Who's the Mushroom Kingdom king?

[Koopalmier]

What's the problem with PiT's story ?

[Clive Koopa]

Well Peach shouldn't have been born yet and Toadsworth should be a young adult around Toad's age, not a baby in the past as he is much older and Peach is much younger.

[Koopalmier]

What do you mean ? Toadsworth is not a baby in PiT, and we don't know the age of the characters nor how many yearsa go did the Shroob Invasion happen.

[EpicGyllynn]

Actually, PiT has Peach's age AND Toadsworth's ages right; Peach is a little younger than Mario & Luigi, and Toadswothh is an adult, probably in his 30's. What's the problem?

[Koopalmier]

We know he's currently about 60 (according to Paper Mario 2), and going with the theory that Mario and Luigi are between 20 and 30, he could be 30 or 40 at the time of PiT's past events. Even then, I also don't see the problem.

[EpicGyllynn]

Exactly. I just don't understand what plotholes someone could see with this.

[Le Mario Bro]

...I mean, aside from the whole "Space/Time Continuum" issue the guys at AlphaDream kinda skipped around...

[Koopalmier]

... What ?

[Le Mario Bro]

The way that Mario and Co. didn't cause serious damage to the timeline with all their time-travelling.

[Koopalmier]

Mario and co. couldn't have done serious damages. The Shroobs, though...

I guess the kingdom's population all went away in the timeline where the invasion didn't happen, and it was repopulated later. In the timeline where the invasion happened, the previous population was entirely exterminated, but the kingdom was still repopulated. Thus that may have caused serious problems somewhere else, but not in the Mushroom Kingdom - which is the only area we care about anyway.
You'll also notice how there are no Koopas or no Bumpties in the past Mushroom Kingdom.

[ddshoeshowz]

Does there have to be a king? Perhaps it could be a matriarchal society?

[Koopalmier]

The king has already been referred in the Mario series (in Super Mario Bros.' booklet). And if it's a matriarchal society, then the same question would be asked about the Mushroom Queen.

[SMBBQ]

I really don't think the SMB Booklet is a good source. It also stated that the ? Blocks were Mushroom Kingdom citizens, which doesn't really make sense today.

I'm not taking a side, I'm just pointing it out.

[kingkoopa]

Well NSMBWii made it sound like the Toads had been stuffed INSIDE of the blocks instead of being turned into them.

[Sarisa]

About PiT...wibbly wobbly timey wimey. If you want a videogame that deals with causality and chronophysics, play Chrono Cross. (Not its predecessor Chrono Trigger, which is all about rewriting history for fun and profit.) If I had to make up a theory, I'd say that the Shroob invasion forestalled an equally destructive Koopa invasion, and the Star Spirits were working overtime to ensure that the "right" Toads lived and died so as to create a neo-present that differed little from the Shroobless present. Which doesn't answer the question of what factor precipitated a Shroob invasion, assuming that there genuinely hadn't been a forgotten Shroob invasion as of the beginning of PiT - it had to be related to the time machine, somehow.

Agreed on the SMB manual being a dubious source. The Mario universe has changed so much since it came out that the world of SMB, with Toads transformed into blocks, Bowser being a powerful sorcerer in his own right, and Princess Toadstool able to break spells and thus valuable, doesn't agree very well with the Mario universe as it is now. It's so different in tone that there was, for a while, a trend towards horror-themed alternate Marioverses based on SMB alone.

Going back to the main topic, I glanced at the Japanese Wikipedia on Princess Peach. I know it's no more canonical than what we post here, but it should be fairly accurate as to the opinion of the fandom. It was no help; it reiterated the common consensus here, that despite her lower title she has substantially the power of a king, but the regions of the Mushroom Kingdom have a good deal of autonomy.

[Koopalmier]

Here's the story, according to NoA's website:

One day, the Mushroom Kingdom was invaded by the Koopas, a tribe of turtles famous for their black magic. The quiet, peace-loving Mushroom People were turned into stones, bricks and even plants, and the kingdom fell into ruin. The only one who can undo the magic spell is Princess Toadstool, the daughter of the Mushroom King. Unfortunately, she is in the hands of evil king Bowser. Mario, the famous plumber, learns of the Mushroom People's plight and sets out to free the Mushroom Princess from the Koopas and restore the fallen kingdom.

If it wasn't "true" anymore, they'd have edited it.

I suppose the areas around Peach's Castle are the only one in the kingdom to be full of brick blocks. There's not a single block in M&L1 (they are mechanical and apparently created at the Woohoo University, so they were put there by the governement) and there are almost no blocks around Rogueport too, yet Mario & Luigi 2 and apparently Paper Mario 3DS are around areas that have a lot of blocks.
My guess is that Super Mario Bros.' events happened in a region of the kingdom that simply doesn't have blocks.

Also note how The Lost Levels' story is only that Peach has been kidnapped, yet there also are many blocks, and the game starts right at Mario's house (which lets me to think it starts around the "Paper Mario" area of the kingdom).

[Clive Koopa]

Then Mario would be guilty of murder and genocide. He kills all those Toads that were turned into blocks each time he destroys one.

[Vent]

Eh, I always figured the "Blocks are Mushroom People" thing doesn't apply anymore. Pretty much every game after SMB treats them like objects or a natural part of the geography.

Besides, why would one want them to be imprisoned Mushroom People anyway? The hell does that do for us?

[Le Mario Bro]

I said it once, and I'll keep saying it until someone knocks me over the head with a frying pan:

BROQUE MONSIEUR!!!
BROQUE MONSIEUR!!!
BROQUE MONSIEUR!!!
Broque... MON-*crack*

*wearing dented frying pan like a hat*

...^Go_odⁿi_gh^t, _mo^mm_y....

*falls over backwards*

[kingkoopa]

cool font. How did you get it