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Post by EpicGyllynn on Jul 5, 2011 19:49:18 GMT -5
I mean seriously, he goes from the tyranical king bent on killing Mario and creating his own Galaxy in the proccess in the Super Mario Galaxy, to the grumpy-yet-lovable koopa from Bowser's Inside Story... How does that work? And don't even get me started on his attempts to sabotage the Mushroom Kingdom's sporting events ala Mario Power Tennis (Although you could argue that he would use this time to kidnap Princess Peach had he not been thwarted so early), and his completely scheme-free, participation in Kart Tournements... There's got to be a way to tie all of this together without diagnosing the Koopa King with Bipolar Disorder, right? Also, whenever I play BIS I really like Bowser's character and attitude, but then I see him in Galaxy and can't stand him...
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Post by Koopalmier on Jul 5, 2011 20:12:20 GMT -5
I have a brain fart right now (could be related to the late hour), could someone tell me what does "bipolar" mean again ?
I think that Bowser was just trying to be scary to Mario in SMG. Well, he did want to create his own space empire with Peach, but he tried to look dead serious for once, to see if Mario would be scared. He even acts as a lovely idiot again in SMG2.
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Post by EpicGyllynn on Jul 5, 2011 21:00:03 GMT -5
An individual with Bipolar Disorder is more-or-less someone who experiences drastic mood swings from one extreme to another. And Bowser acting serious in Super Mario Galaxy would make sense, but I have another question: Does Bowser really want Mario & Luigi dead? Because he's had the opportunity (such as in Paper Mario) but passed up on it, either because he doesn't want Mario dead, he's an idiot, or the Star Rod has limits.
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Post by Le Mario Bro on Jul 6, 2011 16:19:23 GMT -5
An individual with Bipolar Disorder is more-or-less someone who experiences drastic mood swings from one extreme to another. And Bowser acting serious in Super Mario Galaxy would make sense, but I have another question: Does Bowser really want Mario & Luigi dead? Because he's had the opportunity (such as in Paper Mario) but passed up on it, either because he doesn't want Mario dead, he's an idiot, or the Star Rod has limits. Well, Bowser may have his reasons. I mean, he just wants control. The prospect of actually killing someone may be a bit too much for his concious to take. After all, looking at many of the newer games, especially the Mario Parties, you see he's just a guy that wants to wreak havoc and have fun doing it. He's like Dennis the Menace, only larger and can breath fire. |
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Post by Koopalmier on Jul 6, 2011 19:12:23 GMT -5
An individual with Bipolar Disorder is more-or-less someone who experiences drastic mood swings from one extreme to another. And Bowser acting serious in Super Mario Galaxy would make sense, but I have another question: Does Bowser really want Mario & Luigi dead? Because he's had the opportunity (such as in Paper Mario) but passed up on it, either because he doesn't want Mario dead, he's an idiot, or the Star Rod has limits. Well, Bowser may have his reasons. I mean, he just wants control. The prospect of actually killing someone may be a bit too much for his concious to take. After all, looking at many of the newer games, especially the Mario Parties, you see he's just a guy that wants to wreak havoc and have fun doing it. He's like Dennis the Menace, only larger and can breath fire. But he does kill X-Nauts and Goombas in Paper Mario 2, and traitors to the Koopa tribe in SPM. He can kill you in all the fights against him, too, and he did throw Mario by the window in Paper Mario. I'd say he's just too self-centered and feels epic when making Mario suffer before killing him (supported by the fact he didn't use the Star Rod directly at the start of Paper Mario, he waited a while, and even then he didn't 1-hit kill Mario until hurting him some more and finishing to boast about his invincibility). Note that in SMG he still shows Eggman-like silliness and apparently doesn't have a back-up plan, which would be the main reason for the universe-eating black hole at the end of the game. I wouldn't say he's bipolar, just that he's sadistic and very narcissic. And he just tried an intimidation tactic in SMG. |
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Post by cheat-master30 on Jul 6, 2011 20:33:56 GMT -5
Is that really that evil though? I mean, Mario kills X-Nauts, Goombas, and kills the same 'traitors' in Super Paper Mario. Maybe he's just biased and like many 'heroes', sees no value in the life of any mooks or weak henchman.
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Post by rhinotaur on Jul 6, 2011 22:00:59 GMT -5
Is that really that evil though? I mean, Mario kills X-Nauts, Goombas, and kills the same 'traitors' in Super Paper Mario. Maybe he's just biased and like many 'heroes', sees no value in the life of any mooks or weak henchman. I don't see what's bad about that. Henchmen and soldiers have no rights, not even if they're humans. It's completely okay to kill and torture them! |
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Post by Koopalmier on Jul 7, 2011 10:07:35 GMT -5
Is that really that evil though? I mean, Mario kills X-Nauts, Goombas, and kills the same 'traitors' in Super Paper Mario. Maybe he's just biased and like many 'heroes', sees no value in the life of any mooks or weak henchman. Who said it had to be evil ? He does what is right for him. That includes trying to kill Mario, and trying to keep the world safe (not from him, though). As for the "killing weak people" thing... The people Mario kills are either soldiers (who are only here to kill or be killed, that's the rule of war after all) or uneducated monsters. Soldiers know their life is in peril, and monsters are too wild to talk with, so... |
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Post by Sarisa on Aug 30, 2011 5:34:13 GMT -5
I have a friend who is bipolar, and that doesn't yield results anything like Bowser's (implied) personality shifts. Bowser doesn't act depressed for any length of time at any point I can recall, and it's not bipolar unless there are both poles.
