Mother 3 Final Battle

I really like the Earthbound/Mother series. I mean, I'm like, obsessed. Well after I won Mother 3, I spent the next week going over the final battle in my head, thinking about meaningfulness and symbolisms and stuffs like that. And I came to a conclusion: the final battle is not between Lucas and the Masked Man. It is not between Hinawa, Lucas, and the MM. No, it's between Claus, the Masked Man's true self, and the MM, what Claus became after he was brainwashed.

Proof? Well explain how the MM seems to begin "wake up" when his mother calls his name, but he still doesn't remember who he is for a while. Then he battles with himself. Claus seems to be winning (which is why he is no longer putting effort into the fight) and then the MM retaliates with an attack that would've killed Lucas if not for the Franklin Badge. Was he trying to kill himself, was it an accident, or was it the MM side of him figuring that if he was going to die, he might as well take someone with him? I suspect the world will never know.