Mario Is A Monster

I have to get something off my chest, and I'm not sure anyone wants to hear it. There are some who already suspect. People have made a few of these connections and you can find a couple mentions of this fact here and there across the web.

Mario is a monster.

Yes, "Super" Mario of the mega-popular Mario Brothers franchise. He's evil. As evil as they come. I think he may in fact be the greatest villain in gaming history, simply by virtue of the fact we were all tricked into loving him.

The Devil pulled off no greater trick than convincing the world he didn't exist. So too has Mario convinced us he's actually a hero.

All we have to do is go back to the beginning… the in-game, canonical beginning… to piece together the horror Mario has left in his wake. We will only be looking at a few of his games, we will not consider external content like cartoons, movies, etc.


Yoshi's Island

I'm not going to say Mario was TOTALLY evil from infancy, no. Yoshi's Island for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System did however give us some insight into the villain's beginnings.

Baby Mario and Baby Luigi are being flown over Yoshi's island by a stork. Note that this means Mario was originally "born" in the Mushroom Kingdom. As one of the antagonists attempts to steal both children, Mario falls to the island and lands on the green Yoshi we've come to know.

Yoshi must now carry baby Mario to Koopa's castle in order to rescue Luigi. Even at this point, Yoshi knows he's safer with Mario on his side. Why else would he carry a small child into such danger?

Let's take a closer look at Yoshi.

He eats other creatures… sentient, living things… and craps them out into perfectly formed, inescapable egg shells. His digestive tract immediately converts living, breathing, feeling creatures into ovo-zombies that shoot out of his ass.

These eggs show that they have retained some semblance of life and thought by bouncing and following Yoshi around. THESE. EGGS. ARE. ALIVE.

So what happens to them? What's the purpose of this grim vore fetish nightmare? Well, if you've played the game, you already know the answer. Yoshi chucks those eggs at enemies and objects, shattering them.

killing them.

It gets worse. On this journey, Yoshi eats Shy Guys. They're human-like if not human in total. Without the masks, they might look like you or I. What's more, Yoshi even eats, digests, imprisons, and smashes monkeys. Mischievous little monkeys, our closest animal relative!

Yoshi would clearly have no problem eating a person, and smashing their egg form against a rock for fun. If you watch closely, frogs and birds in the background of the game actually flee from Yoshi. They flee for their lives.

This is Mario's savior, and future pet.

By the way. The only reason Mario and Luigi are almost kidnapped is because a prophecy foretells they will destroy the rightful King. You know, Koopa. Similarities with the Christ Child aside, it will become obvious that Koopa is probably less of a psychopath than our "hero".


Donkey Kong

Do you know why Donkey Kong kidnaps Mario's girl and ascends that crazy tower? Maybe the primate is in love with her? Maybe he's just evil, like King Koopa? (We'll touch on that later.)

Wrong.

Mario is Donkey Kong's abusive owner. After he whips Kong a bit too much, the poor, confused, injured animal makes off with the damsel and tries to escape Mario's terrifying, cruel temper.

Make no mistake, Mario is the antagonist of this game whether you get to control him or not. It's entirely possible that Donkey Kong rescued that young woman from the same cage he was locked in. Did anyone check her for whip marks?

By the way, Mario was born in the Mushroom Kingdom. Why is he chasing Donkey Kong down in New York?

Answer: He was obviously banished.


Mario Bros.

No, not Super Mario Bros. for the NES, I'm talking about the arcade game in which Mario and Luigi are sent to the sewers of NY to exterminate pests. As plumbers, they seem to be a good fit for the job.

But hang on - where did these strange "pests" (harmless animals if left alone) come from? How do they keep emerging from pipes deep below the Earth?

They followed Mario and Luigi, of course. After being expelled from the Mushroom Kingdom, the brothers were obviously sent on a warp-pipe trip to "wherever". Mario and Luigi mercilessly beat back the curious creatures… but why?

All they want to do is walk around and explore. Mario's simply getting in the way, letting himself get injured by their sharp bits because he didn't move in time. This is the great offence that has been committed. All must avoid the great and wonderful Mario, no matter how much he stands in front of you.


Super Mario Bros.

The Princess has been kidnapped, and in her absence Mario is allowed to return to the Kingdom. Who's going to stop him? Everyone's losing their shit about the missing royal daughter.

And so, Mario makes his most well-known journey of all. Once again, he stomps creatures to death just for walking into him. Along the way, he steals every coin he can get his hands on, whether they've been left lying around or if they've been hidden inside blocks and secret underground vaults.

(By the way, those blocks he's smashing to collect the coins? Those are alive, too. They've been transformed into bricks.)

He also repeatedly dunks Bowser & King Koopa… again, the rightful ruler… into scalding lava. Do you remember how he accomplishes that? Correct - by laying his sticky fingers on an axe of pure gold and stealing it.

Say, if it's "King Koopa", then isn't "Princess Peach" his (adopted) relative? Maybe they're married, and Koopa is just an insensitive brute who thinks she's fallen for their world's greatest killer.

Are we SURE that Koopa had kidnapped her, and not that Mario was on his way to actually perpetrate that crime? I know certain canon has made this abundantly clear, but just look at what we see in-game only.

Toad, standing alone in a castle that was abandoned as Mario approached. "I… I'm sorry Mario… b-b-but the Princess is in another castle!"

"I swear!" Toad screams as Mario mercilessly whips him, "I swear!!"

