Super Mario Alignment

[Bartmanhomer]

I always wonder which alignment Mario belongs to. So just for fun here the alignment that each of the Super Mario character belongs to

Mario (Neutral Good)
Luigi (Neutral Good)
Princess Peach (Neutral Good)
Bowser (Lawful Evil)
Yoshi (Neutral Good)
Donkey Kong (Chaotic Neutral)
Wario (Neutral Evil)
Waluigi (Neutral Evil)
Rosalina (Lawful Good)
Bowser Jr. (Chaotic Evil)

Is there any character that I missed? Let me know. Anyway what do you think of Super Mario alignment.

[Zevox]

I don't really think that there's enough to any of these characters', well, characters to say an alignment in full. Good for the heroes and evil for the villains is obvious, but the Law v Chaos axis requires information that just doesn't exist because there's so little story or characterization to the Mario games. Hell, Waluigi has never even been in a game with a basic story, just the Party and sports spin-offs, so even calling him evil is technically an assumption based entirely on his character design being a Luigi-esque partner for Wario.

[DataNinja]

Hell, Waluigi has never even been in a game with a basic story, just the Party and sports spin-offs, so even calling him evil is technically an assumption based entirely on his character design being a Luigi-esque partner for Wario.
Technically untrue. He was in the DDR Mario Mix Game, where he stole the Music Keys in order to "hypnotize the rhythmless masses with [his] dancing". (The Music Keys that were keeping the kingdom from falling apart from various natural disasters.)

[Celestia]

Mario (Neutral Good) - Sure, especially taking the RPGs into account
Luigi (Neutral Good) - He's, perhaps, a bit more lawful leaning than his brother, but not enough to justify a lawful alignment
Princess Peach (Neutral Lawful Good) - She's literally a governmental figure; she's obviously lawful
Bowser (Lawful Evil) - Yeah, that works
Yoshi (Neutral Chaotic Good) - Yoshis live in an anarchist utopia
Donkey Kong (Chaotic Neutral Good) - Maybe in the old days he was more neutral, but ever since he got his own game title, DK has been firmly one of the good guys
Wario (Neutral Evil Chaotic Neutral) - Wario is a self-serving, greedy jerk, but that's not really evil
Waluigi (Neutral Evil Chaotic Neutral) - For lack of adequate evidence, I'll just give him the same alignment as Wario
Rosalina (Lawful Good) - Why not
Bowser Jr. (Chaotic Evil) - I can see that
Toad (Lawful Neutral) - Everyone forgets poor Toad

[GloatingSwine]

Donkey Kong (Chaotic Neutral Good) - Maybe in the old days he was more neutral, but ever since he got his own game title, DK has been firmly one of the good guys


The character now named Donkey Kong is in fact Donkey Kong Jr.

The one that kidnapped Pauline back in the day was Cranky Kong.

[Bartmanhomer]

I think Goomba is consider Neutral Evil and Koops Troops is Neutral Evil as well.

[Celestia]

I think Goomba is consider Neutral Evil and Koops Troops is Neutral Evil as well.
They're species, not individuals. You can't give one alignment to an entire species, and even if you could, it certainly wouldn't be evil. In the RPGs, there are entire cities of goombas and koopas who are just normal people, and in the Paper Mario games, you actually get party members from both.

[Bartmanhomer]

They're species, not individuals. You can't give one alignment to an entire species, and even if you could, it certainly wouldn't be evil. In the RPGs, there are entire cities of goombas and koopas who are just normal people, and in the Paper Mario games, you actually get party members from both.

I didn't know that. My bad. :tongue:

[Felyndiira]

Princess Peach (Neutral Lawful Good) - She's literally a governmental figure; she's obviously lawful
I'd argue that Peach is more Lawful Neutral. She hasn't done anything in the games (from what I remember) that warrants giving her a good alignment.


