Game Theory - Mario CAN'T Feel Pain?

Episode Date: April 10, 2026

For YEARS we may have been fooled by the plumber in red's reaction to pain. Does he actually feel it, or was it all a ruse? Today we find out the true answer!

Does Mario feel pain? Over the last 40 years, he's been smashed by thwamps, burned by lava, and drowned thousands upon thousands of times. But does he feel any of it? The answer loyal theorists, and I kid you not, might be the thing that finally redeems him in the eyes of game theory. Hello internet! It's Amia Game Theory! The show that's still working on their Italian accent. Mamma Mia! I was never very good at accents.

Now, I know what you might be thinking. Tom, why on earth would you be asking this question, Does Mario Feel Pain? Didn't that cover this in his theory about the Mario movie? And yes, he did cover that. I was actually the one who suggested that particular mini theory. But here's the thing. Or actually, here are two things.

The movies are not considered canon to the games. And two, the original movie came out in April of 2023. And a year later, senior designer at Nintendo Takashi Tazuka was asked this exact question. And his response was unsatisfying. Quote, It may be that Mario does feel pain. I don't know about you, but that answer just isn't really great. I know we're called game theory, but when it comes from the people who worked on the game,

you'd expect it to be at least somewhat definitive. Should we be feeling guilty for every painful death we put this guy through? Or is Mario still the good-for-nothing plumber we've always suspected, hiding a dark secret from all of us? Well, I have been racking my brain for two years trying to come up with an answer worthy of, well, me. And by Luma, I think, I think I've got it.

Grab as many word-ups as you can, friends, and let's a go. In order to do this, we're going to need to figure out how to measure Mario's pain. It's worth mentioning that we are questioning whether Mario feels pain, not if he's immortal. We see him die a lot. When he stays underwater for too long, he drowns. If he gets hit too many times by a goomba or any other hazard, his body simply cannot go on and he dies. What we want to know is if there is any pain involved in these instances. The easiest answer would be to listen to him like a doctor in a hospital,

But given he doesn't really talk outside of the odd phrase or yahoo, I'm not sure how helpful that's going to be. Okay, and does it hurt if I put pressure here? Wah-ha! Okay, and how about here? And here? Wow! Interesting. So, because we can't really talk to him, we need to instead go off his reactions.

At first, my mind went to the pain scale we see in scrubs, where you select from a handful of faces to determine someone's pain. Mr. Peel, you're about a seven on the pain chart. Yep, you're seven. But there's no way this thing was real. Surely it was just a gag. Lo and behold, it is real. Or at least similar systems do exist. Like the Wong Baker faces test.

However, what is for comedic effect? Is the very literal interpretation of this test. They aren't designed to literally mimic the face of someone in pain. They're awful when a patient is struggling to describe the pain level. They can look at the chart and point to what feels accurate. So, sorry, Scrubs, I'm enjoying your reboot, but I can't give you the accuracy point, I'm afraid. Fortunately, there are other ways to measure pain that do come from the direct observation of a person. Studies have found an extensive list of expressions and behaviours associated with someone feeling pain,

and that these behaviours and expressions can be involuntary. These studies have been turned into checklists that carers can use when they take care of patients who are unable to verbally express themselves or even fully understand their pain, such as those with things like Alzheimer's or dementia. It's called the Pain Assessment Checklist for Seniors with limited ability to communicate, or the pack slack. It breaks down into these categories. Involuntary noises, which are things like saying ow or screaming when in pain without any control. Facial expressions and changes in physical movements are things like stiff movements or limping due to the pain. And then there's the non-physical changes that happen when you're in pain that may be a little trickier to notice.

Like changes in habits or social behaviour. So with this list, we can observe Mario and the damage we put him through to assess for ourselves if Mario does feel all of those steps into the lava and bunks from a Cooper shell. We're also going to be focusing on the 3D Mario games. This is because in these games, Mario has a life gauge, which means we can take damage from something a few times and watch Mario's reactions. Also, these games feature a lot more unique damage and death scenarios, like drowning, full damage and taking hits from the environment. Sorry, my Italian friend, we're going to be putting you through a lot of tests today,

and they're going to hurt. Or, you know, maybe not. That's why we're here after all. Let's start with the easiest one. Involuntary noises. When we feel pain, it's quite normal to let up. an ouch or a shout and if it's really painful just scream and yell golly that's smarts no just me either way we let out a sound when we are hurt and as i alluded to earlier our

friend mario is no difference i have died a lot in mario games so i am all too familiar with these sounds but it's not just the initial pain that makes us make involuntary sounds when we stop for a moment we may moan or groan as the pain returns and when mario is on low life as in he's almost about to die, he lets out a lot of sounds when not moving. This would indicate that Mario is feeling pain. But that's just the first part of the checklist. Let's keep looking. When someone is in pain, their mood can be different than usual.

