Give Mario a break!
By: Toasty

Mario. Will he continue to be able to bask in all the glory all by himself, or are his supporting characters taking over?

 
    Allright, kiddies, controversity time. I'll come straight to the point: recently, there seems to be a trend for bashing Mario himself in favor of the supporting Mario characters. Furious cries can be heard all over the globe in the style of: "Mario is rubbish! He keeps hogging the attention! We want a game that centers entirely around Bullet Bill!". Well, allright, that last bit is an elaborate fabrication, but it's still pretty close to the real situation.
 
    Please don't misunderstand me. I'm certainly not trying to deny the brilliance of Mario's supporting cast. Luigi, Toad, Wario and all the adorable Koopa critters, they all hold a very special place in my heart, and I will be the first (or at least one of the first ones) to agree that they are all absolutely fabulous. However, my affection for them doesn't push me to dislike Mario. Not in the very least. True, some more focus on the more overlooked characters would be very nice indeed, but let's not go into the other extreme. Honestly, thinking of Mario as some kind of obnoxious tyrant who cruelly suppresses and manipulates all of his hard-working support characters seems like overreacting to me. I might even say that such a reaction is a sign of profound ingratitude.
 
    There, I've thrown the first punch, and Mario side-character lovers the world over are no doubt furious at me now. Time to forge myself some kind of verbal shield. How about this:
 
    cast your mind back to your first contact with a Mario game. Yes, that wondrous moment of enlightment when a whole new world was blown open to you. Have yourself a few seconds of blissful nostalgia. Ahhh, doesn't feel just so good? ^_~. But, anyway, the first thing you thought of when you got into Mario gaming was probably something along the lines of "Oh, wow! What an utterly fabulous game! I want to dedicate my entire life to these games and collect every scrap of merchandise available!". Well, that's what I thought ^^; My point is that you very probably weren't enchanted on first sight by the legion of loveable side characters. There's a 94, 61% chance (I've checked) that it was the game good and proper that cast a spell on you. And that game was not called "The amazing quest of Buzzy Beetle", no, it was called -say it with me- Super Mario Something (very probably SMB1 in most cases). We all fell in love with a series of games who's star was Mario, he was the one who first drew us in, and for that alone, he deserves our continuing support. (Side note: the reason I got addicted to Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon was because I had read a description of Usagi as a dreadfully clumsy and airheaded girl. That sounded amusing, so I gave it a go, and it was only later that Neptune and Uranus took over as my absolute faves. Yet I still don't reckon that Usagi is hogging the attention and deserves to be shotgunned to death. No doubt 98, 21% of all moonies share the same sentiment).
 
    Come to think of it, it's bizarre that I of all people should be making such a fuss about this. After all, I also have a strong penchant for falling for minor characters whenever I get into a series, while the main character(s) pretty much leave me cold. That's perfectly allright, but one shouldn't lose sight of the main issue and wish for an agonising death for the main hero, just so that your personal fave can take over. In most cases, that won't happen and you know it perfectly well. And there's a simple reason for this: the main character isn't just the main character for no reason at all. He or she is often supposed to be what the entire series pretty much stands for. You can't just rip him or her out. And if you truly do love a series, you should at least have some slight fondness, or at least no major dislike for it's hero. What this translates into is that a person who is fanatically obsessed by, say Musahi and Kojiro, and yet at the same time has an extremely violent hatred for every other Pokemon character can't really be cosidered a general Pokemon fan (since he or she despises just about every Pokemon character except for two of them). Just a Musashi and Kojiro fan. Similiarly, a self-proclaimed Metroid fan who wishes dearly to see Samus rubbed out so that minor background enemy X can become the hero of the series is a rather strange kind of Metroid fan in my books.
 
    But there's more. This trend seems almost exclusive to the Mario scene. I have yet to hear of Zelda fans who harbor a burning desire to see Link guillottined so that Malon and Saria can take over. Kirby lovers don't go around shouting: "We want to see Kirby burned at a stake! Give us a game starring Kracko!". Only Mario has fallen prey to this dreadfully unfair treatment. And in my view, that's not because Mario has taken his attention-slurping greed to a level which is no longer acceptable to fans. It must be due to a sudden outbreak of ingratitude and lack of common sense.
 
    I will say one thing in favor of Mario-bashing, however. In satirical or parodical fan-fics or other such works, it is indeed a nice move to depict Mario as a bit of an idiot (I should know ^^;). But keep in mind that this is often done just to enhance comical effect. It should not be taken seriously. Sure, we make fun of him a bit (because he -is- an amusing figure), but in the end we still do love our Mario, don't we?
 
    Well, we should. He's the shining sun at the heart of the very best games ever created, and if it hadn't been for him, none of the Mario support characters would even exist. So, in a nutshell, one is perfectly allowed to love, worship and adore a supporting character. That's just peachy. However, developing an intense hatred for the main character because of this fixation on a minor character is a very unreasonable reaction indeed. Especially in the case of Mario, who is, let's admit it, a perfectly nice bloke.