Flint (EarthBound)

Flint is a major character from Mother 3. He is the father of Lucas and Claus and the husband (later widow) of Hinawa, as well as one of the main protectors of Tazmily Village (his hometown).
==Personality and Role==
Flint acts as the main protagonist of (and can never be player-controlled outside of) Chapter 1 of Mother 3. The game's description at the time of naming him is that he is "a strong, friendly and dependable dad". He wears a highly stereotypical "cowboy" outfit (complete with a cowboy hat that is so large that the shadow that it casts over his face completely covers his eyes) and has brown hair with a very thick facial portion. Flint initially serves as the strong and manly counterpart of his weak and cowardly son (Lucas), and Thomas describes him (Flint) as a "daring nice guy." Perhaps because of how single-mindedly determined he is to protect his offspring and avenge the death of his wife (Hinawa) at the hands of the Mecha-Drago, Flint's social skills are almost non-existent in-game. 
After violently lashing out at his fellow Tazmily Village residents with a piece of their own firewood as punishment for them informing him that Hinawa is dead and that they want him to use the Drago Fang that they have found pierced through said woman's heart as a weapon, Flint is briefly locked up in the local Tazmily Jail; however, Claus busts him out using a nail file that has somehow been concealed within an apple. Rather notably, having to actually arrest someone is considered a new and unusual thing to Tazmily Village's residents.
After regretfully attending Hinawa's funeral and hearing from Lucas that Claus has ran off into the local mountains in order to attempt to avenge Hinawa's death by killing the Mecha-Drago using Flint's homemade knife, Flint decides to also run off into the local mountains so that he can effectively do the exact same thing that Claus has allegedly attempted to do, except with the proper strength and equipment for said task. Along the way, he meets Alec, Boney and Duster, all three of which serve as allies of his; unfortunately, however, the former character is a largely useless joke character akin to Porky at the beginning of EarthBound, while the appearances of the latter two characters (in Chapter 1, at least) are essentially later-chapter-foreshadowing cameos.
After defeating the Mecha-Drago in a fierce but surprisingly easy duel to the death (by first piercing its hide using its own aforementioned Hinawa-heart-piercing fang and then brutally beating it into submission using whatever form of stick the player has equipped during said fight), Flint is clearly extremely tempted to finish said Drago off and kill it once and for all, but is luckily convinced to stop himself from doing so when he sees its baby desperately tending to its (the Mecha-Drago's) wounds and is briefly lectured by Alec about how killing the Mecha-Drago would only make said baby have to go through the exact same type of thing that Flint, Lucas and Claus themselves are already being put through by Hinawa's death.
Unable to locate whatever is presumably left of Claus' body after his own encounter with the Mecha-Drago, Flint then proceeds to embark on an incredibly long and largely wordless journey through the Nowhere Islands and (eventually) New Pork City in order to try to find said boy; unfortunately, however, he ends up horribly neglecting Lucas as a result, to the point of seemingly forgetting the fact that Lucas even exists. After reaching the Empire Porky Building's basement at the very end of the game, Lucas, Kumatora, Duster and Boney rather surprisingly find Flint, who immediately charges into the depths of said basement in a truly last-ditch effort to find Claus; after seeing what Claus has become due to Porky's mechanical modification of him, however, Flint desperately urges Lucas to be the one that pulls the final Dark-Dragon-sealing Needle within said basement rather than letting Claus be the one to do so.
During Lucas' final battle (duel, to be more precise) against Claus, Flint demonstrates how amazingly strong he has become by jumping in front of Lucas and taking the brunt of not one, but two PK Love Omega blasts from said (nearly soul-less cyborg) boy in order to protect Lucas from them; unfortunately, however, this only barely makes a difference in the outcome of said fight, since Lucas' pulling of the aforementioned final Needle that occurs immediately after said fight essentially resets the entire world in which the game takes place anyway. However, said resetting seems to be what Flint wants (to some extent, at least), as he explicitly tells Lucas to "tell the Dark Dragon to protect his world at any cost" right before Lucas pulls said Needle. Needless to say, this is Flint's final appearance in the game and (until further notice) also his final appearance in the franchise that said game belongs to.
==Powers/Skills/Weaknesses==
Despite being considerably more intelligent than he initially seems, Flint is completely unable to use PSI and uses often-crude sticks as his weapons of choice in order to reflect the primitive and overly pacifist nature of his hometown (Tazmily Village). Although his Attack and Defense stats are incredibly high and can be boosted even further by his signature Brute Force ability (more specifically his Strengthen Up and Toughen Up techniques), Flint's rather distinct lack of natural healing abilities (which is a weakness that his temporary allies in Chapter 1 unfortunately all have as well) forces players to rely purely on food/consumable items and hot springs for HP restoration and status ailment curing when playing as him, and he also is a bit on the sluggish side (although not quite to Ness' extent in Earthbound). However, he also has a very large amount of HP (health points) and can hit multiple enemies at once using his Swing technique. Last but unfortunately least, his Power Smash technique can deal absurd amounts of damage to enemies (albeit only one of them at a time) but is nearly impossible to actually hit enemies with (even when said enemies are the largest ones in the game, in fact). Like all of the other playable characters in Mother 3, he can also combo-attack enemies for up to sixteen hits per (standard) attack, and the instrument that accompanies his attacks is a saxophone (presumably as the game's way of reflecting the fact that he is constantly afflicted by "the blues" during the game itself).
==Gallery==
FlintSprite2.png|Flint without his hat.
FlintSprite3.png|Flint pitch black from soot.
Main Cast N64 Render.jpg
==Trivia==
*Despite Duster constantly being called a "moron" (by Wess, his father/mentor) as one of the game's running gags, the overall-lowest IQ stat (of a playable character) in Mother 3 is actually Flint's, which is ironically even lower than Salsa's despite Salsa being a literal monkey. Considering the fact that his own sheer brute strength is the only real combat "talent" that Flint has (while Lucas/Claus and Kumatora have PSI, Duster has Thief Tool usage, Salsa has Monkey Mimic, and even Boney has Sniff), this is probably justified, even if it is somewhat contradictory at times.
*Flint is often compared to Chuck Norris and/or Clint Eastwood by fans, and he definitely is heavily reminiscent of both of said celebrities, right down to his name suspiciously rhyming with Clint Eastwood's first name while his character type is a cowboy like Blondie from the Dollars Trilogy (not to mention Chuck Norris as the Walker Texas Ranger). In fact, even his facial hair is extremely reminiscent of both Blondie's and Chuck Norris'.
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