- "Dad. It's me. Claus. I told Lucas to come too, but he's been crying at Mom's grave all this time. Dad. I'm gonna leave this apple here. The core might be hard, but... The core... The core might be too hard to eat, but be SURE you eat it! I'm gonna get stronger. ...I'm gonna get so strong even Dragos won't stand a chance against me! Dad... I..."
- — Claus
Claus (pronunciation: klaos; Japanese: クラウス; Klaus in the North American version of Brawl) is a major character in Mother 3. He is a boy from Tazmily Village and the older twin brother of Lucas, as well as the oldest child of Hinawa and Flint. He is also the grandson of Alec. Compared to the timid, gentle Lucas, Claus is rambunctious, brave and has a mischievous streak.
Profile[]
Appearance[]
Claus resembles Lucas in every way, except for the colour of his clothes and hair. He has a similar hairstyle to Lucas, but he has orange hair, and wears a striped T-Shirt that resembles his brother's; with the colours different. They are yellow and cyan. He wears orange pants, white socks and cyan-white shoes.
Profile[]
Claus is energetic, naughty, and far more courageous than his brother, even described as a "troublemaker" by some villagers.[1] He also has a very small sense of danger, as seen in his search for avenge his mother's death.
Main History[]
Chapter 1[]
Claus and his brother Lucas had lived in the Nowhere Islands since they were born. One day, Claus, Lucas, and Hinawa visit Alec's house in the mountains, playing with the Dragos living on the mountain and defeating a mole cricket. However, before they can get home to Tazmily Village, they are attacked by a Drago reconstructed by the Pigmask Army. Hinawa sacrifices herself for her sons, pushing them into a nearby river before being mortally wounded by the Mecha-Drago. Claus and Lucas are brought ashore by the Tazmily villagers and reunite with Flint, but are too upset to tell their father what has happened, though Flint soon learns of Hinawa's death through Bronson. After Flint attacks the villagers in a rage, he is taken to the Tazmily jail to calm down.
To exact revenge, Claus vows to kill the Drago responsible for his mother's death, and ventures off toward the mountains with Flint's homemade knife, refusing to let Lucas join him. Before he leaves, he visits Flint after Hinawa's funeral and gives him an apple with a hand file inside, which Flint uses to escape his cell. En route to the Drago Plateau, Claus meets the Magypsies, who teach him PK Love so he can outmatch the Mecha-Drago. However, he is defeated by the Mecha-Drago, and by the time Flint and Alec defeat the Mecha-Drago themselves Claus is nowhere to be found, leaving only his shoes behind. He is last seen by the player lying motionless on the edge of the Drago Plateau. Meanwhile, a distraught Lucas regrets not being able to prevent Claus from being lost. For the next three years, Flint spends every day searching for Claus in the mountains and visiting Hinawa's grave.
Chapter 7[]
Claus is seen as one of the many illusions on Tanetane Island, mostly mocking Lucas or having a friendly attitude before attacking the party. Claus himself, however, does not make any appearances.
Chapter 8[]
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
At the end of the 8th chapter, Flint discovers that the Masked Man is actually Claus, feeling relieved for finally finding his missing son and insisting that Lucas should be happy about it, regardless of Claus' condition.
During the battle between Lucas and the then-Masked Man, they can begin to hear Hinawa's voice, trying to help Claus to come to his senses. With the help of his mother, Claus remembers who he is, taking off his helmet and looking at Lucas, before firing an intense bolt of lightning, purposely reflecting it off on Lucas's Franklin Badge, causing himself mortal damage and ultimately killing himself to rejoin with his mother.
Spoiler warning: Spoilers end here.
As a playable character[]
Claus is a playable character once in the prologue. His instrument when attacking or getting a combo is a sitar, much similar to Lucas' keytar. After the prologue, he can be put into the party with the Debug Room. Claus has very similar stats to Lucas, except he has 2 extra offence and defense, he can't equip any items, and doesn't learn any PSI. He does get PP when he levels up, but checking the status menu sets his max PP back to 0.
