Fungi Forums
Video Games => Mario Chat => Topic started by: CrossEyed7 on September 26, 2011, 07:23:47 PM
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(I was going to put this in Mariology, but I figured it'd get more response as a separate thread.)
In Paper Mario, we get to see Bowser's diary. The entries are all from the month of ☆, and the days of the entries (which may or may not be consecutive, but are definitely in order) are as follows:
O/O
O/X
X/X
In Thousand-Year Door, we see several entries from Flavio's log. They are again in the month of ☆, but the days are:
XO
XX
X♪
X☆
X♥
OO
OX
O♪
O☆
O
In TTYD, it seems to be a base-6 number system. Oddly, X comes before O when it's in the tens digit, but comes after it in the ones digit, and when there are slashes (I don't recall there being any days with slashes in TTYD, so it's unclear whether they would come before or after the numbers without slashes. I'm currently replaying it and hoping I'll find some later on.).
There is little room for skipped days in Flavio's log entries -- The first three entries are explicitly shown to be consecutive days by the rising and setting of the sun, and the third one, Day X♪, is on the day they were shipwrecked. He then writes three entries, Days X☆, X♥, and OO, and on Day OX writes "Three days on the isle now." O♪ and O☆ are when Mario enters and exits Cortez's cave, respectively (I doubt Mario spent more than two full days in there, if even that. He probably went in at evening and came out the next morning or afternoon.), and O is after it's all over (possibly skipping a day (as no Day O♥ is recorded) to give him time to collect his thoughts, though it could also be a typo or just weirdness in the way Mushroom Worlders count).
Since XO through OO are consecutive, it seems rather clear that O represents 1 and ☆ represents 4, and so, X-O discrepancy aside, it is likely safe to assume that ☆ is the fourth month of the year.
Having established that ☆ is the fourth month, it remains to be determined how long a month is on the Mushroom Planet. Presumably it is based on the phases of the moon, but the moon in TTYD seems to be much smaller than Earth's, as Mario is able to traverse it in about six screens (though the gravity is more similar to our moon, which makes sense in conjunction with the gravity seen in Galaxy. It's also possible that Mario wasn't traversing the whole moon across its widest point, but rather a latitudinal circle near a pole). There is also at least one more moon, the very small one in Yoshi's Island; this one is probably too small to be seen, but it's possible that it's depicted smaller than it actually is due to the art style.
If we can figure out the month and day system, it could then be combined with the year system in Super Paper Mario, based on the founding of the Flora Kingdom. Granted, the Flora Kingdom is in another dimension, but apparently in Mario's multiverse, alternate dimensions run concurrently in time, similar to the way time travel works in Partners in Time, where it's more like there's a Present World and a Past World that flow simultaneously and can interact, so I say run with it. Super Paper Mario takes place in Flora Year 1626. Thousand-Year Door gives the ages of several characters, including Toadsworth, so if we can figure out how long afterward SPM takes place, we can get approximate birth years for them.
(The symbol numbers seem to only be used for dates; most everything else seems to be on a standard Arabic numeral base-10 system.)
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Post of the Year?
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Actually, now that I think of it, O being 1 isn't as clear as I thought. It would make more sense as 0, except that it shows up in the tens digit, and there's a day that's just O, and then there's the ones with the slashes.
Hm.
I wonder what made them decide to do symbols for days in the first place anyway.
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My tentative theory is that the tens digit goes in the reverse order of the ones digit, making the calendar look like this:
| O/O | O/X | X/O | X/X | X |
| ♥O | ♥X | ♥♪ | ♥☆ | ♥♥ |
| ☆O | ☆X | ☆♪ | ☆☆ | ☆♥ |
| ♪O | ♪X | ♪♪ | ♪☆ | ♪♥ |
| XO | XX | X♪ | X☆ | X♥ |
| OO | OX | O♪ | O☆ | O♥ |
| O |
Six weeks of five days each, and then a final day, O, which is not actually any day of the week but its own separate day, like festival days in some Earth calendar systems. There is no zero per se when counting dates. O comes first, where zero would go in our counting system, but it is more of a one than a zero. Kinda like how computers start counting at zero, except it works out more like counting directly from 9 to 11. Day O of the month is seen as the day to wrap up the month and begin the new one, the culmination of the theme of the previous weeks (counting down while counting up). What that theme is could vary -- restoration, duality, a countdown, etc. A week of slashed dates starts each month, as a sort of transitional period between months.
☆ is the fourth month of the year, and in this month, it is apparently the equivalent of spring or summer (moderate temperatures, no outstanding weather of note in normal locations) in the northern hemisphere (Keelhaul Key and Lavalava Island -- presumably (though not, to my recollection, definitively) equatorial locations -- are located to the south of Rogueport and Toad Town respectively (cardinal directions are established by area names and tattles)). With a 31-day month, assuming their days and years are about the same length as ours (no dramatic difference has ever been noted), this implies that their year, like ours, begins in winter.
