Saruman VS Bowser

[spongyblue]

I've gathered two things from this thread

the citizens of Middle Earth will have to pay homage to King Koopa in yellow,blue, and red coins and mushrooms.

and Mario and Luigi are Supermans long lost children

[Ford Prefect]

and Mario and Luigi are Supermans long lost children

Man, don't get me started on Luigi. He can actually run on water and is even more agile than Mario.

[Vanas]

Various thoughts:

Bob-Ombs may well be a small army unto themselves. They've got a King, at least one General (both with natty 'taches), and a near/actually suicidal disregard for their own safety. They are the Riders of Rohan, packed with TNT. (And some are inexplicably re-useable.)

The Koopa Clown Car looks like it could be a useful forward command thingy for Bowser. It flies at a fair old clip and drops cannon balls the size of Bowser all over the shop. If there's more than one, Bowser's airforce now has something between airships and Paratroopas.

The Dry Bones could be rather nasty, in that they're a) undead b) pulls themselves back together after being smashed up and c) come in a really big variety. If the Koopas are as big as they are in 64, then Big Bones are just plain scary huge.

Finally, Fire Snakes and Hot Feet bring the wonders of breaking international law to a new height by essentially being a self-aware jet of flame. I doubt Uruks will break if attacked by fire, but having said fire either sprout little legs and chase you, or start bouncing gently towards you and your mates has got to do something to morale.

[RogueIce]

On the size of Bowser, Koopas, and the like...

IIRC, little Mario is really Regular Mario, thus that would be how tall he really is, while big Mario is Super Mario and thus artificially grown. Which makes him about half as tall as the Koopa Troops in SMW as I recall.

Is that more-or-less consistent across the games?

[Praxis]

On the size of Bowser, Koopas, and the like...

IIRC, little Mario is really Regular Mario, thus that would be how tall he really is, while big Mario is Super Mario and thus artificially grown. Which makes him about half as tall as the Koopa Troops in SMW as I recall.

Is that more-or-less consistent across the games?

Not really.

In the 3D games, the distinction is eliminated; Mario is always the same size.

In the 2D games it is made clear that Mario's normal size is "Super"; his proportions are off when he's little, the menu selections in Super Mario Bros 2 shows the "Super" size, and most telling, Princess Peach in SM3 and SMW is eye-level with Super Mario and way taller than little Mario (even the Toads are taller).

So if "little" Mario is his normal size, everyone in the Mushroom Kingdom, including Toad and Peach, are far taller than him.

[Vanas]

New SMB clears it up. 'Super' Mario is his normal size. He got squashed by Baby Bowser down to little Mario.

It's been a while since I've played SM64, but IIRC, Koopa the Quick is a head or so taller than Mario.

[Sriad]

On the size of Bowser, Koopas, and the like...

IIRC, little Mario is really Regular Mario, thus that would be how tall he really is, while big Mario is Super Mario and thus artificially grown. Which makes him about half as tall as the Koopa Troops in SMW as I recall.

Is that more-or-less consistent across the games?

Not really.

In the 3D games, the distinction is eliminated; Mario is always the same size.

In the 2D games it is made clear that Mario's normal size is "Super"; his proportions are off when he's little, the menu selections in Super Mario Bros 2 shows the "Super" size, and most telling, Princess Peach in SM3 and SMW is eye-level with Super Mario and way taller than little Mario (even the Toads are taller).

So if "little" Mario is his normal size, everyone in the Mushroom Kingdom, including Toad and Peach, are far taller than him.

This still makes regular Koopas about 4 1/2 feet tall, and much more massive than a normal person. The various standing koopa soldiers would be 6-8 feet.

[Soldier of Entropy]

I've gathered two things from this thread

the citizens of Middle Earth will have to pay homage to King Koopa in yellow,blue, and red coins and mushrooms.

and Mario and Luigi are Supermans long lost children

Don't forget Wario (what's he supposed to be, their stepbrother?)! He can survive being set on fire, flattened by giant anvil-like objects, and much more! Not to mention being able to kill things just by vibrating his arm!

[Sriad]

I've gathered two things from this thread

the citizens of Middle Earth will have to pay homage to King Koopa in yellow,blue, and red coins and mushrooms.

and Mario and Luigi are Supermans long lost children

Don't forget Wario (what's he supposed to be, their stepbrother?)! He can survive being set on fire, flattened by giant anvil-like objects, and much more! Not to mention being able to kill things just by vibrating his arm!

