So before anything, there are holes to this theory and furthermore, I might be overthinking these things with the disclaimer out of the way here’s the theory.
You ever wonder why Magicant is so weird? You fight things like molecules, french kisses of death and so on. All of Magicant is in Ness’s mind so taking that and the fact he’s 13 according to the Earthbound player’s guide and he’s turning 14 at the end of the game when you call your dad after you beat Giygas. When anyone is around 13 its the teen years and around teen years it gets emotional and they’re discovering new things about themselves like sexual attraction starts to spike during these ages due to hormones. Taking that into consideration my theory that Ness towards the end of the game is going through that “phase”. There are molecules as enemies and hormones are molecules, the French kiss of death relates to that teen phase. Since Magicant is in his mind he’s probably starting to have these thoughts of sexual attraction possibly. Now the other enemies in Magicant you can argue I’m really stretching it, the Care Free Bomb might be his emotions being more explosive, more reckless behaviour. Loaded dice might be Ness constantly questioning his decisions on Lust, he can also summon the Care Free Bomb which ties in. The uncontrollable sphere is him not knowing how to control his emotions due to the increase in hormones (which Mr.Molecule appears in groups). Now Electric Swoosh, you got me there I can’t think of much, same goes for beautiful, and high-class UFO that the loaded dice can summon.
Ness’ nightmare is pretty obvious, but to connect it to my theory teens often suffer things like anxiety or depression etc. Ness’ nightmare also uses the thing Ness likes rocking. Often when that negative voice hits you hard it takes what you love and turns it against you. So the conclusion I feel Magicant is Ness going and getting close to ending that phase.
This leaves Giygas, now in his head, he tells himself that he got through it, but I feel like Giygas is the ultimate test of Ness fighting the Lust. We all know the Giygas quotes being based off a rape scene Itoi saw as a child, so it makes sense it is the test for him with lines such as. “Ness… I feel… g… o… o… d…
…I’m so sad…”. Now when people have affairs and don’t have a stable mind or a reason to do it. They usually just do it to feel more important, to feel more mature, to supposedly have a purpose in life and so on. Considering Ness is going through a phase he might be fighting these feelings in this fight. Now another thing is how you defeat Giygas, which if you haven’t seen the end I’ll just put a spoiler.
You pray to everyone you helped throughout the journey, even you the player, they pray for your safety and Giygas gets damaged by it until he dies.
Taking that into consideration since he has the emotional support from everyone he’s helped he’s able to overcome lust. Now its gonna get a bit personal but the meaning of life for me is to spend time with the people you care about usually family or friends. As well to pursue personal interests. Once you have those three things, from personal experience you’re in a good state, happy with your life. When the climax does happen Ness feels fulfilled and has no need to feel lusty as he’s happy being with the people he loves.
In short Magicant shows Ness going through his teen phase, and Giygas is him overcoming those lusty feelings by knowing that the people he loves and cares for, have his back. Now, this theory has some or a lot of holes so feel free for any criticism or add anything to it lets have a discussion about this. I just finished Earthbound again and these things connected somehow, again probably overthinking a bit or a lot here.