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Are the symbols the same in Japanese and other releases of the games? When playing some import GCN games I noticed that some text was change to symbols.
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Post of the Year?
Topic of the year potential.
Are you sure Toad Town and Rogueport are parallel to eachother? I don't recall seeing anything that said they were on the same latitude.
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Not necessarily parallel, but it is established through tattles, area names, and dialogue that each is to the north of their respective tropical island.
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mariowiki.com%2Fimages%2F5%2F5e%2FRougeport_Map.PNG&hash=2427b32e6e3f5af7343a711056bfee71)
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mariowiki.com%2Fimages%2F4%2F42%2FMushroomKingdom_PM.png&hash=8d38d8053f3e0f0e34b7d5b8ea6e389d)
This does not necessarily mean that the maps are perfectly accurate -- Keelhaul and Lavalava are probably much farther away than depicted and not necessarily in that exact direction (like Hawaii); both maps probably have some stylization on the part of their cartographers to get everything to fit in a nice rectangle. Especially since the Magical Map was drawn a thousand years ago, and is made to look very thematic/symbolic what with the parallels between the sun and the moon, Poshley Heights and Twilight Town, etc. However, this is strong evidence that both Toad Town and Rogueport are somewhere in the northern hemisphere, for if they were in the southern hemisphere, going farther south would not be warmer (assuming climate works basically the way it does on Earth).
Note to ponder: Was Glitzville around a thousand years ago? Seems unlikely, but it is on the map. But now that I think of it, the map also depicts Rogueport as it exists in modern day, whereas the map was drawn a thousand years ago by the Four Heroes. We are not given an timeframe for when the current city was built over the ruins of the new one, but it was quite a while after the Shadow Queen was sealed away and forgotten about, and everyone thought that the Thousand-Year Door held treasure rather than a demon. Surely that wouldn't have happened while the Four Heroes were still around, right? It seems the map has been updated. It probably updates itself to some extent as part of its magic.
Where was the Gold Star before Grubba got it? What if a Crystal Star had been taken to, say, the Beanbean Kingdom, would the map show that?
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So in SMRPG, when you find Peach's XXX (Japanese version) it was just her calendar?
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Where was the Gold Star before Grubba got it? What if a Crystal Star had been taken to, say, the Beanbean Kingdom, would the map show that?
Each Crystal Star points to the next, so I'm assuming that even if the next one were in a different Kingdom, I would say yes the map would show. Part of the magic has radar like functions that shows the general area of the next one.
I don't think it was her calendar LD. Just a very important date for her to write down that she left in an inconvenient place.
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Are the symbols the same in Japanese and other releases of the games? When playing some import GCN games I noticed that some text was change to symbols.
The Japanese version of TTYD (http://youtu.be/f6LAC5_OJiM?t=3m23s) uses the same symbols. Haven't checked PM yet.
Would've been cool if they'd used the symbols in Geno's Japanese name.
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fthemushroomkingdom.net%2Fimages%2Fj-e%2Fsmrpg_geno_1.gif&hash=deb65ddf17aab96a3249c48166578c71)
Maybe those are holidays.
I don't think it was her calendar LD. Just a very important date for her to write down that she left in an inconvenient place.
A date... with Luigi.
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A date... with Luigi.
I'm not even going to say what my first thought was when I found that.
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I don't think Glitzville was on the map at all. It appeared there, platform and all, when the Emerald Star was taken to the door, didn't it?
Who the heck puts the sky on a map anyway...
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Actually, yeah. This is what the map looked like at first.
Oddly, it doesn't even show Hooktail Castle or the Great Tree, which definitely did exist when the map was created.
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Guess the map was designed by its creator to change depending on where the Crystal Stars were at whatever time somebody was looking for them, just in case they were moved from their original resting places (such as with the Glitz Pit).
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Also, that original version of the map still depicts a recognizably modern-day Rogueport, so the map definitely updates itself. Pretty cool. Maybe there wasn't even anything on it until Peach got it out of the box, or because it knew that it was the thousandth year.
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I'm guessing there's not a whole lot of time between the Paper Marios.
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mariowiki.com%2Fimages%2Fa%2Faf%2FJr_troopa_cameo.png&hash=49ff4a97643eb841a0089f1e9dbaee10)
Jr. Troopa certainly doesn't look much older. In her TTYD cameo, Lady Bow says it's been "ages" since PM, but she says she's spent the whole time inside, so just a year or two would seem like ages, and also maybe she has a crush on Mario like every other female character ever in the paper games so she really misses him but a relationship between a Boo and a human would just be too... taboo. They're both in the month of ☆, so it has to be at least a year (there's certainly more than a week between them). Maybe just a year. I'm gonna replay PM to try and get a feel for it, though.
