Super Mario Bros./Headscratchers

• Okay, Mario can breathe in the vacuumn of space, but he needs to surface for air under water?
  • He had the magic of the Lumas helping him in Super Mario Galaxy. Presumably it couldn't do so in water because there was too much pressure when compared to the vacuum?
• I know this has been said tons of times before, but really, why doesn't Peach use her money to buy a damn security system and better bodyguards instead of idiotic mushrooms?
  • Probably tradition more than anything else. Wants to keep up appearances that the old castle grounds won't be redone into an imposing, ultra-modern, sterile fortress just for her own protection. Also doesn't want to make it seem like she's scared of any threats by Bowser to her, her kingdom, or her subjects. Not training better guards, well... there probably aren't any decent Mushroom soldier-citizens besides Toad. And she already has Mario and Luigi on hand for any serious national security issues. I usually read Peach as a very straight-forward, old-fashioned thinking royal. There are things you just do and things you just don't. Not very wise, but by her principles she doesn't ever want to come off as over-bearing or demonstrative (outside of kicking butt in sporting competitions, that is).** Princess peach has been known to be extremely adventerous. (Examples include joining Mario on his adventures in SMRPG and Super Paper Mario.) She also goes treasure hunting with an old map she found in Paper Mario TTYD. She'd probably hate to be stuck in a fortress-castle and would feel claustrophobic. Plus, half of her adventures are due to the cause of villain shenanigans.
• In Paper Mario, Peach can put things in the magic chests and Mario can retrieve them later. My question: Couldn't she go into the chest HERSELF?
  • This troper had that issue at first too, but it does kind of make sense for a few reasons - one, because of how the chest works, it's entirely possible that any attempts to rise out of it herself would either leave her in the castle or make her unable to open it at all, and two, because at one point it's mentioned that it isn't known where the matching chest is - for all Peach knows, she could come out in the Crystal Palace or something.
  • Maybe it only transports items.
• Why is the airstrip in Sunshine out on its own little island off the coast of the main island? It's a bit of a hassle to land in a plane only to have to take a boat trip as well...
  • Have you seen Isle Delfino? There's no place to land a plane on the whole island. Presumably, the landing strip was added in once they became popular.
  • Truth in Television sort of. Venice Marco Polo International Airport is a bus and short boat trip away from Venice.
  • In fact, most airports are a good distance away from the cities they're associated with, for the simple reason that, well, you need a lot of room to land a plane safely, and a lot more room to make sure you have a buffer just in case things go wrong. When This Troper went throughout Europe, nearly every airport he landed in was a solid hour drive or more away from the city the airport was nominally in.
    • Not to mention planes are really freaking loud, which is why property values near airports are so low.
• What happened to Yoshi's Island in World 6 of Super Mario World 2?
  • What are you talking about?
  • He's referring to the weird place with the black sky and brown surface, which you can see on the title screen after you enter World 6. I don't know what the deal is.
  • Going to guess, based on the title differences that most of the final world is underground in caverns and what not, and what's left is in the middle of those mountains after some random seismic activity caused them to split apart, kinda like an earthquake meet volcano situation. Bowser's Castle was probably always in that spot.
  • After World 5, it quite clearly shows some sort of bird taking the player off of Yoshi's Island and delivering the player to another location entirely.
• Why do Mario and Luigi have brown hair but black mustaches?
  • It's not unusual. I have blond hair and red facial hair. I've known people with blond hair to have black facial hair. It's one of those genetic quirks.
    • Or hair dye.
      • It's due to a Stable Time Loop. Back when they were toddlers (Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time), they adventured with their older selves, and were thus introduced at an early age to the money-saving, luck-affecting world of Stache. Ever since, they've been grooming their moustaches to be as perfect as possible, and that includes dying them a highly visible black.
  • Official art for Mario&Luigi show's that it's a much darker shade of brown instead of black. Which as has already been pointed out, is not uncommon in real life.
• Why are some of the levels that need to beaten to get to the Back Door of Bowser's Castle in Super Mario World harder to beat then the Front Door?
  • Bowser was Genre Savvy enough to realize that the back door needed more security?
    • Actually, if he was really Genre Savvy, he wouldn't have put in a back door at all.
  • Because the front door has two rooms of challenge to get through to reach the final corridor, and the back door goes straight to the final corridor. Maybe Bowser realised the former already is guarded enough by the castle layout itself?
  • Because the back door is a secret, bonus entrance. Secret and bonus stuff in video games tend to be rewards for doing harder things. Ergo, harder levels.
• Why did Luigi act so funny towards Prince Peasley throughout Superstar Saga? For example, it looks like he's trying to hug/grab/grope/whatever Peasley at the end of the game and then Peasley unexpectedly flies up on his flying bean, which makes Luigi fall flat on his face. And then Luigi ends up crying....
  • I think it's rather obvious...
    • Gay, Luigi?
  • Nah, he's just a HUGE fan, I think.
• Are King and Queen Toadstool human? I mean, look at Peach...
  • They wouldn't be the only ones; after all, the seven kings you rescue in Super Mario Bros 3 are all human...
    • This of course would clue is in on the unfortunate implication that humans are the superior race in the Mushroom Kingdom, holding leading positions and being presumably long-time royalty over the lesser races such as 'shrooms.
    • Though that doesn't work if you concider the main character; no matter how often one saves the kingdom a plumber is still lower on the totem pole than a royal guard (ineffective as they may be).
    • In the (probably non-canonical) Super Mario comics, Peach's dad is a human (he looks like the first king in Super Mario Bros 3).
      • In a choose your own adventure book related to the comics, they mentioned that Peach was ahundredsomething in mushroom years. So, she's indeed part fungus. Also, eww.
  • If that's true, then only one of them is human. Remember, Peach's grandmother in Super Mario RPG was a 'shroom.
    • Seemed like "grandma" was just an affectionate term Peach used to refer to her old maid. Also, the kings in SMB 3 had wands capable of casting a shapeshift spell (which was used on them by the koopalings), so maybe Mushroom Kingdom royalty is composed of mushroom people who just use human forms as a custom. Yes, that would include Peach.
• In the first Mario & Luigi game, the only reason why the Brothers set out to the Beanbean Kingdom in the first place is because Peach's voice has been stolen. Actually, it never really was - Peach later handwaves this as saying that she didn't have time to let Mario know before Bowser came. If Peach wasn't able to tell Mario this vital information, surely Toadsworth should have? After all, he's the one who gave the suitcase (i.e., the Pause Menu) to the brothers just before they left! Why? Did he just choose not to act without Peach's command? Did he want the Brothers to help defeat Cackletta just to protect the Mushroom Kingdom? Or, perhaps...it was a Batman Gambit to get better relations with the Beanbean Kingdom?!
  • Peach got wind of Cackletta coming after her, and seeing as how Peasley knew she'd probably try to get the Beanstar after stealing Peach's voice, they decided to take her down considering she was going to try taking over the world. Just eliminating a necessary threat...and possibly getting better relations as well.
• Just how advanced is the Mushroom World? In the first games it seemed like the Mushroom world had a Renaissance style culture with World War I-level technology. And yet in RPGs, Mario Party, and Super Mario Strikers, it seems like their technology was equivalent to ours with a few more advancements.
  • Two possible reasons I can think of. 1) The Mushroom Kingdom's peace technology is more advanced than their war technology, which is one reason why they keep having to send Mario in all the time; and 2) Mario used to be a plumber from Brooklyn, and now he's a hero. It's possible he knows how to get back and bring back technology from the real world.
    • In the games Mario has never been from Brooklyn.
      • Depends on the game. See below.
  • I always got the impression that the Mushroom Kingdom's military capability declined after Mario and Luigi arrived, precisely because they're both a One-Man Army. That being said, they at least have access to anti-tank weaponry; one of the mushroom people in Super Mario RPG mentions he has a bazooka, but forgot to bring it.
    • I'm pretty sure that he was being sarcastic about having a bazooka. On the other hand, they at least know what a bazooka is.
  • My guess is the different games take place at different times, like Zelda. Not sure of Word Of God has corrected this, but I hold on to the idea that Luigi's Mansion is at the end of the timeline, since it implies that Bowser is permanently dead.
  • A fair idea might be that in the original Super Mario Bros., Bowser had already won before Mario and Luigi had arrived at the scene, so the place was suffering from the effects of that. Think Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time with Toad Town or Hollijolli Village. All things considered, it comes down to either time, the fact the invasion had hit before Mario raced to the rescue and destroyed most architecture, or Decade Dissonance.
  • Interestingly, it seems like the Mushroom Kingdom's main weapondry consists mostly of cannons, which far predate WWI.
• Why is Luigi such a coward in the Mario & Luigi and yet acts extremely brave in Super Paper Mario?
  • He got sick of living in Mario's shadow, and decided the best way of getting out of it was by doing the heroics himself?
    • Nope. I already know this: Luigi is only brave when someone close to him is in serious trouble. See Luigi's Mansion.
      • Very likely-- though he was still (visibly) frightened in LM, he was working past that... It's unfair to say that he never has his moments in the M&L games, though-- it's a little random, but he actually seems more brave in those installments...at least to this troper.
    • Luigi is still something of a coward in SPM. He was cowering behind a bush when you met him in the Underwhere.
      • To be fair, the last thing he would have remembered was being cornered in Bleck's castle; after that, it would have seemed like he just "randomly" appeared in some completely different (though no less depressing) place. Look at his dialogue after he's told what the Underwhere is. "So my game is over... Great." Indeed...
    • He got brainwashed by Nastasia I think in Super Paper Mario, so he didn't exactly choose to be more brave. Kinda like hypnosis (at least the hollywood version).
    • He did stand up to Bowser and Count Bleck in the prologue, and then there's his little sub-plot from The Thousand-Year Door.
  • In SPM, he seems to be trying to impress everyone by acting brave but then cowering away when a real threat actually shows up.
  • Flanderization to the max.
  • There's a lot of guessing that could go to WMG for this. It's easy to bring up that Luigi's first personality given was in an OVA that had him as greedy. In one of the M&L games, it is stated at one point that only the pure may pass and Luigi can't because he has a dark secret. It's my personal opinion that Waluigi is the negative aspects of Luigi's personality expelled through Black Magic.
    • No, I'm pretty sure the "secret" was just an embarrassing one, and Luigi didn't want his brother (or his younger self) to hear.
• Why isn't Dimentio in the Underwhere when you visit it post-game? I thought dead people go to the Underwhere.
  • You saw those 'Shaydees' things, right? That's what happens to characters who are judged to belong in the Under Where. Presumably, Dimentio was judged right quick that he should stay in the Under Where, and immediately turned into a Shaydee. He was probably then cast somewhere deep within the Underwhere, so you wouldn't even meet his Shaydee.
• Where do people like The Shadow Queen from The Thousand Year Door go where they die?
  • They get locked up in more or less the same place Bonechill was kept.
• Why hasn't Bowser just bombarded the Mushroom Kingdom with his Doomships or any other form of aerial weaponry?
  • Because he is a Villain, thus he is forbidden by plot-wise cosmic laws.
  • He wants to take over the Mushroom Kingdom, so destroying it entirely would make little sense. You don't implement a scorched-earth policy when you're on the offensive. Besides, it looks like Mario's the only real threat to Bowser; the other denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom mainly scream for help.
    • Who said he was destroying the whole thing? He would only target places like The Palace or Mario's house.
      • But then, of course, Mario would just do what he always does.
        • Well, to be fair considering Bowser's... creepy motivations as revealed in recent games, I think he may not want to destroy the Kingdom for fear of making Peach mad.
          • Recent? Bowser's desire to marry Peach (coincidentally gaining power over the protective magic she carries and conquering the Mushroom Kingdom) has been in the manual since the original Super Mario Bros.
            • Bowser may have political motivations. Marrying a reigning monarch is usually a pretty good power play.
