Social View of the Mushroom Kingdom

Written by The_Engineer, a poster from The Meaning of Life

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This was written without a lot of preparation. By no means is it in a proper essay presentation or even any semblance of form, which may be presentable. This is due to the fact that it was produced simply to humour the members of a forum on the site http://truemeaningoflife.com. For the most part, it is unedited. I happened to fix a bit of the spelling and grammar seeing I was making this page the lazy way with Microsoft Word anyways.

I thought this up over the span of 15 minutes, with no idea where it would end before I started writing. Needless to say, I never imagined it would encompass 2 pages in 9-point font. Hey, if you want to waste your time reading it, go right ahead. Just, make sure you have all your snack foods and drinks ready before you start. Also, better go to the washroom first. Last thing I want to do is have to spell out "You should have thought of that before we left" half way through this post. To make it a tad easier on the eyes, the font should show as indigo. Complain to your browser's creators if it isn't.

Some may be a critic of this work. Others may go so far as to suggest giving me a honourary BA in social-economic culture...or virtual history. Either way, I hope it helps you to understand the plight of the people in the Mushroom Kingdom, much like how Edwin Abbott Abbott helped many appreciate the plight of the people in Flatland. I may not measure up to such a giant, but I can at least say I tried. So now, on with the show:

The Post

Although there is almost nothing canon about Super Mario and its lands/worlds/etc there are some truths:

1. Koopa is a King.

2. There are two basic types of races: Mushroom and Tortoise.

3. Peach Toadstool is a Princess.

4. Toad is a retainer to the Mushroom Kingdom.

5. Mario and Luigi, are two Italian plumbers...trapped in the Mushroom Kingdom after a plumbing accident in NY...possibly involving a big green pipe.

6. There exists a Mushroom Kingdom.

From this we can make some assumptions:

For one, since Toadstool is a princess and not a queen, she is not the rightful ruler of the Mushroom kingdom, or she has been prevented from performing some sort of right of crowning one's self queen.

Next, since Koopa is introduced as a king, we can assume either he has undergone the installation rights required to become king, or he has illegally usurped the title.

As seen through Super Mario World (SMW), the tortoise class of people is more aggressive and make up the 'armed force' of the Mushroom kingdom through Mario 1 where you are introduced to Koopa Troopa's and Koopa Paratroopa's. Koopa might have been a general of this force. Mushroom on the other hand seems nearly useless. Toad is a good retainer I'm certain, but he can't battle as seen by getting caught in Mario 1. Goombas are not so much aggressive as they are annoyingly in the way. Indeed in SMW they even get caught in bubbles, perhaps even against their will seeing they are upside down in the bubble.

So we can project this scene as the Mushroom Kingdom: Mushroom nobility with a King or Queen Toadstool (perhaps both) with Mushroom retainers. Mushrooms run the government offices and service industries while Tortoises work on homeland defense and labour since they are more suited to the job. The only explanation to how this could happen is that the tortoise class was too aggressive to organize and fought amongst themselves. The weakest masses or turtles would serve the Mushrooms if they where able to organize them into a fighting force to preserve them. We can assume that because of infighting, the mushrooms much outnumbered the turtles.

No doubt, mushrooms did so and created a turtle army and industrialized the kingdom. Koopa must have emerged as a type of 'war hero' from the unification wars of the Mushroom kingdom. Mushrooms would make great generals...planning offensives, but there must have been a field commander that was a turtle, and Koopa might have been him considering his abilities to spit fire and have a very thick shell with spikes. Now that peace has come to the land, the turtles (who must have had a high birth rate to survive infighting as a race) would be free to bread up and outnumber the mushroom people.

Now this is where things get complicated: How was Koopa installed as King? It is possible that with the backing of hordes of turtles in his own army that he overthrew the kingdom to make tortoises the rightful rulers and installed himself as king. Or, perhaps this was a cautious act of King and/or Queen Toadstool...seeing their land populated by turtles, they would install a turtle prince to ease tensions in the masses. It is likely this second option. Princess Toadstool would become Queen and Koopa would be the prince husband, much like Queen Elizabeth II and her prince charming in the real world. This also falls in place with the concept of arranged marriages, which is common with royalty.

Koopa, a turtle...and so, aggressive by nature...probably saw this as a chance to legitimately rule the Mushroom Kingdom. By holding Princess Toadstool hostage out of public, he could kill the King and/or Queen, install himself as King as the Princess is missing, then release her to marry her and make her the Queen.

Things probably turned for the worse when Peach didn't like Koopa. With her challenging his legitimate claim to the throne, he needed to hold her hostage indefinitely to keep his claim of the throne. Her death would alert the Mushrooms and Turtles of foul play on the part of Koopa's part and might turn his own armies against him to restore the peace that only a Mushroom knows to do in the Kingdom (the turtles are not completely unknowledgeable of this fact).

Then we start with Mario 1. The mushroom retainer, Toad, obviously knows the ins and outs of the fortresses of the Kingdom and most of the movements of the Royal family. Certainly, he would know that something was up when Princess Toadstool disappears and the King and/or Queen are removed. Since the public is still in morning, they are not likely to believe the 'hero' Koopa to deceive them so. So Toad goes off alone and tries to save the Princess and gets caught. Obviously, he is valuable to Koopa or he would be killed, so he is held like the princess in a Castle guarded by fortifications.

Koopa might have gotten away with this plan had it not been for Mario and Luigi. They in fact, save the princess and the public now knows of Koopa's treachery. For the remaining series, Koopa does not even attempt a coup in the Mushroom kingdom again. Instead, he tries several other kingdoms in Mario 3 with the help of his offspring, or the clan attempts a unified effort on one world in SMW. However, as long as he lives Princess Toadstool cannot be installed as Queen of the Mushroom Kingdom unless she marries Koopa. So, Mario, Luigi, Toad and Peach forever roam the infinite worlds in order to end Koopa and his tyranny he creates on unsuspecting worlds that Mushroom and Turtle control.

The End

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