George

For the EarthBound character, see George Montague.

"Ninten! I am grateful to your family. Your Great-Grandparents, George and Maria raised me. But, George stole vital information from our planet that can be used to betray my people..."

— Giegue

George (ジョージ Joji) is a character in EarthBound Beginnings. He is the husband of Maria, and the great-grandfather of Ninten, Mimmie and Minnie. George and his wife are abducted from Earth by an alien race in the early 1900s. There, George studied PSI without the race's permission, while his wife raised one of the aliens, Giegue; George later escapes back to Earth two years later without Maria, who is never seen again. A diary recorded by George is found 80 years later by his great-grandson, Ninten, in the basement of the family home in Podunk.

Once matured, Giegue is tasked by his people to ensure PSI never spreads onto Earth. However, Giegue does not want to betray those who raised him, particularly his beloved Maria, and in the end forces himself to detach from Maria and begin preparations for the aliens' invasion.

He is also the creator of a very strong robot, EVE, which tops any temporary/permanent party member because it's strength is at least 1000 per hit.

Biography

Prior to Podunk

At a young age, George lost his parents, and from the day he graduated from high school, he began a job as a letter-boy for a famous newspaper publisher in a big city. Before long, he moved on to try his hand as a skilled reporter. Having never gone to college, he made the ranking of newspaper reporter his own. You might say his biggest reason by far was his curiosity. He made many scoops his own. In one scoop, he exposed the dark past of the President at that time, which made him excessively famous.
However, surrounding the handling of this incident, he directly opposed the Editing Officer, and wound up leaving the newspaper publisher on his own initiative.

From the Kenisu's translation of the MOTHER Encyclopedia (more information)

Moving to Podunk and Maria encounter

"The husband, George, was employed as editor-in-chief for the town's daily newspaper, The Mothersday Times [The Podunk Times], and as such gained people's trust so much that he was called "The Conscience of this Town". The wife, Maria, was a bright working man's housewife, befitting her lineage of generations of devout Protestants living in this town. To start off, the way these two met began with a single carnation."

The next year, relying upon a help-wanted advertisement for the Mothersday local newspaper publisher, he arrived at this town. The first to welcome him was the beautiful Maria, who had been sketching a bed of carnations on the town outskirts. For some time George was fascinated, spellbound by this sketched picture.
The same day, George was singled out for editor-in-chief for "The Mothersday Times", and as a new project for the newspaper, began work on the authoring of a serialized novel on the establishment of the town up until the present day, made into one story.

Its very first illustration was decorated by a single carnation, and the hand that drew it was that of the nameless, young Maria as the artist.
Coupled with the raging interest toward the sharp-shooting incidents in the newspaper articles that George wrote, this serialization was full of enjoyment where the townsfolk, one-by-one, would become the heroes of the novel, and you could laugh and cry about it at the same time. It offered plenty of breakfast conversation at home.
Of course, it goes without saying that before long, the two received the blessing of marriage from the people at the town's church.

From an early point, it became an undying custom in their home where Maria, who had been getting accustomed to song and piano, after dinner and after cleaning up, would hold a mini-concert, with her husband George and the children as the audience.

In the house's warm garden in the afternoon sun, adoring Maria's personality, the town's housewives would gather together and slave over an enormous patchwork. This was also one of the town's long-lived traditions. The completed bedcovers and tablecloths were given to the needy at [Maria's] husband's newspaper company bazaar, and the profits were donated to the town church, so it was a town suitable of a mother's warm love, living up to its name.

From the Kenisu's translation of the MOTHER Encyclopedia (more information)

Early 1900's: abductions and poltergeists in Podunk

"'When the 1900's began, something happened in this town of Mothersday [Podunk] that has since all but disappeared from people's memory."

In such a peaceful town, ominous incidents broke out when a shadow like a black cloud fell upon the summit of faraway Holy Loly Mountain [Mt. Itoi].
Suddenly room ornaments started flying around, and a person who had abruptly gone missing returned home the next morning with no recollection [of what had happened].
A group of the town's elementary school students who had gone hiking near the mountain vanished without a trace, and though that night the town was in an uproar, the next day all of them [the students] returned to their homes smiling as if nothing had happened. Such were the incomprehensible incidents that just kept coming.
George, who had an active curiosity from the outset, began to carefully investigate these incidents.

However, he was unable to get enough information for any use from the people involved in these incidents. They all had utterly lost their memories of the incident itself.
On the evening of the day an article of George's was published in the newspaper, in which he reported in the middle of these incidents, George and Maria vanished from the town.

The shock and sorrow of the townsfolk was immeasurably deep. The fact alone that they prayed to God earnestly was a testament of the townsfolk's trust in the couple.

From the Kenisu's translation of the MOTHER Encyclopedia (more information)

Giegue's encounter and the betrayal of George

This probably after their abduction by Giegue's race that the couple encountered and raised Giegue. Maria would sing her lullaby (her Eight melodies) to soothe the alien child. This is also at this moment that George would have discovered the alien's psychic powers. Somehow, he betrayed them and learned PSI, and escaped back to Earth without Maria, who probably never escaped the alien planet/vessel/dimension.

Two years after the abduction: the return of George

Whether or not their [the Podunk people] wishes reached [the heavens], about two years later, unexpectedly, George returned to his house alone. As though he was a completely different person, his hair had turned white, and he clamped his mouth closed like a seashell and shut himself up in his house.

Even when his close friends came to visit, George would not tell anyone where he had gone or what he had been up to. Not to mention that when they'd ask about Maria, his countenance would fall and, like a bitter old man, he'd morosely chase the people back home.

And so, without coming back to the newspaper publisher, all he did was shut himself in his house, and he became immersed in researching psychic powers.
When the people saw George like this, various rumors began to fly around.

However, before they knew it, time passed, and the rumors coming out of people's mouths stopped climbing. Only, one thing that the people never forgot was that in the end, [George's] wife Maria never did return home......

From the Kenisu's translation of the MOTHER Encyclopedia (more information)

The heritage left for Ninten and humanity

For an unknown reason (the Apple of Enlightenment ?), George knew that the Giegue's race would attack the Earth and that Ninten would interfere. He presumably used his last years of life to build secretly, in a laboratory under the Mt. Itoi's lake, a robot designed to protect Ninten against the powerful alien weapons, EVE. It is unknown how he learned to build such a machine, but his knowledge of the alien's technology and PSI probably helped him. It is unknown if George still raised his children on Earth, but it would be likely the case because he left a diary and some knowledge about the aliens. For an unknown reason, PSI began to scatter all around the globe, since it is present in Snowman, in Youngtown, in Eagleland, and in the Kingdom of Dalaam. At his grave, George's soul relays the eighth melody to Ninten and his friends while thanking him for his journey.

Dawn of the first Earth invasion

The years went by, and as if to wipe out the ominous incidents, Maria and George's home was rebuilt, and now there's a boy who, you guessed it, is his great-grandson; his mother, and his twin sisters, carrying on their peaceful lives as Mother's Day once did before.

The patchwork, even now, was inherited by [the boy's] mother, and the carnation bed that Maria had held so dear proudly blooms bright green in the background.
However, in 1988 (the early 1980's in EarthBound Beginnings and Mother 1 + 2), the ominous black cloud that had vanished from everyone's memories has once more settled atop the summit of Holy Loly.

The peaceful town has undergone a drastic change.

From the Kenisu's translation of the MOTHER Encyclopedia (more information)

Trivia

• Assumingly, George and Maria had to have had a child before they were abducted by Giegue's race in order for them to have a descendant in Ninten. However the game makes no mention of her and his own biological children.