              • Continuing off of this, many medieval cultures gave higher status to a king over a queen. The queen herself was a very important figure, it should be noted, but the king outranks her. With Peach seemingly the reigning figure in the Mushroom Kingdom, as a Mushroom King and Queen are never alluded to in any way, if Bowser were to wed her, he would become King of both his own kingdom AND hers. Complete, LEGITIMATE conquest of the Mushroom Kingdom without having to fire a shot.
  • He has. Go play Super Mario Galaxy. See? He's learning!
    • He also failed with that!
    • No, he did quite well. The Mushroom Kingdom would've been fucked if Mario hadn't happened to land on a nearby planet with Lumas on it.
  • The guy seems kind of apathetic. He go-karts with his archenemy, remember?
    • Villain Decay. Bowser's not a bad guy. He just tries to take over the Mushroom Kingdom because it's his job. What other positions are available for a giant firebreathing turtle-dragon?
      • Maybe he could toast toast?
    • I really doubt Mario Kart is supposed to be canon in the slightest. That, or Bowser just got beaten and wants to beat Mario without falling into lava.
      • Well then, he'd better be careful on the tracks in his own castle.
      • Or that they invite him to avoid having him get angry; the intro to Mario Power Tennis implies that he wasn't invited to the Tennis Tournament, so he recruits Wario and Waluigi to blow up the stadium.
  • Motive Decay. In Super Mario Galaxy, Bowser states that he is glad to have Mario as his Arch-nemesis, which implies that part of the reason why he even bothers to kidnap Princess Peach anymore is to compete with Mario.
    • Coupled with the fact that they have no problem inviting him to go go-karting and various other stuff they do in the spinoffs, and it just doesn't seem like a conflict anymore. It's less of a war and more two guys competing over where Peach will stay the weekend, but with humongous body counts. Galaxy was one of the rare occasions in which there was actually more at stake if Bowser prevailed than him having Peach for a while, and the tone of his interactions with Mario was notably more serious as a result.
• Is Mario short or are Bowser and Peach just tall?
  • Both. As a matter of fact, Mario is even shorter without his Super Mushroom. And Bowser is really a giant turtle-dragon-thing. Peach, though...
    • ...also is shorter without a mushroom in Super Mario Bros 2.
    • About the Super Mushroom, in The New Super Mario Bros., the "Super Mario" sprite appeared to be Mario's regular 3D sprite, and the "Not-so-super Mario" was a squashed version of him. So, what... does that mean he "Super Mario" all the time in most 3D games?
      • Considering his ability to take more than one hit, likely.
      • The very titles of the games are a huge clue to this - unless you count Mario Party.
    • THAT'S A MODEL NOT A SPRITE ARGH
• Exactly how long do the games take place?
  • The older games had a better understanding of this since you encountered night-themed levels. It seems as if it takes a couple days to travel on foot from whereever you start to Bowser's castle. The newer games are a bit more ambiguous about the issue, even more so since Super Mario Galaxy has come out!!
  • It's not easy to tell. The amount of time between the end of each level could be a matter of hours, days, or even weeks. The first game could have taken place over the course of a year or two. The second game is implied to have taken place all in one night. The third could just be a couple of months, as could world, but 64 might be anywhere within just a couple of hours to a week. Or maybe time just works differently in the Mushroom World.
• Where did the Koopalings+ Bowser Jr. come from?
  • Sony's Godzilla movie proposes an interesting answer to this.
  • Yeah... Best not to think too hard about Jr.'s so called crazy delusions in Sunshine... So... yeah.
    • They were brought by the stork. Have you never seen a Yoshi's Island game?
    • Then again, the fact that Peach took a moment to think about Jr.'s comment brings up some horrifying implications...
    • Clawdia is Bowser's wife in fan fiction, but it hasn't appeared in any official material.
      • From Mario Wiki: The UK Nintendo Power once said that Bowser had a wife named Clawdia Koopa; however, as Clawdia is never referenced to again, neither in any games or later issues of Nintendo Power UK, it is often believed that Clawdia was simply a joke. Basically, Nintendo Official Magazine UK (aka NOM, the one before the current magazine) said that some time in the past and it became known as one of the 'Bowser's Wife' names in fanon.
    • Why has no-one listened to the genius with the stork idea.
    • They could always be adopted.
    • ....MisterSeahorse?
• Are Wario and Waluigi related to the Mario Bros. in any way?
  • Aside from all being voiced by Charles Martinet, no.
    • Arguably, it's never been addressed. Wario/Mario were friends/rivals when young. It's possible that there were two pairs of twins, though. (Luigi is the "younger" twin)
      • Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins would show that Wario is some sort of elf-like creature. It could be taken that this was Mario's first encounter with him.
  • This troper likes to think that Wario and Waluigi are brothers (Wario Wario sand Waluigi Wario obviously), and are cousins to the Mario Bros. It just makes it easier that way.
    • Actually, I like the idea that Waluigi is an Ascended Fanboy of Wario's. Or, simply a random lanky guy hired by Wario to be his Luigi equivalent.
  • To avoid the WMG above- No-one knows. It's never explained. From our point of view, he just kind of showed up one day.

• What happens to the "thank you Mario, but our princess is in another castle" guys if you use the warp zone? Are they tortured to death by Bowser's underlings? Torture or not, isn't it horribly callous of Mario to leave them there just so he can skip a few levels?
  • New Super Mario Bros adds an interesting wrinkle. Not only is the Princess in every castle (Cutscene Incompetence is in full effect regarding Bowser Jr.), but when you bypass a castle (via alternate routes or warps) and enter another one... they're already there! (Note to self: Bowser Jr. is always a step ahead of Mario.)
    • And now that I think about it, does that mean that Bowser gets melted to the bone even if you never fight him? (Perhaps it was a tragic bathing accident...)
      • No, the Bowsers in Super Mario Bros 1 are all fakes except for the last one. In fact, when you kill the first seven with fireballs, they turn into a random mook before dying.
        • You misunderstood the argument. At the end of world 1, NSMB, you drop Bowser into lava and his flesh gets melted off. Halfway through world 8, you fight his skeleton. The thing is, you fight his skeleton even if you used a warp in world 1 and never fought him there.
          • I always assumed the warp zones aren't canon and are there for the player's convenience; it'd be still assumed Mario got through each stage (after all, Mario is reconquering castles and searching for Peach in each one, it wouldn't make sense to skip some unless he knew from the start that Peach was in the last castle, and was just checking the others for the lulz).
  • And how many castles does Bowser have? He could make a fortune in the construction industry...
    • Where do you think his money comes from?
    • I assumed that the castles in the original SMB were Mushroom Kingdom fortresses that Bowser conquered and fitted with traps.
    • They are. That's why at the end of each level in Super Mario Bros, you have to raise a mushroom flag, to symbolize Mario's reconquering of said fortre ss' for the Mushroom Kingdom.
  • Back to the original question: It's a safe assumption that after rescuing Peach, Mario went back and freed the remaining Toads.
  • On a related note, the original plot of Super Mario Bros. 3 is that the Koopalings stole these magic wands and used them to turn the rulers of the Mushroom world into random animals. Bowser kidnapping the Princess isn't an issue for most of the game; Peach sends you letters at the end of every world except 7, when Bowser sends you one saying he kidnapped her while you were running around. This implies that she's back at home and doing fine. How, then, is the Princess kidnapped if you use the warp whistle to go straight to World 8? It normally would take Bowser enough time for Mario to finish between six and seven worlds to grab Peach, so there isn't enough time if you go straight there. Plus, Mario doesn't even know the Princess has been kidnapped until he gets the letter at the end of World 7, so why would he even want to go to Dark Land anyway?
    • Useage of the warp zones likly leads to the non-canonacal sequence of events for the game. The story of the game probably assumes Mario goes through every necessary level (but not necessarlily the secret or bonus levels) without warping. These weren't meant to be sandbox games where your actions affect the story, so warping past events creates a non-canon scenario and thus your story-line experience becomes corrupted.
    • Actually, a recent version of SMB3 (I believe it was Super Mario Advance 4) corrected the issue by having Bowser's letter displayed the first time you enter World 8, whether you used a Warp Whistle or not.
  • My guess to the original question is that the Warp Pipe/Whistle teleports Mario inside the castle, where he frees the kidnapped Toads (who said there was only the "Thank You" toad?) and they clear out the castle for him while he moves on to the next castle.
• How does Mario use the pipes for transportation if plumber-eating plants also live in them?
  • Maybe not every pipe is infested. If they were, the Mushroom Kingdom would be in deeper trouble than they already are with Bowser.
    • No, it's clear in the original game that plants come out of the same pipes Mario uses.
      • Well, a lot of the Mushroom Kingdom's stuff can be easily explained by magic so maybe some super transportation system takes over after Mario goes down the pipe.
        • I'd say probably, especially given that some pipes are pretty much in mid-ir, with some sort of floating base of blocks holding it up.
  • Instead, ask why he never actually does any plumbing. And why the pipes are totally empty.
    • The pipes are totally empty because they're apparently transportation pipes, and obviously none of the large ones that Mario uses are for plumbing. (Definitely wouldn't want to go down a pipe you just got done using a plunger on...) In Super Paper Mario, there is a guy who builds pipes so you can get from Flipside to Flopside instantly, so that kind of further asserts the fact that the big ones are solely for Point A to Point B reasons.
      • Of course, in a pinch... you do use a toilet's plumbing to get from one bathroom to another in Thousand-Year Door. It's not the usual, though.
    • The vast majority of pipes don't have piranha plants or enemies in. Seriously, just look at any Super Mario Bros game. The vast majority of pipes in them have no piranha plants or no secret rooms in them. Not sure how Mario manages to come through a pipe with a Piranha Plant actually in though, as happens in some games.
  • Fire flower.
  • When you stand next to a pipe- directly touching it but not or standing on it, the Pirahna won't come out. They curl up somewhere if they sense someone nearby. Not sure why, maybe the pipe-living species are shy or something.
• In Super Mario Land 2, it's revealed that Mario has his own castle. Then in Mario VS DK, he has is own Toy company. How in the world did he acquire them?
  • Did you think Wario is the only one who gets to keep the coins he finds lying around all the time? Mario is filthy stinking RICH after all the adventures he's taken, each of which lands him several thousand gold coins.
  • Could also be gifts of gratitude... seeing that Mario has rescued the Princess and saved the Mushroom Kingdom on numerous occasions.. the guy deserves his own castle...
  • He's also a doctor in Dr. Mario.
    • Plumbing is a lucrative business, especially when you can burn away clogs instead of buying equipment.
  • Don't forget the exchange rate between Beanbean and Mushroom coins, Peasley gives you over 9 million Mushroom coins which are only 99 Beanbean coins. Not much when they're in one kingdom, but when they're home... Also check how much cash you've got in your files, then chalk up the exchange rate. Then divide by two, because Luigi deserves some profit.
  • I'm pretty sure that the exchange rate was a lie by that one character who exchanges them for you (I forget the name now) because they're an asshole.
    • It actually happened twice in the game by two different people. But it doesn't mean Mario is rich, but that the Mushroom Kingdom currency is horribly inflated. Think about it, Peach gave a pretty large sum at the beginning of the game for a decoy mission. Probably just enough to get Mario back home after he could ditch Bowser. She doesn't care about Luigi.
• What makes no sense is during the NES/SNES Mario games, why do you gain points if an enemy somehow kills another one (example: a Koopa kicking a shell which takes out 3 foes in the way and you gain 2000 points for it)?
  • They want to be really nice to the player.
  • Because the rule on points is that you get points when enemies die, not when you kill them.
  • The point counter finds it funny and decides to be nice to you.
  • Points don't have to make perfect sense; they're just little congratulations to the player anyway. We should wonder more about the fact that Super Mario Bros. 3 starts introducing situations where Koopa shells collect coins for Mario--coins being an in-universe item. Coin blocks can be found on the ground, shells can be carried into the air, and so Mario can kick a shell into a block and receive its coin, even if he never goes near the block. The Game Boy Advance port extends this so that shells collect free-floating coins as well. How does that work?
