| “ | You've caused enough trouble. I can't let you go any further! You've wrecked my happy home and destroyed many of my precious babies. You will undo everything. | ” |
– Mama Bear | ||
Mama Bear is one of the many enemies and the eighth boss enemy in Dark Deception. She makes her first debut in Chapter 4 and is the main enemy and boss in "Bearly Buried". She shares the level with her children, the Trigger Teddies.
Appearance[]
Mama Bear is a tall, stuffed, barley-white bear that has a somewhat suit-like appearance despite being inspired by a plush. Her body appears to be sewn together, with a large tear in her abdomen revealing dark pink, intestine-like cotton. Mama Bear also has spherical eyes with small pupils, a wide, blank, smile on her face, and what appears to be blood around her mouth, resembling lipstick. Mama Bear also has stitches of four threads going down her forehead to her back, and her torso, similar to the Trigger Teddies. She wears gloves on her hands, a pink tutu, and a small, pink bow on top of her head. Her gloves have three claws at the ends of her fingers, but not on the thumbs. In darker areas, her eyes emit a strong white glow.
Her nightmare mode in Zone 3 has pale pink fur, red eyes, a black tutu and bow, and dark stitches, along with the inside of her ears. Like the Clown Gremlins, she can change back to her normal mode.
Mama Bear also has a far larger and more terrifying form known as Mega Mama. When entering a mysterious pool of green liquid, she will undergo a drastic transformation. Her body will become far larger and will be very bloated, and no longer wears her pink tutu. Her intestine-like cotton has now been replaced with a massive cluster of Trigger Teddies that have been clumped together. Her arms have multiple segments like a centipede, each one covered in stitches while possessing a brown, tan, yellow, or white pattern. Her right hand resembles a paw with four long, clawed fingers. Her left hand has been replaced with a round, fleshy head with bear ears and a mouth filled with sharp teeth. Her eye sockets have also deepened a bit, revealing her mascara that is leaking out.
Personality[]
| “ | The Mama Bear is born from the twisted love of abusive mothers. They sabotaged & destroyed the lives of their children. She is a massive collection of that soul type. I wonder if she can even be killed? | ” |
– E | ||
Initially, Mama Bear appears to be motherly, treating anyone around her as children with surprising grace and tenderness. Even with higher beings like Malak, she's not above pushing her "care" towards him, such as calling him by names he doesn't like out of affection. This behavior also extends to her potential victims, although it is more mocking than genuine. She also appears to be rather stoic in nature, readily doing her tasks without much complaint, regardless of how much pressure is put on her.
In actuality, Mama Bear is murderous, sadistic, and bloodthirsty when it comes to her treatment of victims, showing little regard to them outside of being potential food or playmates. This aggression is also among the few things that can break her stoic behavior, becoming much more excited and energetic the moment she gets a chance to attack prey. Despite having some affection for her babies, she still considers them as nothing but workers under her command, being authoritative and commanding when she needs them to do something. Even if one of them dies in the process, she shows little concern as long as they do their jobs well, and even then, she can just make more of them. In some cases, she'll even joke about either their behavior or her desires very casually, treating the whole ordeal as if it's nothing special.
According to her Makeship description, Mama Bear views anyone below her as disappointments if they don't do what she wants, likely explaining why she never gets mad at the Trigger Teddies since they're very compliant. She views herself as such a good mother that wearing a bear costume helps emphasize that point, forcing her babies to wear them as well to play up the act.
When properly stressed, Mama Bear breaks her stoic behavior and becomes much more aggressive and petty, refusing to back down until her aggressor is completely dead or demoralized. Due to her instability, she has also been shown as hypocritical, mocking her victims excessively despite her prior behavior showing the same fact as well. She also shows far less restraint in her actions, destroying anyone and anything in her path as long as she gets to kill her victims.
Abilities[]
Shapeshifting[]
By entering the waste pools, Mama Bear is able to mutate herself into her Mega Mama form. As long as she remains near the pools, Mama Bear can also shapeshift into a several other forms at will, such as a spiked ball, an oversized head, and a body with an arm appendage.
Telepathy[]
While in the mazes, Mama Bear is always aware of Doug's location, likely suggesting that she uses this power.