One of the most common changes that the pack slack notes is if the patient begins sleeping at random times of day, as this would indicate that they are waking up in the night or struggling to get back to sleep due to the pain, which would lead to them struggling to stay awake during the day. And with Mario, in practically every 3D game, if you leave him idle for long enough, he will fall asleep. Anytime, anywhere. So that's definitely one behavior change that we can check off the list. Others are more serious behavior changes, though, such as being aggressive towards other people. Now, we don't see Mario getting increasingly grumpy when he gets hit. He's normally quite positive overall. However, one of the social behavior changes to look out for is if the

patient is being physically aggressive to others. Now, we have talked about Mario, this kind of behavior a lot on the channel. Mario punches Yoshi to make him stick out his tongue. He grinds his brother's foot into the ground. And he's constantly stomping on any creature he comes into contact with. Sure, some of these are Bowser's evil minions, but creatures like The Wiggler are minding their own business until Mario shows up and squashes them for seemingly no reason.

Mario is absolutely aggressive towards others. Another personality change that can happen when you're suffering with pain is not letting people near you. Emotionally speaking. Again, we see how Mario rejects Luigi's brother. affection, often leaving him on the sidelines while he goes off on his own adventures. And while in most games Mario is meant to be saving Princess Peach, we also see him going off to save other women like Daisy and Pauline.

Nintendo even came out and confirmed that Mario and Peach are just friends. Because Mario is not looking to bond or get close to anyone. So, we've got another piece of evidence that Mario is feeling all of this pain. Turns out him being a sociopath may just be coming from the constant torture we put him through. I'm starting to feel bad for the guy, and that's before we even start looking into his facial expressions. This is where things get a little more complicated. Facial expressions is absolutely the most detailed part of this checklist. You see, when we feel pain, it triggers involuntary muscle contractions in our face.

Scientists aren't certain why this happens, but suspect it's a way to communicate distress to others, and tightening these muscles might help to alleviate the pain we are feeling elsewhere in our body. These kinds of facial movements are things like frowning. furrowing eyebrows, squinting eyes, and screwing up your nose. Overall, the face is just squishing tightly together. So does Mario exhibit these facial expressions when taking damage? His face when he dies in Super Mario Bros. Deluxe sure looks like it. Eyes squinting and eyebrows furrowed. Looks pretty convincing to me. But looking at all instances across the franchise, his facial reactions to pain are not what they should be and are downright inconsistent. Look what happens if Mario gets

electrocuted in Mario 64. He becomes briefly paralyzed and he makes a noise. But look at his face, a blank, vacant stare. No muscle contractions of any kind. Being electrocuted should be painful, but not only that, the electric current passing through your body should be stimulating nerves forcing muscle contractions in his face. But Mario does nothing. And this isn't an isolated incident either. When Mario is swimming and runs out of air, he slowly loses his life points. But this doesn't normally just happen with no warning. Running out of air underwater. is painful. When holding your breath underwater for more than 30 seconds, carbon dioxide builds up in your bloodstream from not exhaling. And this can lead to discomfort in your lungs.

Mario should be feeling this pain and showing that pain on his face. But as he slowly loses his life, he doesn't flinch. Or even look like he's in desperate need of air. One minute he's swimming, no problem. The next, whoops, he's dead. And what about freezing to death? That's got to hurt more than drowning, right? If Mario swims in icy water, he does take damage. I mean, fair water that cold is going to hurt, you can see the effect it has on Mario's body as he slowly is covered in ice until eventually freezing to death. But Mario doesn't show the slightest amount of this comfort being this cold, not even slowing down in the water. I get pretending the water isn't actually that cold when you go to the beach or something. It's all right once you're in. It's actually quite warm in here.

But literally freezing to death cold? I don't even think the toughest guy could hide that level of pain from his face. And the expressions he does give are completely bland or you might even say comical. But even those reactions are inconsistent. We've seen him jump into fire and scream out in pain, but when he dies from the same injury, he just looks shocked. Like, whoops, yes, that's it.

Not exactly the face you give dying a fiery death. Or in Mario's Sunshine, he just sits in the fire and goes, nah, I'm done. Not screaming out in pain. And the more I looked, the more I saw this, oh no, expression on Mario's face as he died, not squishing his face in pain, just a surprised look on the screen.

Even right down to the very first game. He just looks at it. you. Not even sad about dying. And this, my friends, was the very tip of the iceberg. Not only is Mario not reacting appropriately to these situations with his face, but his physical responses might be even worse. When Mario is crushed by a thwump or falls from a huge height, his expression is lifeless and unfazed. But even more shocking, he just walks it off. Mario should be at the very least, limping landing from a height that big. The reason we limp is that we want to put less pressure on the painful part to let it rest and prevent further damage.

The force of landing from heights like that can put strain on your muscles and ligaments, and of course, if you don't do it properly, it can break bones. So using them leads to more pain, and so we limp to minimize that pain. But Mario, oh man, Mario just walks away from the landing. No limping, not even so much as a flinch. Just like we mentioned before, when he runs out of oxygen. Even in the 2D side-scroller games, when Mario gets hit while holding a power up, he just shrinks and keeps on walking.