Unused content[]
Claus is the character with the most unused sprites in the game, having around 150. There is an entire set of sprites for young Claus both walking and running in a bathing suit, including one where he dives into the water and resurfaces with a gasp of air from a unused cutscene.[2] There are also several sprites for Claus pushing Lucas, climbing, cheering, swaying from side to side, yelling, falling backward as if he was hurt, and lying on his back after the fall. This is likely due to the fact that Claus was shown to have a greater role in EarthBound 64 (a trailer of Lucas and Claus in a minecart was prominently shown), but the technological restrictions of the Game Boy Advance made this impossible to implement in Mother 3. However, his younger sprite can still be the party leader in the Debug Room and have his level increased to 99. Had these limitations in the Game Boy Advance not been present, there would have been many more scenes of Claus in the game.
There are also multiple unused sprites of Claus when he is older; there appears to be a sprite for him sitting and standing upright.
A deleted boss battle was found in the game which had at least eleven phases, internally named as Dung Beetle, Tent Person, Snow Bunny, Clayman, Vapor, Straw, Aeolia's Table, Sign, Train, Vapor 2, and Rope Snake. The boss battle had extremely disturbing imagery akin to that of Giygas in EarthBound, namely erratic movement patterns of the background, and it primarily being dark. Itoi's commentary implied that it was meant to be an alternate version of a final battle with Claus, which is supported with some of the images featuring Claus's visage in it (with blanked out eyes).[3]
In Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate[]
Claus appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl as a sticker. Attaching this sticker to the bottom of Ness or Lucas's trophies in The Subspace Emissary increases their PK attack by 13. One of Lucas's alternate costumes also uses Claus's clothing and hair colour.
In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Claus appears as a Legend class Spirit, having the Neutral Spirit type. For his Spirit Battle, which is also one of the last Spirit Battles in the Adventure Mode alongside Hinawa, Claus is represented by Lucas in his color swap with his colours. Claus also appears as a profile icon in the online options.
Trivia[]
- Claus's name is a purposeful anagram of "Lucas.", matching with the theme of him being his opposite.
- When Flint and Alec meet the Magypsies, Aeolia realizes that Flint is his father, noting the resemblance and that they have the same eyes.
- Shigesato Itoi revealed in an interview with Mycom Inc. that Claus and his twin brother Lucas were inspired by two characters of the same name from the novel "The Notebook" (by Agota Kristof), which he described as a novel "about the bonds between twins." The novel is part of a trilogy, which also includes the books "The Proof" and "The Third Lie"—both of which further explore the relationship between Kristof's twin characters.
The main cast, Flint, Claus, Lucas, and Boney's renders from EarthBound 64.
- Claus' attack sound effect is a Sitar, which can only be heard while fighting Mole Cricket in the prologue.
- Ironically, the Pigmask Army made it possible for Claus to fulfill his last sentence (becoming stronger for his family) to Flint in Chapter 1.
- Lucas has a palette swap in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that resembles Claus.
- A single image of Claus' post-Timeskip design in EarthBound 64 exists, showing him sporting a military buzzcut.
- EarthBound 64's character designer, Benimaru Itoh, said during development that Claus has a liking for "high-tech stuff".
- Interact with the Claus illusion on Tanetane Island, allow him to defeat the party, and save the game near Mixolydia's house will allow returning to him without forcing an interaction. This lets you lure an enemy to him, if you enter and lose a battle with Claus on your team this causes him to become a permanent party member. Doing this also permanently triggers Claus's adolescent sprite when selecting him in the Debug Room. Claus does not have an in-battle adolescent sprite.
- Whether Claus is revived after the destruction of the islands remains an open question, but it is likely he and his mother Hinawa are revived at the end of the game if the Dark Dragon is believed to have restored the world.
- This seems to be implied in the end credits of the game, where he is shown transitioning from the Masked Man back to his normal human self and greeting his family members, but aged up to Lucas to reflect the time difference.[4]
Gallery[]
![Concept art of Claus from when the game was first moved to GBA in 2002.[5]](/wiki/File:Claus2002.png "Claus2002.png (198 KB)")