Theory #8,

There is something about Muffy (Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life)

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life has to be one of my absolute favorite games and the longest time I’ve spent than any other game in the series. The village of Forget-Me-Not Valley is quiet, calm, colorful, and filled with a handful of the most diverse and interesting characters in all of Harvest Moon. Of course, who can forget the tear jerking ending of this legendary game? Of all the Harvest Moon games that exist, I have had the most fond memories of this one.

But even with all the happy memories that I’ve had with this game, there are still some dark tales that exist within this series of games. Some people have discovered a few of them, but I was not prepared to find my own dark story that I am sharing today. Of all the characters that exist in this small village, there is only one that truly stands out as truly evil. I believe that this person in the game is even more evil than the Witch Princess. At least the Witch Princess tells you that she is evil. This character that I will be focusing on in this theory will smile and love you, while actively stabbing you in the back as soon as you turn around. The deceit and betrayal from this character sends chills down my spine, yet still remains my second favorite Harvest Moon character of all time. (Popuri 64 is my #1 in case you are wondering.)

Who is this dark and evil person who lives in the village among the rest of Forget-Me-Not Valley? Could it be Marlin or Vesta? Maybe Nami or Daryl? Nope. This devil in human skin is none other than. . . Muffy!

I can already feel people who read this rolling their eyes in disbelief. How can this pretty bachelorette be evil? Some of you will accuse me of making this up for shock value. Rest assured that I do have evidence to back up my claim. Everything that I will write will expose this vixen as the greedy harlot she is.

Let’s start by discussing what we commonly know about Muffy. At 29 years old, Muffy is the oldest known bachelorette in the entire series. We think she wants to be married based on her dialogue, and dates often looking for “the one”. She works at the Blue Bar as Griffin’s waitress, but she used to work as a secretary in the city. If your character doesn’t marry her, she will tell you heart breaking stories about being dumped over and over. Her favorite gifts are flowers, crystals and. . . Coins? (Keep this in mind, it becomes important later.)

Of all the things that we learned about Muffy, I’ve found a few things quite strange as some of the details makes no sense. She wants to get married real bad, but shows little interest in the people of Forget-Me-Not Valley. Griffin likes Muffy, but she shows no interest in him as a potential husband. We also hear of storied of Muffy getting dumped and not taken seriously, but who are these guys she is dating? Why do we never meet them? Why is she constantly dating outside the borders of Forget-Me-Not Valley, when here are plenty of single men within the village? Why not date in Mineral Town? If she is so interested in your character as a rancher/farmer, why isn’t she interested in Marlin? None of this adds up.

After the main character (MC for short) marries Muffy, she will start to show some odd behavior during chapters 2-4. I’ve always brushed them off as bad translation or glitches for years. But after discovering a shocking easter egg, I was able to put the details together and find the truth behind Muffy’s intent. After looking back at Muffy’s odd behavior with fresh new eyes, I am now convinced that she has ulterior motives for showing interest in your character. Love has nothing to do with Muffy, and she doesn’t care who she hurts in the process.

The first piece of evidence lies within the heart events between the MC and Muffy. The first heart event starts with Takakura approaching your character to discuss ranch related stuff. Shortly, you are interrupted my Muffy who is being barked at by your dog. After Harvest Moon makes an odd pee joke, Takakura and Muffy will just . . . Stare at each other for a few seconds. Your character will pass it off as Takakura being just weird, then Muffy will leave the farm suddenly. I don’t believe that’s what happened at all. I believe that Takakura and Muffy have some sort of history together, and it’s not romantic.

Our next clue occurs during chapter 2 after the MC and Muffy are married together. Everything seems normal at first, until I noticed some odd dialogue coming from Muffy. One of the strangest is when she is roaming around he house saying, “wasn’t in the kitchen.” Excuse me? What is Muffy looking for in the kitchen? Half the time she says this while not even wandering in the kitchen at all. And why is the word “wasn’t” not capitalized? (Like if she said more, but you only heard the second half of the sentence.) I originally assumed that this was an odd bug or translation error, but this feels too out of place to be a mistake. So I did what I’ve always done at the time, ask questions in the Harvest Moon forums. I even took a screenshot and posted it with my question. I did get a few funny comments and memes about the screenshot, but someone gave me an odd answer to my question. This random user said that Muffy was looking for love. I didn’t take that answer seriously and kept playing looking for possible answers.

