Poor Mario:
underneath those constant “Woo-hoos!” and that fun loving smile, there is an
existential crisis that would make even Descartes weep. Consider the life of
Mario as we know it, from the arcades to the NES to the Wii. Every weekend,
Mario knows exactly what he will be doing: Princess Peach will get kidnapped,
Mario will have to traipse about various kingdoms and worlds, and no sooner
will he rescue the Princess and cart her home than another villain will take
note and kidnap her, starting the whole process once again. One the one hand,
one has to admire Mario and his sense of perseverance, not to mention how much
he is willing to go through for one he loves. On the other hand even the most
die-hard Nintendo fan has at least once wanted to look the mustachioed one in
the eye and ask him, “Buddy, she’s cute and all, but is it worth it? I mean,
isn’t it pointless?” Mario would likely completely overlook the question, shout
“Let’s-a go!” and hop away, but not thinking about it doesn’t make it go away.
The question remains: is Mario’s perpetual quest to save the Princess
pointless? Worse, is Mario’s life altogether meaningless? The answer is yes,
but in a sadder and more twisted way than you probably imagined.
When we say
that something “has a point,” generally we mean that an action results in
something, be it emotional, physical, affecting several people or just one.
What matters is that the action has a consequence that will affect someone or
something in a matter of space and time. Conversely, when an action does not
result in anything other than simply the execution of the action itself, then
the action is considered to be “pointless.” The best video game metaphor to
explain the idea of having a point is any number of RPGs. Every time you run
into a battle, be it random or scripted, something results from it, be it receiving
experience points, money, or even having someone in your party die (hey, having
a point doesn’t mean being positive). The thing is, no matter how random an
encounter might be, the characters and the player have gotten something out of
that encounter. What’s more, the consequences of the encounter are lasting: you’re
not likely to lose EXP as the game goes on, and any wounds or damages you might
have taken will stay until you have cured them in some fashion (which is in
itself another way to look at the analogy: the point of curing is to get rid of
damage. On the flip side, curing a person whose HP is at 100% will not make the
patient any better than he is, and thus is pointless).
With this in
mind, we can look at how this point/pointlessness might apply to Mario’s
situation with saving the Princess. Now, on an immediate level, of course there
is a point to what Mario does: Mario saves the Princess from her kidnappers so
that she is no longer kidnapped. It’s as obvious as eating so as to not be
hungry. The problem, however, arises when you consider whether or not the Princess
is truly saved at all. Yes, she is bailed out of her current predicament, but
no sooner is this the case then she finds herself in the same bind once more. From
“Super Mario Bros.” on the NES to “Super Mario Galaxy” on the Wii, Peach is
still in the same position as she was when Mario first set out to go save her. No
matter how many times Mario might save her, it would seem that she is no more
safe than she was before Mario saved her. With this in mind, the problems of
trying to find meaning behind Mario’s actions start to become apparent. Within
a microcosm of a single game, the point of saving the Princess has an obvious
end, but when you consider is in a macrocosm, it would appear that there was no
lasting consequence to Mario’s actions at all: he saved the Princess, only to
have to save her again, and again. It isn’t as if it becomes any easier with
time, either: Mario still has to plow through all the worlds and enemies again,
as if he hadn’t done it before at all. Compare this to the RPG example: when
the RPG character rises against and overcomes obstacles, it provides him with
either a weapon, power, or experience required that will aid him to overcome
the next obstacle. Not so with Mario: he continues to roll the proverbial
boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down to the base every time. Saving
Peach is pointless, because Peach can never really be saved: she is in a
perpetual state of being kidnapped. Each time Mario saves her is just part of
the cycle that sees her kidnapped again. There is no lasting consequence, no
meaningful end result to Mario’s saving the Princess. The action cannot lead to
anything other than the action itself, and thus is pointless.
