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Warning! This post contains heavy spoilers for Mother 1 and Earthbound/Mother 2. Proceed at your own risk!

Note: Within in this post Giygas is called by two names; Gieuge (as he is called during the events of Mother 1/Earthbound 0) and Giygas (as he is called during the events of Earthbound/Mother 2.) These both refer to the same character, and are merely two different romanizations of his name, each being used in the translation of their respective game. While like Porky and Pokey, either work, it makes for an easy way to distinguish between the two very diffrent froms of Giygas, and serves as a nice way to highlight the horrific change he undergoes. Hope that clears up any confusion!

Preface: First off, thanks to the countless people I harassed into proofreading this for me, and the awesome Joel for photoshopping my fabulous header. I love you all! My greatest challenge in writing this was to balance the concrete with the theoretical, and the factual with the dramatization, and to make sure it didn't end up sounding like bad fanfiction XP Hopefully I succeeded on all of these fronts and you'll at least get some enjoyment out of the wall of text that is to follow!

In the pantheon of great videogame villains, there are quite a few truly sick bastards. Characters like Kefka, The Doctor, Sander Cohen and Lavos are wholly and unrepentantly evil. But above all these fine specimens of virtual nefarity stands, or rather swirls, one inhuman monster: Giygas, the Universal Cosmic Destroyer, and main villain of Earthbound. You see, Gigyas is evil, not in the sense that he's a dastardly character, but in that he is the literal embodiment of evil itself. Dwelling on a plane of existence we can't even comprehend, Giygas lacks not only a body but a mind. He is a senseless "living" force of despair, wrecking apocalyptic havoc throughout out the cosmos.

But the fact is, he wasn't always a incomprehensible entity of sin. In fact, Giygas started out as something not too different from you and I, with feelings, a conscience, and even someone he loved. Join me, as I embark on a journey through the darkest and most tragic depths of the Mother series, and into the mind of its most terrible horror. We'll paint the psychological portrait of evil itself, because tonight we'll delve into Giygas, the most tragic villain I've ever encountered.

[Editor's note: Scary Womanzing Pig Mask talks about virtual deck building for his A Time to Build Monthly Musing. -- CTZ]

I have a confession to make: I like children’s card games. Not like Gin Rummy or Crazy Eights, although those are amazing, but the addictive devil known as trading card games. They're incredibly fun, in both playing them, constructing and personalizing a deck. The process of starting out with a simple deck and slowly augmenting it by steadily gaining new cards from booster packs, with the eventual result of a customized, unique deck that perhaps even reflects you a bit, is one I greatly enjoy.

Despite this though, I hardly had any actual cards, now or in the past, because despite being made of win, card games are flawed. They exist to sell themselves, which leads to some unfortunate aspects, like loads of useless cards that only serve to clog up packs forcing you to buy more to obtain more desirable ones and overly complex and archaic rules as the series progress. New material is always required.

That’s why I love trading card videogames. They capture a specific instance in time when the card game was at its peak. The arduous and expensive process of trolling though booster packs to find certain cards is alleviated by their price-free abundance, and one cad fully enjoy the best part of card games: constructing a deck.

[Editor's note: SWPM talks about the fear of running out of items for his Monthly Musing piece. -- CTZ]

It’s the end stretch of the Cliff That Time Forgot. All that stands between me and Giygas is one last Starmen. What should be an easy bout before the big finale is has taken a turn for the worse though. Paula’s HP is starting to trickle down, and Poo is already in a critical state. As the Starman finishes another onslaught, I’m left to decide my actions. I could stay the course and keep on trying to bat him down, or I could finish him off in one turn with one of Jeff’s Bottle Rockets. The correct course of action is obvious, but a nagging voice keeps me from taking it. “But what if I need that rocket for the boss?”

Jump ahead a bit and were in Rapture; Olympus Heights to be exact. An enraged Big Daddy is trying his best to send me to a watery grave. As I weave around the ruins of a dead city, taking post shots with a machine gun. I’m struck with a profound desire to just pull out my rocket launcher and end this with a heat seeking round. I don’t though, because the same voice is back, worrying: “What if I need that to beat Fontaine?”

As odd as this may sound, my greatest fear in gaming doesn’t come from zombie dogs jumping through windows, corrupted data or even from the Ultimate Embodiment of Evil itself. My biggest fear is that I’ll run out of items.