Lazy Fuck

In order to fully grasp what I'll be yammering about when we get to The Point, I'll need to infodump about The Lore first. Also I wanna talk about it anyway.

The plot of Book of Mario is largely informed by and revolves around The War, an otherwise unnamed conflict that escalates wildly to its current state in Thousands of Doors due to the events of 64, especially the ending. The major parties involved are the Persian Empire (Formerly the Kingdom of Fungi) led by Prince/ss Peach, the Koop Kingdom, led by Olivier Browser in 64 and God Browser in Thousands of Doors, and as of ToD, the 10-Nauties, led by Big High Grodan, who commands the reason I'm writing this whole thing, Mr. Krump.

The original reason for The War is unknown, sans that it began as a much more minor conflict started by The Lord (Not God, that's a different guy)'s disciple, Wind. Unfortunately for everyone, it escalated beyond belief after the Stellarvinden, enraged by there only being 7 people in the world who believe in them, revived and possessed Mario, who was killed by his ex-lover Olivier Browser under the Star of Rodin's influence, and over the course of 64 used him to cause widespread mayhem and cause a global peach shortage, which somehow caused The War to grow into a near-world-consuming conflict. This war... Is too much.

Let's take a looksie at the major factions involved, starting with the Koop Kingdom. Olivier Browser, their ruler, kidnaps Prince/ss Peach at the start of 64, presumably in order to sue for peace, only for Mario, under the Stellarvinden's control, to put a stop to his plans. Olivier Browser was an all-around benevolent force, as the vast majority of areas under his rule ultimately benefitted from his reign, including but not limited to the Benteng Coop Notes "Bringing popularity back", possibly implying a celebrity status that attracted tourists to help with the financial status of their home, Saint Tony Tubbs Fat keeping the satanist Bumpies from making further live sacrifices, and Huff N' Blovas attempting to put an end to the immensely harmful drug trade of Caeau Blodaua.

He also commands God. This isn't just an isolated instance of the translation claiming this, the boss of 64's 7th Section is called the King of Kings, his minions are called Christians, and he refers to himself as Browser's subordinate.

During 64's final battle, Olivier Browser, the "solid, irresistable environmentalist", was tragically killed by the Stellarvinden, forcing his aide, Kamopa Kamopa Koopa Koopa, to create a glass copy of him¹ known as God Browser. Whether anyone is aware of the change in leadership is unclear, given even he was shocked by the reveal. Despite God Browser's relative incompetence and lower moral standing to Olivier, he was able to maintain leadership of the Koop Kingdom seemingly with little issue and kept them as a major player in The War, indicating that, even diminished, Browser may be the most competent leader in the story.

Their allies include the Russians in the form of the Shame Boy Tough Gang, Dominica in the form of King of Goomba², Section Gulya, Mexico (Whose only known contribution is providing Browser's Clown Car), and the United States, with the exception of the seceded state of Colorado.

Additionally, even though it is irrelevant to the story, Browser (Unknown which) married professional fighter Hawc Green at an unspecified point in time.

Next, let's take a look at the 10-Nauti.

By far the smallest faction in The War, the 10-Nauti nonetheless maintain significant status due to their main base, due to being on the moon, being untouchable, enabling them to operate unapprehended for the majority of ToD.

Though their leader has fallen into the depths of evil, being one of the most despicable characters in either game, the 10-Nauties originally joined The War due to the food shortage caused by the Stellarvinden at the end of 64.

Despite Big High Grodan describing himself as "The leader of the Nazi Community", it is unknown if the rest of the faction shares this ideology. Mr. Krump and the Shadow Army, at least, appear not to. If nothing else, Browser's unwillingness to ally with them implies Grodan's political inclinations aren't a total secret.

I'll not discuss Mr. Krump in depth here as I'll save him for the final section of. Whatever All This Is. For now, just know his motivation of ending the war with as few casualties as possible runs counter to Big High Grodan's wish of throwing the world into the "depths of terrorism".

Known sub-factions and allies include the Shadow Army, a group of special forces soldiers led by Belda, and the British, who were sadly driven extinct by Make, Mario and Sir Snow during the self-explanatory Genocide of The British during ToD Section 2.

