Okay perchance this is a hot take but like. I feel like so many people think Mario is basic that he loops back around to not being basic. Because like. Mario has got so much character (PARTICULARLY in the Mario & Luigi games) but he's so often boiled down to being a generic hero character because people don't really care about thinking to deeply about why he does things (and also game theory has gaslit too many into thinking he's a bad brother. Which is fake fucking news) like I feel like this is the Mickey Mouse problem where a character is the face of a franchise and so becomes flanderized to high hell both by the fans of said franchise but often also by the creators themselves because of it.
Like. I genuinely like Mario as a character, because he fucking rules. He's decently strong but also small compared to a lot of his enemies and so he often has to rely on his wit as well, which– I feel like he's way smarter than people generally portray him. That aspect of him is almost never focused on but he's really clever, that's generally how he keeps winning.
Some of my favorite moments in the mario & luigi games are the ones where he immediately thinks of a way to con someone into letting them progress and gets his brother to be in on it I swear–
He's NOT 100% fearless, (PEOPLE KEEP SAYING THIS WHEN COMPARING HIM TO LUIGI AND IT'S BLATANTLY UNTRUE) he just has an easier time than Luigi does in steeling his nerves because he's got more self-confidence because of his insight into things.
Luigi is scared because he tends to feel helpless in situations that are thrown at him and he's too panicked to be able to see a solution to them, and Mario is also scared but knows that even the biggest threats always have a weak spot, so he's able to calm himself down and react quickly.
I think part of the reason that him and peach work so well together is because they're both insightful (granted I'm not a peach expert but she's capable of ruling an entire kingdom very peacefully and successfully and also I know for a fact there a multiple moments she quickly figures stuff out by herself) which I think they really admire about eachother.
I think what makes Mario ordinary is also what makes him fun. He's mostly just. A regular guy, but that's EXACTLY why how he relates to the world around him makes him so interesting.
Like think of the concept of this. He's just a guy, the type of person you would call to fix your leaking sink, but it's applied to this magical world with its own different magical problems, in the exact same casual way. What do you do when you have a world dominating threat? You call the world dominating threat plumber. That's fucking fascinating.
That's also why it kind of irritates me when people make comments about how they would get sick of saving the same people over and over again and that Mario must be tired, because they're missing the POINT. Mario LIKES fixing things for people and helping them, that's his job. He finds the same fulfillment in rescuing the mushroom kingdom as he does in repairing pipes, and that's why he does it.
Mario isn't made to be the most specialest guy ever, nor do I think he would ever want to be (I think that the citizens of the mushroom kingdom probably believe that he is though). And that's why he's awesome.
