Fun:Super Mario

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Super Mario's personal information
Mario Wanted.png
Full Name Mario Mario[1]
Birthday March 10 October 11[2]
Job or Title Plumber[note 1]
Age 24[3]
Height Short, but details disputed[note 2]
Weight Unknown, but agreed to be overweight
Nationality Italian-American
Gender Cisgender male[4][note 3]
Sexual orientation Unknown[note 4]
Actually, it's about ethics in ...
Video games
Video games icon.png
Cutscenes

The Super Mario series is widely regarded as one of the most recognized and beloved gaming franchises of all time.[citation NOT needed] Created by the late 19th-century-gaming-card-manufacturer-turned-games company Nintendo, the series stars the titular character Mario, a plumber who often runs to save his love interest Princess Peach from the evil clutches of his evil turtle nemesis Bowser, using the aid of growth-enhancing mushroomsWikipedia and pyrokinetic flowers and with help of his friends, including his younger twin brother Luigi and Toad, who reminds players that the princess is in another castle, as that joke goes. With over 500 million Mario games sold[5] and dozens of spinoffs from puzzle to crappy edutainment to minigame compilations to dancing to sports to JRPGs to even mahjong, which focus on various different characters in the universe, and not even getting into the comics/manga (one manga, Super Mario-kun, is a very long-running series though mostly Japan only), cartoons, anime films, and that crappy live-action one, it's safe to say Mario is quite the popular franchise.

In the Mario film, Mario was portrayed by Chris Pratt, of all the people.

His repertoire[edit]

Mario and his friends have been on many adventures over the years, and will probably continue to go on them for many years to come. Below is just a list of Mario's more noteworthy outings, along with a few notable feats by his friends:

