#mario misconceptions

[toadtowngazette]

Mario Misconceptions: Baby Bowser, Bowser Jr., and Koopa Kid

This will be a new series where I discuss common misconceptions in the Mario franchise! This time I'm talking about the still very common idea of Bowser Jr. being the same entity as Baby Bowser, as well as the Koopa Kid from Mario Party causing confusion relating to these two.

Now, most seasoned Mario fans will know the difference between the two, but I will clear up any misconceptions here, with images provided, as the designs are often one of the main reasons people get confused.

In short, "Baby Bowser" is Bowser as a young koopa in the past, and "Bowser Jr." is Bowser's son in the current day and age.

Here you can see the differences between them. Note that in older depictions of Baby Bowser, he isn't wearing a bandana, meanwhile Bowser Jr. always wears one, showing the obvious differences in their design. Confusingly, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time depicts Baby Bowser with a white (albeit featureless) bandana. This design alone is most likely the main reason so many have confused the two, since Bowser Jr. wears a similar bandana. However, Bowser Jr.'s bandana always features a face of some sort, whereas Bowser's bandana as a child has nothing drawn onto it.

Finally, I want to mention the "Koopa Kid" from the Mario Party series. Introduced in the first game in the series "Mario Party", they act as helpers to Bowser during the games.

They appear similar to Bowser, but only younger, leading some to think the main Koopa Kid (featured on the left in the image above) was either his past self, or alternatively his son, thinking it was merely an early design of Bowser Junior. The name of the Koopa Kid in some instances is actually "Baby Bowser", causing much of the confusion. They are still called "Koopa Kids" almost everywhere else, however.

While it's almost certainly confirmed that none of them are Bowser Jr. or Bowser himself, it is still unknown whether not they are related to Bowser in some form, if at all. The Super Mario Wiki mentions more specific details of this topic in the image below:

As one can see, the game's dialogue and naming has caused a large amount of the confusion. Koopa Kid's nature seems to imply they may either be split off from Bowser, like a copy of some kind, or simply just his son.

The main Koopa Kid's ability to split into three beings (featured on the right of the Koopa Kid image) as shown in Mario Party 5 may possibly imply the original's origin to be Bowser's copy. His Japanese description being 「クッパさまのぶんしん」 seems to partially support this theory, as 「分身」 can mean "one's other self" as shown in the wiki screenshot. None of this is 100% confirmed however, and is simply speculation on my part.

Koopa Kids as a whole have since stopped making appearances in games, most likely due to the redundancy of now having Bowser Jr. existing as the "Bowser's young helper" role. This is shown by the fact that any remakes of old minigames featuring them now replace them with Bowser Jr. instead. They may also have stopped appearing to not cause further confusion on this subject.

One final thing: "Koopa Kids" is a phrase that many official sources call the Koopalings, but this is largely phased out and is mostly used in the older media, although still used in other languages today. The Koopalings are not confirmed to be related to the Koopa Kids from Mario Party, despite the similar naming in some places.

I think that's all I really have to say on this topic, so I hope this cleared up any misconceptions on these characters and their relationships with one another! Thanks for reading.

Credit goes to Nintendo and all affiliated parties, and to the Super Mario Wiki.

[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.

[radiantrookie]

I'm really glad fan wikis like Mario and Kirby have misconception pages

I know certain fandoms that could also use misconception pages

[rioblitzle]

still insane the amount of takes i see in the year 2024 where people are genuinely mad about the ending of super mario odyssey because they think princess peach "owes" mario romantic reciprocation and marriage. are you people ok

[akiiame-blog]

Annoying ways that people view the Mario series and characters Part 2

I think perhaps the biggest misconception that really irritates me is how "Peach rejects Mario and abandons him on the moon at the end of Mario Odyssey."

Especially because that latter part can be easily proven false if you just watched the ending.

People act as if this is the last frame of that ending—

When it actually ends on Mario making that jump towards the Odyssey—

Peach even calls out to Mario and says, "Let's go home!" It's clear she wasn't planning on abandoning the guy.