Finally, the Persian Empire. After Olivier Browser's death and the escalation of the war at the end of 64, the Kingdom of Fungi crumbled due to infighting, and rejoined The War after being reunified as the Persian Empire by Prince/ss Peach between the two games.

Interestingly, the Persian Empire, despite seemingly being the most likely faction to win The War due to Mario, are also hugely unpopular in-universe. Not only does Honesty Professor Caesar Reality express disdain for them and urge Mario to destroy Peach rather than save the Persian King, but the Iranian Marines, despite being from Persia's homeland, are currently under the leadership of Big High Grodan, implying Peach's reunification efforts were at least partially unsuccessful. The fact their kidnapping more or less directly led to the Kingdom of Fungi's dissolution may also imply s/he is seen as a weak and/or tyrannical ruler.

The Persian Empire's goal in The War is, unfortunately, unclear to me. It may be they're only still a part of it due to lingering hostility from their Kingdom of Fungi days.

Their known allies include the Asian Empire, represented in-game by the Punis and led by Old, and the European Union, whose involvement for the majority of the plot was ensuring the war continued for weapons sales reasons, until their leader, the crime-lord Don Piano, decides he wants to see the world at peace.

You still with me? You survived that absolutely insane-sounding fictional politics infodump? Feeling sane? Awesome, we're doing relevant characters to Mr. Krump next, and then the man himself.

In order, I want to discuss Mario, Carbon³, Mr. Mr. Prosecutor Grubba, Flavio Candy, and Cortze.

Mario is obvious. Mario is simple. His failed relationship enabled the Star of Rodin to influence Browser into killing him, enabling the Stellarvinden to puppet his corpse into almost ending the world, and more or less causing The War. He has no such role in Thousands of Doors. He's just there to fight in the war for the Persian Empire to the best of his abilities. He enables everyone else on his side, from the relatively harmless, such as Bob, to the worst of them all, Carbon, to slaughter.

Still, one should note that he's considerably more heroic in Thousands of Doors. Despite everything, he DOES save the world from Big High Grodan and the Queen of Shadows. And despite everything, he gave them the chance to end it in the first place, even if he can't really be blamed for it⁴.

...Okay, look, he's Mario. He's The Iconic Silent Protagonist. He didn't get changed much. I'll stop pulling your leg.

Carbon Christ, actual religious status highly dubious, is. A whole other deal. Holy shit, this guy. To be frank, he's not relevant to this and I just wanted to talk about my worstie. Feel free to skip this section, I guess.

Carbon is The Worst. He hates you. He hates me. He has depression!

But he hates fathers above all else. Presumably because his own was absent, his establishing character moment was declaring he would destroy them all. Carbon is an unstable maniac perfectly willing to kill and hate on anyone at any time, and the only things he ever shows affection for are his girlfriend Koo Koopie, Mario, and... An unborn child? He only says he "Can't hate it", but that's high praise coming from him.

He STARTS with an ability called "The Shell", which is described as launching said shell against all enemies on earth, implying Carbon could destroy all fathers in seconds if he wanted to, and is only taking it slowly for his own pleasure.

I love this little freak. I think estrogen could make him chill for once but I also think we can afford to wait until after he tears down the patriarchy.

Next up, the first character to meaningfully contrast with Mr. Krump; Mr. Mr. Prosecutor Grubba. Introduced as the chapter villain directly after Krump, Grubba displays completely opposite reactions to very similar events to Krump's.

Grubba is a fast-talking salesman of a trainer. He manipulates Mario into joining the tournament to become his new son, whereas Krump never displays any desire to replace his own child. Krump wants to end the war as mercifully as he possibly can, whereas Grubba is purposefully and knowingly drawing it out by selling guns and training soldiers for The War.

And the core of both of their motivations, of course, are their aforementioned lost children. While their activities prior are unknown, both joined The War in some capacity afterwards. Mr. Krump to end it ASAP, and Prosecutor Grubba to make it much worse and ensure everyone "Dies at least once". Unfortunately, they never interact.

Flavio "Flavo" Candy, meanwhile, is the exact kind of person Krump would likely HATE were the translation any more coherent. He's an explosive personality, uncaring and dismissive of the lives of others, going so far as to instruct Mario to slit Bob's throat, and a self-professed terrorist. All for the sake of feeling emotion.

