I've played a lot of Super Mario in my life, more than most should or would want to. The games are exactly as video games should be, so far as I'm concerned: simple, fun, easy to pick up, yet hard to master. Even in this modern age of beautiful cutscenes, voice work, and other decidedly non-video game elements, Mario games have managed to keep it simple, never wasting more than a handful of seconds at a time on pointless cinema scenes. One of the many things that makes Mario great is it's lack of a strong story. Or so I thought.
If you're not familiar, the basic motivation for Mario in the first game was that Bowser, king of the Koopas, had kidnapped Princess Toadstool, for unclear motives. Now Mario has to find and defeat Bowser to rescue the princess. Here's a video to refresh your memory.
Skip ahead to about 1:45, with the final battle with Bowser. Although this particular player decided to be a hotshot and kill him with fireballs, you may remember that the axe at the right can be jumped on to make the bridge collapse as well. After defeating Bowser, Mario finds Princess Toadstool just to the right of the bridge. Look at her, she's just sitting there. She isn't hurt, she isn't chained up, she's just there. Still, that's not a big deal, she's got Bowser just outside of her room, he'd stop her from escaping, right? Sure, only he put the bridge-destroying axe just outside her room. What takes Mario some tricky jumping would only have taken her two steps left. Peach could have escaped any time she wanted.
This raises questions. Why did Bowser kidnap the princess if he didn't mean to hurt her, and did nothing to adequately restrain her? Why didn't the princess try to escape? Why did Bowser put a "jump here to win instantly" device just behind him? This all seems kind of strange, but maybe Bowser and Toadstool are just stupid. I can accept this, the games fun and Mario saves the day. There's nothing questionable about that.
Wait, what's this? I question this. That is most definitely Mario, the Princess, and Bowser engaging in a leisurely go-kart race. They do this all the time, along with golf, tennis, soccer, and baseball games. Somehow these "enemies" are able to put aside their differences in between kidnappings and attempted coups. Something's rotten in the Mushroom Kingdom.
I don't want to make this post too long; this serves mostly as an introduction to the concept for later entries. All I'm going to say for now is this: the constant battle for the Mushroom Kingdom is a hoax. Bowser, Peach, and Mario are all conspiring to maintain the status quo and keep the working classes oppressed. What will follow in the upcoming weeks and months is an expose on the seedy underbelly of Super Mario's World. I spent too much time thinking about this, and soon you will too. Be prepared to never be able to play Mario the same way again.
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