text coming up.)

Porky is the first one on the scene. Due to time travel and the aforementioned stable time loop, all the previous characters exist already, leading to the events of Earthbound and Mother 3. As in a previous WMG, Porky, after fleeing into the absolutely safe capsule, travels time for who-knows-how-many years, going insane and possibly losing his memory. He eventually travels several years into the past and is found by an alien couple who take him in, renaming him Giygas, and raising him as an alien. Eventually, "Giygas" is told to attack earth because his stepfather, George, stole their technology. Cue the events of Mother 1 and Earthbound, at the end of which, Porky is defeated twice: his far past self, thus cementing that part of the stable time loop, and his future self, this time for good. However, he didn't truly die, and again, as per a previous guess, reborn. Deviating from that original theory, he is reborn as Ninten, rather than Lucas, and given a chance at redemption by defeating his past self, leading to the events of Mother 1. As per said game, he passes the test. However, shortly after this, something happens to Ninten that puts him in a coma for a few years, and kills his family. Somehow, he survives the coma (maybe he's found by one of his friends.) When he eventually wakes up, he has become amnesiac, and is adopted by a loving family that names him Ness. Said family lives in Onett, next to the Minch family, and Ness meets Porky. The reason Ness feels any affection towards Porky (remember the Porky from Magicant) is because he is unknowingly a distant future counterpart of him. The events of Earthbound happen, and Giygas's fate is sealed. Shortly after this, however, the end of the world described by Leder in Mother 3 occurs, and Ness and his family board the White Ship. On arriving on the Nowhere Islands, Ness's family's memories are rewritten, and their physical appearances changed, lest the familiar faces reawaken their memories of the original world. Their names are changed, with Ness's name changing to Lucas, his father's to Flint, his mother's to Hinawa. Something happened to Ness's sister on the way, (maybe she died in the original world's destruction) and they adopted Claus to make up for it, in a way. All this is followed by the events of Mother 3, thus finally completing the loop.

If you actually read all that, you deserve a cookie.

The real reason that Nintendo is refusing to release the Mother games in America or Europe
Is that they're being manipulated by Giygas. After being defeated in Earthbound, there was still a small part of him left, and it went looking through dimensions for the reason he could possibly be defeated by four kids. Eventually, he came to our own. At this point, everyone could play the Mother games, including Europe and America, prompting him to travel back to the past and manipulate Nintendo. It started by stopping Mother 1 from being released in America or Europe (he left the Japanese version so that he would be born in the first place) and thus he wasn't defeated in those countries. Euphoric with this success, he let his guard down, allowing Earthbound to be released outside of Japan, in America, and thus, American audiences were able to weaken him by playing the game, and defeating him. Not willing to go back in time again, he doubled his guard, and didn't let Nintendo release Mother 3. He also began manipulating the population of America that had the game, making them sell it at rediculous prices once it became popular. However, unbenownst to him, there were several people that were willing to download the games illegally to play them, or to pay the rediculous prices. Because of this, Giygas is weakened to the point where he can't take over our own world. (That's right, kids, piracy makes everything better!) Eventually, enough people will have played and beaten the game (thus defeating him) that his grip on Nintendo will weaken to the point that they'll release them all around the world, thus introducing even more people to the series, and Giygas will be defeated for good.

Ness's dad is Charles Foster Ofdenson.
It would explain how his dad is capable of giving him huge amounts of money whenever he wants it. As for why Ofdenson never mentions Ness or his family to the band, it's possible that he and Ness's mother divorced sometime after the events of Earthbound. Or the band just doesn't care, which is pretty in-character for them.