Which makes it so fascinating that Krump had to put up with working for this delightful maniac for most of Section 5.

He had to WORK FOR this guy, who very bluntly stated in his journal that they were going to the United States to bomb them. And he NEVER tried to kill him until the end of the Section. Unfortunately, due to Mario and Cortze, Flavio Candy remains at large.

Finally, Cortze. Cortze, Cortze, Cortze. Where to begin. Where do I bloody BEGIN with the King of Piracy. He's a skull. He's dead, asshole.

He's Mr. Krump's deceased son.

Mr. Krump's lost child who, rather than returning to his father, transed his gender⁵ and built a fearsome crew of Sins⁶.

Cortze, despite a horrible death and an afterlife of presumably gruesome piracy to gather so many Sins, is a surprisingly kind and helpful person, willing to give Mario the Crystal/Glass/Christian Star regardless of having lost to him, and amicably taking the soldier to and from Keelhaul Key⁷ after the Section.

Their first interaction in whoever knows how long is Cortze helping Mario and Flavo defeat Krump, despite recognizing his father near-instantly.

Finally, now that I've got all the relevant preamble out of the way, I can talk about Krump. Oh how I've waited for this.

Mr. Krump, given name possibly Lummie if Bob can be trusted, is a horribly complicated person. Allegedly born in Ireland⁸, most of Krump's life is a complete unknown. Presumably, he was married at some point and had two children, Cortze and Ford⁹.

His present demeanour implies he used to be extremely outgoing and jovial, in addition to having a. Unique sense of humor. For reference, he named his battle mech Big Ass, and its signature stomping ability Big Ass Pain.

Even today, Mr. Krump maintains some degree of bombastic air, and announces himself loudly. Though the original Lord Crump's "Buh huh huh" was clearly a laugh, I think Mr. Krump's is more of a crying fit, briefly overcome by the Horrors of War.

Right, I know that was short, but you've already learned everything else you need to know from how I've talked about Krump in the rest of this heavily disorganized ramble. Now, in order to get to the scene in question, I'd like to immerse you into Mr. Krump's perspective of the events of the games. Please indulge me while I spout Some Bullshit in an attempt to make you feel sad for the guy who named his battle mech Big Ass.

Your name is (Possibly) Lummie Krump. You're an irishman, and you're living a (Probably) average life. You have two children, and things seem to be going all-around really well.

Then you hear news of a conflict on the horizon. Nothing to personally worry about, you think. It's just a minor skirmish between some faraway places that have no direct ties to Ireland, and it seems like it'll end pretty soon. Maybe in the next month or so.

And then it doesn't. It doesn't fizzle out, and, through some political stunt you don't quite have the means or time to completely look into, the famous Olivier Browser kidnaps the ruler of the Kingdom of Fungi after breaking up with his ex.

The next few weeks are a mess. You hear news of Browser's Ex, some guy whose name you can't ever seem to remember, killing or driving off every last one of Browser's Main Boys, the Koop Kingdom's leadership, followed swiftly by Browser himself.

And then, as though by the wrath of the starry heavens themselves, almost all the peaches in the world disappear. The iconic well-known staple food of Ireland (And a bunch of other places I guess), all gone. It's a famine. The food shortage only worsens in the next seven years, during which you lose your beloved daughter and fall deep into the stages of grief.

The rest of the world doesn't take things much better. The world's political stage riots! The Kingdom of Fungi dissolves due to infighting, and is reborn as the Persian Empire! The Koop Kingdom, lacking most of its leadership, appears to go mad (And Olivier changes his name to God Browser for some reason unfathomable to you)! The European Union rapidly degrades to the point random crime-lords can exert considerable influence over it! The Asian Empire successfully annexes all of Britain! And, to top it all off, that War from so many weeks ago, what you'd written off as an unfortunate but ultimately minor event, was growing at an unprecedented rate- Due to the food shortage, practically everyone fought over what was left, leaving millions to die and sending millions more to their deaths.

Such as your beloved daughter. She starves, and you can't do anything about it.

So you join an up-and-coming faction called the 10-Nauti. You don't know much of anything about the mysterious nation(?), but they seem your best shot to make a difference quickly. As a new entity, they were in need of competent leadership quickly, after all. You prove yourself as one of the toughest members and climb the ranks, effectively becoming the leader, Big High Grodan's, right hand man.