It could be less about Peach being kidnapped, and more about Koopa keeping her from hanging with the dangerous malcontent that wants to fill her with magic, cape-wearing babies.


Super Mario Bros. 2

While this is a revamp of another game and wasn't originally part of the franchise, it's worth noting that Mario's heroism in coming to the aid of another land and its people is explained away as a dream.

A dream where he continues killing animals for the sole reason that they might run into him as they proceed along their way.


Super Mario Bros. 3

As has been explained at length by others, Mario Bros. 3 is a stage play. We can easily see this as the curtains open at the beginning, and when Mario "exits stage right" at the end of each level. The props suspended from rope, platforms running along slats, and scenery physically bolted to the background betray the truth as well.

Mario, in his mad quest for fame and adoration, has produced an entire play about his adventures in Super Mario Bros. What's more, he's taken a few liberties in that he's completely changed it all and made himself more awesome.

"I can change into a raccoon… and a frog… and I can be a statue if I want… and I can fly… and…"

He's forced others to participate in the play, including the defeated King Koopa and his entire family. Please, Mario… no more encores… they just want to go home.

I wouldn't be surprised, by the way, if the audience for this play was completely nonexistent. Everyone's IN it, no one's left to watch. That doesn't matter, though. All Mario cares about is that you're doing what he wants.


Dr. Mario

Mario is not a real doctor.


Super Mario World

Yoshi, the devourer, rises again. This is presumably the same Yoshi who saved Mario from certain death as an infant. How does the man treat his savior?

He punches the dinosaur in the back of the head every time he wants him to eat something. Look! A turtle. Eat it, Yoshi. *punch* No, it doesn't matter if you're hungry or not! *punch punch*

Mario forced Yoshi into a sin he most likely had not partaken in until this point. In Mario Land, you face off against other dinosuars. That's right, Mario had essentially beaten Yoshi until he would devour family.

Yoshi no longer craps everyone out into eggs, though he does occasionally lay a bonus egg. His reproductive/digestive system has obviously shut down due to overwhelming stress.

Unlike Super Mario Bros. 3, Mario Land does not appear to be a stage performance. That means that when Mario is pitching King Koopa's children… his under aged, possibly misguided children… into scalding LAVA… it's real.

What is Mario's fixation with throwing the Koopa family into lava? Is this some sort of Mushroom Kingdom race thing we're not aware of? The only good Koopa is a helplessly flailing, rapidly melting Koopa.

I prefer to think Mario Land is all about the lead character getting even after the Koopas don't show up for SMB3's 5,000th rehearsal.


Mario Nights

The final game we'll be looking at is Mario Nights, also the last franchise game for the Super Nintendo. If we all thought the system should go out with a "bang", then we sure got what we expected. No wonder it was released in such small numbers.

Armed with a flashlight, Mario makes his way through the pitch black "Night Kingdom" once again in search of the Princess he has most likely laid hands upon. Can't you hear him coming home after work? "It's-a me! Mario! Hey… Where's-a my pot roast, bitch?"

Apparently, terrorizing the Mushroom Kingdom and New York City wasn't enough, and Mario quickly gets back to stomping on living things who don't know enough to stop approaching him.

It's difficult to tell what's going on outside of Mario's flashlight beam, but we can assume that the game's wide-eyed spiders and gibbering bogeymen are probably quivering in fear as the infamous menace travels through their trash-strewn dystopia.

Sure, Mario screams his head off when the worms with the tiny face masks erupt out of the ground in front of him - but don't start feeling bad for him. Feel bad for the worms every time the demented "Hero" roasts their white flesh with the light.

The costumes are back, and I guess that means there was at least some truth to Mario's imaginary adventure. The real world seems a bit less thrilling than his lies, though, since turning into a jelly blob or maggot isn't quite befitting a "hero".

Sure enough, as soon as Mario gets a hold of Yoshi, the punching starts all over again. Instead of ejecting a tongue, however, this grayscale Yoshi simply vomits a blob of dissolving acid over enemies. Mario's so intolerably cruel, he can give dinosaurs painful acid reflux!

While this may be the first "legitimate" kidnapping since Koopa is nowhere to be seen, how do we know that Emperor Eeyagh isn't just doing Koopa a favor? He could be looking out for Peach while the King is away, promising he won't let that mustachioed maniac anywhere near her.

If you're watching, you can even find the word "ATONE" hidden in the wall of Eeyagh's final castle.

Don't judge an Emperor by his inky black cover! Spider fingers or not. Red saucer eyes or normal ones. It doesn't matter, because you don't know if that's just how normal people look where he comes from. (We already know Mario's a bit of a bigot.)

Well… Okay, I guess there's the one point where this theory falls apart, in that Eeyagh does take a bite out of Princess Peach's skull cap if you don't defeat him in time. That seems a little less like he's looking out for the girl.


So there you have it. Nine games, nine bodies of proof. Mario is a Monster.

We didn't even scrape the surface. Not really. I'm sure there are tons of clues to be found all throughout the decades' worth of Mariocentric games. Mario Kart was probably yet another one of his forced "fun times", and I wonder what happened to you if he didn't win?

More lashings, most likely.

Edit: Nobody really played that as a kid? Someone must have. It came in the black box with Mario's face on the front, inside Eeyagh's mouth, and "Mario Nights" in reflective silver letters. I played it for hours, until I would pass out from exhaustion after which I'd still dream I was playing, so I know for sure it exists. I'll find a picture somewhere.

Edit: Okay, I can't find the pictures. Anyone?

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