Now I can hear you say, "But she takes off so quickly!! Before Mario can even get on!! Why does she do that if she wasn't gonna abandon him, huh????"

I believe Peach's intention was to abandon Bowser, not Mario. If she were to wait until Mario got on the Odyssey, then Bowser would've been able to hop on as well, with him being so close behind.

Peach wanted to avoid that, and she was confident in Mario's abilities to be able to jump onto the ship, especially with the moon's gravity helping him.

Now, in regards to "Peach rejecting Mario", there's a couple of annoying ways people took this.

First, people act as if this is a permanent rejection; that this is it for their relationship. They're not getting together ever, it's done, stop shipping Mario and Peach, yadda yadda.

Y'all, just because Peach got a bit upset at Mario's impulsive actions, that does not mean that Mario and Peach's relationship is ruined.

I'm sure there have been times where y'all got upset at a friend or a significant other, but you guys' relationship stayed intact.

It's the same thing here. Especially given how, as soon as she walked onto the Odyssey, Peach took a deep breath, turned around with a smile, and called out to Mario. It can be easily assumed that there were no hard feelings, and that she was able to forgive him.

Another annoying interpretation is: "Peach is SUCH a bitch for rejecting Mario like that!!! How dare she not devote her entire life to him after all he did!!!"

No. My man screwed up here.

He was impulsive and did not consider the possibility that he might've been overwhelming Peach. It was a presentation of Mario's biggest flaw.

In fact, I think this highlights some insecurity on Mario's end. If he was really so sure of he and Peach's relationship, he wouldn't have freaked out like that. But maybe that's just me.

Point is, Peach is not to blame here. Stop calling her a bitch for standing up for herself; the one thing that people have been wanting her to do for YEARS??

Been realizing just how much unnecessary shit Peach gets from people, my god.

[fraudulent-cheese]

More Total Drama Headcanons!

Heather and Gwen would totally try to rick roll eachother and every single attempt between them escalates right up until Harold somehow rick rolls them both by complete accident. if this happened in a GC they'd try to nuke any traces of it but unfortunately Sierra was there and she's a screenshotting machine. the blackmailer becomes the blackmailee. And Gwen looses.

Owen's favorite insult is dogwater. It hits harder than any swear word

Izzy will bond with animals by imitating them. she has been found on the floor on her side petting a cat in the exact same pose as her. She'll stick her tongue out periodically if she's currently watching over a snake. The only one she hasn't cracked are fish.

Gwen has told people point blank "Im going to fucking kill you" when they've annoyed her enough. this was most common during her time on Island

This is definitely not of the time period, but Zoey definitely went "This is my personal 9/11" after a minor inconvenience before realizing this was not a normal thing to say after she has 10 seperate sets of eyes staring at her for it

I think, during All Stars, whenever they weren't filming or were on the Playa des Losers, that Sierra would take notes on the interactions or different relationships the campers had with eachother. not outright stalking! she's taking notes on what she sees to learn more about what's going on. she'd rather try to befriend these people, but also she's a messy bitch and wants to know whatever drama's currently happening.

I think sometimes Mike and/or Zoey would sneak Cameron into places by putting him in a big duffel bag and carrying him around. he's small enough and light enough for it! As an added comedic bonus, Cameron will occasionally peak his head out of the bag if someone in close proximity says something wrong. Just goes "Actually, that's a common misconception!" and now they have to explain this

Sierra owns a used pink Gameboy Advance SP with Mario Kart Super Circuit and Kirby's Amazing Mirror cartridges. She plays with Sam during TDAS :D

one of Zoey's hobbies is making clothing. she'd totally make her own merch for small bands she likes. she'd make stuff with Cameron and Manitoba specifically. she'd give a homemade frilly skirt to Svetlana and she'd be so happy about it. Sierra makes her Kandi Cuffs in exchange.

