Layla has a Mother3parallel

Oh my word, I think I just found Layla’s parallel in Mother3.

It’s this cute little enemy called Ms. Marshmallow or Li'l Ms. Marshmallow, a robotic maid for King Porky. Lucas and pals encounter her at Thunder Tower, which has a spiral staircase. A battle with her is completely optional, but she gets angry if you inspect and try to touch something called “Friend’s Yo-Yo”, which belongs to King Porky and is kept in a glass case. She yells:

“IF YOU TAKE MASTER KING P’S VERY PRECIOUS "FRIEND’S YO-YO” I WILL BE MAD. MAD! MAD! VERY MAD MAD MAD MAD!!!!!!“ (Before battle)

Once she’s been injured, she goes into a higher/stronger attack mode that can damage multiple enemies, called Ultra Ticked-Off System. Because she’s a machine, she’s effectively injured by Saltwater Gun. When she’s defeated, she talks complete gibberish until she finally stops functioning.

"YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW SO SEW SO-SO GREETINGS CHEESE POPSICLE THE NUMBER YOU HAVE DIALED IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PORK CHOPS FROM EAST TO WEST IT GOES GOES BROKEN BROKEN OH SO SOW SEW BROKEN *whir* *clank* *clunk*” (After battle)

The fandom wiki says “Once she is defeated, she slumps, sways, and falls to the ground before yelling nonsensical phrases and exploding.”

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With Layla, we have this cutesied-up little girl dressed as a nurse (instead of maid), and she’s working for Lord Ciel (instead of King Porky). She’s encountered at Athena Sanatorium, where blood is collected in a tower with a spiral staircase. She doesn’t give Baldo or Lau a hard time until they are obviously messing with Lord Ciel’s blood supply.

When she’s injured, she says it’s not hurting her and she goes into a higher attack mode. Her eyes look kind of crazy now, and she starts talking about Baldo and Lau as being food to her.

When you injure her enough, which can be done with a gunshot to the heart, she sways, slumps onto the desk, then falls to the floor and starts talking to “Al”, who isn’t there. She might be talking nonsense, but it’s hard to tell because we don’t know whether Al exists.

If this parallel holds up damn near 100%, she might completely bleed out while running through the woods and just keep talking to herself (or this “Al” who still hasn’t shown up) until she stops functioning. Or she gets her brains scrambled by someone in pursuit, like a reaper. If that’s the case, another battle could be held against “Al”, if that person exists (which I suspect they do). We don’t see Ronald in ch188, so it’s possible he’s fighting this “Al” person while Lau and Baldo are fighting Layla.

Even if it’s not a near 100% parallel, Layla (and also likely Al) should eventually be defeated… after a more intense battle??… and she (or both of them) might start talking absolute nonsense as she’s (they’re) “dying”.

If Layla (and whoever Al is supposed to be) makes up Lord Vega, their echoing sort of speech reminds me a bit of how Li'l Ms. Marshmallow’s speech can be sort of repetitive.

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Now… there’s also the issue of Jane, who is dressed as a maid at Heathfield Manor, where more blood was also being collected. However, the parallels aren’t nearly as strong:

• Jane is a hired soldier dressed as a maid, but she’s not this adorable little kid-looking sort of person, and she talks quite normally.
• She’s working at Heathfield Manor, where there’s a blood collection facility for Lord Ciel, but it’s collected underground, not in a tower with a spiral staircase.
• She doesn’t cause much of an issue until Ran-Mao is chosen to become a “donor”. Then she’s even more of an adversary once Mey-Rin is snooping around looking for Ran-Mao and finds the collection facility. But she doesn’t get severely injured in the fight.
• She gives up once the operation’s cover is completely blown, so she gets to just walk away, and she’s never talked nonsense.

