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[Meffer]

Since I've been playing Earthbound Beginnings I've started to remember about playing Mother 3 and just feeling so many emotions throughout the whole thing. And just thought about a rather shocking insight about one certain aspect.

Now mind you, if you haven't played the game and want to at some point, I warn you what I'm about to say is very spoiler heavy. I suggest not looking any farther until you played it. Alright?















Good. Okay, now here is the question.
Was Lucas suicidal? In my opinion, yes he was. Now some of you might disagree saying you control him through most of the game so you're not trying to die, you lose if you do.
Here's my retort on that: there are games where you do control a character but don't know their thoughts or motives, examples being like Bioshock or Shadow of the Colossuses. That can be the case here with Lucas. Here are some examples that explain my reasoning.
1: Lucas was depressed. When you look at Lucas as a whole, he is a sad child. He lost his mother, his brother has been missing for years and his father for these years goes out very often looking for him leaving Lucas alone. If that doesn't make him depressed I don't know what could.
2. The sunflower scene. One of the most emotional moments in the game. Lucas comes to, finding himself in a field of sunflowers which makes him think of his mom due to the fact they were her favorite flowers. His feelings about the death of his mom boil to the point where it crashes upon him. And he sees a image of her and chases after her till he stops at a cliff were she floats past the ledge in midair. Now when you come to this point, you stop at the cliff to know what this place is. Lucas knows he's in front of a cliff but that doesn't stop him from jumping off. Because he wants to be with his mother.

So what are your opinions about this?

 

[Zane]

Lucas certainly had some sort of mental trauma, as evidenced by the events on the island where the party hallucinates on shrooms, but I'm not sure he's suicidal. More likely he just has some form of mental scarring.

 

[NormalFish]

Wow you took a totally different route on this. The events in Mother 3 and Lucas' journey throughout seems anything but depressive to me.

Contrarily, Mother 3 seems to focus on the idea that while life deals you a poor hand sometimes, powering through for the sake of your ideals and those you love is necessary. To me, that's a somewhat inspirational, if bleak, message.

 

[Verilligo]

Wow you took a totally different route on this. The events in Mother 3 and Lucas' journey throughout seems anything but depressive to me.

Contrarily, Mother 3 seems to focus on the idea that while life deals you a poor hand sometimes, powering through for the sake of your ideals and those you love is necessary. To me, that's a somewhat inspirational, if bleak, message.

I'm not sure I can go along with this, given the part where Lucas is plot-forced to kill his own brother. Your final action of the game is to literally end the world, so I could see why someone would think he'd be suicidal.

This is part of why I dislike Mother 3 so much, there is no real joy or levity. Mother 1 has an incredibly depressing backstory, but at least Ninten has a relatively good time of things. Lucas, on the other hand, is dealt bad hand after bad hand. The only family he has left is a father figure that apparently cares way more about his presumed dead son than his living one. And at the end of it all, the villain doesn't even get his comeuppance; Pokey gets away with the whole damned thing, albeit sealed away safely for all eternity.

Is Lucas suicidal? Maybe, maybe not. But I think it's perfectly reasonable to posit that by the end of it, he really didn't have a single thing going for him in life.

 

[Fandangox]

I'm not sure I can go along with this, given the part where Lucas is plot-forced to kill his own brother. Your final action of the game is to literally end the world, so I could see why someone would think he'd be suicidal.

This is part of why I dislike Mother 3 so much, there is no real joy or levity. Mother 1 has an incredibly depressing backstory, but at least Ninten has a relatively good time of things. Lucas, on the other hand, is dealt bad hand after bad hand. The only family he has left is a father figure that apparently cares way more about his presumed dead son than his living one. And at the end of it all, the villain doesn't even get his comeuppance; Pokey gets away with the whole damned thing, albeit sealed away safely for all eternity.

Is Lucas suicidal? Maybe, maybe not. But I think it's perfectly reasonable to posit that by the end of it, he really didn't have a single thing going for him in life.

Its ambiguous whether Lucas' pulling the needle actually destroys the world. Flint pretty much abandoned Lucas cause he was obsessed with finding Claus, but Flint evidently did care about Lucas as he took a mortal attack for him.

Plus by the end of the game he had a new family with Duster and Kumatora who were with him all the way through.

 

[Yokai]

2. The sunflower scene. One of the most emotional moments in the game. Lucas comes to, finding himself in a field of sunflowers which makes him think of his mom due to the fact they were her favorite flowers. His feelings about the death of his mom boil to the point where it crashes upon him. And he sees a image of her and chases after her till he stops at a cliff were she floats past the ledge in midair. Now when you come to this point, you stop at the cliff to know what this place is. Lucas knows he's in front of a cliff but that doesn't stop him from jumping off. Because he wants to be with his mother.

Been a while since i played but wasn't that sequence just a dream he had after falling from the sky and landing in the pile of hay?