Of birds and morons: a look into Mother 3′s most intricate unspoken running joke/motif
Shoutout to @amphibizzy for convincing me to talk about this. There’s so much Mother 3 meta that I want to talk about- maybe next time I’ll make a video essay to spare you all from reading so much >o<
Tldr; Duster and Wess have bird motifs that don’t quite translate over well, making Wess’s mannerisms slightly less harsh in context but outs him as surprisingly superstitious. May be a nod to Japanese mythology, too.
So, a starting point. Did you know that at beginning of chapter 7 after Ionia joins you (still tied up at this point) that if you go back and talk to Wess he says something rather strange?
For clarity, the entire original conversation reads "Washi no inemuri uranai ni yoreba kyou wa TRIPLE LUCKY da yo. Jishin o motte daikatsuyaku shinasai." which translates as “According to my sleep divinations, today is triple lucky. Go forth with great confidence.”
Weird, right? Since when has Wess believed in something like fortune telling through dreams? Is that why he believed Alec’s dream of Hinawa? And what does this have to do with birds?
Be sure to remember this.
Part 1: Cleaning crew bird boys
So now let’s take a step back and look at the easiest part of all this. In all of Mother 3, there’s only 1 bandana that Flint can equip (the manly bandana that Lighter gave him), otherwise the only characters than can equip bandanas are Duster and Salsa. The bandanas (except the manly one) all have a bird names, with the types being the chick, sparrow, rail (the kana used refers to the water rail, a type of bird), swallow (also a bird), crow, kite (also a bird), and Horus (the Egyptian god whose head resembles a falcon).
Now that’s all well and good, but let’s say that’s not good enough. Wess and Duster’s connection with watching over the Hummingbird Egg seems pretty solid with Duster’s bird bandanas but let’s go deeper.
When Wess snaps, he consistently refers to Duster as “aho” (moron) and “anoaho” (that moron). Which is needlessly cruel, but... also a pun. Yes, that’s right. The game totters around the joke that Duster is bird-brained, through which Wess is the main spark and Duster is the conduit. And for the record’s sake this isn’t me excusing Wess’s actions- I’m making an intricate webcomic about his relationship with Duster and him learning how to be a better person for a reason, after all- but I’ve literally heard nobody else talk about this so I honestly think people don’t know about it.
In Japan, “aho” means “moron”, but it is also the onomatopoeia for a crow’s cawing. There’s a trope known as the “idiot crow” in Japanese media based on this. What will happen is that something dumb will happen and a crow will fly by and caw “aho aho!”. Which means “caw caw” but also means “moron moron”. Thus the joke. So Wess’s “aho aho!”-ing and using “anoaho” makes him sound like an old crow, commentating on Duster’s mistakes.
Will I get banned from the fandom for making a Homestuck “caw caw motherfucker joke with Wess or-?”
This also feeds into Duster being a bird- “aho” (”moron”) is also used in the word “ahoudori” (”albatross”). Which is a bird, of course. And it’s no coincidence either- albatross are known as “idiot birds” in Japan- that’s what “ahoudori” literally translates to.
One more thing that I’ll add to the “Duster’s a bird” pool aside from making a “HEY GUYS LOOK HE’S A FEATHER DUSTER” joke is that his “aho” bird-ness lends him to more “you are ____ type of bird” jokes, which is actually extrapolated by Lighter in game.
In the Japanese version Lighter says “Sugoshi CONDOR? Iya sakatta. Sugoshi hagetaka? Gaahaahaaha.” This translates as “[You’re] a bit condor-ish? No, that’s not it. [You’re] a bit vulture-ish? Gahaha.”
A bit “vulture-ish”? Why does he say that? And why did Mato translate it as going bald? Because it’s another wordplay pun! Much like how “ahoudori” (”albatross”) is literally “idiot-bird”, “hagetaka” (”vulture”) is literally “bald-hawk”. But even more than that, “hagetaka” (a noun) is similar to “hageru”, the verb for “to bald”. Since “hageru” is an ichidan verb, you can conjugate it as “hageta” to say “balded”. And then you tack on “ka” at the end to make the statement a question. So, in short:
Hagetaka=vulture
Hage=bald
Taka=hawk
Hageru=to bald
Hageta=balded
“Hagetaka?”=“Have you balded?”
