Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Giygas, also known as Giegue (Japanese: ギーグ Gyiyg), is the main antagonist in EarthBound and EarthBound Beginnings.
Known as both the "Embodiment of Evil" and the "Universal Cosmic Destroyer", Giygas is an evil alien who, upon failing his original mission to reclaim the knowledge of PSI from humans, intends to sentence all of reality to the horror of infinite darkness. With an army of Starmen, 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. His influence also causes animals and people to become violent and distressed. He belongs to a race of aliens who originally had the power of PSI and, for unknown reasons, abducted humans in the 1900s and 198X.
Most of Giygas's operations take place in the city of Fourside.
Personality[]
- "…I'm so sad... …..Ness"
- — Giygas
Decades after his previous invasion, from unknown means Giygas' mental and physical state declined so much that his body and mind fell into ruin, appearing to lose all sense of guilt and restraint he became far more destructive and was sealed into the Devil's Machine to contain his newfound form and to what was left of his sanity. During this time Giygas invaded Earth once more and used plunged it into ruin becoming renowned as the Embodiment of Evil across the universe. Despite this, it has been suggested that Giygas still harbored emotions such as fear as he learned from the Apple of Enlightenment that he would meet his end by a boy named Ness and wanted to avoid this. Giygas decided to invade Earth ten years earlier in the past in 199X to prevent this possibility. In EarthBound Giygas used similar tactics he did in his earlier invasion manipulating the evils in the minds of humans, animals, and even inanimate objects with his influence, when confronted by the Chosen Four including Ness he attacked them with PSI alongside Pokey.
When the Devil's Machine was turned off by the former Giygas regressed back into a erratic and near mindless state as he howled out in pain and attacked the chosen four incomprehensibly. While before this point Giygas was hailed by many of his subordinates and Pokey as being nothing but pure evil, Giygas spoke to Ness and his friends most somberly, suggesting to some degree he was aware of how far he had fallen into madness, telling the four he was in great pain, telling them to "go back", telling Ness he was sad, telling them "it was not right", among other things revealed that traits of his old self remained. In this state the only thing that could effect him was positive emotion by act of praying which ultimately brought about his end.
Story[]
- "So, isn't this terrifying? I'm terrified too. Giygas cannot think rationally anymore, and he isn't even aware of what he is doing now. His own mind was destroyed by his incredible power. What an all-mighty idiot! Yep, that's what he is! Heh heh heh heh... and you... you will be... just another meal to him!"
- — Pokey Minch
Giygas trapped in Devil's Machine with Pokey
Giygas returns to Earth many years later in 199X as the primary antagonist of EarthBound, though he vastly differs from his appearance in EarthBound Beginnings. Ten years in the future, Giygas has taken over the Earth and sent all in it to darkness. He discovers the Apple of Enlightenment which prophesizes his defeat at the hands of Ness and so travels back into the past in order to stop Ness. In the present day, his influence is spreading over Eagleland, in particular to Ness's neighbor Pokey Minch. Pokey becomes one of Giygas's main agents in the attack against Ness, aided by his jealousy of Ness. Giygas, already unstable from his guilt surrounding the loss of Maria, exerts 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. To stop him, one of the only known beings who manage to escape destruction in the future, an alien insect named Buzz Buzz, travels back to 199X. Buzz Buzz 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. Giygas's influence is further 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.
Ness and his friends, known in prophecy as the Chosen Four, are forced to abandon their bodies and travel into the past in order to attack Giygas in The Cave of the Past. 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, the same human emotion that weakened him in EarthBound Beginnings. He breaks up and is reduced to nothingness, and his apocalyptic future is erased.
The five phases of the battle are:
- Devil's Machine and Heavily Armed Pokey, though during this phase only Pokey should be harmed.
- Giygas
- Wounded Giygas 1, from this point onwards only pray is meant to be used to attack him.
- Wounded Giygas 2
- Fatally Wounded
Gallery[]
Conception[]
In an interview about Giygas's appearance in EarthBound, Shigesato Itoi revealed that while Giygas is mostly something that can not be made sense of, a part of it is "like a living being that deserves love. That part is the breast of Hisako Tsukuba from “The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty”. "The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty" (憲兵とバラバラ死美人 "Kenpei to Barabara Shibijin") is a 1957 adult film that Shigesato Itoi accidentally saw as a child when he walked into the wrong theater, confusing a lovemaking scene that becomes a murder as rape. In fact, Itoi is incorrect about several details from the scene: he says that "When the guy grabbed her breast really hard, it got distorted into this ball shape. It all hit me really hard. It was a direct attack to my brain." despite the fact that this does not actually occur, and Itoi admitted that his memories of that scene were "fuzzy at best". However, from his memories of the scene, he added "this sense of terror having atrocity and eroticism side-by-side, and that’s what Giygas's lines at the end are. During the end, he says, “It hurts,” right? That's... her breast. It’s like, how do I put it, a “living-being” sensation."
Giygas's dialogue was created by both himself and a staff member Matchan Miura. Since Itoi did not know how to use computers at this time, the two of them would sit alone in a room with Itoi speaking the dialogue one Japanese letter at a time and Matchan typing in on the computer and it being displayed in hiragana. Itoi would then look at the screen and give Miura instructions on what to change, and a section would be finished once Itoi was impressed and they both were almost in tears.
Theories[]
Theory warning: This section contains theoretical information based on the viewpoints or research of one or several other users. It has not been officially verified by Nintendo and its factual accuracy is disputed.
For many years, fans have debated and created multiple theories concerning Giygas. Two theories have achieved widespread acknowledgment and have been of popular debate. The following are three theories.
- Some fans have noted a resemblance between Giygas's sprite in EarthBound Beginnings and Mewtwo from the Pokémon series and that they both are shown to have powerful psychic abilities. It is also interesting to note that Ape Inc, who worked on EarthBound Beginnings, later became Creatures Inc, one of the main developers of the Pokémon series.
- There is a persistent theory that Giygas is a fetus when encountered in the Cave of the Past that gained support by the fact that Ness 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 disproven due to Shigesato Itoi's explanation on the creation of Giygas and that the image is simply a coincidence, due to how EarthBounds backgrounds are generated. It is also clear that though Ness traveled back in time, it was to a point after the events of EarthBound Beginnings, where Giygas was a fully-grown alien.
- Another popular theory is that the face seen in the Devil's Machine is not that of Ness but that of Ninten, as it is impossible for Giygas to have seen Ness before the fight as the only time Giygas sees Ness is when they are in the robot bodies. He faced Ninten before and probably remembers him, which added credence to the theory, However, it is more probable that Giygas saw Ness through the Apple of Enlightenment and projected his face upon being confronted.
Theory warning: Theories end here.
Trivia[]
- Brainshock is effective against Giygas in EarthBound, it can also make him attack himself.
- 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.[1]
- 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' 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 in his EarthBound appearance upside down, the "face" resembles the face of his appearance in EarthBound Beginnings.
- The incomprehension of Giygas's true form and his influence on the people of the world shares a lot of similarities to the likes of the creatures in the works of H.P. Lovecraft. This is backed by Pokey referring to Giygas as "an all-mighty idiot", where one of the nicknames of Lovecraft's Azathoth is "Blind Idiot God".
- Giygas and Pokey are the only enemies in EarthBound with in-battle dialogue.
- The enemy Hatred from Block Tales is an allusion to Giygas.