In general i think Zoey would wear more hippie inspired clothing as they get older, maybe a more androgynous style along with it

If we're talking more 'realistic' characterisation of characters, i think Max became a stand up comedian, or a method actor.

Lightning's autistic and the "sha" thing is a vocal stim trust

Gwen introduces Courtney to Peneloppe Scott's discography and she undergoes an overnight transformation into a Peneloppe Scott stan

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

*the smashers are chilling and vibing when Wario comes running into the room*

Wario: HAVE YOU GUYS SEEN WAPEACH?!

Samus: ...Have we seen fucking what?

Wario: WAPEACH! The evil version of Peach!

Link: I thought Daisy was the evil version of Peach.

Daisy, cleaning her shotgun: A common misconception.

Wario: Well, she got out, stabbed Waluigi in the kidney and now she's on the loose!

Ridley: HAH! Loser.

Sephiroth: If you really want our help then- huh-

*Sephiroth collapses. Wapeach stands behind him with a bloody knife. She has stabbed him in the kidney as well*

*Wapeach runs off as chaos interrupts*

Ridley, cradling Sephiroth: We gotta get him to a doctor!

Dr. Mario: Have you seen his biology?! Get him to Area 51!

[kellodrawsalot]

I see tweets like this pop up and then comments under the post about how the blame is: ‘the westernizing of Sonic’ ‘Less Japanese writers on board ‘

dude why do people keep believing that misconception consider that has nothing to do with it? Sonic ova had low sales and failed to become more then 2 episodes, Sonic X bombed in Japan, Japan didn’t need good Sonic games for The Saturn to be successful, Japanese written Sonic games weren’t major sellers

Frozen is majorly popular with Japanese girls, Stitch is a super popular in Japan, Hazbin Hotel made it into the top ten anime of 2024 in Japan, They are crazy about Moonin, they loved the Mario movie, the mcu has its own strong Japanese fan base which influenced the works of Shonen Jump manga,

so no, stop blaming western influence

[crusherthedoctor]

Knuxamy, Sonelise and Mavian for the bingo? :>

Knuxamy:

And by in my head, I mean in your head. Because a lot of fans would probably play it up in a Sonic X way, which you and a rare few would have the infinite IQ to gracefully avoid. 😌

(Also the red Knuckles goes with hedgie wearing red, the blue Sonic goes with horsie wearing blue, it's like poetry it's sort of they rhyme)

Sonelise:

I see Sonic X Tall Girl, I like. So does he amirite.

I never had a problem with Sonelise to begin with, but my sympathy towards its fans brought on by them having to deal with the bestiality misconception (and fans of a certain ship who get a wee bit mad when Sonic is shipped with anyone else) assisted in letting me vibe with it. Whereas other people see chicken legs, Sonic sees the glow of the sun. :>

Marivian:

(I ticked the canon box because leaving it empty was too painful and left me pissing and shitting. Let a guy dream... and let Vivian be in more games pls. ;_;)

Anyway wow, who could have seen this coming, it's not like my repressed memories of it in the 2000s came steamrolling back with a vengeance when the remake came out or anything, with the 100% likelihood of staying out in the open this time around due to Crusher character development (read: realising that mockery towards indulging in cringe means nothing coming from joyless husks).

I'm sorry, I know I'm predictable. I swear I have an open mind, I can like ships that aren't Hero X Shy Girl, as seen with my interest in Knuxamy, one-sided Staregg and Eggstone, Tails X Marine, Sonic X Floor, Flynn X The Exit, and others. However, this was the one that started it all: the genesis, the patient zero, the culprit that planted the seeds for why I'm weak towards this type of dynamic. Behind my bitter exterior shaped by two decades of complaining about egg-related woes, I think hero characters inspiring shy girlies is neat and cute. 🥺 And Vivian is just such a sweetheart that it's easy to root for her. :3 It's also painfully clear that this isn't a standard crush like what's exhibited by other characters across the series, she is very clearly down bad full-time. She wants that backwards long jump if ya know what I'm saying.

