The Power of Love. Most examples turn "love" into magic sparkles or beams made of hearts in a very cheesy way, but in this game you literally defeat your enemy with the actual feeling of love. You short-circuit Giegue's Kill All Humans programming by reminding him of the human who loved him as her own child. In case you haven't noticed, that is also why the game is called Mother.
Here's one that applies to the first two games: Take a look at the names of the female leads. Now put them together. Paula-Ana. Pollyanna is the main theme of the series!
Polly is also a common nickname for Mary or Maria.
One may initially wonder why an Earth serves as the logo of the series, since it seems rather dissimilar to the title of the series (which may have been why it was called Earthbound elsewhere). Then you realize the obvious - Mother Earth! What could possibly be a better symbol of nurturing, life, and maternal themes?
The Onyx Hook is found after battling a fish.
Magicant in this game serves as a clever metaphor for home. There are multiple spots where you get free healing, free items, and the NPC’s talk about how you are always welcome and everyone loves you. Going there is easy thanks to the Onyx hook, but leaving takes much longer. Not to mention some of the enemies are floating eyes of various family members who seem to be judging you.
The overworld being one giant map is a good representation of how a young child would view the world around them for the first time.
The Yucca Desert is in an odd place, as deserts don't develop in northern areas near the ocean. A war veteran lives there selling plane and tank rides. If whatever war he participated in happened around this area, it may explain why the land is so arid.
When fighting Giegue at the end of the game there is an unpleasant, piercing noise in the background. It’s pretty much akin to anti-music, fitting for a boss that is defeated by a song.
The lack of bosses in this game is unusual, but fits in nicely with the themes. When you reach the final boss you do not fight him, but instead must focus on surviving for a certain amount of turns. This is why the game puts so much focus on having you trek through long dungeons where your goal is to focus on survival. Ninten mainly learning healing and defensive PSI abilities could also be part of the connection. It puts him at a stark contrast to Giegue who only uses offensive PSI.
EVE has a peculiar name for a robot, Pixar movies nonwithstanding. However, in the Famicom version of Mother 1, many of the towns are named after holidays, so a name like Eve makes a lot more sense in that context.
It could also be a reference to The Garden of Eden which features the first two humans, Adam and Eve. Eve would have been the "mother" of humanity.
The only things we know about what happened to George and Maria are basic facts: they vanished without a trace, George suddenly reappeared after two years and became obsessed with research he'd obtained, and Maria was never seen again but her spirit somehow created Magicant, with her being Queen Mary. First of all, what happened that caused George to flee with the PSI knowledge? Second of all, what happened to Maria and how did she become Queen Mary? Did the aliens do something to her? Did Gieguedo something to her?
The Japanese only strategy guide gives some backstory about the game. Before George and Maria disappeared, a group of children had vanished near Mt. Itoi. They suddenly reappeared a day later with no memory of anything happening. George was a newspaper reporter and began investigating. A few days later he and Maria vanished. This brings up a lot of questions about the aliens and their intentions. Why were they abducting humans? How long had they been doing this? Did they take George and Maria against their will? Considering that Giegue was putting people into tubes on Mt. Itoi, and struggling to deal with his emotions, they may not have been a very friendly race.
George and Maria had a child before getting kidnapped, both are explicitly Ninten's direct great-grandparents, this is important since Maria dissapears after George's return to Earth... now put yourself in the shoes of their child for a momment.