I'd say there's probably not much more than a year between TTYD and SPM, as Luigi comments at the beginning that it's been quiet lately, and Mario has pictures of the PM and TTYD partners on the table behind them, so they're both still fresh in their memories. My SPM disc doesn't work anymore, though, so I'm gonna have to rebuy it sometime.
PM is basically a direct sequel to SMRPG and seems pretty shortly afterward. It probably took more than four months for Bowser to rebuild his castle, though, so I'd put it in the year before. I'm guessing he got the idea for the whole flying castle thing when he saw that Shy Guy in the Clown Copter while he was repairing stuff.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Rc86OnlUznQ/ToVMDdPCrbI/AAAAAAAAF78/DbPWWOz77K4/s800/heih.PNG)
So, tentative timeline outline, without even anything made up, and assuming one year between each game (birth years could be a year earlier if the characters hadn't had their birthdays yet in TTYD):
(SPOILERS!)
(Seriously, spoilers, guys.)
c. 1374 BF: Creation of the Pixls
One of the Ancients, known as "the master magician," loses his wife and son in an accident. Shortly thereafter, his daughter contracts a deadly illness and dies at a young age. The master magician uses the Dark Prognosticus to create the Pixl Queen, the first ever Pixl (An apprentice of his later claims that the Pixl Queen's soul was that of the magician's daughter). The magician then continues to make eleven more Pixls (the ones, other than Tippi, that you get in SPM).
In the millennium between c. 1374 BF and c. 374 BF, the Tribe of Ancients use the Pixls to build up their civilization, and then to create whole new worlds (This may include the Mushroom World; it is not clear how many worlds existed before this, if any).
c. 374 BF: The Pixl Uprising
The Pixl Queen uses her mind-control powers to lead her people in a revolt against their masters, and the Ancients are conquered and enslaved by the Pixls. The inheritors of the original twelve Pixls fight back, capturing the Pixls in Catch Cards and healing them. The last surviving inheritor makes his way to the Pixl Queen's castle, where one of his Pixls sacrifices himself to defeat the Queen. The survivor takes the Dark Prognosticus and runs away with it, likely being the founder the Tribe of Darkness. The Ancients limit the powers and intelligence of the Pixls, leading to the slow decline of their once great civilization, the secret of Pixl creation fading into obscurity with them.
FY 1: King Croacus I, the Iron Rose, forms the Flora Kingdom.
c. 126: The eleven original Pixls are stuffed into chests. The Ancients Merlumina and Merlee, and Prince Squirp Korogaline Squipinia of Squirpia, are put into hibernation, holding Pure Hearts to give to the prophesied Heroes of Light. Another Heart is entrusted to King Croacus.
444: King Croacus I's son wilts, sending him into a deep depression and rage, beginning the time known as The Darkening. During this time, he imprisons his daughter for criticizing his policies.
496: King Croacus I is overthrown, probably resulting in his death wilting. His daughter is released from prison and crowned Queen Croacus II, beginning a progressive rein of kingdom-wide reform.
Before 625: The Luff Empire uses the power of the Marvelous Compass to rule much of the Mushroom World. Their greed dooms them, and the compass curses them for it, bringing their empire to collapse.
A great city flourished on the site where Rogueport now stands. Suddenly, the Shadow Queen, a great demon, destroys the city in a day, sinking it below ground and making it her lair, where she keeps ill-gotten treasures from all across the world. To solidify her reign, she creates the Crystal Stars, placing one in a castle in each country of the continent, and also creates a deep dungeon filled with monsters in which to cast all those who fall into disfavor with her. Among other beasts, her three pet dragons live there.
Cortez the pirate terrorizes the high seas.
625: The Four Heroes -- the strong, shy Toad boy from Petal Meadows, the wise Goomba girl from the Boggly Woods, the stalwart nomadic Koopa, and the magical Boo who loved him -- seal away the Shadow Queen using the power of the Crystal Stars. However, she is able to place a curse on the heroes that will imprison them in impenetrable black chests when they let go of the stars. Knowing that the seal would one day weaken, they create a map that would lead to each star, and seal it in a box that could only be opened by one with a pure heart (not the capitalized kind). The Goomba hollows out the Great Tree to give the Punies a place to live before she is sealed away.
1297: Worried that having too many children would lead to a violent struggle for the throne, Queen Croacus II chooses to have her only child, a son, this year. He is born with a disease making him weak and sickly.