Wario (Neutral Evil Chaotic Neutral) - Wario is a self-serving, greedy jerk, but that's not really evil
WarioWare shows that Wario sees his friends as suckers to make money for himself, and gives not a single iota of care about them or their well-being. I think that kinda transcends just greedy and broaches evil territory.

[Celestia]

I'd argue that Peach is more Lawful Neutral. She hasn't done anything in the games (from what I remember) that warrants giving her a good alignment.
Bowser keeps kidnapping her because she is literally filled with good magic that can cancel out his evil magic. Plus, she's clearly heroic and kind in her RPG appearances.


WarioWare shows that Wario sees his friends as suckers to make money for himself, and gives not a single iota of care about them or their well-being. I think that kinda transcends just greedy and broaches evil territory.
Hmm, perhaps. I never actually played that one, so I'll defer to your superior experience.

[Driderman]

...You can't give one alignment to an entire species...

Isn't that pretty much exactly what any given D&D Monster Manual does? :smallamused:

[Celestia]

Isn't that pretty much exactly what any given D&D Monster Manual does? :smallamused:
Why should we trust D&D's take on alignment? :smalltongue:

[tyckspoon]

Isn't that pretty much exactly what any given D&D Monster Manual does? :smallamused:

Depends on the edition, but most of them at least have qualifiers like 'usually' or 'often' - a given member of a species is statistically likely to be of that alignment, but there's enough variance to make it nowhere near a sure thing. It's only absolute when it says 'Always', and that's usually reserved for things like Outsiders that are literally made of Evil, Good, Law, or Chaos.

[Zevox]

Technically untrue. He was in the DDR Mario Mix Game, where he stole the Music Keys in order to "hypnotize the rhythmless masses with [his] dancing". (The Music Keys that were keeping the kingdom from falling apart from various natural disasters.)
:smallconfused: They had a story element to a Mario version of... DDR? Huh. Well, that's weird. But okay then, fair enough.


Princess Peach (Neutral Lawful Good) - She's literally a governmental figure; she's obviously lawful
That is not even remotely how either Lawful alignments or governmental figures work. I mean, the most prominent "governmental figure" from the comic this site is built around is this guy (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0606.html), for crying out loud.


Depends on the edition, but most of them at least have qualifiers like 'usually' or 'often' - a given member of a species is statistically likely to be of that alignment, but there's enough variance to make it nowhere near a sure thing. It's only absolute when it says 'Always', and that's usually reserved for things like Outsiders that are literally made of Evil, Good, Law, or Chaos.
Right, and even ones marked "Always" can have exceptions, they're just on the order of one-in-a-million rarities.

[DataNinja]

:smallconfused: They had a story element to a Mario version of... DDR? Huh. Well, that's weird. But okay then, fair enough.
Yep. Heck, it's pretty much only remembered for being "that one game where Waluigi was the main bad guy." (Even though he wasn't, he only kickstarted the plot, and disappears after you defeat him in the first boss battle.) But, it's got some catchy songs, from the Mario universe and elsewhere.

...it was a very weird game, though. It takes itself just seriously enough that it's the good kind of ridiculous, though.

[Bartmanhomer]

Geno from Super Mario RPG is Lawful Good.

[Spore]

Didnt Waluigi help Wario cheat in the first N64 tennis game? Though technically that would be chaotic would it not?

[Geno9999]

That is not even remotely how either Lawful alignments or governmental figures work. I mean, the most prominent "governmental figure" from the comic this site is built around is this guy (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0606.html), for crying out loud.


Granted, but we haven't exactly seen Chaotic behavior from Peach either. Nothing from the RPGs is coming to my mind, except maybe a handful of instances where Peach knowingly twisting/breaking the rules (joining Mario's party after she was returned to the Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario RPG, snuck around behind Bowser/Sir Grodus' backs in Paper Mario/Thousand-Year Door to help Mario.) But in each of those instances, they were for the greater good rather than Peach's own benefit.