    • The same way it normally does. Mario never actually needs to touch the coins in blocks - even when he hits the block, the coins just pop out of the block and teleport into his wallet. A coin touched by a moving Koopa shell is also teleported into Mario's wallet.
      • This raises a question about the ten-coin blocks found in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The first ten coins come out and are collected in midair... and then five more pop out and fall to the ground, and Mario and friends have to collect them manually. Why the difference?
        • Maybe after a few coins the coins malfunction and they are no longer able to teleport to their wallets or whatever.
• Why are pirahna plants portrayed as Always Chaotic Evil? Pretty much every other enemy gets to help you at some point in the RPGs, but the plants are always enemies as far as I can remember.
  • Because they are plants.
  • But they're also sentient, and Mario's closest allies are fungus.
    • Clearly, photosynthesis makes you evil!
    • When in the series do they show any sign of sentience?
    • Paper Mario. Lava Piranha, and a Frost Piranha who talks in ALL CAPS and screams about how Mario has arrived before you reach Crystal Palace.
      • But Flower Fields has a number of friendly plants, and Luigi has a Crazee Dayzee partner at one point on his adventure. Maybe corrupting pipes is considered crossing the Moral Event Horizon in Mario's world.
  • Actually, they were allies. Once. In Mario Party 3. Had the best attack power of any partner and occasionally added 1-3 to your roll, too.
    • Not exactly canon.
    • There's Negative Continuity in the Mario series, with the exception of a few shout outs, and there's nothing stopping Mario Party (or any other Mario spinoff) being 'canon' (at least, nothing that clashes with any possible timeline in another game, if there was a timeline in the first place)... Aw screw it, even trying to write about the concept of 'canon' and Mario is logically impossible.
  • Most of them are not mobile. And they don't have eyes. It's kinda creepy, and doesn't make for good protaganists.
    • Here's hoping to a Piranha Plant ally in the Paper Mario game for the 3DS then. We've seen a Chain Chomp as a partner, which hadn't been done before either (Mario Kart notwithstanding as it was still portrayed as quite feral).
• Why do people even bother trying to make sense out of the Mario universe?
  • Considering I've seen a few certain sites for ROM hacks and fan games complain about floating objects despite them being common in the actual canon games, who knows? Maybe they just want either an excuse to write an article or reject something?
  • Because it's fun?
• Is Mario pretty much a Marty Stu to the highest possible principal in the series? He pretty much blasts the typical Mary Sue Litmus Test to pieces if entered, is pretty much The Chosen One in all the RPG and story based games, is nearly completely invincible in terms of never losing, an Instant Expert in nearly everything (or at least, Instant Jack of All Stats in everything) and... well, clearly has the entire universe based around his existence in some way. And New powers as the plot demands. Take this for example:"Did anything else remarkably strange or otherwise unusual happen in your character's infancy?" If you tested Mario for this, he'd pretty much at least qualify from the entire Yoshi series and Mario and Luigi Partners in Time.
  • No, cause he's Fucking Mario!. Seriously though, It kinda depends on how you look at it. Mario is never looked to as a god in the standard, non-rpg games (at least as far as I know) for what he does, and the only people who show him special recognition is the princess and people who's asses he saves (although for less time than the princess). In other words, he doesn't do it and get thanked by everyone in the country, he just does it. (RPGs notwithstanding, I think they're pretty much in a different continuity).
  • I've noticed that to, but considering the sheer extent of what he's done (drop kicking castles, destroying the sun, fighting his way out of hell twice and then defeating something the forces of heaven couldn't) it crosses the line twice and becomes awesomely badass. The fact that this carries over into reality (popularized several genres, spun-off several series that became classics in their own right, has over 100 games based on his universe and most of them are good) has lead to me embracing Mario's absurd awesomeness.
  • Not saying it's a bad thing, just how obviously these Mary Sue Litmus tests would end up classifying pretty much most of the best and most well known characters in fiction as Mary Sues. Because yeah, Mario is awesome (don't also forget that he destroyed Megaleg, a humongous mecha with no weapons and in probably less than an hour by turning it's attacks against it).
    • Despite his feats, Mario still suffers defeats and setbacks just like most other characters and though an admired hero is never really worshiped. Everyone who disagrees with Mario are not always shown to be bad (Donkey Kong Junior, Super Mario Sunshine) and even all his powers don't get him out of all his problems requiring others to come to his aid.
    • True, he gets captured in Luigis Mansion and Super Princess Peach. And Mario is Missing, although no one really cares much about that game. On the other hand, how many proper defeats can you name Mario having faced? Not getting captured off camera, but as in, defeated in his adventures? The only example I can name is Donkey Kong Jr, where he explicitly gets defeated and 'killed'. The others all have him beating bad guys or being on the winning side in general, possibly barring sports games. Same with the spinoffs, adaptations like cartoons, movie, comics, anime etc. Of course, this is perfectly justified, a video game character you play as losing in the end would probably annoy most players, and reduce the whole thing to a Shaggy Dog Story.
      • Then there's the single player storyline in Super Smash Bros Brawl. Mario can be defeated when playing as Link/Yoshi in one section, or as Kirby in the opening. In terms of non-player gameplay, the explosion at the end of the first level turns Mario into a trophy, while Tabuu also turns him (and everyone else) into a trophy at the end of 'Entrance to Subspace'
  • That test is not designed for videogame characters. Almost every videogame main character I can think of (except games like Final Fantasy, where the characters are the main focus) is a Mary Sue or Marty Stu because they always succeed.
  • More to the point, most games require their playable characters to be a One-Man Army that the world revolves around, or else you'd have no reason to still be playing as them. Therefore video game characters at least need to be held to a different standard before the term "Mary Sue" can be applied.
  • Plus, the reason Mary Sue is useful as a category is due to the role they play in stories; namely, making them shitty. But the Mario games in general have little to no plot, so it doesn't matter.
  • It should also be noted that being the Jack of All Stats at everything isn't exactly a profound statement. A Mary Sue is exceptionally talented at everything they do. Being the Jack of All Stats, by definition, makes Mario mediocre at everything he does.
  • Mario isn't invincible, he just has a ton of extra lives. And he goes down pretty easily in the platformers.
• Mario is a bit more defeat-able in the RPGs. Paper Mario featured Bowser absolutely dominating him in battle and then hitting him with lightning several times after Mario was on the ground. And who could forget Dimentio just killing him out of nowhere?
• The way I think of it, Mario is basically Mushroom Kingdom Jesus.
  • He DID take that trip to the afterlife (twice)...
• Oh, and assuming Wario Ware goes under this, why did Wario need to copy the success of another company and set up his own for money? Why couldn't he just buy the other company outright with the huge amount of money/treasure/gold he has lying around in that castle THEN set up his own company with zero competition?
  • I figure Wario isn't really the big spending type, he prefers to have Scrooge McDuck levels of gold lying around just because he can. That, and the other company is probably Nintendo, and then it would get way too meta.
    • That, and Wario is also a bullying adventurer. Part of the fun is how he gets the money, the whole journey thing and all that. Exploring pyramids, fighting pirates, getting an occasional kiss from a princess, etc.
  • The way the DS and Wii have been selling, I don't think Wario could afford to buy Nintendo now anyway.
  • It was publicly traded and he didn't want to share?
• Is anyone else bugged by the fact that Mario wouldn't have had a prayer in Paper Mario had Bowser thought to put Peach in a room without windows? More specifically, there's the fact that Bowser and Kammy never tried the plan exactly the same way but tweaked that little detail. They aren't the smartest Koopas in Dark Land, but Bowser is the king of taking old ideas and just so slightly changing them.
  • For that matter, why did Wart have a machine in the room with him that shot out his one weakness?
    • I heard somewhere that he used the machine to take over Subcon and at the end the machine revolts against him and helps the good guys with vegetables. Not sure if that's canon, but it works.
    • It's canon. That was the Dream Machine, which created Subcon Land and dreams in general. Wart used it to create monsters and aid in his takeover, but the Dream Machine is sentient and rebelled when Mario and friends arrived, creating vegetables for them to use.
  • Who's to say Bowser didn't try it again? There's no reason he should SUCCEED if he did try, especially considering the Star Spirits would have been on their guard.
• What exactly was Bowser planning to do with the Dark Matter from Bowser's Dark Matter Plant? Yes, it's just a cool name given to make the stage more interesting, but giving that answer would just ruin all the fun.
  • A power source for giant friggin' spaceships and robots, obviously.
    • Yeah. It's onscreen Offscreen Villain Dark Matter.
  • Maybe it's planned to be used as a weapon against those who oppose his galactic rule.
• So, how do the platforms float anyways?
  • The laws of physics are different in the Mario universe.
    • A Magikoopa did it.
  • They're fitted with anti-gravity devices?
• Okay, Luigi is Mario's younger brother, everyone knows that... why did Nintendo start saying he's his younger twin brother? Wouldn't twins have different dynamics that an older brother/younger brother would?
  • Everythings Better With Twins?
  • Twins still come out one at a time, you know, so Mario might just be older by a few minutes. Not terribly important, but still accurate (and significant in cultures which give preference to the firstborn son).
    • Nailed it. The first born twin son thing happens in eastern cultures, and Mario games are made by Japanese company...So yeah.
      • Well, even with girls... I think of Lucky Star. Kagami relates that although she says that there's practically no difference in their ages, she used to think about it a lot. This likely influenced their personalities as they grew up, anyway. So that, too, may have influenced the Mario brothers.
  • The twin part came from Yoshi's Island I'd say, where the brothers were said to have been 'born' at the same time in the ending. Maybe there was a one or minute difference either then or before they were first taken by the stork in that game (and the games have to be canon, otherwise Yoshi's Island DS and Mario and Luigi Partners in Time are a tad screwed).
  • I maintain that they're fraternal twins because of the dramatic height difference.
  • Well, even in the west, it's a big deal. Maybe even more so than in a typical older/younger sibling dynamic. Being the oldest generally carries a bit of weight to it. The younger sibling is supposed to listen to you, you have more responsibility, etc. The youngest tends not to have as much responsibility. But in twins, the siblings might feel resentment that the dynamic was down to luck. An honest argument would be:

Twin One: Listen to me, I'm older than you!
Twin Two: By a minute!

• • Because it's not so much just I'm older than you by a year, it's I'm barely older than you. It gives a greater reason to want to get out of the older brother's shadow. He's can't be that much better than me, he's not that much older than me.
• In Super Mario Galaxy, in the Battlerock level, you feed star bits to a hungry Luma, who then transforms into a planet. Okay, standard fare. However, the planet has an NPC on it. Where did this guy come from? Did he pop into existence when the Luma transformed, and when you find him he's only a minute or two old? Is he the Luma, just in a different form? Did he manage to somehow fly over to this planet really quickly before you get there? Furthermore, it is implied that he has been working really hard on that planet for a long time. How is that possible, if the planet just then popped into existence?
  • He'd been working on the planet in his head, he just needed the boost to become it.
• Furthermore, consider the blue Lumas that sell you mushrooms. You can feed them star bits, and they'll give you a 1-Up or a life meter boost. The thing is, they don't simply give you the mushroom. No. They transform into the mushroom. Assuming that Mario eats the mushroom to get its powers, did Mario just eat an innocent Luma?
  • You should probably add 'Why are they on the bad guy's ship in the first place?' Or coincidentally a few feet away from a boss arena? Are they completely suicidal?
  • Lumas seem to be effectively immortal thanks to reincarnation, they're probably deliberately helping out Mario.
  • That, and their purpose is explicitly stated to be to eventually transform into something else, and if that helps save the universe so much the better.
• Whatever happened to Tatanga, anyways? After Super Mario Land 2, he just disappeared without so much as a trophy in Super Smash Bros.
  • He actually appeared in a Super Mario Land comic some time:
  • Tatanga article on Super Mario Wiki
  • He forget to renew his Never Say "Die" insurance.
• Was the ending (after the credits) of Luigi's Mansion canon? Whether he ended up with a shack or a prestiged mansion, we never saw it referenced (correct me if this is a case of Did Not Do the Research).