Soon enough, I started to believe that the random user may have been correct all along. Every now and then, Muffy will start to drop hints that she is not happy living at the farm. She often complains about her living conditions, especially about how cold she is. One such line says, “It’d be nice if we had some hot water in the kitchen.” while making an annoyed face. I did not make that up, that is a direct quote from Muffy herself. I have the screenshot to prove it. The main reason that she complains about being cold so often is because Muffy has poor blood circulation (she admits that herself in chapter 5). This fact raises a bunch of questions; if Muffy hates the cold, why is she living in Forget-Me-Not Valley? Why would she get married to the MC, knowing that the village has no hot water or heating? None of this makes sense, until you start to piece together all the evidence up to this point.

When you look at Muffy’s story with a more mature and critical eye, you will clearly see that she has no interest in love or marriage. She only loves one thing, money! From the moment Harvest Moon added the fact that Muffy accepts coins as gifts, they are telling you that Muffy is only interested in money. Not marriage, not kids, only cash. But how can this be? Your character isn’t wealthy during chapter 1, why would she be interested in a poor struggling rancher? She isn’t, but someone the MC knows probably had a lot of it. The MC’s father!

Your character’s father bought land to open a ranch. He worked on it for years, saving up money for his son to inherit someday. Muffy probably knew this, so I believe that she entered the house after he died looking for it. With this detail, many of Muffy’s odd behavior can be easily explained.

We know that Muffy worked as a secretary before living in Forget-Me-Not Valley. She doesn’t give any explanation as to why is she living there, we are expected to believe that she just did for no reason. What we do know that Muffy dates people outside the village, a lot of people. She tells wild stories of not being taken seriously and gets heartbroken often. But turn that around, what if Muffy is doing the heartbreaking all along? Picture this; Muffy hates her dead end job as a secretary. She’s beautiful, so she dates older and wealthy men for their money. Something must have happened in the city to force her to move out and settle in a small village such as Forget-Me-Not Valley. Something like an angry ex-boyfriend trying to sue Muffy for money she accepted as a gift.

She then moves to Forget-Me-Not Valley, where she tricks poor Griffin to give her a job and a place to live. She then uses Forget-Me-Not Valley as a safe haven to continue dating in the city and extorts money from gullible wealthy men. She then lies, and tells her Forget-Me-Not Valley friends that she is the victim.

Fast forward to the moment when your character’s father passes away. Muffy didn’t really know the old man too well, but she must assume that he must be loaded. If she could get her hands on the money left behind, she could finally retire herself to a tropical island and live comfortably for the rest of her life. She enters the empty house, hoping she can find it. There is a single problem she didn’t think of, Takakura finds her snooping around the house and asks her to leave. Since then, Takakura and Muffy didn’t like each other too much. This could explain why Takakura and Muffy were staring at each other for a moment during the first heart event.

Muffy also makes a second attempt to get in the house during the forth heart event. She claims that she was fearful of her life and asks to sleep over. She planned to wait for your character is asleep to find this money and run away once the coast is clear. That is until Griffin comes to the house to bring Muffy back home. Quite off that Muffy seems so angry when Griffin came to get her.

All attempts to get in the house has failed, so Muffy does the unspeakable. She married the MC so she can have unlimited access to the house. She doesn’t care that she is not really in love with your character, she also doesn’t care that she must give him a child. She only wants that money hidden away in the house. Only problem is that she never ends up finding it.

The game won’t properly tell you why is the money missing, but I have an idea what happened. When Takakura found Muffy snooping in the house, he must have known what she was looking for. Takakura then finds it, and locks the house to stop her from coming back in. The reason I believe this is because in the summer of chapter 1, Takakura just randomly gives your character a horse. Where did he get the money to buy a horse and transport it to the valley? Takakura must have found the hidden money, and uses it between chapters to upgrade the ranch. This means that Muffy is looking for some treasure that was already claimed by someone else, now she is stuck in Forget-Me-Not Valley forever.

