If Mario Died

Just food for thought, this one. Nintendo will never kill their mascot. He is to them as Mickey Mouse is to Disney.

This thought came to me as I was reading up on Troy McClure. Started watching The Simpsons again recently for the first time in many years. Troy was always one of my favourite characters, and I found his absence in the 'new' episodes (I haven't watched in a long time) conspicuous.

Long story short, it turns out that Troy's voice actor Phil Hartman was murdered in 1998 by his wife. Instead of recasting the role, the producers retired the character out of respect for Hartman.

Anyway, I know the situation is vastly different with Mario. He's not some ancillary character, and he's aimed at children. Still, I started thinking of other characters I love, and the thought came to me - what if Mario passed away? How would Nintendo go about it?

Even though Mario is primarily for children, it needn't be something that a child couldn't witness. After all, learning about death is valuable. Death is just a part of life that we all must go through. Before we go through it, we usually must witness beloved family members and friends go through it. If you have never suffered a bereavement yet, you can bet that you will do.

So, I think there is some value in the idea of depicting these infallible characters like Mario or Mickey actually being vulnerable, and it could be a way of teaching children about death.

Perhaps Mario enters a phase of his life, as we all must do, where he becomes more susceptible to things like cancer. It might even be a nice side project for a group like Cancer Awareness, in which case I'm sure Nintendo would consider it rather than just saying "No".

Again, none of this will ever happen. It's just food for thought. It might be nice if some of these invincible icons were depicted as being vulnerable, from time to time. Especially where children's characters are concerned.

Can you imagine Mario in a hospital with a drip in his arm and his family and friends gathered around to say their last goodbyes? Perhaps even Bowser would make his peace with his nemesis. Death puts a different perspective on everything.

Please no drunk threads.

Canyarion said:
Please no drunk threads.

Is this a joke or you an even bigger dick than me? Damn, dude.
I think it's an interesting thought, busy right now, but I'll try to post my ideas on it soon.

I don't think Nintendo would be down to kill off the character that made them a huge success. If there is to be any change, it might be the appearance of Mario (which, actually has already happened due to graphical limitations). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_mouse Mickey's gone through several iterations, while still looking and acting very similar throughout.

I would be confused. Mario dies all the time. Couldn't he just grab another green mushroom and be good to go?

Using Mario to tackle a somber subject like death would be strange, and perhaps even disrespectful. He's not a serious character. Even Mickey Mouse would be more apt to deal with a subject like that.

I wasn't drunk! I just thought maybe a depiction of one of these types of iconic characters suffering an illness, and showing how it not only affects them, but those around them. I thought it was a valuable idea, but as I said it's a suggestion for something they should do. It's just a thought. If they did do it, it wouldn't be canon.

I can't envisage any situation where Nintendo decide their mascot has to die, which makes the topic quite difficult to discuss. Do you mean depicting him as realistically fallible within a video-game or just using his character in some sort of awareness campaign? Either way I find it hard to imagine how that would work.

Perhaps this is Sonic's true next-generation calling though, no?


( Edited 22.07.2012 00:43 by The Strat Man )

Haha well... Mario dies all the time, I wasn't sure how serious you were.
Besides, it's a fictional character! How could it ever die? Even when the voice actor dies, they can easily replace him. Heck, I think I'd do a pretty good Mario voice.

As for the hypothetical part... I think Nintendo could definitely use more death-related themes in their games, but just not Mario. Let Rosalina die, or Grandpa Toad or something. Actually I think the Mario universe is terrible for that kind of stuff... More deaths in Zelda please!

You started your topic with the answer to your question: Mario is to Nintendo what Mickey is to Disney. They'll never kill him.

Perhaps this is Sonic's true next-generation calling though, no?

Ha, I think we've already been watching Sonic die from a terminal ill-ness for a while now. Not sure it's helped anybody.