  • As a matter of fact, there is a canon end for Luigi's Mansion. He gets the big mansion. You can see it in some of the spinoffs.
  • On a similar note, why the heck did the haunted mansion keep returning then in the future games, and was referred to as Luigi's? I've seen his new mansion just once and the haunted mansion has been in Mario Kart Double Dash, DS, Mario Power Tennis, Mario Basketball, Mario Super Sluggers and probably numerous other games. I guess he really can't escape the constantly reappearing haunted house from Luigi's Mansion, heh.
    • The one in Double Dash is the non-haunted mansion.
    • Both appear, the one on Luigi Circuit is the non haunted mansion, but there's a battle arena based on the haunted version of the mansion. See this picture from Mario Wiki ^{[dead link]} to see what I mean:
      • Maybe Luigi ended up making peace with the ghosts after he got rid of King Boo and they use it (and redecorate it as well) when he's not around.
• What's up with Geno's real name, "??!?"? He's a Star Spirit, right? Well, in Paper Mario, we meet other star spirits, and get eight names- most all of which are star puns of some sort, and all of which are pronounceable by human tongues. So, did ??!?'s parents hate him a lot, was he just messing with Mario, or were Twink and co. using pronounceable aliases in Paper Mario?
  • Considering that Geno had to find a body to inhabit while the star spirits in Paper Mario seemed to have physical bodies already, it may be that there are two or more 'tribes' of star spirits, some of which dwell closer to the physical world/have material bodies and speak the languages of the people they live near, up to and including names, while the others live as pure spirits or energy and speak their own unpronounceable-to-mortals language.
    • I wonder if they have their own unpronounceable-to-mortals names, but they realize this, and skip straight to giving alternate names that we can pronounce. 'Cause that trope may be fine once in a while, but if you're encountering it several times in the same game, it'd get kind of irritating.
• Why doesn't Luigi ever toughen up? He went through an entire mansion full of ghosts, and has gone on his own adventures at least two or three times (one of which we never got to see first-hand). Yet he still freaks out and falls into a gibbering wreck at things that would only lightly startle or confuse most people. I'm not saying he should develop into a grisly, tougher-than-scrap-iron action hero, but why hasn't he developed any psychological armor whatsoever?
  • Practically speaking, probably Nintendo wanting to use him as the subject of a whole ton of jokes and in roles he really shouldn't be stuck in. Storyline wise, not sure, although he was still pretty damn scared at the end of Luigi's Mansion (hint, look at every boss battle intro and the scene before the final one, Luigi looks like he's about to die of shock (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn3qhVtaIk4), which itself is a pretty silly thing, considering it's apparently BOWSER, of all characters, whom Luigi's defeated many, many times in the past.
    • Yes, a GIANT MECHA BOWSER piloted by a friggin scary ghost. More lethal then anything he's faced before. You'd crap your pants.
    • Funny though that he's seen nearly everything there before or after. Bowser, seen hundreds of times. Mecha Bowser, seen at least ten times, King Boo, now in the spinoffs like Bowser. I was going to mention Yoshi's Island/DS, but then realised every single game in the series, Luigi got captured and it was up to Mario and the other babies to 'defeat' the now three hundred foot tall castle sized Bowser/Baby Bowser.
  • He's actually gotten weaker, honestly. He used to be on the same level as Mario. And then they started to give him character.
    • I figure it's Nintendo retaliating against all the questions about Luigi's inactivity in certain games, such as Mario RPG or Mario 64. "Fine, you want to know why Luigi wasn't there? It's because he's a WUSS. Take that answer."
• Isn't it kind of irresponsible that Bowser lets his kids pilot the airships, especially considering they'd be too young to get at least a learner's permit in real life?
  • He's an absolute monarch, and, moreover, when he's not sending them out as agents he keeps them in the dungeons. He is law, so law can't stop him, and he doesn't give a damn about them, so that's no impediment.
  • Who said their laws were the same as ours? Apparently toddlers can drive go-karts.
• How does Goombella get dressed in the morning if she doesn't have hands? In fact, how does she pull out her tattle log in The Thousand Year Door or ANYTHING without hands?
  • The same way Homestar, Homsar, Marzipan The King Of Town, That Little Chef Guy, 1-Up, or Cheatball does! How do those guys do it? The world may never know.
    • Mild telekinesis?
    • Yeah, it's pretty much canon that they have some sort of telekinesis. In the baseball games, a Goomba is a playable character and they're actually above-average in pitching, despite having no arms. The bat and the glove are visibly floating around beside the Goomba.
• In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Bowser gets amnesia and is brought up as a partner to Popple. Bowser gets a blue mask to cover his face. For some reason, when wearing this mask, his eyes are green, where every other time they are red. Why would a mask change eye colour?
  • Contact lenses in the eye holes.
    • Really effective disquises?
• How does Bowser even have a son of any kind? We've never seen his wife, or any female Koopa.
  • Yes we have. Kammy Koopa. He always did seem awfully close to her.
  • And so, this line of discussion and thought came to an abrupt halt, as we all tried to purge the image of a naked Kammy Koopa out of our minds.
    • Uh... if Kammy were naked, how would she look any different from every other Koopa in the world?
      • We've never seen a Koopa naked before. Sure, we've seen them sans-shell, but if you'll recall, even under the shell they wear boxers. Presumably their reproductive organs are underneath the underwear underneath the removable shells.
  • Alternatively, Kylie "What A Scoop!" Koopa, though she was already an adult when Bowser was a young child.
  • Yoshis are hermaphroditic reptiles with male personalities that can lay eggs. Birdo is biologically male but spits eggs out of her mouth. Who's to say Bowser didn't give birth to his kids himself?
  • They could always be adopted.
  • Consider the fact that in Super Mario Sunshine, when accused by Bowser Jr. of being his mother, instead of giving an appropriate response like "Are you out of your mind?", Peach simply replies "I'm your mamma?!"
• This is probably something this troper has been thinking too much about, but... where do Yoshis get their shoes? They're never seen without them (that one episode of the cartoon doesn't count), and it seems to be implied that they're born with them; which makes no goddamn sense, even for Mario.
  • If they're never seen without them, then the answer is that they simply aren't wearing shoes. Just like they naturally have a suspiciously saddle-like bit of armor plating on their back, their feet are covered by natural shoe-like plating. How either of these could be evolutionarily advantageous is a pointless question, given that we are dealing with a world where moles naturally possess eye protection that happens to look like sunglasses.
    • Super Mario RPG shows a Yoshi (called Boshi) without the normal kind of shoes. They're open-toed to reveal his claws.
• How can Mario shoot fireballs underwater? And I'd have thought Luigi's Thunder Hand underwater would be far more useful than it is... electricity + water = great conductor.
  • The same way fire can be underwater in SpongeBob SquarePants.
  • I'd think the conductivity of water would make Thunder extremely hazardous to use, if we're going to think of it that way.
  • If it's hot enough, with fuel, fire can burn underwater. Or maybe he's just using the fireball to boil the water in such a matter that it mimics his actual fireball.
  • He uses Greek fire.
• Why does Peach let Mario always save her? Does she like him that much? In every game she is playable in (especially the "Not really in this universe" Super Smash Bros. Brawl), she is shown to be quite capable to taking care of herself. She's light, but I'm pretty sure she can get away from anything Bowser throws at her.
  • Well...SuperSmashBros isn't canon, so she doesn't kick that much ass normally. The SSB games just sort of take any reasonably popular character and give them awesome super powers. And not always at the scale you'd expect--given that Link is almost always at the bottom of the list, along with Ganondorf. As far as Peach letting Mario save her...well, she's just incompetent. I can't fathom why the Toads allow her to rule them.
  • However, what about Super Princess Peach? Super Mario Bros. 2?
  • Well, the latter was All Just a Dream.
  • Don't forget Super Mario RPG. I'm still waiting for her to whale on him with a frying pan.
    • That just makes it worse, in my mind. She gets kidnapped over and over and over again, except on the rare occasion she doesn't want to? She's a Faux Action Girl, really.
    • Maybe for some very weird reason she doesn't dislike Bowser and as such cant bring hreself to fight back and preffers Mario to settle things with him? And the reason she fought back in Super Princess Peach is because Mario was the one kidnapped and that's when she has to respond in kind.
    • That still makes her an incompetent ruler. She's a princess, doesn't she have responsibilities, besides making Mario cake? Also, it's not always just Bowser who kidnaps her. Does she not dislike them? If that's the case, why is she willing to beat on people in her playable games?
    • Who says the Mushroom Kingdom is a direct monarchy? Peach doesn't exactly seem terribly bright, but she makes a dandy figurehead. Bowser doesn't kidnap her because she's in charge, he kidnaps her because she's the symbol of the Mushroom Kingdom.
    • When Peach is a Player Character, she has extra lives. When she isn't, she has to play by the same rules as any other Non-Player Character -- one tiny miscalculation and she's princess pate. Given those circumstances, I'd stay put.
  • Bowser is a giant turtle dragon with a small army. Peach is tough, but she is not the One-Man Army Mario is.
• Is Peach's last name "Toadstool" and Bowser's "Koopa"? Sure, those were only used outside of Japan but still..Maybe, since they're more familiar with each other they started referring to each other by their first names?
  • Yes.
  • It's the Eggman/Robotnik thing. In Japan they were Peach and Koopa. In America they were Toadstool and Bowser. Nintendo took them and put them together. Hence, Princess Peach Toadstool and King Bowser Koopa.
    • Though it's worth noting that Bowser's name, at least, was not wholly unused outside Japan -- the manual called him "Bowser, King of the Koopas" and the cartoons simply referred to him as King Koopa.
      • The Super Mario Bros 3 cartoon used "Bowser" several times. In "Reign Storm" Mario asks (Robot) Toadstool "How can you be so nice to Bowser Koopa?!", and in "Sneaky Lying Cheating Giant Ninja Koopas" Mario declares to him "You're not taking over any land, you Bowser Koopa!".
      • Don't forget Luigi said "I can't wait to see the look on Bowser Koopa's face when he gets wind of this!", or something like that in "Princess Toadstool For President".
      • King Koopa himself introduces himself to a one-off character as "King Bowser Koopa" in "Crimes 'R' Us".
• why is it called lunar magic?
  • Most likely as a reference to the 3-UP moons that can occasionally be found in the original game. They're basically a one-up, but you get three lives, they're a moon, and they are MUCH harder to find.
  • I was pretty sure it was a reference to the user FuSoYa who made the program.
  • to be honest, mine was more Wild Mass Guessing than much else. The fact that the moon appears on the logo, though, pretty much means it could be either one.
  • Also, IIRC, the guy who made it was also a big Sailor Moon fan.
• Why can't the ice flower give you the ability to shoot ice and the penguin suit gives you the ability to freeze water/lava? The fire flower lets you shoot fire balls, and the ice flower looks like a counterpart of the fire flower... why can't Super Mario Galaxy have used the penguin suit instead?
  • The Ice Flower item in Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time does let Mario and Luigi shoot ice at enemies.
    • In fact, the true headscratcher is "why the heck do ice flowers work differently from game to game?" In Mario Galaxy, they turn you into Jesus Mario, while in Partners in Time and New Super Mario Bros Wii they act like the proper counterpart to fire flowers (as in allowing you to shoot ice balls). Oh, and why are ice flowers suspiciously absent from newer games? In fact the ice flower seemed like the logical counterpart to the fire flower and not only I don´t understand why it dosn´t appear regularly like the fire one does: I can´t understand why it took so long for Nintendo to finally add it in Parnters in Time when the fire flower was around since the beginning.
• Why do a lot of people complain that they shoved the Koopalings in randomly in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga? They say that they came out of nowhere and had no dialogue, but what's so abnormal about that? They were in Bowser's Castle at the time, their friggen home, so they didn't just appear out of nowhere. And they might not have had any lines of dialogue, but is this troper forgetting a game where they did have lines of dialogue?
  • They might have gotten lines in Hotel Mario, but I haven't watched all the cutscenes to be sure. I know some people have, though. Care to help?
    • No, none of them had lines their there, either.
