Do they know it's a game?

[PDoogan]

In various games (especially PM2) some, but not all characters seem to realize that they're in a video game. For instance: Lord Crump and Professor Frankly actually address you as "the person on the other side of the screen" your partner then responds wondering what they're talking about. If you tattle on the cheep-cheep in Glitzville, Goombella apologizes for starting to talk about previous games they've appeared in. So, do they know? do they all know? Is this something you would see in the Mushroom Kingdom tabloids?

[philzero]

hmmm strange i dont think... darn but... well I dont know how to aproach this subject they somewhat may and they somewhat may not maybe she was talking about his other adventures popopo???

[Claws]

It's called breaking the fourth wall, and it's very common in comedic fiction. I'm not sure if people usually try to explain this kind of thing or dismiss it as something that just happens. I'm thinking most fans do the latter.

[Yoshi Master]

It's just for laughs.

But they might be aware that there's games based off them.

[Claws]

If we had to explain it, we could just say that they liked to joke that they were in a video game.

[philzero]

probably and how come no one posts on the familyguy forum it feals left out

[Kamikaze Koopa]

That supports my theory that the Paper Mario games never actually happened. They could be referring to the in-game-audience who's watching the play/game/movie/whatever.

[Dragon]

I sort of agree there, with the PM games never happening. I always thought that yeah, the storyline happens, yada yada yada. But like, I considered the games to be like re-tellings. I mean, Bowser and Kammy arn't going to be taped into a story and then, due to magic, have everything become paper. Not to mention it's beyond any physical ability to roll into a tube, turn into a paper airplane, become paper thin, or transform into a little sailboat. I always considered them being like fancy retellings of something that actually happened. But I dunno, that's my attempt at trying to include those games.

[Claws]

This can't be used in the argument against Paper Mario's acceptance into canon because breaking the fourth wall is a phenomenon that occurs in many different types of video games. Conker's Bad Fur Day's ending hinged entirely on the game creator's interference with the in-game events. Conker acquired the blade he used to defeat the alien only because he called on the game creator to give it to him. In the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, Cranky Kong frequently referred to the technical aspects of the DKC games and how these compared with those of the DK games of the past. Are we going to say that those games never occurred?

Here's my stance on Paper Mario. The game was an interactive version of the play put on in the Mushroom Dimension. The play was an artistic depiction of events that actually happened. Now, could some of the events portrayed have been fabricated or exaggerated? Of course. However, we, as fans, aren't entitled to pick and choose what we want to accept from the game. Therefore, we just have to have faith in Herringway's play and hope that he gave us an accurate representation of the occurrences. If we start disregarding some things while accepting others, this whole site becomes pointless. The only circumstances where this would be acceptable are when things in the game directly contradict things in other games. Then we disregard the thing that happens less frequently. This does not seem to be the case with Paper Mario.

[philzero]

long post claaws but i agree

[L.D.]

I don't think herringway(SP) did TTYD,fatty(my nickname for flurrie) and Doopliss probably did that and they used the real mario for CH 4.

tak and the power of juju and pokemon 3: spell of the unknown broke the 4th wall too

[Kamikaze Koopa]

claws said:

However, we, as fans, aren't entitled to pick and choose what we want to accept from the game.

First of all, we as fans are absolutely the ones who are entitled to pick and choose what we want to be canon. If anything, we have more of a right to do so than the creators. Especially in this case, since Miyamoto and co. have directly stated that they're making the games for us. That means that he directly forfeits the right to say what is and isn't canon, and now that right is ours.

If we start disregarding some things while accepting others, this whole site becomes pointless.

The whole area of disregarding and accepting other games as canon is absolutely what this site is about. They don't have to directly contradict anything from the other games in order to be disregarded; you can ignore them for any reason you want, the only thing I ask is that you have something to back up your decision to do so.

[Yoshi Master]

Oh the logic of this debate is inspirational.

[Claws]

I think we fans are allowed to pick and choose to an extent, but that is not our main job. We're supposed to piece together and work with what we're given. If we can completely dismiss one game, what's to stop us from dismissing any game we don't like? We're not the gods of the Marioverse; we don't control what goes into it. That's Nintendo's job. They give us the subject matter, and we work with it. Of course they're making the games for us, but until they say that one game can be completely disregarded, I don't think we should presume anything.

Example: if we can decide a game's canonicity, and the game in question seems to be conflicting with another game, we could simply deem it noncanonical and move on. That would definitely remove a lot of the fun of this forum. Even discussions about creatures could be affected. When we're discussing a creature's attributes, and a troublesome one arises, someone could simply say that the difficult attribute doesn't exist because the game it is featured in isn't canon. It would be chaos. Everyone would have their own select list of Mario games they allowed into their personal canon, and nothing would get done. Discussions about Peach's castle(s) would be disrupted because one person accepted Paper Mario, and one person didn't. I'm not saying we should force people to accept all of the games; I'm just saying that picking and choosing could have serious repercussions.

[L.D.]

we kind of are gods to them because we can make a character run into lava but thats besides the point(although in TatPoF you are called a juju(the gods of taks world))

claws is right though.

the storish games should be cannon,in a way,because it's another dimension,we never see most of these areas in the 3D games,what if they really are paperish.

[Dogss]

And anyhow, if you were to recall any instance where they're breaking the "forth wall" You would also have to include all the times they tell you which buttons to press.

[Claws]

Good point, Dogss. In-game explanations are something everyone disregards; these fourth-wall breaking instances should be the same, in my opinion.