How do I know for sure that Muffy doesn’t love your character? I do have evidence to back that claim up. In the HM:AWL games, I could find no evidence that Muffy ever said out loud that she loves the MC before marriage. I don’t even remember her saying it after marriage either. (I could be wrong about this part, AWL is a huge game to look for it.) This feels odd since some other marriage candidates have no issue saying it.

When I played courting Celia, this is a direct quote to what she says during her fourth heart event, “I turned down the arranged marriage. I even told Vesta. You see I. . . I love you (MC). Is that a problem for you?”

When I played courting Lumina, this is a direct quote to what she says during her confession at the end of chapter 1, “I just had this feeling that you might be leaving here soon. . . I don’t know why, but I just had that feeling, so I decided to come here. So I am finally going to say this. . . You see. . . I’ve fallen in love with you.”

Now, does Muffy ever tell your character that she is in love with him pre-marriage? No. The closest thing she says is, “did you know how I felt about you?” The answer is no, we have no idea how Muffy feels about the MC. Instead of telling us how you feel, you just dangle a carrot in front of us trying desperately to convince us to marry you. Then you pretend to be shocked that your plan worked when we present the blue feather. You then compare the blue feather to designer jewelry (which reinforces the side of Muffy that loves money). You then ask what made us want to propose, almost like if you never had feelings for the MC at all. Finally, you claim that we used a lifetime of luck when you finally accept. You even have the audacity to call us buddy after getting officially engaged. Not dear, darling, honey, or other term of endearment. So no, I have no idea how you feel. (Sorry for the random rant, I just had to get that off my chest.)

This brings up a big question: if Takakura knew that Muffy was bad news, why did he still support the MC to marry her? This question has a very simple answer, he was only interesting in fulfilling his promise to his best friend. He wanted your character to get married, with who is not important. He knew that Muffy is not interested in love or family. He might have known that Muffy might divorce your character once she gets what she wants. But without the money she is looking for, Takakura knew that Muffy is trapped in the marriage. Too poor to leave anywhere with the kid, and unable to continue dating.

This theory sound crazy enough? Hold on, because things are about to get worse. What if I told you that Muffy had an affair on your character in the game? I know this sounds made up, why would Harvest Moon add this to a game designed for children? While it is hard to believe, I promise that all the evidence I will write is all true.

Many years ago, I was playing playing the game during chapter 3 when it happened. I had my character working fairly late caring for the cows and crops. Muffy always puts the kid in bed by 9:00 pm, and goes to sleep herself at around 10:00pm. I typically have my character be at home before Muffy goes to bed. But that one summer night as the MC was about to enter the house, I found Muffy leaving when she should be getting ready to sleep. I was wierded out and very confused, where was she going? I thought it was an odd glitch, so I curiously followed her. She walked across the valley and towards the dig site. As I continued to follow her, I witnessed Muffy enter Carter and Flora’s tent. I assumed that the game would just simply realize that Muffy is not supposed to be there and teleport her home asleep. I was curious enough to try to enter the tent anyway, expecting to get a message saying that everyone was asleep. To my surprise, I was actually allowed to enter and found Muffy walking around inside with Carter. What makes this look even worse, Flora is not in there with them! A married woman spending time alone with another man when your character should be asleep? She did eventually leave the tent and walked herself back to the house before the sun came up the next morning.

Of all the characters that Muffy would have an affair with, why Carter? This goes back to the fact that Muffy likes receiving gifts of coins and crystals. Coins and valuable gems are some of Muffy’s favorite items. Where did you get them from? The dig site. All of the sudden, I am no longer convinced that this was a glitch. The game hinted that this would happen, but we were too innocent to look past all the colors and tranquil music to assume something like this could happen in Forget-Me-Not Valley.

As bad as this is getting, there is still more! If you have read some of my fanfiction (see Popuri’s Journey chapter 10), I have claimed for years that Mark from Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness must be related in some way to Muffy. They both share some traits that makes me believe that they are part of the same family, but I had no idea how. I originally believed that Mark was Muffy’s son all grown up, but that theory was proven false considering he lived in the city instead of Forget-Me-Not Valley. Since Mark and Muffy both comes from the city, my next working theory was that they are siblings, cousins, or even aunt/nephew. That is until I found Muffy spending time with Carter alone in the tent in the middle of the night. I think I had it right the first time, Mark might indeed be Muffy’s son, but not the MC’s. I believe that Mark is the love child between Muffy and Carter.