Hagetaakaa=the “balding eagle” enemy on Mr. Oriander
Damn, Lighter! That’s a choice pun. Now, whether or not he was mostly doing it to make a bird joke, to note that Duster looks balder without an afro, or genuinely comment on Duster’s hairline is anyone’s guess. But hey thanks for the bird fodder Lighter!
Part 2: Idiots don’t catch colds
If there’s one Japanese idiom you’ve heard, it’s probably that one. It’s a funny little superstition- the idea that you’re so dumb that your brain lacks to capacity to get a cold- but surprisingly it may be a belief by which Wess operates. And yes, this still has to do with birds! In a roundabout way!
Wess being the type of person to believe in magical dreaming and superstition was a very hard concept for me to process at first after I read that “triple lucky” bit during a Mother 3 playthrough. With the exception of Duster-related things, Wess seems like a fairly understanding and reasonable person: he tells Flint to be careful and consider his family before rushing off to confront the Mecha-Drago, he wants to help search for Hinawa, he’s adamantly opposed to Fassad’s BS and is one of the only villagers to actively oppose him, and he even tells Duster (upon inputting “no” during a dialogue tree in early chapter 2) that Duster can target any hatred or resentment he may have towards him, since by Wess’s logic that doesn’t matter as long as their mission succeeds.
So if anything he’s a bit crass and willing to sacrifice his own pride/comfort/personal relationships for the greater good, but his convictions are strong and seemingly grounded in his own sense of justice and logic. Which is why I always took him as someone who wouldn’t believe in PSI, magic, or anything supernatural like that. But since he *does* seem to believe in that sort of thing, let’s break down what we know:
Wess refers to Duster as a moron
Duster’s IQ is often tied with Boney’s for lowest party member IQ
Wess tells Kumatora in chapter 3 that “morons like that don’t get hurt or sick”
Duster canonically doesn’t catch fevers while Kumatora and Lucas do
In Japan, there’s the idiom “idiots don’t catch colds”
Wess claims to have dreams with fortune telling powers
Says Lucas will have a “triple lucky” day
Lucas proceeds to successfully pull 3 out of the 7 needles before the chapter is over
It’s almost as if Wess wants Duster to be a moron, because superstitiously Duster would be safer that way. Hm. It’s also strange that Wess almost seems magical, which may have legitimately been viable at some point since Wess was planned as a playable character for a long while (Therefore he could have been a PSI user with thunder attacks to replace his bombs). There’s an Earthbound 64 screenshot of Wess being alive while Duster is fainted and even all the way up through Mother 3 you can still access data suggesting Wess was a normal party member from the debug room (I could make a whole post on that- you can use a glitch to pull up all of his stats except HP and PP).
So Duster may be a bird and Wess an old, superstitious crow with maybe some sort of ambiguous connection to magic... but so what? Well,
Part 3: It’s Yo-kai time! (Yatagarasu, Kotengu, and Karasutengu)
This is a much more speculative section, though I try to be reasonable.
You know, I skimmed over the fact that Duster’s final and best bandana is the Horus Bandana, named after the Egyptian deity with a falcon head. Horus’s right and left eyes represent the sun and moon, respectively. His left eye (the moon one) was injured in a fight, explaining the moon’s phases. Funny, considering that Duster also has a left side injury.
But perhaps Horus isn’t the only ancient deity that we can talk about. I propose the most compelling case, Yatagarasu:
(He’s the bird sitting atop the bow)
Yatagarasu is the Japanese name of a myth that originated in China. He’s a 3-legged crow that is representative of the sun. Specifically in Japan, he represents the will of heaven and divine intervention. He symbolizes guidance, as well as rebirth after tragic stuff like battle/war.