1298: Queen Croacus II wilts, putting her 1-year-old son in charge of the kingdom. A regent rules in his place for the time being.
1333 (or 34): King Croacus III releases a compilation of his poetry.
1385: King Croacus III wilts, with no blood chlorophyll heirs. The cause of his death is never made public; many suspect conspiracy. The regent who had ruled in his place is crowned as King Croacus IV.
1560: The First Annual Quirk Quiz is held.
1565: Toadsworth is born.
1570: Zess T. is born.
c. 1595: Mr. Hoggle sets up his Hot Dog Stand in Glitzville.
1597: Goomfrey is born.
1600: Flavio is born.
c. 1604: Goombella is born (assuming she was about 18 when she started college).
1607: Laki is born.
1615: Koops's dad is eaten by Hooktail.
1620: The Pianta changer is set up (it's not clear whether the Pianta Parlor existed before this).
1622: Assuming that the school year at the University of Goom resembles the American one (and that Goombella advanced through college at a normal rate), Goombella enrolls this fall.
1623: Super Mario RPG: Bowser kidnaps Peach, which he has done at least once, probably multiple times, before. As Mario is rescuing her, the castle is attacked by a sword from another dimension. On its way here, the sword passed through Star Haven and broke the Star Road, scattering the seven Star Spirits across the world. A Star Kid named ♥♪!? descends from Star Haven and takes the form of a wood-carved doll to save the Star Spirits. He joins forces with Mario to repair the Star Road. Humiliated, Bowser must also team up with Mario, to get the sword removed. Once they have done so, they part ways, and Bowser begins repairing his castle. While repairing it, he sees a Shy Guy riding in a Clown Copter (likely, though not necessarily, placing this after SMW, which would in turn place it after SMB3, which would in turn place it after SMB1 (going against the placement of SMRPG after SMW is that Mario told Geno he had never heard of the Star Road when he could have gone there in SMW, but this can be chalked up to mistranslation or just Mario not seeing the level names on the map screen like we do, or at least that he was there but didn't know what it was)), and gets an idea.
Goombella is a freshman at U Goom in the month of ☆.
1624: Paper Mario: Having learned of the powers of the Star Road, Bowser finds a way in (perhaps while staying in his Neon Coney Island Disco Palace castle in the Valley of Bowser during renovations at the main castle, he stumbled upon the Star Road warp right next door) and manages to steal the all-powerful Star Rod. While Peach is throwing a party to celebrate the saving of the world, Bowser's repaired and upgraded castle burrows up through the ground underneath Peach's castle, and carries it up to low-earth orbit. With the power of the Star Spirits, a Star Kid named Twink, and Peach's prayers wishes, Mario is able to defeat him.
Goombella takes Frankly's archaeology class, probably in the second semester of her sophmore year, though possibly the first year of her junior year (she said she took it "last year," which likely refers to both calendar and academic year).
Some time before 1625: Beldam comes into possession of the box holding the Magical Map, but, lacking a pure heart, she is unable to open its seal.
1625: The Thousand-Year Door: Peach decides it's high time she and Mario tried taking a vacation again. She happens to stumble upon the X-Nauts as they are obliviously in the process of attempting to open the Thousand-Year Door (at the behest of the Shadow Spirit Beldam, who was a friend of the Shadow Queen back in the day). Beldam, disguised as a merchant, kidnaps Peach after she successfully opens the box holding the Magical Map, intending to use her as the vessel for the Shadow Queen's resurrection. The Crystal Stars get collected, the Thousand-Year Door is opened, and the Shadow Queen possesses Peach, but then Mario jumps on her and things are all better.
King Croacus IV, his mind compromised by the pollution in the water, devises a method for brainwashing the Cragnons. Goombella is a junior at U Goom in the month of ☆.
1626: Super Paper Mario: King Croacus IV begins his initiative to enslave the Cragnons. Lots of other stuff happens. Existence almost ends.
Goombella is a senior at U Goom, and probably graduates in the Class of '26.
Was the Mushroom World (or the entire Grand Finale Galaxy, or even the whole Mushroom Universe (are the "worlds" that the Ancients created planets, universes, dimensions, or what?)) one of the worlds that was created three thousand years ago? Where does the Star Rod figure into the Mushroom World's creation? Also, how the heck did Bowser get into Star Haven in the beginning of PM anyway? Canonically, the way it happened was that he taped a picture of Kammy onto the book that the narrator was reading from, changing the story. What was the story originally going to be about if not about Bowser stealing the Star Rod and Mario getting it back? Probably would've been a boring story.
It's also possible that the "changing the story" thing means the Paper series is in an alternate timeline. Which wouldn't necessarily make its backstory untrue anyway.
Later I'm gonna try to work out all the months and days that the games happened too.
