Bowser and Peach

[flint_marko]

This is by AshleytheDragon.

Comments

[darkblade]

I've never been a fan of the "Peach lets Bowser kidnap her" theory. If they really had a relationship why not just be open about it and join the Mushroom and Koompa kingdoms? Their kingdoms are primarily populated by talking mushroom and turtles I'm not seeing much ground of prejudice here.

[drmcninja]

I just read something like this on Cracked.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19148_6-bizarrely-creepy-moments-from-mario-universe_p2.html

There you go, its number three. A pretty funny, if slightly profane, analysis of the same thing. And the whole Mario deal, and what Peach really thinks of him.

I'm pretty sure this is appropriate here, right?

[darkblade]

They neglected to mention that later in the same game Bowser explicitedly says that Peach is not Jr's Mother and then starts to explain who is before the scene changes and not telling us anything.

[freezer]

The point of that wasn't the truth of the statement, but Peach's reaction: Not "Like hell, I'm your mom!" or "I think I'd remember birthing a spiked lizard," but "...So you're Bowser's son?"

The implication being: "So you're the bastard lovespawn I ditched!"
Further implication: Either Bowser was lying about lying or there really is a half-Bowser/half-Peach hellspawn out there.

I'm wiling to chalk it up to a translation snafu, but it doesn't make it any less WTF-ish.

[turtlefu]

Or, it may just mean, that she knew Bowser had son, but didn't know who it was?

[kirke_novak]

Bowser has 8 kids, doesn't he? One of them must me Peachzilla.

[espanolbot]

There is a girl one that looks kind of like her...

[mcity]

I got "confused" from that scene when I played SMS. I mean, Solid Snake repeats things all the the time, and that doesn't mean he's saying they're true.

[nemryn]

Solid Snake repeats things?

[mcity]

Things?

[kirke_novak]

I read that several days ago. True love, will last.

[nemryn]

Politics, probably.

[nemryn]

Or, maybe it's possible that a human-Koopa romance is too kinky to acknowledge, without full-blown prejudice being involved.

[damianwayne]

I dunno. Given how common the whole "princess with two princes" is a romantic fantasy in Asian dramatic mediums, it's probably exactly what Nintendo intends sometimes.

In the kiddier games, Peach is generally lacking a real character and it's straight up fairy tale stuff. The princess is locked in a tower, a monster guards said tower, go on ahead and save her.

But they do a whole LOT of winking at the audience in the games with dialogue and such, and it really fits the archetype... (Indecisive, bland but beautiful girl has to choose between the handsome, well-meaning dork or the suave, badass ruffian.)

[pyrotwilight]

Strangely even when I was a small child and playing my Super Nintendo and my copy of Yoshi's Island I felt like Bowser kidnapped her because he was in love with Peach. I remember there being a level where all the skulls in a dangerous looking area seemed almost like a heart shape.

[lissa_quon]

See as a small child thats what I assumed too. There seemed to be no other logical reason for it.

He wastes all these resources to guard her and keep her from everyone. So he doesn't want her dead. He doesn't seem to really want to take over or invade the Mushroom Kingom. Why else would he if he didn't love her?

[nezchan]

Having recently seen Megamind, I suppose you could take it as evidence for a similar yin/yan between Bowser and Mario, Peach's role being bait.

Neither scenario gives her much agency, eh?

[nemryn]

Maybe not publicly, but if she loves him as well, then there's room for her to be the behind-the-scenes brains of the operation; setting up the 'kidnap' plans, deliberately sending Mario to the wrong castles, and so forth.

[sea_dreamer]

Heh, one of my earlier fics involved Mario being Peach's crazy stalker and the whole Bowser-kidnapping-Peach thing actually being Mario's delusions.

[omnipotent]

Your comment made me think of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TdczoetXk4

[mandolin]

That is awesome. *bookmarks*

[darkblade]

Novel but I prefer There Will Be Brawl.

[caeliluminar]

That's basically the story of Braid.

[cypherfdp]

Bowser in love with Peach is canon at the least, but the implication that the Princess is baking cakes for anyone but her Jumpman?

BLASPHEMOUS.

[jeyl]

Back in my college days, I was super excited when I heard that Princess Peach was going to get her own game on the DS called "Super Princess Peach". And boy, was it my favorite game on the DS. I'm not even kidding. Look at the game play and animation that's going on. I would play this game over the new super mario brothers any day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoeUm89gQEU

There's something about colorfully animated sprites that is a lot more appealing than a 3D side scrolling mario in the new Super Mario Bros. game. Once I finished the game, I had only two issues.

1. It wasn't her story. It was her umbrella's story. Every time a chapter was completed, Peach and her umbrella would be at a camp site and every single thing would revolve around his history. Peach literally does nothing during the cutscenes. You're even given the impression that she doesn't even listen to him when he does start talking. Cripes, you could argue that her umbrella has more of a back story than Mario himself!