Indeed, what's funny about Marivian in particular is that despite her general meek demeanour, and despite refraining from confessing her feelings in the ending (a devastating injustice that PM:TEE will rectify nyeh heh heh), Vivian can actually be surprisingly bold in some of the ways she hints to her affection; even more so in various non-English editions of the game, like in the Spanish version in which she constantly refers to Mario as her cariño. Or how about the Italian version, where she pretty much outright says that she loves Mario, that she wants to be his shadow, and that they'll be together through life and death (this sounds like Hector levels of devotion lmao). It might be seen as reminiscent of Amy's love for Sonic, which is obviously ironic, given how I feel about all non-Beev versions of Sonamy. :P Clearly execution - and not being bogged down by years of dodgy shipping portrayals from both the franchise and the fandom alike - makes all the difference.

As for Mario, while he sadly never shows any cues of reciprocation in the game proper, it's easy to see how someone like him could take a liking in that way to someone like her. Plus, him giving himself to a shadow, a species that would potentially have a negative stigma among most people, just feels beautifully coherent for someone whose lack of judgement is not only evident, but also an actual canonical trait assigned to his character. As the old quote from the 1993 Nintendo character manual goes, "He has seen too many things in his travels to be narrow-minded."

Also Vivian's stretchiness could make for some 👀 scenarios.

[leirom71000]

RTV Tour: The film department "The Scammer" POV

When heading to the film department . She personally thinks that the puzzlevision movies are quite mid(she just watched Mario's Mysteries for 3 minutes and stopped, she had seen too much).

’Wooww I’m so glad to see behind the scenes’ she thought sarcastically while she was thinking of that as she was carefully walking down the stairs, this time. Well at least she tried…Because she tripped and fell on the last step that wasn't even a misconception.

”Fu-you know what, I don't have any energy to say that”she said as she stood up and swept the dust that was on her clothes.

‘At least there are no more stairs to take.’She realised that there were even more stairs to take.

The Scammer was too stunned to speak.

‘Are you kidding me ?’ she complained in her thoughts.

After trying not to stumble in the stairs again ( the stairs weren’t even defective talk about skill issues/silly) she saw a certain TV headed man menacing another TV headed person? well talk about anger issues.

She didn’t really pay attention to their conversation until … “Bonjour”

Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait

….

She is one of us ?!?!

Weirdly enough she was rather amused about Animsay rambling, she was a bit disappointed that she had to go.

As she entered the SMG3 castle she thought the interior decoration was not that bad, her favorite part being the ceiling that looked like a star filled sky.I t reminded her of her gizmos.

When she saw the entire SMG3 cast and- wait where is that blue gumball and the red mustached man ? she wondered, proving that she didn't listen to the explanations during the tour. ’Did something bad happen to them…?Humm Something odd.’

‘Eh it's none of my business so who cares.Wait did that ginger girl mention cameras as in film cameras?Maybe I could place one of my gadgets under one? Hoho this section is going to be interesting in fact’

She really wanted to go watch anime with Boopkings(her favorite anime being Great Pretender of course) but she couldn't because she has a reputation to uphold and much more important things to do. She takes a few stars out of her pockets and places them behind the stairs and other discreet places. She took a quick glance at RTV. It's not the right time yet.

@rtv-puzzlevision-studios

[galactic-glamour-girl-posts]

In Defence of Baby Rosalina

Alternative Title: She's not a retcon ya goofs

The Crown:

Rosalina has always been a princess. I hate that I used to buy into the "she's actually not a princess" misconception, because...she is. She was born royal. She's worn a crown since she was a child. A REAL crown, I have no idea where the "it's just a pretend crown" or "she wears it for the aesthetic" idea came from. That is literally never established ever. Her mother also wears a crown, confirming that it's real - a little girl may like to dress up as a princess and play pretend, but a grown woman?

Absolutely not.

"but the crowns don't matc-"

The storybook uses a simplified art style. For example, this can be seem with Rosalina's eyes. Her 3D model doesn't have dot eyes, but she is drawn with dot eyes in the story.