This is a
sad mushroom to swallow, certainly, but the truth is, it only gets worse for
Mario. The cynical fan might point to the fact that if one half of the equation
can’t be solved (that of Peach being kidnapped), could you not then solve the
other half? That is, if Bowser can’t get over his crush on Peach and insists on
kidnapping her, nulling your efforts to save her, couldn’t you just remove him
(and other would-be kidnappers) from the equation? Sure, Bowser might be
lovable at times, but if his existence sticks Mario in a nihilistic universe,
maybe Mario really should just off the dinosaur once and for all so that he and
the Princess can get on with their lives. Well, not only would that harm the E
rating, but the fact is, killing Bowser would solve nothing, when you consider
that Mario /has/ killed him. He’s killed him multiple times: in “Super Mario
Bros.” you drop him into a pool of lava on more than one occasion. In “Super Mario
Bros. 3” he falls to his death. Heck, in “Super Mario Galaxy,” you hurl the
poor guy into the sun! Yet no matter how many times Mario might kill Bowser,
Bowser will not stay dead. Whether he has some piece of the Triforce or a whole
lot of Phoenix Downs, the fact is that Bowser, even if defeated, will not
/stay/ defeated. This is perhaps one of the biggest indications of
pointlessness in Mario’s life: the point of killing something is to make them
dead (to put it in Modus Ponens: if a person is killed, they are dead. Bowser
is killed, therefore he is dead). Yet, even if Mario kills Bowser, Bowser does
/not/ stay dead, and thus Mario’s version of killing is pointless, in spite of
generally most other people’s act of killing having a logical point. Tying it
back to the problem with the Princess, Mario cannot remove the instigator of
the problem, no matter how he tries, and thus the problem of Peach being kidnapped
remains. Mario cannot stop Bowser from kidnapping the Princess, therefore being
unable to truly save the Princess, and thus his attempts to try are pointless.
“Well,” says
the gamer, “it sucks to be Peach, then, because I’ve had enough! If there’s no
way to save her, and if it’s useless to try, I’m not going to try at all!” A
logical enough idea, even if it means that Mario’s not getting any cake for a
long time. But while the gamer is free to switch off his system and go read a
book or do something other than trying to save Peach, Mario does not have that
option. Say that I’m playing “Super Mario 64” and it occurs to me that I’m
through with Peach, and that Mario’s going to go home and drink a refreshing
soda and watch some TV. The problem is, that pipe you pop out of at the beginning
of the game does not reappear to let Mario leave. Walking over those hills
around the castle either results in you sliding back down or hitting an
invisible wall. The fact soon sets in that Mario cannot leave the castle, or do
anything else, unless he saves the Princess. You can waste time in Bob-omb
Battlefield for as long as you like, but that does not change anything: Mario
is condemned to stay in this castle, because Princess Peach needs to be saved,
and he may not leave until he does so. In other words, Mario does not even
possess enough free will to choose anything other than the meaningless
existence that has been laid before him: he can’t save the Princess, but he can’t
do anything else. This is even more apparent in the original “Super Mario Bros.”
when you are denied the power to even go backwards on the screen, and that you
are constantly being timed: Mario is not permitted to do anything than pursue
the quest to save the Princess, and if he takes too long, he is punished. There
is no choice for Mario to do anything than embrace his meaningless existence:
so long as the hoop is there to be jumped through, Mario must jump through it.
His nihilism is absolute, for there is no way for him to escape it. It’s a
meaningless road, and worse, it’s a meaningless road that Mario /must/ walk.
We then get
to the darkest part of the whole thing: can Mario, well, just end it? Take the
proverbial honorable way out? Not fear the Reaper? First off: that’s harsh, yo.
Second: no, no he can’t. How many times have you been cruising down Dinosaur
Island, hopping on platforms, when you mistimed a jump and plummeted into an
abyss? Or been gobbled up by a giant Cheep Cheep? Or lit on fire, or drowned,
or had anything else unfortunate happen to Mario? The man dies all the time. He’s
died more times than the Undertaker. And for most people, being dead means that
it’s the end: you’re not getting back up. Not so for Mario: he can die in any
number of ways, but after the screen goes black, he will find himself back on
the same world he perished from, as if nothing happened. The very act of death,
which is supposed to have a point like nothing else possibly can, has been
rendered pointless for our hero. There is no end to be had for him. So what if
you run out of 1-ups? Your screen might say Game Over, but sure enough, that title
screen is going to roll open again, and Mario will still be there. Worse, he
will have to do things over again, going through certain levels once more,
meaning that the other times he went through them were pointless as well.
Every possible
ounce of meaning has been drained from Mario’s life. He cannot save the
Princess to the point where she is truly saved, but nor can he /not/ save the
Princess. He is doomed to live in a perpetual cycle from which he cannot
escape, with even death providing no solace. He exists in a nihilistic world
that constantly mocks his happy smile and excited body language. Mario might be
blissfully unaware of what his doom is, but that does not make his efforts to
save Princess Peach, or indeed his very existence, any less meaningless.
You all know
what that means, right? Luigi really /is/ the better brother to be.
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