Maybe the Mario Parties would be a case for any Chaotic behavior, but if we're taking Mario Parties into account, everyone would be Chaotic Evil.

[Zevox]

Granted, but we haven't exactly seen Chaotic behavior from Peach either. Nothing from the RPGs is coming to my mind, except maybe a handful of instances where Peach knowingly twisting/breaking the rules (joining Mario's party after she was returned to the Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario RPG, snuck around behind Bowser/Sir Grodus' backs in Paper Mario/Thousand-Year Door to help Mario.) But in each of those instances, they were for the greater good rather than Peach's own benefit.

Maybe the Mario Parties would be a case for any Chaotic behavior, but if we're taking Mario Parties into account, everyone would be Chaotic Evil.
I wasn't claiming that she's Chaotic, only that that particular argument is completely nonsensical on multiple levels.

As I mentioned in my first reply, I personally don't think there's enough to these characters' characterization to say anything about them on the Law/Chaos axis of the alignment system. The heroes are obviously good and the villains obviously evil, but that's about as far as I'd say we can reasonably go.

[Celestia]

Granted, but we haven't exactly seen Chaotic behavior from Peach either. Nothing from the RPGs is coming to my mind, except maybe a handful of instances where Peach knowingly twisting/breaking the rules (joining Mario's party after she was returned to the Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario RPG, snuck around behind Bowser/Sir Grodus' backs in Paper Mario/Thousand-Year Door to help Mario.) But in each of those instances, they were for the greater good rather than Peach's own benefit.

Maybe the Mario Parties would be a case for any Chaotic behavior, but if we're taking Mario Parties into account, everyone would be Chaotic Evil.
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f278/katietiedrich/comic284.png

[BeerMug Paladin]

The Mario franchise takes place in Limbo. They're all pretty much natives to the plane, and so that makes all of them Chaotic Neutral. Consider Mario.

Bowser kidnapped the princess? Time to go rescue her.
It's time to race go-karts, everyone grab a vehicle, villains who were just defeated included.
I'm going to lock up a monkey now.
That's done now it's time for a party.
Okay, now let's all just thrash each other for a while.
Kidnapped the princess again.
Let's go save someone else using tiny robots of myself.
Oh no! Invading evil mushrooms! Let's all go on a fantasy adventure to stop them.

Periodically, the characters all generally change up what they're doing pretty drastically. Sure, they tend to adopt similar roles when they do a change of activity, but they don't really hold grudges or indicate any kind of memory for anything they've done in the past. Plus the landscapes and worlds rearrange itself majorly in order to better accommodate the new activity of the moment.

Then there was the time Mario was trying to create clones of Yoshi by manipulating stacks of things on the ground so falling objects would create eggs sufficient for Yoshi.

Unrelated, but Wario also once tried to crush one of the Toads with an evil squishy thing inside a giant hollow tree and Birdo helped Toad out.

[Bohandas]

The Mario franchise takes place in Limbo. They're all pretty much natives to the plane, and so that makes all of them Chaotic Neutral. Consider Mario.

Bowser kidnapped the princess? Time to go rescue her.
It's time to race go-karts, everyone grab a vehicle, villains who were just defeated included.
I'm going to lock up a monkey now.
That's done now it's time for a party.
Okay, now let's all just thrash each other for a while.
Kidnapped the princess again.
Let's go save someone else using tiny robots of myself.
Oh no! Invading evil mushrooms! Let's all go on a fantasy adventure to stop them.

Periodically, the characters all generally change up what they're doing pretty drastically. Sure, they tend to adopt similar roles when they do a change of activity, but they don't really hold grudges or indicate any kind of memory for anything they've done in the past. Plus the landscapes and worlds rearrange itself majorly in order to better accommodate the new activity of the moment.

Then there was the time Mario was trying to create clones of Yoshi by manipulating stacks of things on the ground so falling objects would create eggs sufficient for Yoshi.

Unrelated, but Wario also once tried to crush one of the Toads with an evil squishy thing inside a giant hollow tree and Birdo helped Toad out.