According to his Wikipedia article (I know, but it's the best resource for this sort of thing) Wario was only once in an advertisement described as being related to Mario. A few comics fill in his rivalry, explaining that he and Mario were childhood playmates, but Mario always took the dominant role and made fun of Wario, leading to the rivalry we see in current games.

Bowser could certainly retain Wario's services as an elite mercenary for an upfront payment plus a percentage of all loot taken from Mordor/Middle Earth, though he'd have to watch his back.

[Ford Prefect]

Wario, who at one point single handedly invaded other dimensions to make money (I shit you not, that was what you did in his game - took over other worlds) and has at one point been Mario's antagonist. However, there is indications that in more recent years that Wario has mellowed out and turned his eye primarily the harsh world of business (granted, so has Mario). On at least one occassion they have worked together; SM64DS features Wario on Mario's side. Wario is even stronger than Mario is, somewhat less agile but still impressively quick and capable of exceedingly high jumps and flips.

If Bowser is allowed to hire Wario - which is actually quite possible, as Wario will do anything for money - then his kingdom is more or less superfluous. Wario could probably do it single handedly; Saruman's army would prove to be nothing more than an obstacle to overcome, remarkably easily.

[spongyblue]

I predict Bowsers army, with Wario in tow, knocking on the Valars door, and the Valar peering through the blinds wishing that Bowser thinks no one is home.

[Balrog]

Slightly off-topic, but I would like to hereby nominate this thread for the title of Most Entertaining Thread Ever.

I second that nomination

The only way it seems for Saruman to win is to get a personal audience with Bowser and use his Voice to convince him to start working together. Otherwise, yeah, airships FTW

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

[snip quote]

Not really.

In the 3D games, the distinction is eliminated; Mario is always the same size.

In the 2D games it is made clear that Mario's normal size is "Super"; his proportions are off when he's little, the menu selections in Super Mario Bros 2 shows the "Super" size, and most telling, Princess Peach in SM3 and SMW is eye-level with Super Mario and way taller than little Mario (even the Toads are taller).

In the 2-D Super Mario games, Mario's proportions are off only if you look at the gameplay sprites. When using sprites that don't require fitting a distinctive, cartoony humanoid into 16x16 pixels, it looks a lot different:



Mario now looks like a scaled-down version of Super Mario, right? He's lost his distinctive squished head. Not only that, but the proportions of the two sprites are almost identical:



According to the manual for Super Mario Bros. 3, the proportions are identical, since Mario and Super Mario are identical except for size:

So if "little" Mario is his normal size, everyone in the Mushroom Kingdom, including Toad and Peach, are far taller than him.

This is easily explained. In Super Mario Bros. 2, Peach and Toad also grow and shrink as they gather hearts/mushrooms and take damage, respectively. Granted, this game takes place in a dream, IIRC, so I don't know if there is any more solid evidence for characters besides the Mario brothers exhibiting this behavior.

Either way, there's more evidence from the 2-D games that Mario's normal size is the small one. First, most of these games (i.e. SMB, SMB3, SMW) start with Mario in his small size. Super Mario World begins with Mario in his small form when he first discovers that something is wrong, so there's no chance he'd just been damaged offscreen there.

The next is that Mario's small form is consistently labeled "Mario" and his big form "Super Mario." Not only does this intuitively suggest that the small form is normal for him, the manuals also consistently refer to the character as "Mario", not "Super Mario".

And here's something I just found when looking to see if the manual for NSMB gave a reason for Mario starting the game in Super Mario form:



That alone should be pretty conclusive.

So, in conclusion, even the smallest of King Bowser's forces, the Goombas, are the height of fully-grown men. Koopa Troopas are bigger. Bowser himself is enormous, varying from 3+ meters (Super Mario's height) in Super Mario Bros. to nearly a dozen meters (several times Super Mario's height) in Super Mario 64 to his gigantic form (not even going to bother scaling) in Super Mario Sunshine.

Note: If the images I've posted are too large or if scans of instruction manuals shouldn't be posted for any reason, feel free to tell me and I'll resize/remove the images.

[Praxis]

If you show the rest of the picture you cut off though, you'll note that the smaller Mario is smaller than toad.

It has been conclusively proven through *EVERY* 3D Mario game and *every* cartoon series and artist's rendering that Mario is taller than toad.

Since Mario is supposed to be taller than toad, the Super Mario form must be correct.

Personally I think this is something that has changed. In the original NES games Mario was supposed to be normal, Super Mario was supersized...after the SNES games, Super Mario became normal sized.

[Praxis]

I also again have to point out that if Mario's 'small' form is his normal form, Peach is one gigantic woman.

