As I’m sure anybody who’s played a game in the Mario series will agree, the Mushroom Kingdom is a very unusual place. But the thing is, we’re never told about how any of it works, it’s always just “Here’s the strange world, now here’s Mario and here’s what you’re doing” so for today’s blog entry, I’ve decided to make some conclusions about the cultural beliefs of the Mushroom Kingdom people, based on the evidence seen in the games. Perhaps this kind of theorising will become a regular thing on my blog, but also equally, perhaps not.
Today I’m going to be talking about the fact that, in games such as Mario Kart Wii, Mario appears both as an adult and as his younger self (Baby Mario) at the same time. This doesn’t just happen with Mario either: Luigi, Peach, Daisy and Donkey Kong have also played sports with younger versions of themselves.
One thing that’s important to remember is that, in the Mushroom World, science has reached the level where time travel is a reality. Professor E. Gadd built a time machine in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and a fun time travel adventure was had, but that definitely wasn’t the only time machine in existence; Bowser owned a time machine years before (as seen in the game Mario’s Time Machine) and since he’s no genius, he probably had it built for him. Now, it may be expensive, but I think time machines are probably commercially available in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Anyway, before I continue, I want to talk about the real world for a bit. In some cultures it is considered that, during the different stages of life one person will be several other people… Does that make sense? Basically, if you take a person as a teenager and then the same person during their retirement, they’ll probably be quite different and so some people believe that you actually ARE a different person, which is fairly reasonable, I suppose. They even have different names at different times of life! So what do you think would happen if a society which had access to time travel believed in this?
Well, it seems to me that we can reach the conclusion that Baby Mario comes along to most of the events Mario hosts because it is considered polite to invite him. For Mario, Baby Mario will be a person who he knows very well and is separate from him and since he can very easily contact him through time travel, it’s only natural that he’d pop back to get Baby Mario for a spot of golf every now and then.
And so there you have it, one of the mysteries of the Mushroom Kingdom explained! Perhaps I’ll do some more over analysing in future…
Today I’m going to be talking about the fact that, in games such as Mario Kart Wii, Mario appears both as an adult and as his younger self (Baby Mario) at the same time. This doesn’t just happen with Mario either: Luigi, Peach, Daisy and Donkey Kong have also played sports with younger versions of themselves.
One thing that’s important to remember is that, in the Mushroom World, science has reached the level where time travel is a reality. Professor E. Gadd built a time machine in Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and a fun time travel adventure was had, but that definitely wasn’t the only time machine in existence; Bowser owned a time machine years before (as seen in the game Mario’s Time Machine) and since he’s no genius, he probably had it built for him. Now, it may be expensive, but I think time machines are probably commercially available in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Anyway, before I continue, I want to talk about the real world for a bit. In some cultures it is considered that, during the different stages of life one person will be several other people… Does that make sense? Basically, if you take a person as a teenager and then the same person during their retirement, they’ll probably be quite different and so some people believe that you actually ARE a different person, which is fairly reasonable, I suppose. They even have different names at different times of life! So what do you think would happen if a society which had access to time travel believed in this?
Well, it seems to me that we can reach the conclusion that Baby Mario comes along to most of the events Mario hosts because it is considered polite to invite him. For Mario, Baby Mario will be a person who he knows very well and is separate from him and since he can very easily contact him through time travel, it’s only natural that he’d pop back to get Baby Mario for a spot of golf every now and then.
And so there you have it, one of the mysteries of the Mushroom Kingdom explained! Perhaps I’ll do some more over analysing in future…
(I do not own the copyright of the image)
