In what age period is the Mario series set? + Is the Mario series a fairy tale?

[Jumping Spider]

Something that I've always wondered about the Mario series is in which age period it's set in.
Judging from how the Mushroom Kingdom appears it seems like it might be set approximatively around the end of the Middle Ages: you got a strict monarchy, the royalty lives in a large brick castle to defend themselves from attacks of rival kingdoms (namely Bowser's one but Peach seems to be kinda dumb as she never takes cover in her castle most of the time), most of the populations is kinda poor and the wealth is all concentrated and possessed by a small group of people (in this case Peach and the other Toads living in the castle, and the Mushroom King if he's canon); yet the fact that there is higher technology like working lampposts in the city in from of PEach's castle (which means the Mushroom Kingdom knows how to utilise electricity to power devices up) might mean that they did develop some modern-day technologies.
However the whole rich-VS-poor thing suggests that such technology isn't that frequent in the kingdom as only rich people like royals (Peach, Bowser etc.), famous scientists (like E. Gadd) or moderately wealthy people (like the Mario Bros) actually have enough money to allow themselves to buy such futuristic devices.
And assuming that the tracks from Mario Kart are set in the Mushroom Kingdom then some people who are more rich can allow themselves to live in urban areas and have access to a better life and better technology (like the people living around the various Mario Kart tracks, which showcase modern-day cities, meaning that the Kingdom isn't equally developed in all of its regions)

Of course that's just talking about the Mushroom Kingdom alone, as many other places outside of it seem to posses a much higher technology (like the various areas in Super Mario Galaxy show, as there are huge technological bases with lasers and stuff; plus Bowser used his power and wealth to build a freaking UFO! If that's not high-tech then I don't know what is...) or even less of it if such places are undeveloped and a bit more primitive.

So yeah, I think the Mushroom Kingdom suffers from a big issue of inequality in the population (according to wealth), rich people get all the cool technology while the huge portion of poor Toads live in small houses with no electricity, with some other more urbanised areas where some richer inhabitants of the kindgdom managed to move to. It's mostly a medieval-like kingdom with a few more developed and advanced area reserved to higher class citizens.
Also Peach even has her private jet which means there must be a more developed and urbanised area where there isn an aereoport, and Isle Delfino might be a bit more rich than the rest of the kingdom due to all the tourism it gets (look at that fancy amusement park that Peach could only dream of!)

And related to the whole "Mario might be set at the end of medieval times"-theory, the whole Bowser kidnaps Peach is pretty similar to the cliché "dragon kidnaps princess"-story, which is frequent in medieval-themed cartoons and fairy tales for kids; so therefore having medievall themes further emphasise that feel and it even allows to replicate the "dragon takes princess to castle"-thing with Bowser literally doing just that. I never noticed that.

With that said, in what age period do you think the Mushroom kingdom is set?

 

[Ray Trace]

They're far more technologically advanced than us, so I don't think they're that modern, they're higher than that.

 

[Jumping Spider]

They're far more technologically advanced than us, so I don't think they're that modern, they're higher than that.

True, forgot about the stuff they use in Mario Party or even the anti-gravity Karts, but the thing is that they use it very rarely. Also the post was about the era in which the series was set in but whatever...
You have instances where scientists make sentient robots like F.L.U.D.D. with absurdly complex A.I.s, vacuums that can capture and contain ghosts, huge observatories that can travel across space utilising the power from magic stars from the cosmos. They basically seem WAAY more advanced than us, yet most of the Toads seem to live in relatively antiquate houses and the buildings don't seem that "modern", yet they have electricity (because of lampposts and stuff).

Anyway I did know that there are instances of the Mushroom Kingdom showing really high and futuristic technology, I was simply curious as to why it's almost never used.
Or maybe the various highly developed cities we see in Mario Kart are actually part of the Mushroom Kingdom in more urbanised areas and they actually posses fairly modern-times technology (plus the even more complex ones we talked about), but simply looking at how many Toads live in poverty it seems like they're stuck in the past, yet they're actually in the future...

It's really confusing, I think that there is this huge gap between the rich and the poor and they use all the money to build high-tech stuff for big events (like the anti-gravity karts and other stuff) while they get cheaper when it comes to most of the kingdom (Toads living in slams brick houses) except for some more wealthy and urbanised areas. That'd be the only reason to explain having those high-tech wonders alongside cities that seem like they're from the Middle Ages but with added electricity; they might be "futuristic" when their technology peaks but such technology isn't especially frequent in the kingdom normally (as I don't see Toads going around on hoverboards when I play most Mario games...)

 

[Ray Trace]

It really just depends on the Mario games. I think the technological era the Mario characters are in are about as consistent as the entire Mario canon. I remember being shocked at Mushroom Kingdom having cars, buses, and trucks, traffic, one time, in Mushroom City in Double Dash, before realizing that Toad's Turnpike existed and Mario Party has already dealt with something like this way back, and Mario Kart could have been easily taken place in the modern times, prior to Mario Kart 8, which featured anti-gravity and gigantic space stations. Games like Paper Mario on the other hand don't seem to have cars, airplanes, etc (the most technologically advanced vehicle for Mushroom Kingdom in Paper Mario was, I think, Blimps and Trains, so Paper Mario might be in the industrial era). Same could apply to Mario & Luigi, aside from E. Gadd's time machine of course. And then you have Mario characters on futuristic bots shooting lasers at each other or skateboarding in outer space in Mario Party.

 

[LeftyGreenMario]

I think the Mario series is very... conglomerate, if that's the right word. Sometimes, you don't see urbanization like in the New Super Mario Bros. games or Super Mario Run. The Mario cartoons, for instance, you don't see any cars or anything around and everything seems rural. However, in many other games, particularly Mario Kart and Mario Party, they seem to be set in our contemporary time period. Maybe what we're seeing is more rural Mushroom Kingdom and the cities are there, but you need a Warp Pipe to get there or something. I don't see much of an "income disparity", and I don't think Mario is that kind of world that gets out of the way to mirror our society. The most dingy thing I've seen Mario-related is probably Rogueport, but Paper Mario is a weird... "canon".

And then, there's Mario Strikers Charged that seems to be set in a dystopian future, with everything from holograms to high-tech airplane/helicopter cameras, huge ass space ships to hi-tech classrooms to electric fences to rotting sci-fi arenas (see Galactic Stadium, Battle Dome, and Underground). I'm actually wondering why the armor on the Mario characters aren't even worn, they look factory fresh; everything else seems to have been worn and grungey.

I think there is no consistency, which makes sense for the Mario series, but if I had to pick one, I'd still say post industrialization, but well ahead of our era.

 

[The Superstar Saga]

I feel that the Mario series is set in the 1930s-1960s real world New York City, Brooklyn (retconed to New Donk City). Mario Bros are plumbers that found a portal to another dimension known as the Mushroom Kingdom while plumbing.

The Mushroom Kingdom itself was once a medieval era society, but it seems centuries have past since and it has modern and advanced technology. It keeps a lot of its obsolete medieval architecture, uniforms, and weapons though for ceremonial and cultural porpoises.