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Taping Kammy into the opening of PM is maybe just a euphamism for her and Bowser travelling to Star Haven.
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Bowser just flew up there in his Clown Copter. How he managed to barrel through the Star Kids populating the area is beyond me, since they're supposed to be jacked up on people's wishes.
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..They weren't actively trying to attack him..?
Or.. A wizard did it! XD XD Kammy was there, so..
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The only thing I can figure is that when Mario and Bowser teamed up in SMRPG, everyone (including the stars) thought it was going to be a permanent change of heart thing, so everyone's guard was down.
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Goombella gives some more clues in TTYD, albeit ones that are, on their surface, primarily references to the real world. Still fun to interpret them in-universe.
We're on the moon! Awesome! The moon I always look up at, can you believe it?
I mean, I heard they'd put a Goomba on the moon in '69, but who knew WE'D get here?
Boy, nothing's impossible on your adventures, Mario! You are the COOLEST!
I wonder if this guy watches people pass by 365 days a year. Talk about a workaholic.
With (presumably) 365 days in a year, it seems likely that the Mushroom Planet has about the same rotation and orbit as Earth. Perhaps there's still something to John Luigizamo's theory from the movie -- the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs c. 65,000,000 years ago actually created a parallel world somehow.
We also know that there is a year system in use in the Mushroom Kingdom, using Arabic numerals, and that the games take place in a year that is at least three digits long. It's possible that it's the same as the Flora years -- flexible definitions of "world" and "dimension," along with copious use of Warp Pipes, etc., could make it feasible, which would most likely place the Goomba moon landing in the most recent '69, 1569, 56 years before TTYD.
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If not an alternate world. then perhaps the Mushroom World is Earth in the far-off future. Planet of the Apes-style.
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If not an alternate world. then perhaps the Mushroom World is Earth in the far-off future. Planet of the Apes-style.
Or a delightful post-apocalyptic world like Adventure Time!
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Or maybe the Mushroom World is the real world and the post-apocalyptic world is reality...
How would that be for a last game in the series?
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So while I was playing TTYD again, I also found these in that underground tower at the end. Each line is in the middle of the clue for the puzzle in that room.
So That We, the Great Ones...
Stones Have Power of Stars...
Master of Shadow and Dark...
Complete All Seven...
But the Stars Bring Balance...
We Know the Stars Spurn Us...
Can Live Again by the Stone...
And That the Skies Lie...
(If I recall correctly, these are listed in counterclockwise order, starting from the southeast room; first floor first, second floor second)
What do you guys think the most likely arrangement of those is (assuming no crucial chunks are missing and they're just scrambled around)? I'm leaning toward this:
We know the stars spurn us and that the skies lie. Stones have power of stars, but the stars bring balance. Master of shadow and dark, complete all seven so that we, the Great Ones, can live again by the stone.
Possible interpretation of possible arrangement: Whoever it is that's writing this (The Great Ones) are opposed by the Star Spirits. Stones (the Crystal Stars) can counteract the power of the Star Spirits, but the Star Spirits can still balance them out. They need the Shadow Queen to create all seven Crystal Stars so that they can overpower the Star Spirits.
(According to that roof guy, the Shadow Queen created the Crystal Stars herself to solidify her power, placing one inside a castle in each country of the continent Rogueport is on.)
There's a lot of different places to go with this. Who are the Great Ones that are writing this? The Shadow Sirens (Beldam, at least, has been around for over 1,000 years, and was the one who started the rumors of the Thousand-Year Door holding treasure, and also presumably was the one who gave Peach that box with the Magical Map at the beginning)? The inhabitants of the town beneath Rogueport? The Tribe of Ancients (or the Tribe of Darkness)?
A slightly different possible arrangement I came up with was this:
We know the stars spurn us and that the skies lie, but the stars bring balance. Stones have power of stars so that we, the Great Ones, can live again by the stone. Master of shadow and dark, complete all seven.
This one sounds more like "The Star Spirits oppose us now, but they will support us later to maintain balance, and after they kill us, they will bring us back with stones (of some sort)."
I still don't have any ideas for what "the skies lie" is referring to. I can't recall any ingame clues as to who exactly built the tower, though I'll go and check again soon. All Goombella says is this:
How could there be such a huge tower underground? And why was it built...? There seem to be a lot of rooms here... and every one contains a riddle...
Any ideas?
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When you try arranging 'em like that it looks pretty Engrishy. I never really paid too much mind to it. I like to imagine something more like... if the game were more cinematic there would be no signs on the walls and instead you'd hear voices whispering, with the clues to the puzzles being distinct against a rambling mumbling incoherent telling of some kind of story
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(The symbol numbers seem to only be used for dates; most everything else seems to be on a standard Arabic numeral base-10 system.)
