Giygas

The Face.. or Fetus.. of evil.

Ninten! I am grateful to your family. Your Great- Grandparents, George and Maria raised me. But, George stole vital information from our planet that can be used to betray my people... And now, one of his descendants is obstructing our plans, and must be stopped!! Ninten! I am talking about you! Go home now! Perish with the rest of the ugly Earth People. Foolish one, you cannot do a thing with your meager powers... Powers worthy of a lowly insect. Ninten! You alone, I may save you. Just you alone. Board our Mother Ship with me. -Giegue Mother
It hurts, Ness... -Giygas Earthbound Giygas (ギーグ Gīgu), also known as Giegue and Gyiyg, is the main antagonist in Mother and EarthBound. Known as both the "Embodiment of Evil" and the "Universal Cosmic Destroyer", Giygas is an evil alien who intends to sentence all of reality to the horror of infinite darkness. With an army of Starman, Octobots and other deadly war machines, Giygas also uses his immense power to influence certain Earthlings to assist him, such as Pokey Minch and Geldegarde Monotoli. In EarthBound, most of Giygas's operations take place in the city of Fourside.

Biography

Giygas was raised from infancy by a woman named Maria and her husband George, both of whom were abducted from Earth in 1909 (dated as the early 1900's in Earth Bound Zero and Mother 1 + 2). During this time, George studied the aliens' PSI powers without their permission, culminating with his escape back to Earth. Once he matured, Giygas was tasked by his people to ensure that PSI never spread onto Earth. However, Giygas did not want to betray those who raised him, particularly Maria. In the end, he was forced to detach himself from Maria and begin preparations for the invasion of Earth. Sometime before the invasion, Giygas comes across the Apple of Enlightenment, a fruit that shows the future. Giygas learns of his inevitable defeat at the hands of Ness, and so he attacks Earth twenty years before this would occur in order to disprove the prophecy.

In Mother

Eighty years later, the invasion begins, and Giygas is confronted by the great-grandson of Maria and George, Ninten, and his companions. During the final battle of the game, Giygas, still hurt by the loss of Maria, offers Ninten to come with him back to his home planet. Ninten automatically declines this offer, and Giygas continues to attack. Ninten and his friends quickly prove no match for Giygas; they resort to singing a song once shared between Maria and Giygas, and the comforting memories he had suppressed weaken Giygas. The latter surrenders and retreats, promising that he will return.

In EarthBound

Giygas returns to Earth many years later as the primary antagonist of EarthBound, though he vastly differs from his appearance in Mother. In the time between invasions, Giygas, still trying to defy fate, brainwashes Ness's neighbor Pokey Minch in to becoming his right hand man so that he would be victorious. Giygas gains such tremendous evil power that it destroys his entire being, including his mind, causing him to become undefinable by human standards. As such, Giygas manifests as what can only be described as pure evil; in Pokey Minch's words, "he is the Evil Power". Due to the loss of his mind, Giygas becomes irrational and incapable of thought. To rectify this, Pokey seals him in the Devil's Machine so that his power would be contained and his mind kept intact. In the final battle, Pokey attests that Giygas isn't aware of himself or what he is doing, referring to him as "an all-mighty idiot".

Now wielding a vast cosmic power which he is unable to control, Giygas becomes a threat to the existence of the universe itself. Ten years after the beginning of EarthBound, Giygas initiates the apocalypse. The only known being who manages to escape destruction is a Starman Junior and an alien insect named Buzz Buzz, who travels back in time ten years and warns Ness of the impending catastrophe. Ness is given the Sound Stone and instructed to record the Eight Melodies in order to gain the power of Earth and be strong enough to face Giygas.

In Ness's present-day, Giygas's influence is seen throughout the world, mainly in the form of enemies that Ness encounters. Now existing as the whole of evil power in the universe, Giygas is able to manipulate the evil in the minds of living beings, both human and animal, and can apparently manipulate even the forms of inanimate objects.

In the final battle, Giygas is held within the Devil's Machine, which was created to contain Giygas's tremendous power. During the battle, Pokey shuts the machine off, causing all of Giygas's power to be unleashed; the event surrounds the four children in a chaotic, bizarre dimension of darkness. His attacks are random and incomprehensible, and his speech is erratic and mindless. Although Giygas was too powerful for Ness and his friends to overcome by fighting, he is eventually defeated after Paula calls out to the people of Earth to Pray (including the player), and the combined prayers reach Giygas and exploit his weakness, which turns out to be human emotions (possibly due to his loss of Maria). He fades into nothingness, and his apocalyptic future is erased.

The five phases of the battle are:

1. Devil's Machine (invincible) and Heavily Armed Pokey (must be defeated to continue)
2. Giygas
3. Wounded Giygas 1
4. Wounded Giygas 2 (This is where the Giygas Fetus is first visible)
5. Fatally Wounded

• Note: If you have Jeff spy on Giygas, you will learn that he is susceptible to brainshock. Having Poo then use Brainshock (either one) will result in Giygas becoming pitifully easy as long as you can heal back fast enough.

Theory

• Some fans have noted a resemblance between Giygas's sprite in Mother and Mewtwo from the Pokémon series and that they both are shown to have powerful psychic abilities. It is also interesting to note that many people who worked on Mother also worked on the Pokémon series.
• There used to be a theory that Giygas is a fetus when encountered in The Cave of the Past that gained support by the fact that Ness and co. traveled back in time to face Giygas and that one of the final undulations of Giygas's background during the battle makes the image appear to form the outline of a baby. However, the theory has been almost universally discarded due to Shigesato Itoi's explanation on the creation of Giygas and that the image is simply a coincidence.

Trivia

• Brainshock is effective against Giygas, although only during a few of his various different stages.
• Giygas is one of the three characters who can use PSI Rockin, along with Ness and Ness's Nightmare.
• In Mother 1 + 2, it is actually possible to defeat Giygas outside of the scripting by poisoning him. Doing so earns no experience points and ends the battle as if it was normal. However, the ending proceeds normally with the minor difference that Tracy, King, and Ness's Mother are briefly seen in The Cave of the Past.
• After Giygas is defeated in EarthBound, the screen effect resembles a television screen being turned off. The static at the end of the Giygas battle also resembles the static shown at the beginning of the game, before the EarthBound logo.
• The line "You cannot grasp the true form of Giygas's attack!", and many of Giygas's dialogue lines have become internet memes.
• At one point in the battle against Drawcia in the game Kirby Canvas Curse, the background uses warping special effects similar to what is used on Giygas's background in EarthBound. It is possible, though unlikely, that this technique was inspired by the EarthBound technique.
• If one were to flip a picture of Giygas upside down, the "face" looks exactly like Giegue's as he appeared in Mother.