Brute Force[]
Mama Bear possesses a lot of physical strength, as seen when she first enters the caves by breaking a giant cave wall in just one swipe. Unlike most other brutish characters, however, Mama Bear only uses this ability sparingly, preferably in order to get to other locations faster. In her Mega Mama form, however, she becomes less hesitant to use it while trying to stop Doug from getting to the portal.
Spawning[]
The cotton inside Mama Bear's belly is able to form into Trigger Teddies, allowing her to spawn and replicate as many teddies as she want without any sort of cooldown. In her Mega Mama form, this turns out to also come from a copious amount of teddies endlessly making up her torso.
Bloodlust[]
Mama Bear's thirst for violence seems to make her capable of messing with her prey's vision just through sheer presence alone, as indicated by the player's screen getting increasingly blurry and glitchy. This can be used as an early warning system that lets Doug know when she's about to catch him.
While she's close enough to Doug, she also moves noticeably faster, making her harder to escape. This is heavily implied to be related to the vision distortion effect mentioned above, as she only seems to produce the former effect when 'sprinting' like that.
Involuntary Attraction[]
As shown in Elise's notes, Mama Bear's presence seems to induce a compulsion in souls similar to hers to join her body, though Mama Bear seems to have no direct control over this. This effect is implied to be an extension of her "bloodlust" ability mentioned above.
Invincibility[]
Mama Bear, similar to Joy Kill, seems to be invincible on account of the sheer number of souls making up her body. In her normal form, she'll quickly recuperate from her babies' detonations. In any of her mutated (Mega) forms, she's not only more resistant to the explosions, but is also resistant to rocks being pelted in her face. Even when she seemingly "dies" in her second boss fight, she just recovers in mere moments and resumes her pursuit of Doug as if nothing happened.
Relationships[]
Malak[]
As with all of Malak's minions, Mama Bear is eternally loyal to him, taking lots of pride in her job as his main executioner. Due to this and the general instability of the souls inside her, she's notably one of the few minions that directly tells Malak their thoughts, often speaking kindly to Malak while at the same time not hesitating to question him about the situation.
To Malak's chagrin, she seems to also show a form of doll-like affection toward him despite his authority over her, regularly referring to him as "Dear Malak" even after he gets angry at her over that, neither heeding his demands to stop calling him that nor reciprocating his anger. She even begs Malak for forgiveness when she fails to kill Doug again.
Doug Houser[]
When Malak first brings Doug to her, Mama Bear at first doesn't take the threat of him too seriously, treating him as just another one of Malak's many prisoners and potential food for her and the Trigger Teddies. Even when Doug escapes and collects some of the ring pieces, Mama Bear shows almost no concern and continuously toys with his feelings, and at certain points even shows excitement for eating Doug.
As Doug starts killing her babies and throwing her home into disarray, however, Mama Bear starts to escalate her response to him, mutating herself to confront him or ordering her babies to protect the ring pieces. By the time she mutates herself a second time, she tells Doug that he has ruined the balance of her whole home and will pay for it dearly. When he beats her the second time around, she finally loses what little composure she still has left and basically goes berserk, destroying everything in her quest to kill Doug. Unfortunately for her, she fails in that quest (and thereby fails Malak) when Doug escapes.
Bierce[]
Bierce is an enemy of Malak, and thus Mama Bear loathes her with a passion. While she normally keeps her feelings toward her to herself, when Doug begins to push her toward her breaking point she reveals that she considers Bierce an abomination unworthy of Malak's power.
Trigger Teddies[]
Mama Bear acts as the Trigger Teddies' parental figure. Her dialogue and pictures around her home show that she's very proud of the Trigger Teddies' behavior and generally allows them to do what they want to do so long as nothing's on the line, often referring to them as her "babies".
When she does want something done, however, Mama Bear acts more like a commanding figure to them, often ordering them around and forcing them to do her bidding. Due to how replaceable they are, she's also rather indifferent to their deaths at first, even cheering them on to essentially self-destruct and take Doug with them. If Doug kills or gets past them too many times, however, she seems to become genuinely worried for them and become increasingly angry at Doug.
Behavior[]
| “ | You will die here, Mother knows best. | ” |
– Mama Bear | ||
Chapter 4[]
Bearly Buried[]
Intro[]
In Bearly Buried, Mama Bear first appears exiting her cabin to greet Malak, contemplating on both Malak and having a new companion for her babies to "play" with. After a short discussion about Doug, she orders three Trigger Teddies to bring him to the kitchen, all the while revealing that all the stolen ring pieces are hidden here safely.