When I said that, I forgot about the equations in the sky in SPM. Stuff like these:
Mushroom ♥ - ((☆♥ ⛶)/Pipe) + ☆☆ = 8♥ (Shell/♥△) ☆♥
♥♪(=⛶☆/2☆☆)
Flower ≥ ⛶/Pipe
⛶ = ♥ (Mushroom/♪)
Pipe (Shell) = -5 ♥ (♪) Shell Shell (♪)
Hmph.
Maybe some advanced time travel / dimensional stuff? What with the date symbols and the pipes. The mushrooms and flowers, though? And the Koopa shells? Hmm...
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those things were stupid. what were they doing there.
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I don't think they factor into anything to worry about
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Stuff from the SMB3 episode "Toadstool for President":
- Dates: The Mushroom Kingdom celebrates Founder's Day. It is very close to the day the election was held; probably the same day.
- Numbers: The turnout for the election between Toadstool and Koopa was 6,436,213. This includes Bowser and at least two Koopalings (Larry and Ludwig).
That Bowser and the Koopalings were allowed to vote raises questions about the legitimacy of the Mushroom Kingdom's ballot system (do Dark Worlders count as Mushroom citizens?), as does the fact that the vote tally was 6,436,212 to 1. Note that this was not just a quickly hobbled-together thing; elections are apparently a regular occurence (Peach says "there's an election coming up"). However, there are clearly never any challengers in the election. Raising even more questions as to the legitimacy of this whole thing is that in another episode, a robot version of Peach was able to pass rulership of the kingdom to Bowser at her own whim.
Still, nobody thought the figure sounded too out of proportion, so it's pretty safe to say that there are at least 6,000,000 adult citizens in the greater Mushroom Kingdom. An upper limit cannot be estimated, as there is no data on turnout percentages. It's possible that turnout is rather low considering they all know Peach is always going to win anyway. It's also possible that turnout is high with voting considered an important patriotic duty of loyal Mushroom citizens.
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I dunno why you keep turning to the cartoons for evidence when they're clearly a different beast than the games.
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I'm not using them as a primary source, but since there's no real standards on Mario canon, it's fun to implement parts of them, particularly the parts that come kinda close to almost being serious.
I mean, it's not like the games alone are that much more coherent.
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No but it's pretty obvious that the cartoons are set in a different continuity than the games, however loose the games' continuity may be.
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When Bowser went back in time in Yoshi's Island DS to kidnap the Star Babies, he split the timeline. In the original timeline, Mario and Luigi grew up alongside Peach and Bowser in the Mushroom World all their lives. In the split one, Mr. and Mrs. Mario decided it was too dangerous in the Mushroom World and sent Mario and Luigi to Earth, in Brooklyn, where they eventually found their way back.
That doesn't mean that Mushroom Kingdom history prior to the split or its approximate size have to be different.
And of course, the cartoons still are not to be taken totally at face value, as they are rather stupid most of the time.
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When I said "continuity" I meant what's presented in the games, not what you made up based on what's presented in the games.
At least you admit the cartoons are stupid.
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Well, if "continuity" is defined as "what's presented in the games", then the cartoons can't possibly have continuity.
It's all what we make up. Do you think Miyamoto has a big Word document somewhere detailing the history and politics of the Mushroom World, or that he ever devotes more than two minutes per console generation to making the Mushroom World be coherent and realistic?
Other than SML 1 and 2 and PM 1 and 2, it's pretty hard to even prove that any two games occurred in the same universe. Mariology of any kind requires some synthesis on our part.
And it's for fun.
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What about all the callbacks that are made to previous games? Granted this happens mostly in spin-offs calling back to previous spin-offs or games in the main series, but it's definitely something. Otherwise I thought the assumption was that the games took place in order of release save for a few special cases (such as Yoshi's Island, or Mario Party 2's plot being a stage show).
I can understand filling in the blanks ourselves in some areas but having to make Mario's personal backstory a fustercluck just so we can use the cartoons as evidence comes off as entirely counter-intuitive to me. I say it's easier to just say "The cartoons have nothing to do with the games and Mario and Luigi are native Mushroom Kingdom residents through and through". This isn't Sonic after all.
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The nice thing about my theory, though, is that it allows the reader to focus just on the game timeline (where Mario and Luigi have lived in the Mushroom Kingdom all their lives) and completely ignore the branch off that leads into a timeline loosely based on the cartoons, comics, and movie, if they choose. And really, the most fustered-up part of my theory is just the in-game story of Yoshi's Island DS itself.