One of many reasons you rise to power is your wish to end The War with as few deaths as possible, resulting in not only support from any 10-Nauti with morals but also you only bringing the bare essential amount of soldiers to any given mission to minimize possible casualties.

Then Big High Grodan concocts a scheme- The 10-Nauti would use the power of the Glass/Crystal/Christian Stars to win The War, and you were to capture a scholar, Goombell, who was suspected of possibly knowing their location. There, you meet Mario- You never find out, of course, but this is the man responsible for the current state of the world. Mario and Goombell escape after a brief altercation, but The Shadow Army has obtained the locations of several other Crystal Stars in the meantime, and you're sent to obtain one.

Your next mission, to claim the Green Star, takes you to Bad Forest's capital, Big Tree¹⁰, home of The British and under control of the Asian Empire. Striking an alliance under the promise of liberation, you help The British stage a revolution in exchange for the Green Star. It is afterwards you encounter Mario again- And he's got a total monster of a Troop of KSD¹¹ with him! You can't let him go free. Oh and you also tweet about it.

Despite your best attempts, activating the Heart Detector with Love Pump¹² and using your Big Ass, you are soundly defeated, the 10-Nauti are driven from Big Tree, and The British are subject to a genocide. The mission ended in total failure, and it is only by virtue of your previous success record you're not stripped of rank.

After an extensive recovery period, roughly two chapters of an RPG long, you receive your next mission- Another Glass Star's location has been discovered, and Mario is making his way there with the help of the up-and-coming terrorist Flavio "Flavo" Candy.

So you hatch a scheme- A devious plot, one may say. You don the disguise of a four-eyed man and infiltrate Flavio's operation, intent on sabotaging it and capturing/killing Mario and Flavio once they lead you to the Glass Star using an ambush ship following them from a distance. Unfortunately, you never get that far as Flavio's boat is destroyed by Sins, and you have to cooperate with the crew until you can transmit your location.

Fast-forward an undetermined amount of time, and you catch wind that Mario, after defeating the ghost of the King of Piracy Cortze, obtained the Glass Star. Fortunately, you'd re-established communications with your allies by then, and a 10-Nauti battleship was on standby for your escape- An escape method you repurpose as an attack, attempting to shoot Flavio and his crew dead from a distance, with no risk to your soldiers.

The only reason you were willing to lead so many 10-Nauties in one mission was that there was little to no risk. However, the world could not be so kind as to let you succeed, for the next thing you know is Cortze's haunted ship and crew of Sins have engaged yours in combat, in which you're at an enormous disadvantage.

And then Cortze reveals he's your son. Your child, who died of starvation, became a ghost, transitioned, and grew into the feared King of Piracy- And you only find this out when he's helping your greatest enemy defeat you and your men.

And you have to live with that, if you even survive this fight.

Mr. Krump obviously has more screentime after this but like. That's where I'm ending the self-serious narration bullshit. It's the scene I wanted to talk about. Because like. How are you even supposed to react to something like that. The reason you're doing ANY of this reveals he's been alive the whole time, become a pirate AND a skull, AND is actively fighting you on the side of the personification of all your problems??? What the FUCK. It is a goddamn WONDER Mr. Krump managed to muster the will to fight after that narratively speaking.

And that concludes my ramble about Mr. Lummie Krump that I will with some hesitation call a character analysis/essay. Thank you for joining me. If you feel curious about ANY of this absolute nonsense, go experience Book of Mario- It's EXTREMELY funny, despite how seriously this all is taking it.

¹ Possibly constructed from the remains of the King of Kings, though that's pure conjecture.

² One of Browser's few morally dubious followers

³ Because I like him. He's not connected to Mr. Krump at all, sadly.

⁴ Weirdly enough, I don't think anyone in ToD cares about Mario doing all that to escalate the war, implying his involvement was kept under wraps.

⁵ Good for him

⁶ Spirits made of blue fire, Sans

⁷ The name of the island, where Cortze keeps his keys

⁸ If Bob can be trusted

⁹ Ford is completely irrelevant to everything ever

¹⁰ Let's Go Big Tree

¹¹ Stomping... KOOPAS!