2. BOWSER TRIES TO DEFEAT PEACH! I was appalled at this. There is just no way shape or form that Bowser would willingly attempt to harm Peach like he does in the final confrontation. What the heck is Bowser going to do after he kills Peach? This was WAY out of character for him, and for being the end game boss, it left what was a great solid game with a big letter grade down.

I mean, just look at him when he's around her! He even tries to make her happy by turning himself into a teddy bear for cripe's sake!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAvrPZRuKrU&feature=related

[icon_uk]

As noted in one of the comments on that DS ad link... What on earth does she ever need Mario for? She can kick ass and fry bad guys all by herself!

[jeyl]

Which made her absence from the Wii version of New Super Mario Brothers even more painfully stupid. We have Mario, Luigi, Toad.... and another blue toad we've never seen nor heard from before. That's the kind of team you would expect from Star Trek. But rather than treat Blue Toad is the red shirt, he's treated as an integral part of the game. Who the !)$@ is that guy?!

That game could have been the perfect mix of Super Mario Bros. 2, 3 and World if only they had only they had incorporated Peach as a playable character. Bought it in a heartbeat.

[nemryn]

The explanation I heard was, if the lineup were Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad, like in SMB2, people would expect them to have different abilities like they did in SMB2, and if they didn't, people would be disappointed. But if they did have different abilities, one of them would be the worst, and P4 would be spending qir time complaining about being stuck as Toad instead of having fun.
That, and they weren't able to render her dress they way they wanted to.

[jeyl]

"That, and they weren't able to render her dress they way they wanted to."

That I can understand. It's not like they had other folks create a 3D fully rendered model of Princess Peach in her full loyal attire doing moves that would make Link blush.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNZF9JyUkMc&feature=related

[nemryn]

I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying that if they were able to put Peach in Brawl, they should have been able to make her work in NSMB as well?

[jeyl]

In short, yes. In long,

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS.

[nemryn]

Because if they did it in one game, then surely they can do it in a different one, with a different art style, engine, and memory usage, amirite?

[jeyl]

I'm sorry, did I give the impression that the graphic artists and programmers over at Nintendo had to "work" in order to get Peach to work?

If you're trying to pass off Nintendo's reasoning for not including Peach as the fourth playable character because it was graphically impossible to get her to look right, well, that's not effort. That's quitting after you don't succeed the first time. It just reeks of "Princess Peach isn't important enough to include. Just make her the damsel" and that's unfortunate.

And I for one don't believe that they didn't include her on the grounds that it was impossible to create a semi decently detailed model of Peach in an animated setting where she's restricted on a 2D playing field. IT'S BEEN DONE! Not only was she restricted to 2D movement in Smash Brothers, her character model had much more detailed texture map, more polygon counts, physical reactions and character animation techniques than Mario and his gang in NSMB combined. I think the team who created her for Smash Bros. would have no issue at all in incorporating her into the game.

[darkblade]

While I agree the most likely reason that she wasn't playable in NSMB was due to lack of interest (As well as the weird nature of SMB2 in Japan but thats a different story). I feel like I should point out that it would be NSMB lower ploygon counts and simpler animation techniques would make it harder to properly portray her dress.

[mcity]

You're using logic.

On Jeyl.

[janegray]

But if they did have different abilities, one of them would be the worst, and P4 would be spending qir time complaining about being stuck as Toad instead of having fun.

...What kind of insane troll logic is that?

[nemryn]

...I'm not really seeing what's so insane about that.

[janegray]

1)The fact that a game developer, instead of finding a way to make all four playable characters equally good, just assumes that one of them must be worse to play as.

Fighting games can have up to 40 playable characters, each and every one of them designed to have fun and unique abilities and stats. Yet Nintendo throws the towel when faced with 1/10 of that task? They just decide that there is no way they could possibly make Toad fun to play as?

2)The fact that, after assuming that one playable character must necessarily be worse than the other three, they choose to ditch one of the three good playable characters so that there can be two bad playable characters.

"Misery loves company" really shouldn't be applied to activities that are supposed to be fun. If one out of three players getting the short end of the stick is bad, two players getting the short end of the stick is worse.

3)If Mario and Luigi are better playable characters than Toad, then the two players who are stuck as Toad will still complain instead of having fun. Two complainers instead of one.

[nemryn]

What? Toad is only the worst character in the hypothetical situation where Peach is playable; in the actual game, they all play identically. You're right that having two copies of the worst character would be a Bad Idea, and that's why they didn't do it that way.

[janegray]

I didn't know that all the characters played identically. But even knowing that now, it still sounds like insane troll logic to me.

Toad is only the worst character in the hypothetical situation where Peach is playable

Why do you assume that? Why do you just take it as a given that, if 4 characters play differently, one of them must be objectively worse to play as? Why can't all four characters with different abilities be equally fun to play as?

Of course each player has his or her preferences. For example, I like playing with fast characters, even if they are weaker, whereas I hate playing with slow characters even if they are stronger. But that doesn't mean that slow and strong characters are objectively worse, it's just my personal preference.