This is likely the reason why the gems don't appear on her crown in the story.

And it's not just the crown, she also clearly lived in a castle. When she looks through the telescope, the place she zooms in on (a grassy hill dotted with flowers), a place the story claims "seemed very familiar to her" has a castle in the background. This same castle is present in all her memories that we see.

That castle is clearly her home, she is clearly royalty.

"but she isn't called one-"

One of Rosalina's main traits is that she's mysterious. The reason she isn't called a princess in the story is to not immediately give away that the girl is supposed to be Rosalina, hence keeping up the mystery. Sure, any adult could piece it together almost immediately, but you gotta remember - these games are for children.

Yes, Nintendo rarely if ever refers to Rosalina as a princess, but that's because she doesn't currently rule over a kingdom, so none of the other characters have a reason to refer to her as a princess, so there's no reason to refer to her as one most of the time (such as in character bios). This doesn't mean she's not a princess though, as ruling over a kingdom is not required to be a princess. If you are the daughter of monarch, which Rosalina is, you are a princess.

The Hair:

People claim that Baby Rosalina's hair not matching Young Rosalina's is also a retcon. This is...also ridiculous.

Young Rosalina had a sideswept hair bang, it was just shorter and didn't completely cover her other eye.

Why was the bang longer as a baby then?

Haircuts are a thing.

As for her hair being strawberry blonde rather than platinum in the story, the strawberry blonde appearance could just be a stylistic colouring choice. Like I said before, Rosalina doesn't literally have dot eyes, she's just depicted with ones in the storybook for the sake of the art style. It could be the same case with the colour of her hair. And if it's not? Well people's hair colour can change as they grow older. It's a bit odd that she goes from platinum blonde to strawberry blonde to platinum again, but it's not impossible. Besides...she's a woman with magic powers. That's far from the least realistic thing about her.

The Clothes:

The dress Rosalina wears as an adult is clearly designed with her mother in mind (to keep her memory alive, to follow in her footsteps, could be either, could be both), so her baby clothes looking the way they do is subtly explained - both outfits were based on her mother's clothes, just by different people for different reasons. That's why baby and adult Rosalina's outfits are similar despite what she wore as a child. Why don't Young Rosalina's clothes match then?

Same reason they didn't before Baby Rosalina debuted - the mystery.

Also, people don't wear the same clothes they did when they were babies. Not to mention that Rosalina hadn't fully accepted her mother's death yet, and being a child she hadn't completed her journey of self-discovery yet, so she had no reason to choose to dress like her mother yet. This doesn't require further explanation.

Her Powers:

I remember some people not liking that she had powers in Dr Mario World. For those who don't know, Baby Rosalina floats in that game:

They claim this is a retcon because she didn't have powers when she was younger, but that's not a retcon either - because she did:

Plus if we consider the heavy implication that Rosalina is one of Peach's ancestors as canon (the silhouette of the castle she used to live in matches that of Peach's Castle almost exactly - you can even see similar looking hills near it - and I mean...have you seen Rosalina's mother?), and remember that Peach literally has magic powers...

Image source

Then yeah, Rosalina being born with powers, with those powers being amplified as she grew up in space, makes perfect sense. And even if she's not one of Peach's ancestors, or at the very least if she wasn't born with powers, how would she have known she'd live for hundreds of years as a child unless she already knew she had powers?

"But it would be nice to return home once every one hundred years to nap in my favorite sleeping nook."

(a direct quote from Chapter 9 of her story)

You can't talk it up to childish innocence, she knew what death is at that point (or at least has a child's understanding of it), so unless all humans in the Mario universe live for far longer than we do then it's fair to assume she already had some sort of superhuman power as a child.

So yeah, basically literally nothing about Baby Rosalina is a retcon. At best, there are some inconsistencies, but no definite retcons.

You know what IS a retcon though?

I guess her red crown never existed.

Have fun explaining that one.