  • Try Mario Is Missing (CD-ROM Deluxe). "HH-H-H-H-HA! HI, LUIGI!"
  • Super Mario Bros 3 didn't have any dialogue. Never games are held to a different standard, especially the RPG genre. The fans probably wanted them to have more plot importance than as random bosses.
    • They are people who watched the TV series and takes them as canon.
• Mario Kart Wii introduces us to Baby Daisy for the first time. This is already bizarre, but let's not worry about that now. Instead, consider the statues in Daisy Circuit, one of which depicts Baby Daisy playing with Baby Luigi. So... did they know each other as kids? Is there some backstory that occurred before Mario famously saved her from Tatanga? (Also, is the track design proof that the two are an official couple?)
  • Could be anything. While I personally don't like the character, they could have met as kids, but without Mario being there, hence Mario only met Daisy for the first time in Super Mario Land. Or it could be due to use of the time machine and such, or even some future sequel to Yoshi's Island/Yoshi's Island DS or Mario and Luigi Partners in Time involving the characters having to team up to save other characters from Bowser or new antagonists.
  • The citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom know about our pairings and shippings.
• Okay, when Mario and Luigi got to the Mushroom Kingdom? Y'know, when Bowser had already conquered it? Exactly how long was the kingdom under Bowser's heel? A week? A few months? A year? Mario and Luigi have to liberate it from his clutches, so how long was this going on? Did Peach get Stockholm Syndome during her time being kidnapped, because I'm half-willing to bet she was held captive for a prolonged period of time and it had a weird effect on her mental state.
• Is Wario supposed to be an elf of some kind? His ears are pointed, and so are his shoes, two typical aspects of elves and/or genies.
  • I don't think so, although Wario and Waluigi look almost exactly like elves down to the pointed shoes and ears.
• Exactly how does Mario's world still exist when there are so many ancient Sealed Evil in a Can artifacts/monsters who were active in the past? Mario and Luigi weren't always around the Toads are about as tough pillow stuffing, so how did they ever survive long enough to seal creatures capable of warping reality?
  • With careful use of powerups (hello, super star!), and the defense of the realm by more combat-capable species (Koopas, etc.)
    • It's never really implied that the Shroomers are helpless. Toad is implied to have originally been Peach's bodyguard, and only really helpless when facing Bowser. Because he terrifies him. And who wouldn't be terrified when facing a 5-7 foot turtle with spikes that breathes fire?
• This Troper is TIRED of Super Mario Bros. 3's Fan Dumb (or at least pseudo-Fan Dumb, whatever you feel like calling it). Every time I come across something related to the game (I.E. the music, which I listen to on YouTube) every other comment is about how great the game is, and that it is the best Mario game out there (or, as people just love to point out, the best flat-out game ever). It is not the best game ever. Heck, I personally prefer Super Mario World. But no Mario 3 fan will let me get away with that, no, because SMW was just Mario 3 in 16-bit. Honestly, after playing Mario 3, I find it to be decent, but with a satisfyingly irritating number of Scrappy Levels and rather boring design on occasion (Not to mention one or two Guide Dang Its... honestly, what hint is there that crouching on a white block puts you in the background, or that that accomplishes anything? Other than the Internet, of course), I found it rather irritating that so many people fawn over it the way they do. Anyway, enough whining... I'm done now...
  • Well, there was this little magazine called Nintendo Power... ;) But the point still stands.
  • I know what you mean. If you thought that was annoying, just see the sheer amount of fan games and Game Mods based solely on Super Mario Bros 3. Oh, and this guy online agrees with you:
    • Waluigious and Super Mario Bros 3
      • The same reason everyone says Megaman 2 is the best or Super Metroid is the best. Part of it is nostalgia because they grew up with it and the other part is no other game managing to replicate the same feeling. Granted, this troper thinks World and 64 were on par with Super Mario Bros 3, but feels that they were doing different things. SMB3 is about all the fun items you had at your disposal, SMW was about finding every little secret on the map and SM64 was about exploring a bigass level. But any self-respecting Mario fan would understand and accept exactly why SMB3 is considered the best of the franchise by the fanbase, even if they didn't agree.
        • Actually, bringing up Mega Man 2 and Super Metroid may provide an even simpler reason: each game is an Even Better Sequel of the flagship game, even if not the first such game (SMB2, Metroid 2). The distinction is so large that it stands out in the minds of players. Later games may be even better, but with more possibilities to compare to, they can't replicate that stand-out aura.
  • And while I'm no SMB3 fanboy (personally, I favor the RPGs and Galaxy), it doesn't sound like you gave SMB3 a fair chance. The way your argument is phrased, "satisfyingly irritating" in particular, looks like you went into SMB3 WANTING to hate it, which would naturally color your experience of it. Any game will be terrible if you're looking for reasons to dislike it.
  • Part of it is, undoubtedly, the sheer complexity of the game. SMB3 gives you a lot of things to do; all kinds of crazy-different level designs, the sheer volume of different power ups and items to play with, hidden secrets like the treasure ships and the breakable rock in World 2, etc. It shouldn't be surprising that a game that goes out of its way to give something to everyone would be liked by pretty much everyone.
• In Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, just how did those three inept minions manage to get the massive Bullet Bill Cannon so far from Bowser's Castle during an attack? You could see how much of an effort it took them to move it a couple inches when you find them. It just bugs me that they weren't spotted or hindered by anything at all.
  • I probably got was blown out during the first attack. Those three happened to land near it and bragged to Bower that they managed to "sneak" it out.
  • Rule of Funny?
• Again in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, you make Bowser grow to titanic proportions by shooting at his "life energy" inside is rump. Talk about pulling things out of your ass...
  • I thought it was just lampshading how he constantly changes size throughout the series.
    • In that case how did Bowser grow big in the other games then?
      • Maybe he swallows a random Koopa or two to do the work? "Bob and Joe, you're on growth duty today."
        • Swallowing Koopas does that? Ever? He's better off keeping a small group of Magikoopas around with prepared spells. Probably led by whichever one's currently his attendant.
• All this and think, we didn't even come across the issue of New Super Mario Bros. Wii having players 3 and 4 as Toads yet!
  • What's so bad about playing as a mushroom? I like Toad!
  • It's because Nintendo is too lazy to animate Peach's dress.
    • Yes, I'm sure it's laziness, and not the logical flaws with the idea of Peach running off with Mario to rescue herself.
      • Actually, Mr Sarcastic Jerk, Shigeru Miyamoto has stated that they had considered Peach to be playable and the reason she didn't make it in WAS because of the diffulculty of animating her dress. And if she was playable, the plot wouldn't be about her being kidnapped. Take that!
• Are Mario and Luigi Italian, American (most adaptations give 'em Brooklyn accents), Italian-American, or Mushroom Kingdom...ese?
  • The cartoons had them originally from Brooklyn sans the accents. Now it's just assumed that they at least grew up in Brooklyn.
    • Aren't they from the Mushroom Kingdom? Or did they transfer there as adults? Are there parents from there?
  • They're from the Mushroom Kingdom in the game series. But I never knew they had no accents in the cartoon series, but happened to be from Brooklyn. Strange.
  • Maybe their Mushroom parents dropped them off in Little Italy, NY after the events of Yoshi's Island to protect them, maybe? Not the greatest choice, considering The Mafia and all that, but it makes sense. And then there's Mario Bros., which represents their rediscovery of the Mushroom Kingdom
    • This seems right. The games actually state a few times that Mario and Luigi grew up in Brooklyn, and there's no reason this doesn't make sense. And Mario and Luigi still had their running and jumping talents outside the Mushroom Kingdom, so that explains why they aren't surprised by jumping high.
• Nintendo hasn't brought back the Hammer Suit. Maybe they'll do that in the next big 3D installment...
  • They'll never bring it back. It was a Game Breaker. In fact, we might as well rename it as Hammer Suit. It let you kill Thwomps.
    • Then they should bring it back in the RPGs as an Infinity+1 Sword.
• Why won't I find Adobe in Nariobi?
  • At least you can find some spectacular hotels.
• Why did they add two completely new Toads for the multiplayer aspect of New Super Mario Bros. Wii when there were already more than two unique toads that fit the bill? One of whom was present in the series almost from the beginning?
  • Because they wanted different colors? I mean, if they used Toad as one of the heroes, then they would have had two red colors potentially confusing players not paying enough attention as to which one they are. On that note, why didn't they have Princess Daisy as one of the heroes? Or someone else who would be able to give a different style of play like the four choices of characters in Super Mario Bros 2?
    • You'd have to have pretty bad eyesight to get Mario and Toad mixed up. As for Daisy, they wouldn't use her for the same reason they didn't make Peach playable; too hard to animate the dress and it would have required a different character model from the other three. I would presume that every character is functionally the same for the purpose of balancing the multiplayer. Luigi and Peach were pretty broken in Super Mario Bros. 2 after all.
      • Except Daisy has been seen more often dressed for sports than in a Peach lookalike dress. Toadette has never been seen in a dress and Toad wears a blue vest, even if he had red spots.
• Wait a minute. Bowser refered to the Mushroom Kingdom as one where he lived in Bowser's Inside Story. Does this mean that Dark Land was annexed by the Mushroom Kingdom? Or maybe Bowser has a house in the Mushroom Kingdom? ... Okay, now I want to see how the people in charge of real estate in the MK reacted upon seeing Bowser and a couple of his Troops show up to buy an End-of-Stage Fortress or a nice mansion or something.
  • They probably thought, "Hey, cool. I'm selling the future site of an embassy. Maybe this war is coming to an end."
    • And the guys selling the mansion/castle are thinking, "Hey look, Bowser is giving me money."
• You know what I don't get? If my count is right, Mario has had three girlfriends: Pauline in Donkey Kong and its sequels, Princess Daisy in Super Mario Land, and Princess Peach in most of the other games. Think any of them have realized?
  • Was Daisy ever implied to be a romantic interest? Mario rescued her once, but then he does that sort of thing all the time. As for Pauline and Peach, there is no overlap - Pauline was supposed to be his girlfriend in Donkey Kong (1981), but then she disappeared for ages before Peach appeared in Super Mario Bros (1985). Pauline did appear again in Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2, but as a business partner rather than a love interest.
  • It's called "serial monogamy". Happens a lot in real life.
• All the hate that the two Toads in New Super Mario Bros. Wii are getting. Have these "fans" forgotten that Peach is the Damsel in Distress of the plot, and therefore having her as a playable character wouldn't make any sense? Likewise, having Wario & Waluigi as players 3 & 4 wouldn't make sense either, because those guys are The Rivals / Evil Twins.
  • Not to mention that Wario's own games play a lot differently. And Waluigi has never appeared in a "real" Mario game.
  • Waluigi will never appear in a "main" game if he´s not given the chance. Look at ANY known major video game sidekick: Tails? Diddy Kong? LUIGI? They are popular because they were shoved in all the freaking games. Waluigi hasn´t had a single opportunity. Also, Wario was in SM64DS for no reason other than rule of funny (him wanting to steal treasure first as proven by the Toads being scared of him). So, yeah, bottom line, Waluigi and Wario were the most obvious choices for players 3 and 4 in NSMB Wii and Nintendo just got lazy and/or gave a middle finger to the Wario Bros. fans.
  • So why not use Toad and Toadette?
    • Probably 'cause Toadette doesn't wear yellow (though in that case, they should've just given her a new dress).
      • Why didn't they use Wario then? He wears yellow. And he has teamed up with Mario (Super Mario 64 DS). The game's box even says "Play as Mario, Yoshi, Luigi and even Wario!
    • The only problem I have with the two Toads is that they make Mario and Luigi redundant. They can jump as high as them, they can use powerups like them, they are basically Mario and Luigi, as Toads. If they can do all that, why the heck were the brothers needed at all? They could've rescued the princess themselves.
      • Clearly Peach has decided to hire bodyguards. Mario and Luigi just trained the two of them- the general population is still pretty much useless.
      • We also never saw those two Toads do anything before so they were probably recruited from the Toad Brigade and were recently trained.