[Ford Prefect]

The only way it seems for Saruman to win is to get a personal audience with Bowser and use his Voice to convince him to start working together.

He also has to hope that Bowser's own magic and truly enormous ego doesn't manage to counteract him. Annoying Bowser is probably not the best idea. Or even worse, causing harm to Bowser - his youngest son Junior is highly protective and has a paintbrush that alters reality to his whims.

Actually, speaking of children, Bowser's brood is actually pretty nasty. Iggy once gave Bowser a machine that was able to mass produce replicas of people that were visually identical except right up close - though they had bad habits, and didn't clean themselves.

Peach is one gigantic woman

Even assuming that Mario is only five feet tall, Peach is easily almost six foot going by SM64. Or taller, depending on Mario's height.

[Praxis]

Actually, speaking of children, Bowser's brood is actually pretty nasty. Iggy once gave Bowser a machine that was able to mass produce replicas of people that were visually identical except right up close - though they had bad habits, and didn't clean themselves.

Not to mention that multiple children of his are capable of causing earthquakes that can stun an all-powerful superhuman like Mario just by jumping.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

If you show the rest of the picture you cut off though, you'll note that the smaller Mario is smaller than toad.

It has been conclusively proven through *EVERY* 3D Mario game and *every* cartoon series and artist's rendering that Mario is taller than toad.

It's been shown in the 3-D games that Super Mario is taller than Toad. In SM64 and, IIRC, SMSunshine, Mario is consistently sized with Super Mario (taller than Goombas, slightly shorter than Koopa Troopas on their hind legs) and is able to break brick blocks with his bare hands, a feat never shown possible for Mario in the 2-D games but which was always possible for Super Mario.

I don't remember enough about the cartoons to dispute you on those, though.

Personally I think this is something that has changed. In the original NES games Mario was supposed to be normal, Super Mario was supersized...after the SNES games, Super Mario became normal sized.

So why does the manual of New Super Mario Bros., the newest of the Mario games, describe Mario as his standard form and Super Mario as the form he grows bigger into?

[Praxis]

It's been shown in the 3-D games that Super Mario is taller than Toad.

But the 3-D games never show anything BUT the Super Mario size. He requires nothing to grow to that size (remember, when he's on the airplane in Sunshine he's already that size, and when he shows up at Peach's castle in SM64 he is that size) and nothing can cause him to shrink...

Everything in the 3-D games implies that Super Mario is his normal size. New Super Mario Bros, too, starts off similar; Mario is in his Super Mario size when Bowser Jr. kidnaps Peach.

Again, the point of Peach arises; Super Mario is slightly shorter than Peach. If Small Mario is Mario's standard size, then Peach is easily 10-12 feet tall.

[Bounty]

Not to mention that multiple children of his are capable of causing earthquakes that can stun an all-powerful superhuman like Mario just by jumping.

If you're talking about SMB3, those battles took place on the airships, didn't they? It's still impressive that they can rock ~300ft vessels, but earthquakes they ain't.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Various thoughts:
The Koopa Clown Car looks like it could be a useful forward command thingy for Bowser. It flies at a fair old clip and drops cannon balls the size of Bowser all over the shop. If there's more than one, Bowser's airforce now has something between airships and Paratroopas.

They already do. Later worlds in SMB3, possibly exclusively restricted to the last world if memory serves, feature wooden jet-propelled platforms armed with cannons. These cannot hover as with airships, but their numbers and firepower could easily destroy any Middle Earth army on their own.

[Praxis]

Not to mention that multiple children of his are capable of causing earthquakes that can stun an all-powerful superhuman like Mario just by jumping.

If you're talking about SMB3, those battles took place on the airships, didn't they? It's still impressive that they can rock ~300ft vessels, but earthquakes they ain't.

They also did it in Super Mario World, inside large castles.

It was enough to cause Mario to lose his footing...

[Darth Fanboy]

Makes you wonder where Koopa's kids were during the Smithy Gang Invasion.

I would love one day to collect all the information from all the mario games, including the DS titles, and create a comprehensive map of what the Mushroom Kingdom must be. Oh 'twould be glorious.

Also, Darth Koopa had the Koop Star. Koop Star > anything LOTR.

[Vanas]

But, after all this, you just know the Palantir will be in another Tower.

As a minor side note, have we ever seen a Bullet/Banzai Bill explode (other tgan in Super Smash Bros., which doesn't count)? It goes seem that Bowser's armies are surprisingly light on explosives.

[spongyblue]

Just makes you thinbk what would Bowser do with a Palantir. Probablt try to look up Peaches skirt.