Game Theory - Bowser's BROKEN HOME in Super Mario

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

Join Game Theory Host MatPat as he uncovers the sad truth about Bowser's past.

Hello internet, welcome to Game Theory, taking apart Nintendo's roster one character at a time. Today on the chopping block, Bowser. The Big Bad of the Mario franchise and one of my all-time favorite villains. Every time we hear about Bowser, all we're told is that he's supposedly cruel and ruthless, an evil tyrant bent on conquering the Mushroom Kingdom. But is the situation really all that black and white? I mean, he does always seem to find time to invade kingdoms, start wars, and destroy galaxies. But what about his sensitive side?

In Super Mario RPG and Super Mario Sunshine, he's not ashamed to cry. And as we see in Super Paper Mario, he's a lover as much as he is a fighter, excited by the prospect of straight up marrying Princess Peach. No, I would say he's not nearly as heartless as the Mario Wikio would lead you to believe. Seriously, quote, Bowser is a villain of pure evil. Wow, pure evil? I don't think anyone whose primary attack vehicle is called a clown car.

can be labeled as pure evil. No, I think that under his spiky, shelled exterior rests a tortured soul with a kind heart. He's like a transformer. There's more to him than meets the eye. Don't believe me? There are facts hidden in plain sight throughout the Mario series that turn Bowser into a very different character, explaining everything about his behavior, why he seems so angry all the time, and why he invades the Mushroom Kingdom and kidnap speech every other week. Slip on your overalls and prepare to feel bad for every time you've done.

the Cupa King into that pit of lava. Get ready, cause... Here we go! Let's start with the Coupa Lings. Larry, Morton, Windy, Roy Lemmy, and Ludwig von Cupa. Seven characters that create one of the franchise's longest-held mysteries. For years, we all believe that they're his kids.

I mean, makes sense, right? We have King Cupa, and these guys are Coupa Lings. They look similar. Bowser clearly trusts them enough to make them lieutenants in his military, and even grants them entire worlds to rule over in more than one invasion. But the big problem there is that, well, the Kupilings aren't Bowser's kids. At least according to Mario Creator and Nintendo Creative Fellow, Shigeru Miyamoto,

who's gone on record multiple times stating that Bowser and the Kupilings aren't actually related. In an interview with Game Informer, Miyamoto said, quote, Our current story is that the seven Kupilings are not Bowser's children. Bowser's only child is Bowser Jr., and we don't know who the mother is, end quote. Well, that was before Miyamoto revealed that he is in fact Bowser Jr's mother, which, well, that was just weird. Kind of makes me question his credibility as a source. Anyway, all that, probably best saved for a theory on another day. But that's as much of a first-hand source as we're ever gonna get, so let's try to make it work.

What's the deal? Who are the Kupilings? It got me thinking. Look at the manual for Super Mario Bros. 3, the game where the Kupilings first appeared. The page where they're introduced literally has, These Are Bowser's Kids, as its headline. Then, in the story section, the Kupillings are called his seven children. And later, Bowser's seven kids. On page three, Bowser himself says,

Ha, ha, ha, these are my seven... That is not how Bowser would sound. Ha, ha, ha, these are my seven children that are going to help me take over the mushroom world. Then later on, Larry Morton and Lemmy all refer to Bowser as their father. Gee, I wonder why we could have thought that they were his kids for so long. The manual seems pretty insistent on it. You are the fun. And I know what you're thinking, translation error.

Well, that's simply not the case. The kanji used in the Japanese manual all equate to things like children and father. Even when the game was re-released as Super Mario Advance 4, the Kubolings were again referred to as Bowser's children. And that's not just a one-off thing for versions of Mario 3. The manual for Super Mario World also described them as Bowser's kids. Though here, it's not mentioned in the Japanese. So how can Miyamoto say they're not related, but then the manual in its original language say that they are?

Both of these things can't be right, right? Actually, they kind of can. Consider this. There's more than one way to be a father. What if they're not Bowser's biological children? They're his adopted children. You heard that right. Bowser adopted the couplings.

I mean, think about it. Now we have a way where he's still a parent without them actually being related. Giving someone life isn't the only way. of being someone's mother or father. There are other very admirable and very important ways of being a parent, taking someone in who's in need, supporting that person, believing in them, allowing them to ransack and rule over a desert kingdom. Those are the most important parts of parenthood.

Now I'm gonna show off my psychic skills and read your thoughts again. You're thinking this is pretty weird, right? Adoption in a video game? In a Mario game, no less. Seems like a stretch for a game with pretty minimal plot. And again, this is the franchise that introduced the first ever transgender character into gaming with Berto. So maybe not as extreme as it initially seems, but hold on to your butts. Are you holding on to them?

Cheeks, firmly in hand, good! Because this actually plays into a huge part of Bowser's backstory that we've never stopped to consider. Now think about it for a second. Who are Bowser's parents? The answer to this has staggering ripple effects throughout the Mario Universe. See, it's never really touched on in most of the Mario games or in other expanses. expanded universe materials, but if you look close enough, it's pretty heavily implied. Bowser is an orphan. Seems crazy, right? But is it really all that surprising?

In the Yoshi's Island games, we see that baby Bowser has no parents. Instead, he's in the care of Kamik the Magicupa, who comes to his rescue when he's fighting baby Mario? Not Father Kupa, Kamik. Whenever we see baby Bowser, he's always in a room, alone. And never once does he mention, my father's gonna get you, or I'm gonna go tell my mother when he loses. Like a typical child would. Even when the fighting gets really serious, it's adult Bowser himself who travels through space and time to fight Mario and Yoshi, not some elder Kupa.

