#but if super mario party jamboree is implying what I think it's implying...

[galactic-glamour-girl-posts]

Did...did Rosalina make Rainbow Road?

OK so Super Mario Party Jamboree is the newest Mario Party game (at the time of this post releasing) and there are these character-themed minigames called Showdown Minigames. Rosalina's one of the 10 characters who has one, it's called Rosalina's Radical Race, and the first section involves snowboarding, nothing too weird. But then there's the second portion of the minigame, and UH-

DID SHE MAKE THE MOST ICONIC MARIO KART COURSE IN HISTORY?

I mean...it certainly looks like it!

They even play what I'm pretty sure are four notes from Rainbow Road's first theme (sped up) once the players reach the second part of the race.

I saw someone else in the comment section of a now deleted video (Nintendo works fast) claim that the music at the start of the snowboarding portion of Rosalina's Radical Race sounds like the music for Double Dash's Rainbow Road. I didn't catch that on my first listen (I've never played Double Dash, alright?) Look up the clip if you're interested, do you hear it?

But anyway, back to the lore implications.

You know, this makes some things retroactively make a lot more sense, like her reveal trailer for Smash taking place on Rainbow Road:

Even going all the way back to Mario Kart Wii, it would explain its version of Rainbow Road being heavily influenced by Super Mario Galaxy (other than, you know, cross-promotional synergy). It has Star Bits, a Launch Star cannon, both its course staff ghosts use Rosalina, it uses Good Egg Galaxy's theme as a countermelody underneath its own main melody, etc.:

So has Rainbow Road just...ALWAYS been hers? This whole time?

She did that?

That was her?

If so...

Iconic. I have no notes.

[galactic-glamour-girl-posts]

OK but...WHY did Rosalina make Rainbow Road?

Not long ago I made a post about how Super Mario Party Jamboree seems to imply that Rosalina made Rainbow Road:

But that just raises many questions:

Why?

If all versions of Rainbow Road are variations of the same one, why does it look different every time it makes a reappearance? Does Rosalina modify it or does it change whilst she's not around?

If they are different Rainbow Roads, why does she keep making them?

How could Mario have met Rosalina for the first time in Galaxy 1 if he had been racing on a road she had created for years? Assuming Mario Kart is canon to mainline Mario, which... is unlikely, ngl.

I'm gonna try and answer all of these because overthinking the lore behind my comfort characters makes my brain produce the happy juices 🥰

OK, so first off...why?

Rosalina explains in Galaxy 1 that she visits Earth every 100 years:

But we've never seen her park the Comet Observatory on Earth, not just in Galaxy but in any Mario media (I think, please correct me if I'm wrong). I'm not sure if she's even able to park it, it may be able to function like a starship, but it's also a space station, maybe it doesn't work that way. Either way, I'm pretty sure we've only every seen it in the sky. The closest Rosalina has ever gotten to Earth (in the mainline games, unless you wanna count 3D World) was using the portal through the Gate to get to Gateway Galaxy:

You could assume that maybe she meant that they fly by the planet, but her story book would have you believe otherwise:

So how does she get to Earth?

By using Rainbow Road!

Maybe this is how it goes: once she gets to Gateway Galaxy (or maybe she doesn't bother and just flies the Comet Observatory within close range of Earth), she creates Rainbow Road, and walks along it to get to Earth. Once her visit is over, maybe she leaves Rainbow Road behind in case others wish to use it, and she leaves.

Why doesn't she fly down to Earth herself? Um...

Nostalgia...?

Walking reminds her of and reconnects her to her childhood, humanity and earthly roots?

Yeah.

Yeah!

See, she even walks at the end of Galaxy at the end of her visit to Earth and only starts flying once she returns to the Comet Observatory, showing that she is both figuratively and physically re-embracing her role as a cosmic guardian:

Totally viable explanation, clearly this headcanon is watertight.

Anyway...

So let's suppose that Mario and pals find Rainbow Road one day (by using a telescope, during an adventure, it doesn't really matter how) and, being the completely sane people they are, unanimously decide to race on it.

So yeah, that's my theory - Rosalina made Rainbow Road to walk to Earth on her centennial visits...but there's the problem: centennial. As in, once every 100 years. If there's a new version of it in every Mario Kart, do 100 years pass between every game? That can't be right, Mario and the most of the cast aren't immortal, so what gives?

Well...remember that cycle she mentions in Galaxy 1:

She explains that when stars die, they turn into star dust that scatters across the cosmos, which then reforms into baby stars, baby stars who will grow up into stars. She calls this "the cycle of life". However, keep in mind that baby stars (Lumas) can also turn into comets, entire galaxies, etc. We see the result of the most recent iteration of the universe's cycle directly in Galaxy 1's ending, where Mario welcomes the newly reconstructed universe.

The universe repeats a cycle of rebirth indefinitely, but the cycle never repeats itself in the exact same way; every iteration is at least a little different...

...sound familiar?

What if every version of Rainbow Road we see in Mario Kart is the version she creates in that specific iteration of the universe? Hence why none of them are "quite the same". It would also explain why Mario, Peach and the rest are still alive despite a new road being made - the Mario in, lets say, Super Mario Kart, is not the exact same Mario in Mario Kart 64, and so on and so forth. Sure, to Rosalina it's been another 100 years, but to them, they don't remember the previous versions of the universe. Either that or the cast are preserved (or revert to a younger age, maybe?) after each cycle, like at the end of Super Mario Galaxy.

Speaking of, the fact that we still have discussions surrounding the lore of both it and Rosalina is just another reason why they both continue to be some of the best things to come out of this franchise, even 17 years later.

Happy anniversary!

****BONUS****

Here's more potential "Rosalina created Rainbow Road" foreshadowing that I missed last time I talked about this:

I'm just saying, Nintendo associates her with Rainbow Road a lot, it almost seems like they've been trying to imply she owns it since the Wii era...

Or maybe it's as simple as "Rainbow Road is the popular space track, so let's make the popular space princess its mascot." 🤷🏾‍♀️