Nintendo is saying that, had Toad had different abilities, they would have been objectively worse than the other characters', to the point that the player using Toad would have been getting the short end of the stick. Why?

Why do you think it's better to purposefully dumb down the gameplay, by making all the characters play identically, instead of making the gameplay more fun and interesting by having playable characters with different but equally good abilities? Why do you think that the having different but equally good abilities just isn't possible?

Again, fighting games have dozens of playable characters with different abilities. It's not a hypothetical situation, it's what they do all the time, yet they manage just fine.

Bottom line: I think it's absurd that a professional whose job it is to produce a creative, ever-evolving and (arguably) artistic medium would think "X isn't as good as Z, so let's take out both X and Z" instead of thinking "how can we make X as good as Z?"

[janegray]

I mean, just look at him when he's around her! He even tries to make her happy by turning himself into a teddy bear for cripe's sake!

The video is cute, but the Peach-bashing comments are infuriating.

Yes, Peach is totally a bitch because she attempted to trick a huge strong guy who kidnapped her so she could escape. How dare she not cherish the guy who is going to kill her friends and force her to marry him!

[jeyl]

I'm just saying he's not a completely evil entity, he's just some lonely power hungry sack of depression who can't seem to get what he wants most in life.

I mean, if he's willing to try and earn Peach's favor, what doesn't Peach try to get him to understand that maybe this isn't the right path to take? You know, Paragon action instead of renegade! Socialize instead of provoke! Can't we all just get along!?

All Mario does is rinse and repeat the same thing over and over again. It never stops Bowser for good. I think Peach and Mario should try a different tactic rather than tossing him into bombs, dropping him in lava and making him collapse through his own floor.

"If you shoot him, you'll only make him mad."

[janegray]

Whether that's true or not, Peach-bashing is still infuriating. She had been kidnapped, she was going to be forced to get married against her will, and her kidnapper was going to kill her friends. Calling her a bitch because she attempted to escape is beyond ludicrous.

Fandom is always like this. The guys can do no wrong, ever, but a woman who is not a perfect saint is a bitch.

[mcity]

And if the guys do do wrong, it's often blamed on the writers instead of the characters. I've seen people complain about The Master (Saxon) from Dr. Who being turned into a "politically incorrect villain" because he beats his wife.

Conquering and decimating the population of Earth? That's bad! Spousal abuse? Now that's just going too far, Davies!

[mullon]

If there was any story that didn't need that much thought put into it, it's the Mario Brothers story.

[grazzt]

That's why it's so fun to put that much thought into it.

[glprime]

Motto. It's exercising the imagination.

[jeyl]

I disagree. The first Super Mario Galaxy had a pretty good story that had plenty creative thought put behind. There was more going on than just rescuing the Princess in that one.

[fifthie]

"Peach loves Bowser" contradicts the Nintendo Power mario comics, ALSO, the Super Mario Brothers Super Show

THEREFORE it can go get fucked

[nemryn]

Ah, but 'Peach secretly loves Bowser' doesn't contradict anything!

[fifthie]

Man that is the kind of statement a person makes when they totally have not ever read the nintendo power super mario brothers comics NOR have they ever watched the Super Mario Bros. Super Show.

[darkblade]

As someone who has done both one would be infinitely better off without having been exposed to either of them.

[fifthie]

Sorry you don't like being exposed to things that are totally great.

[nemryn]

I have read some of the NP Super Mario comics, actually. What I mean is, if it's a secret love, of course you're not going to find any evidence for it!

[fifthie]

At the point where Peach is like screaming at Bowser to let her go and trying to get away from him, when nobody else is even around, then like, breaking herself out of Bowser's trap and then having to put on a Luigi outfit to break herself back in to save Mario, the whole "secret love" suggestion is just way too no-means-yes for me.

[flint_marko]

According to her page on the Mario wikia, "Despite his feelings for her, Peach does not display them back. She does not, however, hold a grudge against him. Peach called Bowser sweet in Super Paper Mario, and even showed some form of concern for him. Overall, when Bowser is not kidnapping her, Peach is nice to him and likes him, as long as he does not cause trouble. "

[nemryn]

Okay, yeah, I had forgotten about that bit. I'll agree with you that there's no secret love going on in that continuity.

[jeyl]

Uhh.. you having a bad day? I'm not comfortable discussing the topic if your going to bring prejudice into the picture.

Here's my position on the whole Princess Peach kidnap scenario. It's more about being tired of the same old story told again and again. I liked "Super Princess Peach" because it did give our common damsel something to do besides be kidnapped, but so far that has been a one-shot game. We're still stuck with Princess Peach being the damsel storyline that the heads of Nintendo have little to no desire to try a different direction. Even Miyamoto stated that he deliberately downplayed the storyline to Super Mario Galaxy 2.

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/06/super-mario-galaxy-2/

And I thought the first Galaxy game was fantastic! It went in all the right directions that Other M flat out failed to take.

[mistervader]

Stockholm Syndrome squicks me.

Just sayin'.