        • That's a very good point. Some of the Toad Brigade members are in places in various galaxies that can only be traveled on foot. This means some to all of them (particularly the captain) have very much the same running and jumping abilities Mario has.
  • The argument that Peach can't be used since she got kidnapped doesn't really work since it was an Excuse Plot. It could easily have been changed to "Bowser has stolen the eight Plot Coupons" with no other change to the game.
  • Besides Nintendo said Peach's dress was too hard to animate. (Which lead to an arguement about Nintendo being lazy. It's in an article on IGN.)
    • New Super Mario Bros. (both versions) is really supposed to be a homage to the first game, so it would be weird if Peach didn't get kidnapped. And besides, adding Peach would add some complexities. And then people would just be complaining that she can't float anymore.
  • It hurts that they weren't given names, so they don't feel like main characters. It hurts that they're redundant. Toad and Toadette could have easily filled the area. It hurts that the Mario series already has Loads and Loads of Characters and they decided to introduce new ones in a game that is meant to be reminiscient of the original games.
• As awesome as Super Mario World is, was it really necessary to have four or five different versions of the same tune as the regular level music? Even the 8-bit games had more variety.
  • Because that tune is awesome.
    • Not when you're hearing it non-stop for the entire game it isn't.
  • This troper has always thought of those tracks as variations on the theme. I personally don't mind it. I find them dissimilar enough that they don't register as the same thing, usually. It took me until I was in my teens until I realized the cave/underground theme did it too.
• While this can be answered with a single word (cheapness), in Hotel Mario, why does Luigi have an accent but not Mario?
  • Because toast.
• Why are the Armored Harriers the tenth highest rated team in the Glitz Pit? They have approximately one weakness and most of the major league has no way to take advantage of it. Why aren't they higher-ranked? Have they been annoying Grubba?
  • Maybe everyone else has a move that can damage them that they never use against anyone else. Also, Grubba may be keeping them there as a Secret Test of Character to ensure only creative fighters can advance to the upper ranks.
    • If this was the case, then they wouldn't have been demoted to the minor league after being defeated by Gonzales and his baby dinosaur.
  • Guys like Rawk Hawk could probably pick them up and throw them at each other. Other fighters could toss them out of the ring or simply let them launch themselves from it. They're low-ranked because their "invincible bodies" gimmick is all they have and they aren't even smart enough to take advantage of it properly.
  • Probablly they don't obey the commands they are given before the battle.
• I've noticed that, in regards to Bowser having used to be called King Koopa, everyone claims Nintendo of America didn't name him Bowser till a certain point in the 1990s that they can't seem to agree on. Now to clear this up, he's always had the name Bowser in America; his name was given as "Bowser, King of the Koopas" in the first SMB's instruction manual's enemy list, though the rest of the book just referred to him as "the [adjective] Koopa King". But some of the "fans" act like he didn't get the name Bowser till Super Mario Bros 3 (though that was where it became more common to call him that), Super Mario World, or (get this) Super Mario 64 (according to one commenter on That Guy With The Glasses!). Have any of these people actually read the original game's instruction book?
  • If you need instructions on what to call Bowsa, check out The Enclosed Instruction Book.
• How are we gonna find the Princess with the power going out?
  • Maybe there's a switch in one of the rooms. Remind me to check.
• What is Wario doing in Super Mario 64 DS? I mean, why would HE want to help Mario? Aren't they supposed to be enemies?
  • It's All There in the Manual. Wario snuck along to Peach's castle, and was captured along with Mario and Luigi. When he got rescued, he was probably pissed at Bowser and wanted to get revenge, and they were in an Enemy Mine sort of situation.
    • He didn't sneak in in the cutscene. He quite clearly exited the warp pipes with Mario & Luigi and went inside the castle with them.
    • He insisted on tagging along upon hearing that there would be cake. The Mario Bros., being the good-natured folks that they are, didn't argue.
• Why doesn't Bowser step on his own axe/switch? He's not THAT dumb. Also in NSMB, why doesn't he just keep on walking forward seeing that hes too large to jump over? Especially the final boss, beucase he hits you back when you bump into him.
• How the hell in Super Mario Galaxy the hungry Luma galaxies did the Toad brigade get there first when the Luma just transformed? And how were penguins supposdedly living in that galaxy for years when it was just created?
  • That was already discussed. Solution 1: It's a Mario game! Solution 2: The Luma galaxies or planets are all in the Luma's mind, it's just its imagination until it becomes reality the moment it transforms at which point the NPCs on the planet have in fact been there for years from their point of view.
• Are Mario and Luigi from the Mushroom Kingdom? Was the Brooklyn thing NA only? Or were they born in the Mushroom Kingdom, moved to Brooklyn, then moved back?
  • Mario and Luigi are from the Mushroom Kingdom, and have at the very least been to New York (because Miyamoto has stated that Mario Bros.. takes place in New York).
• People who state Super Mario Bros. 2 isn't a Mario game because it's a hack. It established many, if not most, of the iconic Mario features and characters. Birdo, Luigi's height, Luigi's jumping skills, Shy Guys, etc.
  • Because the only thing common with every other game is the sprites. Just about everything else is way different from them. Also, Luigi's jumping ability was first used in the original SMB 2/Lost Levels. Aside from Birdo and Shy Guys, not many of the enemies haven't been used outside this game, have they?
    • Bob-ombs, a Mario staple, debuted in this game. Pokeys and Snifits have also appeared in several other games.
      • I stand corrected. The other point still stands that the game feels like a complete different gameseries with Mario-sprites hacked in (which it is).
• Super Princess Peach was a great idea. After years of being the quintessential DID, Peach gets a chance to be a hero for a change, and whoops Bowser like he owes her money? Wonderful idea. Having her do it by tapping into her feelings? Not so good idea. Now its been pointed out that Peach is the only person who was using all the craziness caused by the Vibe Scepter to her advantage, where everyone else lets themselves be turned into emotional wrecks, so it is justified. But really, what did they expect to happen? What did Nintendo think people would notice first, that Peach was kicking ass and taking names, or that she was doing so by crying, and throwing temper tantrums? It really should not be a shock that people would take it so seriously and think the worst of Peach, even if it's not that fair, and I'm curious as to why they went with something that was obviously going to be misunderstood so easily. Of course, maybe I'm also taking it too seriously, but how did they not see this coming?
  • I may have been a bit too aggressive with the first part and stepped on some toes. I want to reiterate, that giving Peach her own game was a great idea, I'm just not understanding why Nintendo didn't consider that the whole emotions thing, which is the very first aspect of the game that people will notice, was put in. Well-executed or not, a lot of people were likely turned off from a fun game by this one gameplay mechanic.
    • If Peach was running around stomping and throwing, it'd be the exact same game as most of the rest. Then Nintendo would have been bitched at for It's the Same, Now It Sucks regarding SPP. They made it different from how Mario and Luigi do it, and the gimmick they tried just happened to be one that made people overreact.
    • Your Mileage May Vary.
• Imagine you're a Toad living in the Mushroom Kingdom. On the day of a great festival, a particularly large Bowser stomps his way through your town, grabs your princess, and... announces that your kingdom no longer interests him and leaves. There's Protagonist-Centered Morality and Always Save the Girl and such for Mario, but...isn't it possible that the sacrifice of one oft-kidnapped princess is worth knowing that your world will never be attacked again? Shouldn't someone at least raise the idea that chasing him down may not be the most rewarding plan of action? Instead, every one of them is panicking and begging for Mario's help.
  • A seditious rebel idea that could lead to the overthrowing of monarchy - and every good Toad knows that monarchy is an absolute necessity for social stability! Why, without royalty, there would be total anarchy!
  • In SMB 1 and 2 Bowser is attacking and taking over parts of the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario and Luigi are taking them back from Bowser. In SMB3 the Mushroom Kingdom is spared, seemingly, but seven other kingdoms are being ravaged by invading Koopalings. In some versions he magically changed the Toad race into smiling clouds, bushes and bricks according to the manuals. Let that last one sink in. In SMW Bowser and his kids have taken over a completely new land. It isn't until after SMW that Bowser goes from an invading force and serious threat to more of a dictator who just wants to seem important. Note that in Mario Kart and the RPGs for the most part most of the Toad race really doesn't seem him as a threat per se, but a nuisance. Most of the games where he is a "threat" post-Mario Kart/SMW are either his kid(s), when he was a child or some third party interference.
  • Did you not pay attention to what little there is to the rest of the the plot? Bowser wants to destroy the universe to create his own. He didn't conquer the Mushroom Kingdom because there would be no point in wasting resources on something you're just going to erase from existence. This is more emphasized in the first game but it's still there.
    • I blame this on very ambiguous terminology. Bowser says that he's going to create his own galaxy. At the end of the first game, Mario happily declares the existence of the new galaxy. But at the same time, every stage in the game is also referred to as a galaxy. It's not impossible to think that Bowser's just making a very large new area for himself. One with cake.
• This is aimed at the fandom more then the series. Why does it seem like most of the fandom can't take any pairing that isn't Wario/Mona, Mario/Peach, Mario/Rosalina, or Luigi/Daisy? They seem even more intolerant and mediocre then other shippings fandom. The internet is full of little kids fans who have nothing better to do then bash other shippings, even more then other fandoms.
  • Probably because some of the pairings wouldn't fit. This happens in shipping all the time; it's pretty annoying.
  • There's Mario shipping and fan fiction? What sites do you even see this stuff on, since it's not present on most I frequent. But to answer the question, maybe they got annoyed after some weird person shipped Peach and Kamek...
• What's up with Kamella? Magikoopas have been part of Bowser's army since Super Mario World, serving as everything from elite mooks to buffers in enemy groups to Bowser's personal attendants. But even the most significant ones (Kamek and Kammy) have been similar to the others physically. Suddenly, we have Galaxy's newest Magikoopa, and she's Large and In Charge. (She's not even in Galaxy 2, where it would make sense.) What happened there? Is it magic, and if so, why haven't the others tried something like that? Especially Kamek, whose debut role was Make My Monster Grow incarnate?
  • Kamek did do that before, see Super Princess Peach with the boss called 'Giant Kamek'. Whether that's meant to be him or a giant normal Magikoopa is debatable, but he does have different robe colours and attacks. See here
    • His glasses are shaped differently, too.
    • It's generally accepted that it's Kamek, considering he's different from the Magikoopas he summons and he's guarding Luigi.
  • She's overlarge because that's just how boss fights are in the core Mario series. A sizeable portion of Mario bosses in the 3-D games are Giant Mooks; without the convention of RPG game mechanics, it's just how they differentiate Mooks from bosses.
• Why doesn't Bowser use his minions from the platform games to attack the villains trying to steal his castle in the RPGs? Cackletta/Shroobs/Fawful/Count Bleck/Shadow Queen would be extremely useless if he just got all the bosses and villains from Super Mario 64/Sunshine/Galaxy/Galaxy 2/New Super Mario Bros/Yoshi's Island and basically steam rolled through their base. In Bowser's Inside Story, would it have been so hard to rebuild Megaleg and just crush Fawful and co flat in one hit, saving everyone the trouble? And why not send his airships to fight back the Shroob attack? He's got armadas of them, and he'd be able to likely shoot tons out the sky. I honestly hope the next game around, Bowser gets wise and finally stands up for himself. You know, you'd then get to play as him and use his various Galaxy 2 minions to tear down the base and army of the new villain. Gobblegut for example is probably bigger than anything even the Shadow Queen could summon to fight back. Megaleg even more so.
  • The Shroob invasion, at least, happened back when he was only a baby, and as such hadn't really built up very much of an army beyond Kamek- adult Bowser may have gone back, but the portals aren't big, and he didn't know enough about them, to bring much of his army. As for the rest.. most of his really big stuff requires stolen power stars as a power source or powerup. It may seem easy conquering, but it probably takes months of effort to steal those things beforehand, and without a Grand Star, Megaleg is just an incredibly large hunk of metal. Why he doesn't use the armada though... maybe Mario had blown it up recently, and he hadn't gotten around to rebuilding yet?