Yatagarasu is prominent enough that there’s a Yu-gi-oh card and a Persona based on him too, which is pretty cool. But even cooler is that he sounds a lot like what the Egg of Light, Wess, and Duster were responsible for. The Egg was responsible for the rebirth of their lives for the citizens of Tazmily. And Wess and Duster’s task to protect the Egg for reasons they don’t understand for the sake of a village that doesn’t appreciate their work seems like they’re doing god’s work, so to speak.
An important thing about Yatagarasu too is that it defies the normal Japanese superstition that crows are bad luck. Yatagarasu is a harbinger of good. I’m not sure if any of this was intentional or not, but I think comparing Duster, Wess, and the Egg of Light to it is a pretty solid theory.
So let’s briefly skim over Kotengu and Karasutengu, which are lesser Tengu with bird-like faces. (For my own reference there’s really good write ups here and here about them.) For the most part the important thing is that they are bird/crow yokai, but one intriguing thing I found is that Kotengu is that they tend to live like hermits (like Wess and Duster), carry items/weapons stolen from humans (the thief aspect), and collect magical items (the thief tools).
Conclusion:
So do I think Wess and Duster are supposed to represent bird tengu? I don’t know! Maybe not completely deliberately, but I definitely believe in the strength of the bird motifs (especially crow Wess). I had drawn a silly little picture about it 2 years ago for Inktober, in fact...
Whatever the case, I hope someone out there appreciates the info dump. There’s a lot of Mother 3 stuff I’ve examined meticulously so that my Mother 3 webcomic, DutyBound, can be the best it can be. Sometimes there’s so much info I want to share but nobody who will listen, though!
So if anyone ever wants to hear some more crazy in-depth Mother 3 meta, I’m your guy >.<
What do you think the ending of every single of the Phantomhive servants Could be ?
Based on Mother3 theory, or just gut feeling? Though Mother3 is pretty dark enough, Black Butler is darker in many ways. For example, I don’t recall anyone threatening to sell Lucas off to be a drugged sex slave… (though he does at one point eat hallucinogenic mushrooms 🍄 and has the most horrid visions. The only member of his team to avoid the 🍄 is Boney, since the dog can tell it’s bad, even though it has healing properties in the game).
Anyway…. Mother3 doesn’t really suggest much about the other servants, except for Tanaka… and a couple possibilities for Snake.
Tanaka’s parallel is Leder, the town bell ringer who keeps the big secret of Tazmily Village and Nowhere Islands: the people had arrived in a huge boat after the rest of the world had been basically destroyed by war (human folly). They used the Egg of Light (or Hummingbird Egg) to remove their memories of the past, so that they could start over. This was before the twins were born, apparently. It was Leder’s job to finally speak up when it was time for the person who could fulfill the prophecy (to wake the Dark Dragon) to know – when the person was ready. I still think Tanaka is keeping silent about the attack on the Phantomhives until he thinks the earl (and Sebastian) is ready to hear it. Leder lives, so hopefully Tanaka will, too.
With Snake it’s harder. There are enemy snakes and helpful snakes. The Oh-So-Snake is a huge enemy that reminds me of Snake’s snakes 🐍 turning into the giant serpent in ch107.5. But then Lucas and his pals are sometimes helped by Rope Snakes, which can get Lucas and others into places they otherwise couldn’t reach. Kind of like how Sebastian has Snake send scouts into Sieglinde’s underground chamber, etc. The Oh-So-Snake wasn’t killed, that I recall, but it was defeated. The Rope Snakes sometimes show up later asking why they’ve been forgotten… like “are we forgotten now that we are no longer needed?” They survive, too. Snake and his snakes have a good chance of survival.
Mey-Rin, Finny, and Bard? Hmm. No idea I can think of right now. Aren’t they shown as bodies in that pile at the earl’s “throne”? But so is Lizzy…. Too hard to call it. Those three have less chance of survival, since Black Butler is so much darker…. But I do think Lizzy lives? I hope so. She’s like the shoe weapons to Edward’s Duster parallel…. And the grand ch66 search for her Easter Egg is a parallel for Duster and others searching for the Egg of Light....
Happy Pride Month everyone! I want to draw some stuff and post a fic that I was going to post last year but first first I've got to finish something that I promised somebody. Anyways, happy Pride month from the DutyBound crew!
