Who is evil in the EarthBound series? Here I have written down my thoughts about it, spoiling a good most of the series. Don't read it if you haven't played the games yet.

I'm gonna start with EarthBound Zero, in which the major villain is Giegue. His backstory originally never made any sense to me. He was raised lovingly by Maria, Ninten's great-grandmother. Raised by her enough that her loving lullaby was glued to his mind since childhood. But how is this logical? What opportunity would have Maria, apparently separated from George (he escaped the Starmen, yes, but I'd have figured he wouldn't have left Maria and that she had died before he escaped), alone with little Giegue for that long a time, with resources to survive and none of the alien empire looking for them?

Then I realized... throw out the assumption that Giygas is the leader of the Starmen, and it all makes sense. He's not. He's a weapon made of negative emotion. The Starmen probably had Maria raise him to form a bond so they could sever it, probably by killing her in front of him, then assuring him that it was his destiny to destroy the humans. Or leading him to believe it was mankind's fault that Maria was gone. Or something. Either way it's clear to me that he was manipulated to hold some sort of anger inside from his loss.

In EarthBound Zero he's still sane and seems to at least believe he is the ruler of Starmen, but the lullaby from his childhood pained him enough to repel him with anguish. But in EarthBound he's completely lost it, even ten years prior to EarthBound... EB0 and EB weren't even released ten years apart from each other, so if EB0 really does take place in 1989, EB's setting of 199x could be 1999... meaning Giegue became Giygas in less than a year. So ten years before EarthBound he's already a destructive nutcase; how could I have thought he could be doing anything like commanding an army of aliens?

So to conclude Giygas's part, he is just sad, really; so extremely sad that it's dangerous, and he was conditioned to be so. 

Now on to Porky. For him I'll start with MOTHER 3 and check back to EarthBound when relevant. Just describing what he does in MOTHER 3 would stamp an unquestionably evil label onto his forehead; but I'm here to think way too hard. By MOTHER 3 Porky has become unimaginably old and also immortal. Seems like a "so what" but considering his harrowing fate, to live in 100% solitude forever (not just until he dies, because he will not--he will never ever stop living, alone, not even when the Earth is fated to be devoured by the sun in six billion years. 

So that could drive/could have driven the man to insanity? The older you get, the faster you perceive time. Is that an excuse to try and destroy the world? Not really, but Itoi has said that Claus' completely emotionless mind likely would have simply ended the existence of everything with nothing flashy, had he pulled the last needle before Lucas caught up with him. It could've been Porky's only chance to die... 

It's obvious he has regrets. Anytime he has the chance, he floods his personal rooms and the like with EarthBound references. He has a restaurant dedicated to his mother, full of robot imitations of her. His room in the Thunder Tower had a shrine to the Friend's Yo-Yo, which undoubtedly belonged to Ness at one point. His movie theater plays a film documenting Ness's adventures...

Ness always thought Porky had some good left in him, too. In Magicant, a world made up of Ness's mind, Porky appears all alone on a couch, apologizes and hopes their friendship will last forever. Maybe Ness himself didn't realize he had faith in Pokey until then but it had lingered in the back. 

So why was he such a butt to Ness? Giygas amplifies the evil in people's hearts, hence the hippies and party men and overzealous cops. I've thought that it was some form of jealousy or rivalry that grew within Porky, a lust for importance. Ness got to be the hero, gained cool psychic powers and was destined to have some kick-butt friends, one of whom would be a girl. I actually think that perhaps Porky may have been meant to be the second boy to join Ness (tying in with my belief that Poo is some type of ascended imaginary friend Ness dreamt up, made a reality by the Magic Cake). The prophecy wasn't elaborated upon but it's my assumption that it was really vague, didn't expect Porky to be so afraid, out of shape and jealous of Ness. Therefore: Poo. Explains why he comes in so late, while we're at that.

At the end he acts all cool 'cause he thinks Ness has no chance. When Giygas loses, he doesn't know what to do... I'd suppose he's in shock and thinks Ness and the others will try to kill him, or can't man up to them. How did you feel when he reappeared after you beat Giygas? So he escapes to the future. Probably honestly to just escape; until driven mad by the aforementioned immortality.

Anyway, in MOTHER 3, what did Porky actually do? He destroyed Lucas's family and tore apart Tazmily's peaceful life with greed, jealousy and technology. That's horrible. They were so happy until the Pigmasks showed up. But, think too hard about it and remember, everyone on the Nowhere Islands was living a lie. They voluntarily brainwashed themselves and assumed roles to play to ensure there wouldn't be a second apocalypse induced by human flaws. Their lives were meaningless and without real free will. 

And Porky liberated them from that.

Of course, he proceeded to try and kill them all... and all the while, punished those who disagreed with the change by hitting them with lightning, which somewhat contradicts what I think would be his support of free will. Unless using force to make Flint and Lucas to stop living their scripted lives is better than making Leder just tell them, but... who would've believed him? Would Wess and Kumatora have allowed anyone to touch the Egg of Light except in the case of emergency?