So, I don’t really see Jane as a parallel to Li'l Ms. Marshmallow, though she might be seen as a precursor. There might be a more direct parallel to Jane elsewhere in the game, possibly also in chapter 5, “Tower of Thunder”. ‍♀️

Jane has a Mother2parallel

Earlier today, I said Jane might parallel a precursor to Li'l Ms. Marshmallow, and yes. She does.

@princess-adrienne reminded me I needed to look into Electra, Pokey Minch’s maid while he’s working as a consultant for Geldegarde Monotoli, and that’s in Mother2, aka EarthBound. Technically, she’s Monotoli’s maid, working in Monotoli Building, in Fourside, but she serves Pokey whenever he’s visiting.

Porky Minchi (Pokey Minch in the EarthBound localization) is “upgraded” to King Porky in Mother3, and Electra is the human precursor to Li'l Ms. Marshmallow. By the events of Mother3, Electra would have died, simply because so much time has passed. Porky doesn’t die when he becomes King Porky, simply because the prototype of Dr. Andonuts’ time machine keeps him alive, even though he’s aged considerably due to a fault in the prototype. While he’s “king”, King Porky keeps a robot as a maid, and she seems to be based on Electra, possibly as a reminder of her to him.

So, Jane is Electra’s parallel, as she’s working as a soldier/maid for Chris Heathfield at Heathfield Manor, in Yorkshire. Electra is the human precursor to Li'l Ms. Marshmallow (a machine), while Jane is like a (presumably) human precursor to Layla (an advanced bizarre doll). When Jane’s hair is down, you can see how she’s an older looking version of Layla but with a shorter braid. Forget age; the shorter braid makes Jane a precursor, as an adversary, and we encounter Jane first anyway, so she’s a precursor time-wise, too.

Annie (and to a lesser degree Ran-Mao) becomes the main parallel to Paula in this situation, even though I’ve already got other parallels to Paula in other Black Butlersituations.

I have to choose Annie over Ran-Mao for Paula because Ran-Mao’s drugs wear off quickly, whereas Annie has to be disconnected from the machinery and woken up.

According to the fandom wiki, Paula’s weakness is paralysis.

That leaves Mey-Rin and Ran-Mao as the parallels to Ness and Jeff here, since they are the ones infiltrating the joint to set the maids free, just like Ness and Jeff set Paula free. Ness is generally going to be a stand-in for Lucas when it’s a Mother2 parallel instead of Mother3, and whoever Ness is with is typically a stand-in for whoever is with Lucas at the time (which is usually Boney, the dog)… so Mey-Rin serves as a stand-in for our earl while Ran-Mao serves as a stand-in for Sebastian. Notice that Ran-Mao and Jeff Andonuts (Dr. Andonuts’ son) have the same short, straight, shiny, and very evenly-cut bangs. (His sprites in the game show his hair to be shiny.)

This makes Geldegarde Monotoli (new mayor of Fourside) the parallel to Chris Heathfield (baron of Heathfield Manor), which makes perfect sense, because Monotoli keeps Paula as a hostage, just like Heathfield essentially keeps all those maids (particularly Annie) as hostages in his basement.

Here’s Electra (for Jane), Monotoli (for Heathfield), and Paula (for Annie):

He’snot a strong enemy to begin with, but when Monotoli is released from Giygas’ influence, he’s very physically weak, and that reminds me of Ran-Mao beating Heathfield up before she’s added to the other maids plus all the released maids (minus Ran-Mao) beating him up again as soon as he shows up after their release.

Afterwards, Monotoli relinquishes the town of Fourside back to the previous mayor and becomes a low-level worker again. Heathfield is still a baron, of course, but Polaris reports that the guy was arrested.

Jane gets one last major parallel to Electra because, as @princess-adrienne pointed out, Electra specifically says she doesn’t really care about what Pokey Minch is doing – she’s not entirely swayed by his goals – but she will fight on behalf of whichever side seems stronger. And that’s very similar to Jane’s approach to working for Heathfield and the Aurora Society’s operations there, which she swears she doesn’t know much about. Neither Electra nor Jane is especially loyal to her respective employer/master.