#prince pine

New art piece dropped! And I'm not even gonna pretend to be humble—I think it turned out amazing! Got very experimental with coloring and it sure paid off! I don't think I've ever been more proud of art.

SO, some years ago I got obsessed with the Encanto OST and the Mario princes at the same time. I feel Prince Pine would be the Mirabel of the princes - he's not "special" in any manner (but he's one of my favorites design-wise, I love his color palette).

I pictured Prince Haru singing to What Else Can I Do?, but I never got around to drawing that....... until today. This is a redraw of this cutscene:

I chose Haru over Peasley (another good match for Isabela) because he's the Prince of the Flower Kingdom. :P

I headcanon he has flower powers like Isabela. That would be fun!

So there are people nowadays that complain about "politics" being "forced" in media such as Mario, whether or not this is the case. They often go on to say they just want things like Mario to be an escapist fantasy and to keep politics out. So I wanted to talk about political themes in Mario games similar to how I did for Sonic.

So to start off we have the 2 kingdoms the Mushroom and Koopa Kingdom which are constantly in conflict bringing monarchies into the mix. Peach in particular has asked Mario and Yoshi to help the Jewelry Land out from Bowser's conquest in Yoshi's Safari.

She also has at least tried to met with the goodwill ambassador of the Beanbean Kingdom in Superstar Saga, she tried to deal with blorbs outbreak in Inside Story when she held a meeting, and has met with other Kingdom rulers such as Prince Florian.

There is also several kings she rulers over and vast amounts of land that make up the Mushroom Kingdom such the Eastern and Western territories.

There is also the themes of exchange rates of coins and borders established in Superstar Saga.

We also can't forget about the entire Koopa Army's existence.

In Odyssey it is established places like New Donk City hold elections for mayors as Pauline was elected to be the mayor.

Meanwhile in on Isle Delfino has an entire jury system that convicts Mario, alongside law enforcement.

In Super Mario Sunshine Bowser Junior pollutes Isle Delfino which Mario gets blamed for and has to clean up. This game as such themes are pollution ruining a beautiful island and disrupting the lifestyle of the islanders.

Speaking of pollution we can't forget about the Kremlings and how they not only polluted DK Island with Kremkroc Industries, but their homeland. As seen in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, Crocodile Island has a been almost completely ruined by the Kremlings create a dark polluted atmosphere.

All of this creating an environmentalist theme to these games.

Now while some people might say environmentalism shouldn't be regarded as political which I agree with, it has been made political by other people. With many of the people who complain about politics in media often complaining about environmentalism viewing it in media as inherently political. This is why I am including it.

On top of that there is the hypothesis the Kremlings and K. Rool particularly in the Donkey Kong Country 1 could possibly represent a real world event and person.

More on the environmentalism theming, there is the existence of the Wild Yoshi Sanctuary and possible rewilding of Yoshies.

Plus dinosaurs are often made inherently political by some people because of prehistory and evolution.

Also, of the Kremling, pirates are also political because of their connection to monarchies historical, especially being true for the Kremlings.

Finally Mario and Luigi are immigrants which should be self explanatory. In the games they lived in New Donk City for a time, while in the movieverse they are Italian-American immigrants living in Brooklyn, and many continuities.

Mario and Luigi are plumbers and went through many working class jobs in the past like construction, bottling, and cement.

On top of that Mario fought in an unnamed war as well in Mario Bombs Away.

And one extra thing Bowser especially in the movie can represent toxic masculinity, and someone who can never take no for an answer. Such a theme is often made inherently political by some people.

Also, the way Peach is described by Miyamoto can also be viewed as inherently political by certain people who hate the mere thought of someone like Peach being like that.

Warning: this headcanon will

and may leave you

So be warned.

Also all images used in this post are from the Mario wiki. I'm not replaying all of Yoshi's Safari just to make one Tumblr post that it's likely that no-one will end up seeing.

Decided to doodle up some designs for the royals in the Mario world. I enjoy them.