While Bowser's methods and ruthlessness shift from subseries to subseries, his motives stay constant; he wants Princess Peach, he wants victory over the Mario Bros., and he wants more power, in that order (except in his early appearances). The only real difference between games is whether Bowser is the main antagonist and in control of the situation, or caught wrong-footed by the main antagonist and motivated to "right" the situation (which means working in parallel with the Mario Bros. more often than not).
Anyone whose list of failed plans includes "steal an omnipotent artifact and let the minions I have keeping it under my control run riot," "send all my children out to conquer the world as a distraction," and "transform a sizable kingdom's population into inanimate objects" has already proven his disregard for other sentient life. That doesn't mean he's not entertaining to watch in action, or even a better boss than your current one, but he is definitely evil. Selfishness in his degree doesn't need malevolence to be evil.
I'm not convinced that Bowser's goal is to kill the Mario Bros. I think he wants to defeat them, and realistically (even in the MK) defeating them once and for all means killing them. They can't be bribed, blackmailed, confined, disappeared, disheartened, threatened, or even tricked for long. For Bowser to win anything more significant than a Special Cup trophy, there is hardly a way around killing both Mario and Luigi, and Bowser's tried enough alternate schemes to know that.
Regarding mooks, any "your character(s) versus the world" game with animate obstacles needs a vast supply of depersonalized mooks to practice gameplay upon. If you're going to condemn Mario for stomping Goombas and Koopas in their hundreds, you must condemn almost all video game protagonists across most genres along with him, from the Space Invaders pilot to Adam Jensen. It's a structural feature of video gaming. It helps that Mario, unlike Bowser, is never the aggressor.
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Post by cheat-master30 on Aug 30, 2011 9:50:42 GMT -5
I'm not sure Bowser is planning to kill the Mario Bros. Sure, that'd end his common opposition, but he surely must know that doing so would leave him in a really bad situation if another villain comes along, right? I think he'd realise that by killing them, he'd have to basically take over the role, because villains like Smithy/Shadow Queen/Shroobs/Count Bleck/Dimentio/Dark Star/Fawful/Cackletta/Wart/Tatanga/whoever else comes along in the far future won't otherwise have any opposition. Considering Bowser doesn't exactly want to work with any of them it means he'd have to destroy not just them but also their entire armies. Although that'd be a good lead up for a war based strategy game.
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Post by kingkoopa on Aug 30, 2011 13:57:06 GMT -5
Bowser at least wants the satisfaction of ending a few of Mario's lives...
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Post by Sarisa on Sept 2, 2011 15:01:20 GMT -5
I can't recall Bowser, no matter how ruthless and intelligent he is this month, ever having much foresight. If he did, he'd think to reversibly human-proof his bunker entrance; even a big rock - a one-handed lift for Bowser but a significant obstacle for Mario - would buy enough time to flip the switch (inside, natch) that floods the entrance pit with lava. Making the whole castle human-proof while accessible to Goombas and smaller Koopas is probably a lost cause, but if I can come up with a bunker design in five minutes that Peach can survive entering but keeps Mario out, it doesn't speak much for Bowser's foresight. Peach not being able to leave the bunker once its defense systems are activated is a feature, not a bug.
(Yes, I know the real reason is that Mario's side must win, every game; there's not enough continuity for Bowser to win "The Empire Strikes Back" style. It would be nice if he could win at halftime for a change instead of his opening blitzkrieg victory being slowly beaten back.)
Come to think of it, there is such a gap between Bowser's surprising creativity in (successful) plans and his lacking intelligence in the RPGs that I wonder if he's actually quite clever but too impatient to think through the consequences of his actions. Or if Kamek does most of Bowser's thinking for him, and Iggy builds most of the magitek (note that Bullet Bills are the only magitek before SMB3 - coincidence, or not?), with Bowser contributing brute strength and leadership.
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koopaul
Newest of the new
Kong
Posts: 21
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Post by koopaul on Sept 26, 2011 23:39:16 GMT -5
I can't say there is much murder going on in these games as we think. When Mario squashes a Goomba are they really dead? Or is this an easy visual way of demonstrating that you defeated them?
In the Mario RPG series we see some bosses explode and disappear after reducing their HP to 0, but after the battle they sometimes are still there looking all beat up.
Now back to Bowser. Look at what he does to the Toads. He locks them up, never killing them. I don't think Bowser wants to murder, he wants power.
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Post by Koopalmier on Sept 28, 2011 0:12:11 GMT -5
I can't say there is much murder going on in these games as we think. When Mario squashes a Goomba are they really dead? Or is this an easy visual way of demonstrating that you defeated them? In the Mario RPG series we see some bosses explode and disappear after reducing their HP to 0, but after the battle they sometimes are still there looking all beat up. Now back to Bowser. Look at what he does to the Toads. He locks them up, never killing them. I don't think Bowser wants to murder, he wants power. Throwing a Koopa into lava has the same effect as "jumping" on a Goomba. I think you got the thing. |
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