Numbers and Dates in the Mushroom World

[CrossEyed7]

(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.)

[Weegee]

Post of the Year?

[CrossEyed7]

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.

[CrossEyed7]

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.

[Luigison]

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. 

[Toad]

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.

[CrossEyed7]

Not necessarily parallel, but it is established through tattles, area names, and dialogue that each is to the north of their respective tropical island.





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?

[Lizard Dude]

So in SMRPG, when you find Peach's XXX (Japanese version) it was just her calendar?

[Toad]

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.

[CrossEyed7]

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 uses the same symbols. Haven't checked PM yet.

Would've been cool if they'd used the symbols in Geno's Japanese name.



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.

[Luigison]

A date... with Luigi.

I'm not even going to say what my first thought was when I found that.

[BP]

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...

[CrossEyed7]

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.

[The Chef]

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).

[CrossEyed7]

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.