    • And he coudn't deal with Count Bleck because Bleck had Nastasia working for him. She could hypnotize anything Bowser throws at Bleck, and all of a sudden, Bowser has to fight them. After seeing so many of his minions fall victim to her with literally no effort at all, Bowser played it smart and stayed the heck away from Bleck and Nastasia until he joined up with Mario and Peach. Nastasia even got Luigi. The Shroobs and Fawful seem to have mutating powers or something, since there are a lot of common enemies modeled after themselves, and Bowser would not like to deal with a powered-up Shrooblegut or Fawfulmanta. The X-Nauts worked largely behind the scenes, with Bowser largely oblivious to what they're doing or where they're located besides kidnapping Peach. In other words, these guys can either steal Bowser's troops for themselves or can work around Bowser's loud and boisterous self.
• Was Mario being from Brooklyn a creation of western media, similar to Sonic being from "Mobius"? Can someone from the Mushroom Planet visit Earth? Are Earth and the Mushroom Planet one?
  • Warp pipes.
• Short answer: Yes, yes and no. Longer answer is that he's only from Earth in spinoffs, although not purely Western media, since it's also the case in quite a few anime spinoffs. They can visit Earth (Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, the hated Mario is Missing and Mario's Time Machine, etc), and no, they're not the same because Mario has visited both... and they're not the same place.
• Why do the Yoshis in Super Mario Sunshine dissolve when they touch water? Are they made of water soluble paint? And isn't it stupid that out of all the species of Yoshi in the world, it would be the island-dwelling ones who would be unable to swim?
  • A group of Yoshis got to the island a long time ago, and in later generations, they never learned how to swim. As for the dissolving thing, I got nothing.
  • Aren't most Yoshi island dwellers? It could be that they aren't real Yoshi. Since a large part of the plot was someone painting on the island, is it really out of the question that the Yoshi are also just painted things that Bowser Jr. created because he was trying to imitate one of his father's scemes?
• In Super Mario Sunshine, there's a Noki woman with a baby standing outside of Pinna Park. The weird part is, when you talk to her, she never once suggests that it's her kid or if she's related to it at all, referring to it as "the child" and "this baby." Did she kidnap it? Is she babysitting it? Is she just really detached? It's a small detail to get hung up on, granted, but it still bugs me. (You see her again later in Noki Bay, but I can't remember if she says anything more revealing then or not. I don't think she does, but...)
  • Maybe she thinks Mario's smart enough to fill in the blanks. Maybe she just talks weird. Maybe Mario doesn't need to know every detail about her life.
  • I think the Japanese version for "this child" (この子) and related is common in that language for referring to one's child and they just made the translation pretty literal.
• The progression of villainy in Super Paper Mario has never made much sense to me.

Bleck: Let's use the Dark Prognosticus to collapse all dimensions so I can create new ones in my image!
Fans: Whoa! An Affably Evil villain with Utopia Justifies the Means intent!
Bleck: In truth, I'm not creating new dimensions. My love left me, so I'll just destroy everything instead!
Fans: Oh. He's a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.
Timpani: But I'm not gone! You don't have to destroy anything at all!
Fans: Yay! A Crowning Moment of Heartwarming!
Dimentio: In that case, I'll use the Dark Prognosticus to collapse all dimensions so I can create new ones in my image!
Fans: Oh my god! He's a Complete Monster!

• • Despite the fact that he had the exact same plan that Bleck had at the beginning of the game, before he thought about destroying everything for good. He was just as affable as Bleck for the majority of the plot. He may have resorted to brainwashing to achieve his goals, but so did Bleck, specifically using Nastasia for that purpose! The only real difference between the opening and ending plan is that Bleck had Love Makes You Evil tendencies and Dimentio received rapid-fire Kick the Dog moments, which Bleck didn't have only because he delegated all the dirty work to his minions. It reaches its worst point when in one scene, Dimentio tells the heroes that he approved of Bleck's original plan but not the new one, and asks for their help in deposing him. And agreeing to it is considered the wrong choice. I'm not saying that any of these plans weren't villainous, but I simply cannot bring myself to say that Dimentio's plan is more evil than Bleck's.
  • Not sure if this is one reason, but maybe it's because Dimentio is hinted to have written the Dark Prognosticus? Well, according to some of Carson's stories and Mario Wiki anyway. As the rumour in game says:

And the count even turned him away once... Until he read in the Dark Prognosticus about the role of someone similar... Why was he mentioned in the Dark Prognosticus? Sounds fishy to me!

• • Implying Dimentio may have wrote himself into the prophecy, since the book also even says Luigi is the perfect host for the Chaos Heart or something. May also be due to how Dimentio chose to try to destroy all worlds, and Bleck was kinda driven to it by tragedy in the past, although a psychiatrist would probably have been better for the latter character.
  • I always figured the reason we see Dimentio as a Complete Monster and being far worse than Bleck is because Bleck had a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds to him, as you said...while Dimentio really didn't. Bleck wanted to destroy everything and then kill himself out of grief/insanity. Dimention wanted to do it for sh*ts and giggles. Having no reason to destroy everything, only doing it because you feel like it, makes you worse.
  • Dimentio didn't just use the opportunity, either-- he had everything planned out and was using characters left and right throughout the entire game. It certainly doesn't help that he took advantage of the Heroes vs. Bleck conflict, near the end, since we felt sorry for the Count, but, as always, wanted the heroes to win. Then, of course, there's the final boss...
• Why is it that in Super Mario Galaxy 2, the Thwomps, Whomps, and Tox Boxes can crush Mario stone dead with just one pound while Giant Bowser's punch does standard damage to Mario? You'd think his size should count for something.
  • Have you seen those guys? The way they crush the ground, you'd think they were made of lead. Their attacks hit HARD (the Mario Party game "Cardiators" puts a Thwomp impact as the absolute strongest attack among major Mario enemies). But they're slow and predictable. Bowser himself can't hit as hard, but he's highly adaptable, can strategize on the fly, and can actually attack in more than one way and without a rhythm.
• Why do the Koopa still remain loyal to that walking spike-stack whose intelligence is equal to that of a broken Sega Dreamcast (Bowser in case you didn't get it)?
  • I think he's a better ruler than Peach is, actually. When was the last time you saw her do any actual governance? Bowser, on the other hand, is a proper king, with his children functioning as regional lords. He has a learned advisor (Kamek), and since his army is at least somewhat functional as an army (i.e. they haven't all starved to death), he must be able to manage the logistics required to supply them.
  • "Saw her do any actual governance"? When was the last time we saw her not kidnapped or not fighting something? The below theories make more sense considering that Bowser has shown his own idiocy time and time again.
    • Plus there are a lot of "good" Koopas that help out Mario from time to time, so apparently not all of them have stayed loyal to Bowser.
    • Most of them are afraid of him.
    • I thought that apart from the few smarter ones we meet on the RPG series, most Koopas are as smart as Bowser, if not less (remember, they will happily commit suicide by jumping off cliffs). Most are probably quite happy creating trouble in the Mushroom Kingdom.
    • "When was the last time we saw her not kidnapped," kind of proves the point about Peach. It's hard to rule a nation from someone else's dungeon. Her personal security is TERRIBLE. Granted, every now and then Bowser nails her with something that would be difficult to prevent, such as his castle rising up directly beneath hers and lifting it into the sky, but other times he barely even has to try. In Super Mario RPG, he just dropped by in his clown car, picked her up, and flew off. This would be avoidable if she had any kind of standing military, something any competent ruler who is in constant conflict with another nation would put a pretty high priority on, or even had a personal security force, but she's completely devoid of either. In Galaxy, he carpetbombs the Mushroom Kingdom with his fleet of airships, and she is completely without any means of returning fire, rendering the kingdom helpless against the attack. She isn't even a good enough leader to protect her nation from enemy invasion; if she can't even do that much, what good is she as a leader?
  • I was under the impression that he was actually well liked by his subjects.
    • Bowser is very violent towards them, they probably just praise him to avoid being beaten or burned.
  • He is the biggest guy around.
  • Why would we want to see her do anything constructive? Her role in the games is to get kidnapped by Bowser so we can save her. She probably is a good ruler, but it's never shown in the games because it's irrelevant.
    • A good ruler would have competent enough security as to avoid being kidnapped every Thursday.
  • He's out there with the troops. He may very well be a competent ruler that has intricate relations with other kingdoms and happens to be at war with the Mushroom Kingdom.
    • The Mushroom Kingdom doesn't show to have economic trouble, so we can only assume Peach just not good miliraty-wise.
      • They don't show to be economically prosperous, either. Economically, they just seem to be doing okay.
• Why are there so many human characters? The Mario Brothers, the Princesses, Wario and Waluigi, those people in Wario Ware... where are these humans coming from?
  • They evolved from dinosaurs, a.k.a. Koopas. No, really--. At least, according to the movie, anyway. Mushroom Kingdom dinosaur-evolved people even lay eggs.
  • When a mommy and a daddy love each other, and decide they want to start a family, they settle down and... *shot* Actually, I think since the Mario series doesn't really have a continuity, there's no real way to explain it, but to be fair, Wario Ware seems to take place in a different continuity than the rest of the Mario series. There have also been theories that Peach is a rare, mutated form of the regular Mushroom people, or that said people are all just wearing hats and are normal humans themselves. Finally, Mario and Luigi are from Brooklyn, not the Mushroom Kingdom, and Mario apparently was boyhood friends with Wario.
    • Mario and Luigi are not from Brooklyn. That was made up in the movie and the TV show, but isn't canon to the games. In the games he's apparently from some part of the world the Mushroom Kingdom is in. Peach is part of the human family that rules the Mushroom Kingdom, and Wario was never given a backstory. Apparently there are human communities/families all over the place, it's just that they are the minority.
      • Actually, a few games make passing mention of Mario Bros. being from Brooklyn (documented on Mario Wiki), and Word of God says that the Mario Bros. arcade game takes place in the New York sewer system. It can work with the timeline; maybe their parents moved out of the Mushroom Kingdom with them for safety reasons or something, and they rediscovered the kingdom later as adults while in the plumbing business?
      • Wario lives in Diamond City, right? Maybe that's where the humans come from, and they're just one of the many, many, many, many races in the Mushroom World. It would explain the first game taking place on a construction site, too.
    • Wario does have a bit of backstory to him. It was said that he was the one that hired Tatanga in Super Mario Land to kidnap Princess Daisy so Mario would be distracted while Wario took over Mario's castle in the sequel.
    • Yoshi's Island says otherwise in regards to Mario's origin.
    • What does it say? I know it doesn't say they're from Brooklyn, that has been explicitly stated as being only part of the movie and show, there's no indication of it in the games.
      • It says that Mario and Luigi were born in the Mushroom World. Hell judging by Partners in Time it appears they were raised in the Mushroom World as well.
  • Although no game explicitly says that Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. take place in Brooklyn, they certainly are meant to take place in the "real world", contrasting with the Mushroom Kingdom, which Mario wasn't transported to until Super Mario Bros., which takes place after the other two games. Yoshi's Island confuses things by having the brothers born in the Mushroom Kingdom, but clearly their parents had packed their bags and gone to the real world in the meantime since they don't rearrive in the Kingdom until SMB. Also, Mario was not evil in Donkey Kong Jr.; it only appears that way because you're playing a character that opposes him. In fact, the plumber was merely trying to release the ape into the wild.
    • The old Donkey Kong games didn't take place in Brooklyn, as said by the Donkey Kong Country series, or at least Donkey Kong Land (http://www.mariowiki.com/Big_Ape_City). The referenced place, which might well be in the Mushroom Kingdom or where Rare's multiverse crossover thing takes place is not Brooklyn, but a separate area visited in one of the Donkey Kong games. There's no evidence whatsoever that the Earth is visited or lived in by any Mario characters, or even that there's a real world altogether in the series other than spinoff media (movie, some TV shows and some comics). Oh, and the whole part about getting there through pipes? American manual fanon if I can recall correctly, It didn't anywhere say Mario is from anywhere else, the newest manuals for it, at least if the classic NES re release is a bit more reliable said word went through the land to a humble plumber, as in potentially Mario was living in the Mushroom Kingdom/World somewhere at the time.