In Star Wars canon, the policy used to be that any source that contradicted canon had to be thrown out entirely, but since 2005, they've changed it so that the contradictory parts can be surgically removed, and anything that doesn't contradict higher canon can stay. For example, the N64 podracing game used to be totally non-canonical because it could depict Anakin podracing multiple times leading up to the Boonta Eve Classic, but since the policy change, it can be considered partially canon; the part about Anakin racing before Episode I is thrown out, but all the planets and locations that were created for the game can still be considered to be canonical. I try to take that kind of approach in my Mario canonizing. There's nothing in the games to say there's not a Founder's Day, and it's not completely stupid, so hey why not.
What about all the callbacks that are made to previous games? Granted this happens mostly in spin-offs calling back to previous spin-offs or games in the main series, but it's definitely something. Otherwise I thought the assumption was that the games took place in order of release save for a few special cases (such as Yoshi's Island, or Mario Party 2's plot being a stage show).
Callbacks are rarely explicit, though. Like, a Geno doll shows up in Superstar Saga, but Mario doesn't say, "Hey! I recognize that!" There's very rarely anything like the ties between Zelda games. It's pretty much just Lady Bow in TTYD saying "Oh, hey, remember our last adventure? That was fun!" and a general sense (in more recent games) that Mario has a reputation for rescuing Peach from Bowser. There's a few more ties if you expand out to manual text (SMW's manual explicitly says it takes place after SMB3, and SMB3's manual implies that it takes place after SMB, TLL, or both), but still, it's pretty sparse. They tell us that the games all take place in similar universes, but to say they're all in one universe and are all consecutive in some fashion is a leap on our part.
(Also, there's no way that the Parties and Karts should be placed in the timeline along with all the other games in order of release. It's too big of a shift to have Bowser crashing Mario's party one day and getting punched into the sun by Mario the next. The Mario Party games are stated to take place in "Mario Party World", so let's assume that's some kind of alternate universe separate from the Mushroom World of the main series games, and that the Karts and sports games also take place there.)
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Mario doesn't say much of anything, so him commenting about the Geno doll would be something. XD
"Asuperpotato" (Mario babble from Superstar Saga)
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c. 374 BF: The Pixl Uprising
The Pixl Queen uses her mind-control powers to lead her people in a revolt against their masters, and the Ancients are conquered and enslaved by the Pixls. The inheritors of the original twelve Pixls fight back, capturing the Pixls in Catch Cards and healing them. The last surviving inheritor makes his way to the Pixl Queen's castle, where one of his Pixls sacrifices himself to defeat the Queen. The survivor takes the Dark Prognosticus and runs away with it, likely being the founder the Tribe of Darkness. The Ancients limit the powers and intelligence of the Pixls, leading to the slow decline of their once great civilization, the secret of Pixl creation fading into obscurity with them.
I wonder if Intelligent Systems was intentionally creating a hook here for a Pokémon-esque prequel. Because that could be interesting.
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What do you guys think the most likely arrangement of those is (assuming no crucial chunks are missing and they're just scrambled around)?
Major bump, I know. (Awesome thread, BTW). A while back, I was thinking about those phrases and came up with a different arrangement. Well, recently I've been going through a text dump of PMTTYD and came across something interesting. Each "room" in each area/"world" (in this case the area is Palace of Shadow) is labeled by number. Each text box/block of text in the game (excluding Tattles, apparently) is also arranged by number. It turns out there IS a correct order of the seemingly jumbled phrases. If you arrange the lines by the numerical order assigned to them, it says this:
Master of Shadow and Dark...
Stones Have Power of Stars...
Complete All Seven...
So That We, the Great Ones...
Can Live Again by the Stone...
We Know the Stars Spurn Us...
And That the Skies Lie...
But the Stars Bring Balance.
(The room numbers are 11-18, and the text blocks are 36-43, for those interested.) What's really neat is that this was the arrangement I had previously suspected.
Possible interpretation: "Master of Shadow and Dark" is Mario, or whoever seeks the Crystal Stars. The stones (Crystal Stars) hold the power of Stars. Collect all 7 Crystal Stars to revive "The Great Ones" (possibly the Shadow Queen? or maybe her kind?). The Stars despise and reject the "Great Ones," but the Stars are balanced, neutral, and can be used for good or evil. (Hence the Shadow Queen, an evil demon, creating and utilizing the Crystal Stars, while at the same time, first the Four Heroes and then Mario (good) using them to stop her.)
I'm not really sure about the "skies lie" part.
Thoughts?
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Thoughts?
Well, your interpretation certainly is solid.
On the "And That the Skies Lie..." part: The X-Nauts live on the Moon ("sky") and only Grodus knows the true purpose of the stars, whie the other X-Nauts are clueless (?), thus "lying". idk, really.
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At least you admit the cartoons are stupid.