There are a few years that skip between chapters 3 and 4. What if Muffy found out that she was pregnant with a second child between chapters, but knew for sure that it was Carter’s? She then tried to pass the kid off as the MC’s for a while, but then Carter figured it out as well. Carter then told the MC the truth about the affair and that he was the father of the second child. After finding out the truth, the MC tried to divorce Muffy. Now with no money and two kids, Muffy was in no position to be a single mother. She apologized for her betrayal and pleaded with the MC not to leave her. He decides to forgive her, but under the condition that the second child be put up for adoption. To save her marriage, she sends the baby to the city where he is then adopted by new parents.

While I have no proof of this crazy story I just wrote, there is a few quirks that made me think it up. First thing is that Mark boards a boat in the beginning of Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness. But where was he going? Considering that he was shipwrecked in Sunny Island, he was traveling close to Mineral Town (which explains why Popuri, Karen, Cliff, and Doctor Trent travel there). Mineral Town is also close to Forget-Me-Not Valley. This means that it is very possible that Mark could have been heading to Forget-Me-Not Valley to meet his birth parents. He could have gotten word of his mother’s whereabouts from his adoptive parents or the adoption agency, then boarded a boat heading to Forget-Me-Not Valley. He then got stuck in Sunny Island where he remained to find love and a family of his own.

Next odd quirk I want to discuss is: how did Taro know that Mark could make a good farmer? Taro could have taken up the role as farmer himself, while Mark could have taken up another job in the island. Mark also have no farming relatives or farm/ranch experience. But if we apply this theory as fact, this could easily be explained. Mark was born in the ranch in Forget-Me-Not Valley, then sent to the city for adoption. His memory of the time in the ranch lies dormant all his life, but he has a strong love for animals and crops. During his trip on the boat, he could have told Felicity’s family about his dormant memories and the fact that he came from the small farming village of Forget-Me-Not Valley. Once Felicity’s family and Mark gets stranded on the island, Taro brings him to the abandoned farm. The farm brings Mark comfort, so he loses interest in meeting his family and stays in the island from that moment on.

The last quirk I noticed is Mark’s name. Until recently, I had no idea what is the canon name of the main character of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life. I just been calling him Jack for a very long time, but I’ve always assumed that he didn’t have one. (This is also the reason I’ve been calling him the MC this whole time.) As I got back into fanfiction, I noticed that people has been calling this character Mark. I was confused, Mark is the name of the main character of HM:IoH, not HM:AWL. Harvest Moon didn’t share names of different farmers. (They eventually do, but that started much later.) So I did a little research about this topic, and what I found was shocking. This revelation was the final detail I needed to put this whole theory together. The MC of HM:AWL is not named Mark, but rather Makku. Muffy named her second son Mark, which sounds very close to her husband’s name Makku to convince him that he was the father. That is until Carter came around and exposed Muffy for the liar she is.

And with that, we’ve come full circle. Muffy married Makku out of greed, but got stuck in a loveless marriage. She found herself in the arms of another man, and even conceived a second child. She lied to her husband, but Carter exposed her. To save her marriage, she was willing to give up her second child causing emotional harm to both children. Mark grows up and tried to find his biological parents to find out his meaning or purpose, until he finds a farm to raise of his own. As much as I’ve made Muffy look like a horrible person, everyone still gets a happy ending.

During chapter 5, Muffy starts to love and appreciate the farm. She shows great interest and farm work, enough to begin asking questions in preparation to take over the farm herself. Her son grows up and moves on looking for his own thing to do. Makku remained married with the woman he loves, and hopes that the thing with Carter never happens again. Mark lives in Sunny Island happily with his wife and kid.

Could this theory be true? Probably not, but what if it was? It was a total blast getting to know a character this deep to even come up with such a crazy theory! Sadly, this is my final full-sized theory that I came up with. Next time, I will be writing a set of mini theories exploring some smaller odd details of the games, and what they could mean. I will also be revealing who I believe Elli’s biological father is, like I promised back in theory #6.