No flinching at all. He just keeps going. This guy is made of steel or something. You know, besides the times he's actually made of steel. But what about his violent tendencies or screaming out in pain when he's landing in fire? Or the times he did react correctly to getting hit. He checked those boxes like he was feeling pain. However, given the lack of flinching and painful facial expressions in most other situations, not to mention the inconsistencies of his pain responses, I am certain that Mario couldn't

actually be feeling any real pain. But how is that possible? For the longest time, I thought that maybe he was just faking it to gain our sympathies. Just look at the facial expressions. and noises Mario does give in the games as time's gone on. In the 2D games, they barely exist. But in the newer games, they have gotten bigger and more dramatic, almost to the point of being mellow dramatic.

It's not due to a lack of graphical fidelity, it's because Mario is learning this behavior. Takashi Tazuka in the interview did say, if the player feels that Mario is feeling pain, that's a better experience. This was going to be my personal follow-up to Mario is a sociopath. But as much as I'm sure that would have made Matt proud, the science just didn't back it up. While they may lack the ability to feel emotional pain or the ability to empathize with other people's pain, the studies showed that they do feel physical pain.

They might have a higher pain threshold, but I'm not sure they'd keep a blank expression when being squashed by a giant brick. However, I do feel pretty confident that we've established that Mario doesn't feel any pain at all. So there has to be more going on than I first thought. One thing that has bothered me since the beginning is that while it seems Mario can't feel pain, he can still die. If he runs out of air, gets hit too many times, or falls from a heart. height too great, that's the end of him. So it's not like Mario is immortal and just pretending to be human, it's literally just that he isn't able to feel pain. How is that possible? Is there a way for humans to not feel pain, but still die? I'm guessing Mario isn't constantly on painkillers,

and they'd have to be pretty strong to withstand what we put him through. I'm not even sure his hallucinogenic mushrooms and flowers could save him from a literal stampede of bulrushes. No, instead, what's more likely is that Mario is actually suffering from a rare genetic condition that means his body is physically unable to feel pain. Congenital insensitivity to pain or sip. If someone is suffering from sip, it means their genes have mutated in a way that affects the fibers in their body called the noisceptors.

These are the parts of the body that respond to various stimuli like intense pressure, extremes of temperature and inflammation. Without these fibers working correctly, the nervous system can't send messages to the brain about pain, resulting in the individual not feeling pain despite being inflicted, which is exactly what. we're seeing with Mario. But this condition is no joke. While it might sound beneficial to not feel pain, it's not something I'd wish on anyone. People with SIP often have a far shorter lifespan. You see,

pain works like a warning signal. Step on a pin, your nervous system tells your brain that it hurts and prevents you from stepping on the pin all the way and seriously injuring yourself. Pain prevents you from further harm or injury. This would explain why Mario just walks away from a huge fall. For us, our legs would be in a lot of pain. That's our brain saying, dude, stop walking, let your legs recover. But without a functioning nervous system, Mario lands and just keeps walking unaware of that pain. If he carries on like this,

he could end up with bone fractures, spine compression, and even internal injuries like organ damage that, if not treated, could become fatal. Another study tested whether people with SIPP would be able to empathize with videos of people who were being hurt. The videos had no sound and didn't show their faces, removing any indicators of the level of pain. When asked to rate the pain-inducing events,

SIP patients showed significant. significantly lower pain ratings as well as giving less emotional responses compared to subjects who were able to feel pain. Simply put, Mario is unable to comprehend how much pain someone might be in a given circumstance. But even with facial cues, he still doesn't get it. A separate study had SIP patients put in an MRI to analyze their brains when watching people in painful situations, this time with facial expressions showing. The patients had decreased activation of the visual regions of the brain compared to those without SIP. So a thump to the back of the head may not be as easy.

as we originally thought. Mario just doesn't get that it's painful. Because if the same were done to him, he wouldn't even flinch. This shines a whole new light on our previous view of Mario, where we observe the way he physically abuses other people, forcing Donkey Kong to burn himself and punching Yoshi in the back at the head, stomping on his brother's foot. He hasn't been doing it out of a lack of compassion, but out of a lack of understanding. But then, why does he occasionally make noises and exhibit behaviours that would make everyone think he's in pain? I'd have thought showing no reaction to pain, would make Bowser think you're unstoppable. Sounds more sociopathic to fake being in pain and not actually be in pain.

But this facade isn't about tricking people. It's Mario attempting to fit in socially. Interviews with people who have SIP have said that they've learned to pretend to have pain so that they don't stand out and seem unusual to others. It can also help them to avoid serious accidents. Mario just wants to fit in. In fact, he wants to be seen as their hero. Revealing this rare condition may leave him as an outcast to Peach,

to the Mushroom Kingdom, and even to us because we don't understand him. Or we might not think he's up to the task. Or we might misconstrue his lack of reactions to mean he's a sociopath. But hey, that's just a theory. Oh God, it burns! A game theory! Thanks for watching.