T w e n t y S i d e d
With Mother’s Day around the corner I find it an appropriate time to consider an archetype that is often missing or ignored in video games… mothers. I sat with a couple friends and tried to think about the most interesting mother characters in video games and it was weirdly hard to come up with many. Story spoilers for: God of War (2018), Resident Evil 7 and 8, The Binding of Isaac, and Undertale.
Freya of the new God of War era is amazing. She’s written to be badass, smart, and layered with complexity. Her relationship with Baldur is complicated and strained. What she did to give Baldur his immortality made a permanent rift in their relationship but you can feel the strained love in every interaction they have. It feels like in an alternate timeline she could have worked things out if she just found the right angle to approach things and got Baldur to see the loving motivation behind her choice. It’s tragic. Then later she embraces her power and does what she can to help Kratos and protect everyone else she can along the way. She embraces her strength and channels her anguish and her love into a driving force.
In Resident Evil 8 there are 3 mothers of note. Mia, Lady Dimitrescu, and Mother Miranda. Mia is relatively unimportant except that her identity is used by Mother Miranda. Miranda uses her powers and general manipulation to get Rose into her hands. Her whole motivation through the game is the desire to bring her daughter back, consequences be damned. She proves to be a force of nature, tearing down everything and everyone around her for the chance to get her baby back. It’s bittersweet and manages to humanize a truly monstrous character.
The other mom in RE8, Lady Dimitrescu, has motivations that are a bit less altruistic. Lady D just wants to maintain her life under Miranda. She runs the castle and keeps the peasantry in check. She has 3 adopted “vampire” daughters that she seems to care a great deal about, but the love she has for them isn’t quite as palpable. When she wails in pain that her daughters are gone it comes off more like an anger that assets of her had been taken away. Also Lady D is notoriously incredibly hot. I think Lady D made a lot of “big lady” fetishists out there discover something within them.
“Mom” in The Binding of Isaac is one of the primary antagonists of the game. The lore of the game is deeper than you might expect, but to briefly summarize Mom, she’s a Christian fundamentalist who is abusive to her son, Isaac, in a few awful ways. The game revolves around the imagination of the traumatized mind of Isaac trying to cope with Mom’s abuse. There’s way more to it and if you have any interest in lore breakdown style content, it’s worth looking up. There’s not a ton there, but what is there is great. She’s scary, she’s tragic, and she’s a tough enemy to deal with at times.
The last mother I want to feature is Goat Mom from Undertale aka Toriel. Toriel is among the first characters you meet in Undertale and she immediately exudes love and protection. Even though you, yourself, aren’t her child she immediately jumps to take care of you. She won’t even allow you to continue on to the rest of the game unless you kill her or go limp long enough to make her lose interest. Goat Mom is who I think of when I think of your typical mom in video games. There’s just a warmth to her that I don’t see anywhere else very often in games.
There’s plenty more moms out there in games but these were the ones that resonated with me most. For instance Bayonetta is a cool as hell mom but I haven’t played those games. So feel free to add your own in the comments. And enjoy Mother’s Day with your family or just enjoy the day of peace if it’s not a holiday you celebrate. Praise be to Mommy D.
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Mamá Welles, Jackie’s mom in Cyberpunk 2077. In my first playthrough I played Nomad, and didn’t realize you could even interact with her, and felt devastated when I realized after Act 1 that I *could* have. That’s when the game really got its hooks into me and I started really caring a lot more about the people in its world.
Trying to think of mothers in games and, oh, of course. Helga from Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass, the upbeat fussy healer who’s immune to sleep and sickness and just wants her boys to be happy.
(There’s a Tournament Arc where you have to fight her, and she spends the whole fight waving to the crowd and healing you.)
I find it interesting that while Dad Games were/are a thing, I don’t think we’ve really had Mom Games yet in the mainstream. But in that spirit, I think the most Mom Game I’ve ever played is Black & White.
My first thought went to Final Fantasy VIII. As the big bad witch is discovered to be an orphan home owner, with most of the group being the orphans. But she didn’t leave a large impression. In FF VII, Jenova as Sephiroth’s mother I at least remember her name. Even though in the end she was just a mindless monster.
Next example would be Dragon Age 2. Hawks mother mourned the lost sibling and didn’t do much for the remaining two. Her character was pretty much pushed aside after Act 2. There could have been potential.
The best mother figure: Well … The Boss (MGS3) to Big Boss and I think the lore goes that Olga (MGS2) is the daughter of her and The Sorrow who was taken from her. Which would make The Boss the Grandmother to Sunny (MGS4). Kojima lore is great/bonkers.
Ahh. Don’t forget Haruka as mother of Haruto (Yakuza 6). Even though in the very few scenes she’s present in 6 she’s to dumb to duck behind cover (The car right next to her in the final fight, or the bicycles right next to her, when she’s run over.) But the previous entries made her a good mother to the orphans in Okinawa.
I’ve not got that far in the game, but I understand there is a a nice moment with a mother of sorts in the first Ratchet and Clank. Other than that I can’t think of any others interestingly. What about Father-Mother in Zeno Clash :D