This would also go a long way toward explaining why Peach's castle in Super Mario 64 has a giant fun slide, a landlocked submarine hangar, and a room at least two rooms full of psychadelic rainbows. To say nothing of the hall after hall of magic paintings and the boss levels that made of random floating detritus in an indefinitely large void where the normal rules of gravity and architecture take a holiday

[danzibr]

The Mario franchise takes place in Limbo. They're all pretty much natives to the plane, and so that makes all of them Chaotic Neutral. Consider Mario.

Bowser kidnapped the princess? Time to go rescue her.
It's time to race go-karts, everyone grab a vehicle, villains who were just defeated included.
I'm going to lock up a monkey now.
That's done now it's time for a party.
Okay, now let's all just thrash each other for a while.
Kidnapped the princess again.
Let's go save someone else using tiny robots of myself.
Oh no! Invading evil mushrooms! Let's all go on a fantasy adventure to stop them.

Periodically, the characters all generally change up what they're doing pretty drastically. Sure, they tend to adopt similar roles when they do a change of activity, but they don't really hold grudges or indicate any kind of memory for anything they've done in the past. Plus the landscapes and worlds rearrange itself majorly in order to better accommodate the new activity of the moment.

Then there was the time Mario was trying to create clones of Yoshi by manipulating stacks of things on the ground so falling objects would create eggs sufficient for Yoshi.

Unrelated, but Wario also once tried to crush one of the Toads with an evil squishy thing inside a giant hollow tree and Birdo helped Toad out.


This would also go a long way toward explaining why Peach's castle in Super Mario 64 has a giant fun slide, a landlocked submarine hangar, and a room at least two rooms full of psychadelic rainbows. To say nothing of the hall after hall of magic paintings and the boss levels that made of random floating detritus in an indefinitely large void where the normal rules of gravity and architecture take a holiday
Man I love these explanations. New headcanon.

[Spore]

This would also go a long way toward explaining why Peach's castle in Super Mario 64 has a giant fun slide, a landlocked submarine hangar, and a room at least two rooms full of psychadelic rainbows. To say nothing of the hall after hall of magic paintings and the boss levels that made of random floating detritus in an indefinitely large void where the normal rules of gravity and architecture take a holiday

Seriously though, after having SMW and SMW show actual world building, Peach's castle is like an artist's fever dream. All world until the first Bowser stage exist within the logic of "magic picture is actually a portal to another plane" but starting with Bowser stage 1 and the Boo cage this logic breaks down. Suddenly a mercury well, a monster (said boo) and the fact that you drain the castle's moat grants you access to new worlds.

But it could also be a dream where every character is an extension of Mario's subconscious!

[OracleofWuffing]

But it could also be a dream where every character is an extension of Mario's subconscious!
Does that mean that Super Mario Bros. 2 is Inception? :smallwink:

[GloatingSwine]

Well the headcanon for Mario is that they're actually all actors anyway and they're all in-universe fiction like SMB3 canonically is.

That's why they're cool with all going karting, playing tennis and golf and such with Bowser. Because he only plays the villain when they're doing an episode.


(Also it's obvious that Bowser would never be able to actually kidnap Peach, have you seen where they are in Smash tier lists? She could wreck him without trying.)

[Zevox]

(Also it's obvious that Bowser would never be able to actually kidnap Peach, have you seen where they are in Smash tier lists? She could wreck him without trying.)
Eh, that depends on the game. In Smash 4's last tier list they were actually quite close to each other, with Peach rated #20 while Bowser was #24 (which made them both mid-tier-ish for that game's large roster size). Though granted in every other Smash game there's a much bigger gap between them, and it looks like that may well be the case in Ultimate as well.

[GloatingSwine]

Eh, that depends on the game. In Smash 4's last tier list they were actually quite close to each other, with Peach rated #20 while Bowser was #24 (which made them both mid-tier-ish for that game's large roster size). Though granted in every other Smash game there's a much bigger gap between them, and it looks like that may well be the case in Ultimate as well.