  • Well, we know that there are several other sentient species in the Mushroom Kingdom world, including the Piantas, the Lumas, the Donkey Kong primates and several of the enemy races (Bowser and his major Koopa minions are obviously intelligent in the main games, with the rest showing up in the RPGs). Who's to say that humans aren't just another species, co-existing with all the other denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom?
    • Arguably, "humans" could just be weird-looking Toads. With hair.
      • That would make sense, since the Twilighters in Paper Mario 2, which basically look like taller, chubbier, gothic Toads, refer to themselves as humans.
    • Don't forget the Shy Guys!
      • I like to think that they're freakishly mutated Toads. But that would make the Boo Guys mutated zombies who do not want to show their faces...
• That many fans of the games can't seem to appreciate the movie. While it's definitely not a carbon-copy of the games, it really did its best to incorporate elements from the games and in the end has the same spirit.
  • Same spirit? The games are a total Sugar Bowl, and the movie looks more like Blade Runner meets The Fifth Element.
  • The same comical, light-hearted spirit abounds. The world itself may be darker, but the characters are the same.
    • Daisy is not the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario didn't raise Luigi, Bowser isn't a corrupt governor who devolves people, Toad is not a rebel singer, Goombas aren't devolved dinosaurs and the Mario Bros. don't come from Brooklyn.
    • At the time most fans didn't know Daisy was a separate character from Toadstool. They looked pretty much the same. In any case, the Daisy of the films is simply named after her while inspired directly on Toadstool. As for your other criticisms: there's nothing to suggest Mario didn't raise Luigi, Toad in the film still served the princess and aided the Mario Bros. (this being a prequel he doesn't have to be a retainer; that could have happened in the sequel), Koopa transformed (de-evolved) the Kings in Super Mario Bros. 3, and the Mario Bros. were from Brooklyn before the Yoshi's Island retcon.
• Concerning the Mario Kart series: When those races are run, they must go through dozens of green and red shells each race (and a few blue spiked ones, much to every player's lament). Where the heck do they get them all? Something tells me Koopa Troopas wouldn't exactly be keen on having them harvested for every grand prix.
  • A Koopa Troopa can abandon his shell as if it was just an item of clothing.
    • So, it's comparable to throwing underwear as a distraction? Not that I have done it...
    • Yeah, if the underwear causes a small explosion on contact at high speeds. I think Koopa Troopas can grow more. The fact that we've had at least three from such species in the races in the past (Koopa Troopa, Paratroopa, and Dry Bones) is proof they're perfectly fine.
• In Super Mario Sunshine, Isle Delfino gets cleaned up in the end, and everything is supposedly fine and dandy...but did they ever prove that it wasn't Mario who messed everything up? Does Mario still have a criminal record??
  • I think seeing Mario go the extra mile convinced the inhabitants that Mario is a good man. He only needed 50 Shine Sprites to restore Isle Delfino, but he tracked down all of the missing Shine Sprites anyway. Most of those, I'd bet, were not even stolen by Bowser.
    • You mean 60; you need 60 Shines.
• Why are the Strikers games so dark and edgy? There's no real reason for it. I mean it looks cool, but it just seems kind of out of place compared to... every other game.
  • I suppose golfing was kind of boring, so...why not?
• Hey, remember the Rex from Super Mario World? What ever happened to them? I don't think I've seen them in any game since then, they never got the Mascot Mook status of the Goombas and Koopas, I barely ever see any fanart of them, and...well, I even had a hard time finding any pictures of them at all. Is there some reason I don't know about as to why the fandom seems to act like they never existed? They're adorable! They may not be as iconic as Koopas, but they are certainly a significant part of my experience with the Mario games.
  • See the Super Mario Wiki's Rex article. Excluding non-game appearances, they've shown up four times: Super Mario World, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Super Princess Peach (also as Sad Rex) and Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time (only as Shroob Rex). As far as pictures, only one or two official illustrations of them exist, but Deviant ART does have some fanart.
    • There's also that guy with an afro in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door who keeps hitting on Goombella.
• In Super Mario Sunshine how come no one ever questions what the two Racoons/Tanukis are doing charging Blue Coins in order to get Shine Sprites? I mean, the whole reason there's darkness over Isle Delfino is because the Shine Sprites fled when the pollution started and they're basically needed in order to restore the Island to what it once was. How come the two racoons/tanuki are allowed to withhold something that is that vital to the island and sell them without anyone ever questioning them or taking actions against what they're doing, especially since Isle Delfino is in danger? I even watched Chuggaconroy's Let's Play of the game and even he questioned this.
  • The Piantas themselves aren't that better, holding Shine Sprites for themselves unless Mario wins a contest. This is easily explained as that they didn't care too much about the story, they just wanted a reason for Mario to run around and collect things. From an in-universe standpoint, it could be suggested that perhaps some islanders were 'living under a rock' so to speak and didn't notice anything wrong and the ones that were aware thought the problem to be so obvious that it shouldn't need to be explained. Or maybe the Shine Sprites only respond to someone heroic like Mario, and the Piantas couldn't get them back to the gate no matter how hard they tried.
• When Mario or Luigi fly with the feather cape, how do the corners of the cape stick to their shoes?
  • The same way the cape enables flight in the first place. Magic.
  • Maybe the corners of the cape are tied to Mario's ankles, and there probably wasn't enough detail to show that in the game's sprites.
• Why did Kammy replace Kamek in the Paper Mario series? Was it really necessary to create another 'King Mook Magikoopa who is Bowser's Beleaguered Assistant' character when Super Mario Bros. already has Loads and Loads of Characters, especially when there's no in-universe explanation for Kammy's presence?
  • I originally liked the theory that Kamek was Bowser's legal guardian during his youth (he definitely keeps showing up in games with Baby Bowser) and Kammy replaced him as a retainer at some point during Bowser's adulthood, but this has been disproven by Super Princess Peach, Mario Party DS, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, etc. Too bad.
  • The same goes for Kamella from Super Mario Galaxy (minus the Beleaguered Assistant part)--she could easily have been replaced by Giant Kamek from Super Princess Peach.
• Why does dialog still appear mostly in text-boxes, with characters only vocalizing select lines/phrases, despite actual vocals having been supported for over a decade? Do voice actors get paid by the word?
  • A lot of people didn't react well to Super Mario Sunshine.
• What is small Mario? Is he Mario's normal height or did he become small somehow? If the latter, then how?
  • Given that "Big Mario" is normal-sized in comparison to Peach, it seems like Mario sometimes shrinks when he gets hurt. Not sure why that only happens in the side-scrollers, though...
  • Mario was the first platform game to use a "large" character but they wanted that size to be a reward.
• Why does Super Mario Galaxy always get the shaft in terms of representation in spin-offs? Aside from the galaxy-themed Rainbow Road, and Rosalina in Mart Kart Wii and the dream events in the Mario & Sonic games, there hasn't really been anything not even the slightest reference. I can understand Brawl for not having a Galaxy themed stage but what stopped Mario Super Sluggers, Mario Sports Mix or Mario Party (though 9 could have some Galaxy themed stages). Logic doesn't really cut it especially since a Goomba can play baseball despite not having any arms. Furthermore, why isn't Rosalina in any more spin-offs, I figured she'd be the one character that would be shoved in all the spin-offs but so far she's only been in Mario Kart Wii.
  • SM Galaxy only came out like a couple years ago. Good game or not, it is simply not as recognizable as other games in the series.
  • Rosalina (and Queen Bee?) are both in Mario Kart 7, and in one of the stages the first planet in Gateway Galaxy and the Comet Observatory appear in the background, if that helps. And what do you mean you can understand it's absence in Brawl? It came out a year before Brawl, and Brawl got delayed three/four times. The only reference to the game is in the Chronicle. Not even a trophy or sticker. That's appalling!
  • (OP here). Well I didn't expect much from Brawl since like how SSB and SSBM focused most of its Mario representation on Mario 64, Brawl would focus most of its on Sunshine. Though now that you mention it, the fact that it had no trophy or stickers is a bit odd especially since Luigi's Mansion and Pikmin had one in SSBM despite coming out rather recently. I also don't think it not being as well known shouldn't be an excuse. SMG is the only 3D Mario to get a sequel so that surely must count for something. Even now, Sunshine still gets referenced a lot in most of the non-Mario Kart spin-offs and I'm pretty sure most people would know more about the two Galaxy games than Sunshine.
  • Actually, there are Galaxy references in 9: Whittles can actually be seen in the backgrounds of some of the minigames. And Mario Tennis Open? Luma's now a playable character.
• So...does Bowser build the obstacle courses Mario has to go through, or are all these Donut Lifts, see-saws, and Trampolines just naturally occurring? Or is it some kind of thing where that shit's just to make gameplay more interesting?
• Did Luigi just forget all his electricity based attacks from Super Star Saga? I understand Status Quo Is God, but I liked the idea of him having a power slightly different from Mario's.
• Yoshi's Island DS and Mario & Luigi: Partners In Time raise an interesting question. They are both set in the past, and it's not hard to tell that Bowser is just a few years older than the Mario Brothers. That is somewhat acceptable, as his age in the other games does not seem to be set, but Peach would appear to be just a few years younger than them, whereas in the main games she looks at least ten years younger than them. How does that work?
  • She ages gracefully.
  • They're Younger Than They Look an/or she is Older Than She Looks?
• In Super Mario Sunshine's intro, the Pianta mumbles something twice: Once at the beginning (after saying, "Welcome to the sun-drenched paradise of Isle Delfino!") and again at the very end of the video. What is he saying, and why is he mumbling it?
• If Nintendo's officially saying Birdo is a girl, why do so many gamers want to believe that Birdo is still a guy or some kind of transvestite? Do they want to have the option to make those kinds of jokes? Sure back then it was a bit more iffy, but it's called a Retcon.
• In the first Super Mario Bros, the manual describes Bowser as the sorcerer king of the black magic practicing turtle tribe, the Koopas. Evidence for this can be seen with the fake Bowsers that turn back into their enemy forms when defeated at the end of each world, and the Mushroom Retainers, once part of the royal court, who were also put under the spell and only greet Mario in a friendly way after being freed from that spell. But, this spell had further effects. Mushroom Kingdom-wide effects. It is easy to assume the weirdness seen in these games is just part of the Mushroom world, but no, this state of reality is imposed by the spell of Bowser and the Koopas. This includes the bricks, which were former Mushroom people turned to stone, the Goombas, which were Mushroom people defected to Bowser's side, and the horsehair plants, which are those plants in the background of the first game, which were Mushroom people transformed by the spell. And those Koopas, including the Koopa Troopas and Koopa Paratroopas, are soldiers working for Bowser's army. And what do we see, years later, with the newer games? Blocks made of bricks that are broken. Goombas that are squished to death. And yes, Koopa soldiers, or "troopers". They are not a natural feature of the Mushroom World, but they are imposed upon the land as part of the Koopa King's magical reign. You see, the spell has never ended, it was never broken, and it is still active, even today. Defeating Bowser never undid the effects of the Mushroom People becoming stone, the loyal Mushroomists defecting to become Goombas, and the ever threatening presence of the Koopa soldiers. Mario can never stop this, and in his despair, can only kill mercilessly, convincing himself, and his brother, that this is all harmless fun, while slaughtering the former Mushroom Kingdom inhabitants that his dear princess once knew and loved, only capable of relieving them of their fate worse than death, by crushing every last reminder of the formerly peaceful Mushroom Kingdom. So how come they never mention this? Has it all been retconned away? No. Kamek, a black magic practitioner, is a clear example of this sort of effect still being reality. When his magic hits a block, that block transmogrifies into a creature, or something else. That magic has not been forgotten by the Koopas. Only the audience has forgotten, prone to see them as these cute little turtles roaming the land. Forgetting the horror. The horror.