Act I[]
After Doug reaches the attic and collects the first ring piece, Mama Bear comes back to the living room on time to find that he escaped, much to Malak's chagrin. Once Malak tells her Doug's location, she reassures the former that she'll deal with the situation before sending her Trigger Teddies after Doug. Doug evades them on account of having just reacquired the Vanish power, but not before he's attacked by a hallucination of Mama Bear's head in the bedroom, although he closes the door before it reaches him.
Interlude[]
After Doug traverses the tunnels for a while, Mama Bear finds him and breaks through a huge wall behind him, asking Doug to stay for dinner before chasing him down. However, Doug evades both her and the teddies and collects a second ring piece just as the ceiling collapses behind him.
Once Doug makes it to the entrance of Zone 2, Mama Bear declares the teddies find him and protect the unclaimed ring pieces.
Act II[]
Mama Bear has a support role throughout Zone 2, utilizing a multitude of powers in compensation for her slow speed. Much like the Murder Monkeys and Gold Watchers, she's always aware of Doug's location unless he's cloaking himself with Vanish, so it's recommended to use Vanish to stay hidden from her. Outside of this, she possesses two mechanics that depend on how close she is to Doug. One ability is that she can distort Doug's vision the closer she gets to him, eventually making the whole screen unreadable if she remains near him. She's also capable of sprinting after entering a certain proximity to Doug, and she will continue to do so even after getting outside this proximity. Due to Doug not having Speed Boost at this point, he will need to remain vigilant and use her vision distortion and footsteps as a sign of how close she is to you.
Similar to the Clown Cars, Mama Bear is able to spawn Trigger Teddies via the opening in her stomach, specifically every 5 seconds or so. Unlike the Clown Cars, however, Mama Bear has no limit to how many teddies she can spawn, and she will continue spawning them as long she remains unstunned. This forces Doug to either stun Mama Bear anytime she appears or use Primal Fear to get rid of excess teddies before they infest the entire cavern.
If Doug uses Vanish, Mama Bear will stand in place and spawn teddies until the effect ends. When stunned, she'll stand in place and hold her head in a daze. Unlike most enemies, however, she can still kill Doug if he gets too close, similar to the Trigger Teddies.
Boss Fight I[]
Once Doug collects both the Zone 2 shards and the third ring piece, he descends down a ladder into a room of toxic waste pools, only to be beset by Mama Bear and trapping him inside.
During the encounter, Mama Bear reveals her ability to shapeshift via the waste pools, as she'll extend her mutated arm out to crush Doug. She will do this every 4-5 seconds, after which a large rock will fall down, and Mama Bear will poke her head out to find Doug's location before hiding again. Doug must try to grab and use the rock to hit her in the head, all the while evading or killing Trigger Teddies she throws out on occasion. She will retreat after being hit three times.
Act III[]
Mama Bear reappears once more to attack Doug, now in a frenzied state. Her behavior remains the same as before.
Boss Fight II[]
Doug descend further down into a large tunnel full of leftover bones, with Mama Bear awaiting him at the end of it. She jumps into the waste pool behind her and reveals her Mega Mama form, furthermore also revealing that she has the last ring piece. She berates Doug for trying to ruin everything, telling him that she'll never let him go for this.
Mama Bear starts the fight by trying to crush Doug with her hands three times; twice with her right arm, and once with her left. After that, she jumps out of the pool and pursues him at a slow pace. Doug has to lure the Trigger Teddies into coming near her before blowing them up with Primal Fear, injuring her and sending her back into the pool. She repeats the pattern two more times, during which she'll do additional attacks like rotating herself with her arms outstretched and trying to run Doug over in her spiked ball form, both of which require speed boost to outrun. After a third hit, Mama Bear - now defeated - tells Malak to forgive her actions before sinking into the pool, relinquishing the last ring piece.
Final Act[]
When Doug reaches another tunnel full of bones, Mama Bear's mutated mouth hand breaks into the tunnel, yelling that she won't let Doug go. He manages to evade her through the increasingly tighter tunnels, with Mama Bear's hand violently biting the end of the tunnel as he escapes through a crawlspace.