One idea where I could see it working is as some parallel story to a Mario game. You play the game as a standard Mario platformer with occasional scenes inbetween where we see a man lying in the hospital with his friends around him. They talk a bit about his life, the struggles and hardships he's gone through, his troubled love life, and the great character that he is/was in never giving up in the face of adversity. After the game finishes and Bowser is once again defeated, the game switches back to the hospital. The man opens his eyes as a message is delivered; the guy that has been bothering him throughout his life, has died in a work related accident. He looks at his friends, his face and body completely relaxing, before sighing and closing his eyes. His girlfriend strokes his hair and kisses him farewell.

The whole platforming world could have been a nice trip on shrooms his friends gave him to relieve the pain of illness, but not neccessary to include that as explanation in the game itself.

Yeah, as others have said, the problem is that Mario lives in an alternative Universe where death basically just means starting the level again.

It's like saying "What if South Park killed off Kenny!?"
Oh wait, that actually did happen...

Cheesing it up said:
It's like saying "What if South Park killed off Kenny!?"
Oh wait, that actually did happen...

Killing Kenny became a running gag, up until the end of Season 5, in which they actually killed him off permanently... or so they made us think. I still remember the death of Kenny being a well-written episode, which actually did make me cry.. and laugh.

Season 6 was without Kenny, and it was the first time Kenny's death actually became into realisation by the other guys. So they started to find a replacement for him. The replacement ended up being Butters, up until the end of the Season 6 finale when Kenny appears and the guys are like "Hey Kenny"

A couple of seasons ago, Kenny's death and rebirth was explained, including why the guys never seemed to talk about it in the next episode.

I'm a huge fan of South Park, and Kenny happens to be one of my favourite characters. So it's nice to have a little backstory on him, even if the show is full of vulgar humour.

In fact, I believe killing off Kenny was a pretty good thing. Of course they brought him back, but that's besides the point. The creators only did it because they got fed up with making him die every episode.

On topic: The only way Mario could possible die, is if Charles Martinet died. But, even then I'm sure Nintendo could find a replacement for him.

( Edited 22.07.2012 11:22 by Mush123 )

Mario and co just cannot die - those sorts of themes don't fit in that universe, and rightly so!

Likewise with Donkey Kong etc.

But Zelda is a franchise I could imagine dealing more so with these themes, especially as there are multiple generations of Link. You could have one where NPCs have a stronger connection throughout the game; where Link carries some form of disease, curse etc and your aim is to try and save yourself and Hyrule from some sort of danger. But at the end it would show that despite what you do, Link would still meet his unfortunate demise but the land is saved.

Someone else then steps up as a New Link and carries on the adventure (post-ending exploration?)

Bit of a tricky one, and of course a very difficult issue to deal with - don't think it's a Mario one to do, but Zelda would be the definite candidate as there are multiple Links.

jb said:

But Zelda is a franchise I could imagine dealing more so with these themes, especially as there are multiple generations of Link. You could have one where NPCs have a stronger connection throughout the game; where Link carries some form of disease, curse etc and your aim is to try and save yourself and Hyrule from some sort of danger. But at the end it would show that despite what you do, Link would still meet his unfortunate demise but the land is saved.

That sounds rather good, it could lean towards the darker style of Zelda games like Majora's Mask.

^Yep, Majora's Mask came to mind. Easily one of the most darkest games ever made, all about death and loneliness.

If his VOICE ACTOR died I'm sure there are plenty of people ready to take his place via impersonation.....that & the years of back log audio files Nintendo has stored.

I mean how much VA do they need from a real human when the hero grunts, shouts for joy & yells painfully with occasional Italian phrase stereotypes. I'm sure they've got a computer ready to mimic Mario's voice down to the last octive if need be.

As for a game relating with death....make a Mario game where he's perminantly in Boo form & is trying to get his body back. Even make Luigi the villian, not on purpose of course but say we take a Luigi's Mansion approach & Luigi doesn't recognize Mario is a Boo. Luigi is out to avenge his dearly departed brother & it so happens to take place in a haunted castle. You play as Mario while avoiding Luigi with occasional boss fights with him ending comicaly each time to lighten the mood.

Mario reunites with his body, the brothers embrace, happy ending...yeah I think that's the besg way to go about it, an out of body experience while showing his friends & even enemies grieve for him until he comes back.