  • Super Mario Bros.: The first game in the series. Even your Grandmother has probably played this one. Can be beaten in less than five minutes if you're good.
  • The Lost Levels: The true original sequel to the first game, was not released in America for many years due to fear of it being too difficult for American gamers (not to mention being too derivative as it is built on top of the original game's underpinnings). Instead we got...
  • Super Mario Bros. 2: The weird one in the series, where you can play as Luigi, Peach, or Toad additionally, since it was all a dream. It was ahead of its time for having all the time you need to be in a level.
  • Super Mario Bros. 3: The one everyone thinks is the best. Can be beaten in three minutes if you're good.
  • Super Mario World: The first Mario game on the SNES that also everyone thinks is the best. Can be beaten in 41 seconds if you're good.
  • Super Mario 64: Depending on who you asked, this game either aged like shit or is better than most modern platformers today. You will never unlock Luigi, no matter how many coins you collect or how many times you run around the statue. ROM hacks are really popular with this one.
  • Luigi's Mansion: Green Mario finally gets a turn in the spotlight (for the third time; first time was in a watch as part of a Happy Meal; MarioWiki second time was in a bad edutainment game MarioWiki) as he runs through a haunted house sucking up ghosts and solving puzzles. This series would eventually get two more installments.
  • Super Mario Sunshine: Mario is a good civil servant and cleans up vandalism (after being framed for causing said vandalism and charged with cleaning it up). Home to infamous levels in the franchise including Lily Pad Ride, MarioWiki Blooper surfing (Red Coins on the Water MarioWiki), The Watermelon Festival, MarioWiki Roller Coaster Balloons, MarioWiki Pachinko Game, MarioWiki The Sand Bird is Born, MarioWiki Yoshi's Fruit Adventure, MarioWiki and… good grief, there's a lot of them.
  • Super Princess Peach: The one time (but not only) MarioWiki where Peach gets a turn to rescue her boyfriend. People might be put off how a game starring a woman is centered around emotions, but the good thing is that Peach is totally in control of her emotions, while everyone else, including Bowser, has zero emotional control and become emotional wrecks that Peach bests. Empowering. The tragic backstory about her talking umbrella being separated from his guardian has never been really resolved since.
  • New Super Mario Bros.: The series' first return to traditional 2D gameplay in years. A great game that would be followed by 3 sequels that are exactly the same.
  • Super Mario Galaxy: Mario travels through space to collect power stars for a giant starship. It's probably why you bought a Wii. Some people say the Gusty Garden Galaxy theme is the best, even though they're "obviously" wrong because the Purple Comet theme is underrated. Also, despite what some say, Bouldergeist isn't actually that hard to beat. Remember, the time elapsed between Super Mario Galaxy and today is longer than the time elapsed between Super Mario 64 and its Nintendo DS remake.
  • New Super Mario Bros. Wii: New Super Mario Bros. but with griefing other friends. You can dress as a penguin in this one.
  • Super Mario Galaxy 2: Super Mario Galaxy but with a two. Very occasionally, Yoshi is there.
  • New Super Mario Bros. U : New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but you dress as a squirrel for a fraction of the game.
  • Super Mario 3D Land: A 3DS launch title that, ironically, played like a 2D Mario game in a 3D environment. Would be followed up by a Wii U sequel whose quality is still debated to this day, with people disagreeing whether it's great or very great.
  • New Super Mario Bros. 2: New Super Mario Bros. but with a two, and its only redeeming quality is that it's not Paper Mario: Sticker Star.
  • Mario Kart 7 and Paper Mario: Sticker Star: Though technically a spinoff titles, they are listed here due to being two of the only Mario games to feature goats.
  • Super Mario Maker: A game that finally allowed players to make the Mario levels of their dreams, with numerous customization options. Of course, most levels players would make ended up being anything but actual Mario levels.
  • Super Mario 3D World: Super Mario 3D Land, but you can play as also Luigi, Peach, Toad, and Rosalina. You can wear costumes of new kinds of sick vermin and you can also grief your friends like in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but even worse, since at least in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, you can save yourself with the bubble mechanic.
  • Super Mario Run: Nintendo's first take on the mobile market, had a unique situation of being a free to start game that then required a one-time purchase to access the rest of the content forever. The game, despite being really successful, disappointed investors that thought they could swindle much more money, and as such Nintendo has taken to employing typical predatory F2P practices (lootboxes!!! hooray!!) for all future mobile titles.
  • Super Mario Odyssey: The series' first return to 3D collectathon gameplay in over a decade. This is somehow an E10+ rated game despite being advertised as an accessible game anyone can play, and honestly, little kids will love this. It probably has to do with possession of things, bird vomit, or a cartoon tank going pew pew. This is probably one of the games you specifically bought a Switch for.
  • Super Mario Maker 2: Super Mario Maker, but with Luigi, Toad, and Toadette playable. More stuff added like slopes (yes, that was missing in the first one) as well. In the era of frequent ongoing content updates in video games, this game stopped receiving support pretty early in its lifespan.

His various offenses[edit]

OOPS.
Hey! *uncomfortably adjusts hat* Mama mia.

On the surface, Mario appears to be a happy, family friendly character who is a good example for all. Beneath his friendly demeanor, however, lies a much more sinister figure. Indeed, when one tears off the disguise of some dashing hero who saves his girlfriend, one will find that this Super Mario's actions aren't so super...

Contrary to what PETA has claimed, however, Mario does not skin animals. That is something Miis already beat him to.

The real villain?[edit]

If you take my friend, not only will I literally crush every obstacle you put in the way of me rescuing her, I will crush every creature you command. I will invade every castle, fort, and stronghold that flies your flag and dump every lord who owes you fealty into lava. I will rescue every last servant, groom, and administrator and then I will come for you.

Liam Neeson wishes he could be so threatening.
Mario, an infuriated furry, clutching the remains of a friend that was poached for their fur.

Some kooky clickbait YouTubers speculate that Mario is actually the villain.[7][8] No one in the series is really all that innocent, however. Yoshi eats things alive, without needing to, and poops them out to throw against other enemies. Luigi has looted and destroyed his own friends' (and his very own brother's) rooms in a hotel for money and jewels while they were kidnapped. Toad constantly misgenders Birdo. Princess Peach crashed into Luigi, unprovoked, while they were racing in invisible karts. Donkey Kong caused property damage and trauma for toy company employees only because he couldn't get a toy he wanted. Most are guilty of stealing coins and stars as well as starting wars over Chance Time results.