[kirbyepicyarn134]

ooo dimentio won the most evil poll by a long shot. i wonder why people think he’s the most evil even though he hasn’t killed millions like reclusa

i personally think it’s because what he does to luigi (a character many people have grown to love and defend due to constantly being mocked). and also maybe the misconception of people thinking he killed mario and co. but really he just sent them to hell (granted i can’t completely blame anyone for thinking that, it is a bit jarring that he can just do that lol)

sure reclusa and the shroobs have technically killed more people than dimentio, but we will never get to know those dead people personally

[ominus-potato]

Mario was 24 when he met Meggy, who was 14 at the time. When she’s 21, he’s 31.

So yea. It’s a proship. It’s perfectly fair and not hypocritical to call it that.

Idc what anyone says, real convenient that Meggy ages while Mario doesn’t. It’s bullshit.

Mario’s age is a little iffy since it changes constantly. We’ve seen his passport that says he’s like 70 years old, then we see his ID and it’s something else etc etc. so, for arguments sake, I think it’s best to either say he’s the same age as SMG4 or he’s permanently 25. Because in canon it changes constantly.

I’m not really looking to defend this dynamic because, as I’ve said, I DO NOT like the ship. I just don’t like misinformation to be spread.

Also, Meggy wasn’t 14, she was 15. It’s a little bit of a misconception but ye

Still a weird ship imo but technically not illegal so as long as the fans specifically use her adult design, I don’t really think it’s a proship. Just a ship with a REALLY weird age gap who see each other as siblings. No where near my cup of tea but that’s that.

Alr done talking about this ship bc I really don’t like it /srs

[akiiame-blog]

Welcome to another edition of:

Common Misconceptions of the Mario Series that are Incredibly Annoying

This time, this post has inspired me to talk about how unfair it really is that Mario, and only Mario, gets regularly accused of being "a cold-hearted psychopath because he stomps on Goombas and Koopas."

Let's ignore the fact that this has been incredibly dumb to unironically claim and instead focus on this:

Many other characters like Luigi, Peach, Toad, etc have done the exact same actions before.

Yet, I don't see a single person accuse Luigi the same way people constantly accuse Mario.

Strange, isn't it?

I would assume that the average person who knows Mario would have the knowledge that other characters other than Mario have done the same actions that have been deemed as harsh or even evil. There's been numerous games where this is the case.

So why is it that it's cool when Luigi or the other characters do it, but it's suddenly a problem when Mario does it?

It's a contradiction that is so blatantly obvious. And maybe that's part of the "joke," but the "joke" ran itself into the ground way back in 2014.

[lazygravez]

Misconceptions I had about Super Paper Mario when I was a kid

I played the game as a kid. A wee lad, if you will. I know there is some dialogue that debunks some of it, but I either forgot that stuff or my kid brain completely skipped over it. And when the art style is so geometric, it's not hard to misunderstand the art. Here we go:

I'll start with Dimentio because he's real popular with tumblr. I thought he was a woman

I also thought the ends of his poncho were his arms,

as drawn here.

I thought the text at the end of 4-4 meant that Squirps fucking died (Text squished together so I can fit the pic limit)

But nope! You can find him after completing the game at the end of the Woah Zone

I thought the collar of Bleck's cape was hair

I thought Grambi and Jaydes were divorced💀. Yknow, living seperately, their daughter having to travel between them. You can't blame me, my parents were going through a divorce

I thought Francis' ponytail was like... a bandana end? Or like the tie to a ninja mask? Idk man. I just didn't think it was hair

I thought Merlon's pendant thingy was his mouth. I still can't unsee it💀

I thought Thoreau's "fingers" were his hair and he had an afro. I honestly didn't get that he was hand-shaped

I might add more in the future if I remember more

[nowuknowgaming]

There is a common misconception that Super Mario Bros. 2 is based on a game called Doki Doki Panic. Don’t be fooled! It is actually based on another game called Super Mario Bros. 1, being a sequel and all.