Hello, all.
I recently decided to do some digging into the "story" of Mario, what the story behind all the games is. Now, I know that, unlike other video games, Mario hasn't been especially well-known for a detailed storyline. But I just want to know what there is. And yes, I know there's this big fanfiction-sorta thing that explains it all, but I'm only interested in what's been officially revealed. So in the course of my questions, if there is something that hasn't reall been well-explained, officially, just say so, and I'll know. I guess I'm really just looking to see if there's anything I'm missing in what I'm about to write. So...
From what I can gather, there really isn't any official storyline to Donkey Kong. Sure, people will write "The carpenter Mario and his girlfriend Pauline were having lunch in the park one day..." but as far as I can tell, it's basically "Big ape has girl, man in red must save her." I'm not sure when Mario got an official name, but I would think it wasn't officially until Mario Bros.
Mario Bros. has had fan writings saying that it takes place in the sewers of our world, but I looked up the manual, and there is no official story at all. It's just "These two guys fight monsters in what looks like a sewer," and the manual gives their names.
Now, Super Mario Bros. takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom, with no explanation in the manual's official story of how Mario actually got there.
Super Mario Bros. 2 is apparently all just a dream.
Apparently Shigeru Mayamoto has stated that Super Mario Bros. 3 is really just a play put on by the characters, so apparently not canon, but the story in the manual of Super Mario World says different. At any rate, apparently it's just Bowser trying to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom and kidnap Princess Toadstool again, this time with his seven kids. No official word on what happened to him the first or second time he lost the fight against Mario. I guess he just goes back to his own kingdom until next time.
Based on the manual, Super Mario World apparently takes place before Land, so I'll list it as such. Mario and company go to Dinosaur Land for vacation, meet Yoshi, and stop Bowser from trying to conquer the kingdom and kidnap the princess for a third time.
Then there's Super Mario Land, where Mario goes to Sarasaland, introducing Princess Daisy, and defeating Tatanga.
Super Mario Land 2: Six Gold Coins gets really out there. It introduces Wario as just some guy who's jealous of Mario (no explanation as to the similar name or anything) who tries to take over Mario Land. This is the first time that I've heard of "Mario Land." Is that just the Mushroom Kingdom, renamed in his honor? And it talks about Mario's castle. Wait, since when does Mario have a castle? Is it Princess Toadstool's castle? Are they shacked up? Are they even officially a couple? I think I just read about them kissing one time at the end of one of the games.
Now, I know that this series wasn't really meant to have a solid story, or even to be taken particularly seriously, but hey, I'm a nerd and I'm trying to see if there's any sense to be made out of all of this...
Yoshi's Island establishes the backstory for the characters, and makes it clear that Mario and Luigi are natives of the Mushroom Kingdom. Now due to the apparent nature of Donkey Kong 1&2 and Mario Bros. taking place in OUR world, people have had to come up with theories on how Mario and Luigi were living here during those games, and found themselves in the Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario Bros. But officially, it seems to me, there is no statement of where Mario lived before Super Mario Bros., nor even what his profession is (hey, they could have been in those sewer tunnels for any reason!
Super Mario 64 basically just has Bowser come in and try to kidnap the princess / conquer the Mushroom Kingdom for the fourth time.
Okay, so that's all the games I've looked into so far. Am I missing anything? Is there any info out there that makes any of this clearer? Thanks for the help.
PS, the reason I'm looking into this is because I'm creating a website that has total lists of the works that one should look into for any given mythology. Given that Mario at least seems like a large, overreaching mythology, I want to add this to the site. Here's the Mario page for the site. You can see that I basically have written there what I have here.
http://moderndaymyths.weebly.com/mario.html
I recently decided to do some digging into the "story" of Mario, what the story behind all the games is. Now, I know that, unlike other video games, Mario hasn't been especially well-known for a detailed storyline. But I just want to know what there is. And yes, I know there's this big fanfiction-sorta thing that explains it all, but I'm only interested in what's been officially revealed. So in the course of my questions, if there is something that hasn't reall been well-explained, officially, just say so, and I'll know. I guess I'm really just looking to see if there's anything I'm missing in what I'm about to write. So...
From what I can gather, there really isn't any official storyline to Donkey Kong. Sure, people will write "The carpenter Mario and his girlfriend Pauline were having lunch in the park one day..." but as far as I can tell, it's basically "Big ape has girl, man in red must save her." I'm not sure when Mario got an official name, but I would think it wasn't officially until Mario Bros.
Mario Bros. has had fan writings saying that it takes place in the sewers of our world, but I looked up the manual, and there is no official story at all. It's just "These two guys fight monsters in what looks like a sewer," and the manual gives their names.
Now, Super Mario Bros. takes place in the Mushroom Kingdom, with no explanation in the manual's official story of how Mario actually got there.
Super Mario Bros. 2 is apparently all just a dream.
Apparently Shigeru Mayamoto has stated that Super Mario Bros. 3 is really just a play put on by the characters, so apparently not canon, but the story in the manual of Super Mario World says different. At any rate, apparently it's just Bowser trying to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom and kidnap Princess Toadstool again, this time with his seven kids. No official word on what happened to him the first or second time he lost the fight against Mario. I guess he just goes back to his own kingdom until next time.
Based on the manual, Super Mario World apparently takes place before Land, so I'll list it as such. Mario and company go to Dinosaur Land for vacation, meet Yoshi, and stop Bowser from trying to conquer the kingdom and kidnap the princess for a third time.
Then there's Super Mario Land, where Mario goes to Sarasaland, introducing Princess Daisy, and defeating Tatanga.
Super Mario Land 2: Six Gold Coins gets really out there. It introduces Wario as just some guy who's jealous of Mario (no explanation as to the similar name or anything) who tries to take over Mario Land. This is the first time that I've heard of "Mario Land." Is that just the Mushroom Kingdom, renamed in his honor? And it talks about Mario's castle. Wait, since when does Mario have a castle? Is it Princess Toadstool's castle? Are they shacked up? Are they even officially a couple? I think I just read about them kissing one time at the end of one of the games.
Now, I know that this series wasn't really meant to have a solid story, or even to be taken particularly seriously, but hey, I'm a nerd and I'm trying to see if there's any sense to be made out of all of this...
Yoshi's Island establishes the backstory for the characters, and makes it clear that Mario and Luigi are natives of the Mushroom Kingdom. Now due to the apparent nature of Donkey Kong 1&2 and Mario Bros. taking place in OUR world, people have had to come up with theories on how Mario and Luigi were living here during those games, and found themselves in the Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario Bros. But officially, it seems to me, there is no statement of where Mario lived before Super Mario Bros., nor even what his profession is (hey, they could have been in those sewer tunnels for any reason!
Super Mario 64 basically just has Bowser come in and try to kidnap the princess / conquer the Mushroom Kingdom for the fourth time.
Okay, so that's all the games I've looked into so far. Am I missing anything? Is there any info out there that makes any of this clearer? Thanks for the help.
PS, the reason I'm looking into this is because I'm creating a website that has total lists of the works that one should look into for any given mythology. Given that Mario at least seems like a large, overreaching mythology, I want to add this to the site. Here's the Mario page for the site. You can see that I basically have written there what I have here.
http://moderndaymyths.weebly.com/mario.html