Doug manages to reach the basement just as Mama Bear starts emerging from underground, forcing him to escape quickly as she starts to break through different rooms of the cabin to reach him. She finally resurfaces in her normal form, cornering Doug with her army of Trigger Teddies just as a mysterious orb unlocks the portal for him to escape.
Trivia[]
- According to E's notes, Mama Bear is described by E as an amalgamation of the souls of abusive mothers that sabotaged and ruined their children's lives, and as the embodiment of their twisted love.
- Going by the theory suggesting that each nightmare portal is tied to one of Dante Alighieri's Nine Layers of Hell and the monsters inside them are manifestations of sin, Mama Bear may represent Treachery, since she is comprised of the souls of abusive mothers who destroyed and sabotaged the lives of their own children with their twisted idea of love.
- The name "Mega Mama" wasn't coined until QnA 15, where Vince mentioned that "Mega Mama" is a good name to describe Mama Bear's Boss Form.
- Her appearance bears a resemblance to Penny the Panda as the design was repurposed for Mama Bear and the Trigger Teddies.
- She, along with the Trigger Teddies, likely represent Ludilophobia (the fear of toys, similar to the Dread Duckies), Pediophobia (the fear of dolls), and Arkoudaphobia (the fear of bears). She may also represent Tokophobia (the fear of pregnancy and childbirth).
- Her name was confirmed in a voting poll for which character the fanbase are looking forward to. This also happened with the Trigger Teddies.
- She is the second enemy thus far with visible blood on her model (third if Hangry the Pig is counted, however it may just be a food stain), the first being Murder Monkeys.
- Mama Bear is the slowest (unless Doug is close to her, then she speeds up) and tallest (being twice the height of Doug) regular enemy in Dark Deception.
- Mama Bear is the second monster in the game to be both a common enemy and a boss enemy at the same time, with the first being Agatha.
- Based on her Monsters & Mortals pose and OST Thumbnail, she can make emotions with her eyes (and her eyes only).
- One of her voice lines in the voice video is likely a reference to Mother Gothel from Tangled, who also says "Mother knows best".
- Mama Bear and the Joy Joy Gang are the only two nightmares who transform themselves into a boss that looks different than their original form.
- Mama Bear, The Matron, Hangry the Pig, and Penny the Chicken are the only enemies in Dark Deception that appear to be physically obese.
- Coincidentally, all four of them are encountered in the same chapter.
- Mama Bear's ability to turn into an invincible spiked ball during her boss battle may be inspired by the Spin Dash ability from Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.
- Mama Bear, along with the Trigger Teddies, are the only enemies in Dark Deception that have two Nightmare mode variants.
- Mama Bear is currently the only monster whose portal icon have actual eyes.
- Both the beta versions of the Clown Gremlins and the Trigger Teddies' portal icons did initially have eyes, but these were replaced by the current ones.
- So far, Mama Bear, Murder Monkeys, Malak, Gold Watchers and the Clown Cars are the only enemies in Dark Deception that always know the whereabouts of the player's location.
- This makes Mama Bear currently the only monster so far whose Nightmare Mode has an alternative official name other than "Nightmare Mode".
- Mutant Mama can be seen by looking down at a specific angle at the Ring Altar.
- Mama Bear is the only character on a portal whose face is not shown on the main menu.
- In the 24th Q&A; Vince confirmed that Mama Bear's boss designed was inspired by the set of a pop artist; Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.
- He confirmed that it was inspired by a bear from one of her stage sets.
Voicelines[]
Mama Bear is voiced by Tara Strong.
- Main Article: Mama Bear/Voicelines
Gallery[]
In-game[]
Dark Deception[]
Super Dark Deception[]
Jumpscares[]
Related Items[]
Models[]
.png "Mama Bear Full Body (Low Quality).png (294 KB)")
.png "Mama Bear With Trigger Teddies (Low Quality).png (333 KB)")
.png "Mama Bear (Clawless).png (7.41 MB)")
.png "Mama Bear (Chasing).png (7.28 MB)")
.png "Mama Bear (Teddies).png (9.12 MB)")
Miscellaneous[]
_(1).jpg "Chapter 4 Cover (DLC) (1).jpg (94 KB)")
_Album_Cover.jpg "Dark Deception Chapter 4 (Original Soundtrack) Album Cover.jpg (95 KB)")
Album Cover
Concept arts
Merchandise[]
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