What's so stupid about this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjdhjky6x7A#t=02m59s)? Or this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrFFV4J3Vjw)?
Seriously, what's so stupid about storytelling?
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You say that as though it's impossible for storytelling to be bad.
I watch those and all I see is godawful drawings, godawful animation, godawful acting, godawful dialog, and incredibly stupid ideas for episode premises.
So tell me, why do you insist on defending them to the core?
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I don't defend them to the core. The shows have some flaws and bad episodes, just like every other series. But I don't see how the classical "prison escape" trope or Luigi's crowning moment of awesome are "incredibly stupid ideas." To each his or her own, I guess.
Anyways, I may be confabulating, but wasn't there a moment in Sticker Star when a character mentions a day in our calendar? Or was that one of the Mario & Luigi RPGs? If so, I wouldn't be surprised if the Mushroom Kingdom had multiple calendar systems.
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- First of all, the whole show is crap. Throw any episode in my direction and I'll probably find a million things wrong with it.
- The "classical prison escape trope" you mention is a direct parody of Escape From Alcatraz. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_Alcatraz_(film)) MOST of the episodes of this show are known movie parodies. And if MOST of your episodes are known movie parodies you're not what I'd call the most creative TV writer.
- Exactly what constitutes Luigi's "crowning moment of awesome" is a matter of sheer opinion. It could be anything from any point in the franchise's history. Using that as your argument in the show's favor only makes you look less credible. Your flagrant use of TV Tropes vocabulary also isn't helping your case, and I actually like TV Tropes. :|
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Luigi has to break out of the shadows to save Mario's life. How is that an "incredibly stupid idea?" Do you just hate Luigi's Mansion? And I don't see why some people condemn parodies in Mario cartoons while worshipping The Simpsons. I also don't see what's so wrong about using parodies as vehicles to tell stories when the only two Super Mario Bros. games at the time were so scarce on story.
I'm sorry, we're derailing this conversation, huh? Let's just agree to disagree. As for the calendar, I found a reference in Partners in Time where E. Gadd says something about "toast on Sunday morning." Confirmation of multiple calendars, or just an idiom?
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Heh heh heh. Now, now, no need to get your leather lathered. There've been new time holes popping up here faster than toast on Sunday morning!
[source (http://www.gamefaqs.com/ds/928290-mario-and-luigi-partners-in-time/faqs/43928)]
Possible interpretations:
- One of the days of the week in the Mushroom World is called Sunday, a name that they came up with independently, named after their own sun (or suns -- the Angry Sun and the sun in Flower Fields come to mind. Brighton and Twila from Mario Party 6 also suggest that there may be something resembling sun and moon worship at some level). This explanation can also apply to any mentions of Mondays (moon); any other day would require more explanation, as they are named after specific Earth deities.
- Gadd is from Earth, or spent time on Earth at some point, and picked up some Earth slang. Perhaps the Gadd in the past studied the time holes and was able to use the same concept to develop a method of travel between Earth and the Mushroom World (with the timeline modifying itself along the way, as it is prone to do in PiT).
- Translation convention (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TranslationConvention). Gadd actually used a word referring to a Mushroom day of the week, but Nintendo translated it to an Earth day for our convenience.
- For one reason or another, the Mushroom World has the same seven-day week as us, with the same names, but the numbers and dates are different.
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I'd go with the last one. It might work even better if you go with my oft-repeated idea that the Mushroom World is actually a far future post-apocalyptic Earth.
@Fawful Fan:
- "Luigi has to break out of the shadows to save Mario's life." <- That's not the stupid part. The rest of the episode is. Luigi's Mansion is a great game in general, and The Simpsons is a great show because it does parody well. Parody generally does not work well as a storytelling vehicle when you're also trying to adapt something else. In this particular, they only went with parodies because it was really easy to do. They took the lazy way out. Nintendo did not care.
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Relevant:
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mariowiki.com%2Fimages%2F1%2F13%2FGallery_Billboard.PNG&hash=fe3331540c57ef88f00a44c3ebf28404) (https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mariowiki.com%2Fimages%2F3%2F3c%2FMushroom_Moon_Billboard.PNG&hash=45bdf1f4501ffed1651533c03f8bb2b8)
Billboards from Moonview Highway in Mario Kart Wii. If those aren't dates, I dunno what else they would be. So, it seems in the Mushroom World, they at least can refer to dates using our number system. And their months have at least 27 days. What these months are named or if they use our Gregorian calendar is unknown, but it's a start.
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Is it just me, or do those posters look sort of amateurish? They look like they were made in GIMP.
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You haven't seen a lot of real billboards, have you?
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Hey! What's wrong with GIMP?
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It's just that those posters use generic official art and cheesy fonts.