And quite frankly, if this is indeed true, it would explain a lot of the behavioral issues that Bowser exhibits throughout the franchise. Let's look at the research. After digging through papers covering the psychological impacts of being raised as an orphan, losing one or both parents in childhood, and being raised in foster care,

the data reliably pointed to significant behavioral change, that align with Bowser's behavior throughout the games. For example, in the study personality differences between orphans and non-orphins, researchers compared two groups of approximately 100 children, 100 orphans and 100 non-orphins. They determined that there was a high correlation between being raised in an orphanage and feelings of alienation and hostility towards society. Quote, it's evident from the result that orphanage-reared children show high feelings of alienation and are more hostile towards society when compared to children reared in home atmosphere.

And another quote, the more number of years spent in the orphanage, the more hostility feeling in the orphan. All of a sudden we have a reason for Bowser's tyrannical behavior. He's mad at the world as a result of his upbringing. He feels alienated from society and wants to take over to claim his rightful place. But it doesn't stop there. Studies examining the relationship between being raised without parents and future criminal activity found that in prison populations, likelihood that a criminal was raised without one or both parents, was significantly higher than the average population.

And according to a 2012 report from the US administration of health and human services 60% of males aged out of the foster care system had been convicted of a crime. I'm assuming the crimes didn't consist of imprisoning the land's fairies and glass bottles, but you get the connection. Bowser's anger in both childhood and adulthood, his desire for revenge, his alienation from society, and his criminal behavior can all be statistically linked to his parentless upbringing. And let me make it clear, this is research covering some cases, and these are statistical trends, not certainties.

Not all orphans end up as cartoonish villains. That'd be silly. Some also end up as superheroes. It also might explain why he took the kupilings under his wing. He didn't want them to grow up like he did. Speaking of which, it also sheds a great deal of light on Bowser's relationship with Peach. Having a woman like Peach in Bowser's life would give the adopted kupilings, and Bowser's one true biological son, Bowser Jr., a full family, a father,

children, and a mother. This nuclear family unit is something Bowser never had growing up, and something he might want to provide for his kids. And the games support this. Think about it. Whenever Bowser invades the Mushroom Kingdom and kidnaps Peach, what does he do? He takes Peach home to his castle and leaves his minions to manage the new real estate he acquired through his hostile takeover. Early on, he doesn't even try to kill anyone in his invasions. He spares their lives by turning the toads into bricks. You see, the people in land the Mushroom Kingdom provides are a plus, but the real prize here is Peach, because she's a person who can fill the void of mother in his familial unit. Why else would he kidnap the princess over and over again rather than, you know, the obvious answer of killing her?

And the game support this conclusion. The only times we see Bowser open up emotionally involve Peach and his family. Look at Super Mario Sunshine, a game whose entire plot revolves around Bowser Jr. constantly kidnapping Peach because he thinks that she's his mama. Someone, please teach this kid some basic biology. These things don't go together! And even still, they wouldn't produce this. But what would give him that idea in the first place? Well, Bowser himself. At the end of the game, Bowser confesses to his son that Peach isn't his mom.

But why lie about something like that? If you look closely, his eyes well up a bit in that final scene. The lie, the tears? This seems to indicate that Bowser feels guilty about being a single dad to his son, remorseful about his plan to kidnap Princess Peach not being able to provide him with a full family. But as one last point of evidence here, let's turn to the pages of the now defunct Nintendo Power. Counselor's Corner, you won't soon be forgotten. Now, for those of you who don't remember the simple joys of completing a year's worth of spine art,

or sending in illustrated envelopes, Nintendo Power was a news and strategy magazine that was published in-house by Nintendo of America. In the days before the internet, Nintendo directs, and Awada Bananas, it was the go-to-stores for everything Nintendo, and included in that everything were comics. For 12 issues in 1992, they ran a comic called Super Mario Adventures, which told the typical story of, you guessed it, Bowser kidnapping Peach with the help of the Kupilings. But, what makes this comic special is that in it, Bowser finally explains his motivations. Why? He doesn't. Volume 35, April 1992, were treated to the following frames. Bowser says,

I've done a mighty fine job of raising you kids. I don't know why I made Bowser sound like a 70-year-old smoker, but let's go with it. But I've been thinking you need a mother, so I've proposed to Princess Toadstool. And then later that same month, the Kupilings say to an escaping Princess Peach... ...give it up, Mother Dearest! I don't know why I decided to make them sound like a rip-off Mickey Mouse. Like I've said in the past, impressions, not my thing. Now, I recognize it isn't canon, but this is Nintendo publishing these magazines themselves.

And not only that, it was a story written by one of Nintendo's own copywriters. Is it really so hard to imagine a scenario in which conversations were held internally at Nintendo around the games, the characters, and their plots? And that those details somehow made their way, maybe not into the actual game, but into some of the supporting content promoting those games? Honestly, I think it makes sense. In short, this ties together everything so neatly. Bowser is an orphan, a temperamental child raised by a wizard doing his best. Angry and driven to regain control over his life he becomes a powerful ruler of the kingdom. Not wanting others of his race to suffer through the pain he did, he adopts the Kuoplings,

mentors them and gives them purpose as leaders in his military. Eventually Bowser wants to give the Kuplings and Junior a complete family, and kidnaps Peach to be his wife and their mother, even going so far as to lie to his children. Bowser may be a tyrannical monarch who does some terrible things, but at his core, he's just a deeply flawed character. A lonely kid looking to piece together the family he never had. So, with that in mind guys, just remember, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching!