Great EarthBound!
You might be wondering as to why I've named this article "Great EarthBound!" However, if you will listen, time will make all things known. Throughout the course of EarthBound, someone with a knack for geography might have noticed interesting commonalities among the various factoids of the game. One such commonality is that a few parts of the game are based on places on Great Britain and the smaller islands around it. Excluding Ireland.
One such case is Winters' Stonehenge. Based on the mysterious construct of the same name found on England's Salisbury plains, the origins of the Stonehenge in Winters are as enigmatic as those of England's Stonehenge. But England's Stonehenge isn't known for attracting aliens, whereas Winters' is. Of course, the Stonehenge in Winters doesn't also harbour bears and primitive men about it and isn't located near a lake known for mysterious animal sightings.
On that note, is Lake Tess a harkening to Scotland's Loch Ness? The rhyming seems to suggest that, and the existence of myths of large serpents therein further supports the hypothesis. The Tessie Watchers might be a kind-hearted knock at those trying to prove the existence of Nessie. Even Ness' name could be a reference to that storied Loch...
Finally, there is one part of this commonality that I expect absolutely no one to have realised. In fact, I myself did not realise it until June 22, 2001. At the time, I was idly flipping through one of my many atlases, looking at placenames for fanfiction naming purposes. Considering what I was doing with respect to names at the time in Nephew of the Forgotten One, I decided to look at the pages for the British Isles.
Checking Scotland, because that was where I was earnestly looking for ideas, my eyes drifted to the Hebrides. Imagine my surprise when I found the name to the bodies of water separating the Outer Hebrides from the Inner Hebrides and Great Britain: the Minches. No, I'm not kidding. The Little Minch separates the islands of North and South Uist from the island of Skye; the Minch separates what appears to be "Harris Lewis" from the North West Highlands of Scotland. And this change remained constant in both Mother 2 and in EarthBound, too: Anburami and Lardna Minch were Porky and Picky's parents; Aloysius and Lardna were Pokey and Picky's.
You might be wondering as to why I've named this article "Great EarthBound!" However, if you will listen, time will make all things known. Throughout the course of EarthBound, someone with a knack for geography might have noticed interesting commonalities among the various factoids of the game. One such commonality is that a few parts of the game are based on places on Great Britain and the smaller islands around it. Excluding Ireland.
One such case is Winters' Stonehenge. Based on the mysterious construct of the same name found on England's Salisbury plains, the origins of the Stonehenge in Winters are as enigmatic as those of England's Stonehenge. But England's Stonehenge isn't known for attracting aliens, whereas Winters' is. Of course, the Stonehenge in Winters doesn't also harbour bears and primitive men about it and isn't located near a lake known for mysterious animal sightings.
On that note, is Lake Tess a harkening to Scotland's Loch Ness? The rhyming seems to suggest that, and the existence of myths of large serpents therein further supports the hypothesis. The Tessie Watchers might be a kind-hearted knock at those trying to prove the existence of Nessie. Even Ness' name could be a reference to that storied Loch...
Finally, there is one part of this commonality that I expect absolutely no one to have realised. In fact, I myself did not realise it until June 22, 2001. At the time, I was idly flipping through one of my many atlases, looking at placenames for fanfiction naming purposes. Considering what I was doing with respect to names at the time in Nephew of the Forgotten One, I decided to look at the pages for the British Isles.
Checking Scotland, because that was where I was earnestly looking for ideas, my eyes drifted to the Hebrides. Imagine my surprise when I found the name to the bodies of water separating the Outer Hebrides from the Inner Hebrides and Great Britain: the Minches. No, I'm not kidding. The Little Minch separates the islands of North and South Uist from the island of Skye; the Minch separates what appears to be "Harris Lewis" from the North West Highlands of Scotland. And this change remained constant in both Mother 2 and in EarthBound, too: Anburami and Lardna Minch were Porky and Picky's parents; Aloysius and Lardna were Pokey and Picky's.