Smash 4 is an outlier. Peach is usually sitting near the top of the tree as the best of the Mario-verse characters and Bowser is usually somewhere much lower down. (And they are again in Ultimate, though Ultimate has turned out pretty damn well balanced so there isn't the wide gulf of difference there has been in some other iterations, and nobody has all bad matchups, even the "worst" character can win or is at least a good counterpick to otherwise higher tier characters.)

[The Glyphstone]

I suddenly find myself curious, though it's a bit off-topic - what parameters are used to judge the tier of a fighting game character? Is it something as simple as "Pro Win Rate %", or are there multiple qualities or variables that contribute to the ranking?

[Bartmanhomer]

I suddenly find myself curious, though it's a bit off-topic - what parameters are used to judge the tier of a fighting game character? Is it something as simple as "Pro Win Rate %", or are there multiple qualities or variables that contribute to the ranking?

Maybe both.

[Zevox]

I suddenly find myself curious, though it's a bit off-topic - what parameters are used to judge the tier of a fighting game character? Is it something as simple as "Pro Win Rate %", or are there multiple qualities or variables that contribute to the ranking?
It's complicated. The most authoritative ones tend to be done after the games have been out for years, and are done by a group of competitive players familiar with the tournament scene and how and why characters have proven effective in it. The newer a game is, the more likely that any "tier list" you see is to just be one person's opinion, in which case the quality of it can vary wildly depending on who that person is (top-level tournament players being the ones most likely to have an accurate understanding of where things stand), and it's likely to change over time as the metagame develops anyway. Heck, even older games can have tier lists shift a bit as metagame shifts occur - Melee's tier list was last updated in late 2015.

In some cases I've seen people attempt to construct tier lists by creating charts of every potential matchup in the game and breaking down which character is favored and by how much, and totaling up a score to show who has the most favorable matchups, arranging the tiers based on total scores that result from that. But that's not always going to reflect the reality of tournaments - a character with a ton of great matchups with characters who don't see much play but who doesn't do so well against the most popular top-tier choices might get a high score but not be very good in tournaments anyway.

[danzibr]

Mostly what Zevox said.

I’d like to chime in on the mechanics. Metaknight in Brawl is just so mechanically superior to every other character. Not only the frame and hit box data and whatever, but the priority. He can cancel out/cut through like everyone else’s moves.

So uhh, yeah. Number crunching plus meta stuff.

Oh, and tiers are based on tourney rules. No tier list for 8 player FFA with items :P

[Zevox]

Oh, and tiers are based on tourney rules. No tier list for 8 player FFA with items :P
That is always important to note, yes. Tier lists assume tournament rules and players of roughly equal, very high skill levels. How reflective they'll be of lower-level play will vary, but often enough they go out the window if both players have little understanding of how to play the game skillfully. There can even be cases of characters that might be difficult to play but extremely good when played by someone who understands them, but who might be total trash in the hands of a beginner even against another beginner - apparently that's the situation with Bayonetta in Smash Ultimate, since tournament players insist that she's still good, just not as crazy as before, but for most of us lower-level players she seems so badly nerfed that she no longer feels good at all.

[danzibr]

That is always important to note, yes. Tier lists assume tournament rules and players of roughly equal, very high skill levels. How reflective they'll be of lower-level play will vary, but often enough they go out the window if both players have little understanding of how to play the game skillfully. There can even be cases of characters that might be difficult to play but extremely good when played by someone who understands them, but who might be total trash in the hands of a beginner even against another beginner - apparently that's the situation with Bayonetta in Smash Ultimate, since tournament players insist that she's still good, just not as crazy as before, but for most of us lower-level players she seems so badly nerfed that she no longer feels good at all.
Totes.

I also love playing as heavies. I feel like they’re better in FFA. Or maybe it’s me being a noob.