Bowser has done far worse in the grand scheme of things. It's commonly said that Mario is responsible for murdering the Koopa Troop, but Mario is only responding to a kidnapping of a political figure, and it is Bowser's responsibility to expend his own people in the first place to be destroyed by Mario. Additionally, Bowser has tried to melt the ice caps twice: to flood Earth the first time and to cancel the winter Olympics the second time. He and his minions also stole a hat pin from breaking in Lenin's Tomb. Bowser also tried to use the Music Keys to cure his tone-deafness and he showed no care that he caused everyone else to dance uncontrollably. And another time, Bowser, being left out of a fun vacation, caused havoc by giving them a fun vacation! And by that, he means NO FUN AT ALL!

MarioWiki has even described Bowser as such:

Bowser's plans are also sometimes complicated in themselves and involve numerous crimes such as abduction, theft, robbery, terrorism, abuse, harrassment, blackmail, arson, destruction, numerous attempts of mass murder, minion facilitation, child endangerment, assault, and even acts such as frame-up, fraud, and identity theft as evident in Super Mario Sunshine.

While Bowser has been shown from pure relentless evil to a comical villain, there have been hardly any instances where Bowser has shown any form of emotion other than anger or hatred. Bowser has never shown any remorse for his actions, which have led to numerous atrocities and caused much destruction from the Mushroom Kingdom all the way to the outer reaches of the universe. Bowser also seems to lack sympathy and has disregard for any form of life. Bowser's many attacks on the Mushroom Kingdom could have easily taken many lives, but Bowser has never shown any remorse when doing these attacks, only focusing on obtaining power and ruling the Mushroom Kingdom with Peach at his side. In Paper Mario, Mario's defeat at the hands of Bowser, to which Bowser mockingly laughed at, could be considered murder, as he is only able to rise up after the combined energy of the Star Spirits. In Super Paper Mario, Bowser has shown to have no problems killing his own minions when they attack. He has even on occasions abducted infants to fulfill his nefarious goal of conquest and did not care in the least for their well being. Perhaps Bowser's biggest demonstration for disregard for other lives is in Super Mario Galaxy, where his plot was to wipe out entire galaxies to create a cosmos he can control.

A goat that's just randomly left here.

Some argue that Mario's stepping on Luigi's foot after Luigi won a tennis tournament qualifies for Mario's list of crimes or at least sibling abuse, but normal brothers tease each other all the time. Mario, has, however, rammed a star into Luigi's crotch at one point (in the Super Mario-kun MarioWiki manga, among many many other things) and there's no excusing that. Others also argue that Mario bashes Yoshi on the head to stick the tongue out, but it's only because the developers told him to do this and saw it and didn't like it. Mario's been pointing and the only thing he's been doing is pointing.

Mario may not be exactly a perfect angel, but even he wouldn't stoop to the levels of Count Bleck, who tried to destroy the world because he thought he lost a girlfriend, and the story he was cast in tried to make us sympathize with him.


References[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. Has been seen in these professions, performance usually at a professional level:
  2. A reddit source claims that the NBA Street V3 stuff is not "canon" while Super Mario Odyssey is, though nothing in the Mario franchise is canon, MarioWiki since there is no established canon. Mario has also been compared to other humans in other media such as in comics and in the cartoons, with varying drastic heights as well (where the cartoons had Mario at a height closer to the other humans), though usually shorter than them. Finally, the post assumes humans are the only reliable relative measurement; there's no extrapolation attempts for the reasonably realistically-proportioned horses Mario rode on in the London 2012 Olympics.
  3. He enjoys crossdressing as much as his brother does.
  4. Considering that Mario rescues his girlfriends and blushes at their kisses, he is probably heteroromantic.
  5. Granted, Bowser was trying to destroy the universe that time.
  6. Granted, Wario and Waluigi were trying to kill Mario out of spite.