unironically one of the best nes endings. way better than the standard black screen with two lines of chinkgrish. also its a fitting ending because this game was actually a japanese game called donkey, donkey panic
I agree. Mario briefly waking up and then immediately falling back asleep, likely to forget the entire adventure, is nice and bittersweet. The wistful music helps a lot, too.
I actually like the head canon that Mario has that dream and him telling the others about it makes them become the versions of themselves they are now. Super Peach and lanky floaty Luigi do come from tgis game after all.
I remember beating this game at a pretty early age (as young as 5 maybe) and being completely transfixed by the ending. I had never seen anything like it.
In the context of the game, Subcon is indeed a real place and the creatures in it are real creatures, so in that sense Mario didn't dream them up. I don't think it's clear if Wart and company only exist within the dream realm, like the Subcon fairies, or if they found a way to enter it from the outside world. Presumably the latter, given how some of the creature types from Wart's crew appeared in later Mario games.
>i hate this 'theory' so much, it's so lowbrau and edgy
i mean fly agaric mushrooms are literally hallucinogenic so its not much of a stretch. i doubt thats what the devs were actually going for though but still
This is the main one I can forgive because it's iconic. The game isn't terribly serious to begin with and the entire tone of it is very charming. Rest well, kids. Your heroes are napping too.
Canonically, would this mean SMB3 never happened, and Super Mario World is the next title following the first Super Mario Bros?
Or do we count Super Mario Land? That released between SMB3 and World.
What if it did happen and what we play is just Mario dreaming about it?
Canonically, would this mean SMB3 never happened, and Super Mario World is the next title following the first Super Mario Bros?
Or do we count Super Mario Land? That released between SMB3 and World.
What if it did happen and what we played was just a play of it?
The subcon dream world setting of the game initially implied all enemies were exclusive to the dream world so that Shy Guys would not be seen in the Mushroom Kingdom, however, Yoshi's Island and later all Mario titles established Shy Guys were present in the Mushroom Kingdom and surrounding areas of the Mushroom World so that finding Shy Guys in the dream world was not particularly unique or special as they would simply be a recurring enemy that the main cast was dreaming about in their own dream. Although this is a subtle and often overlooked retcon of the Mario series canon, it fundamentally changes the narrative of the inhabitants of the dream world being distinctly separate from the Mushroom Kingdom in SMB2, vs the now prevalent post SMB2 narrative that subcon species are interchangeable with the real world of the Mushroom Kingdom. That being said, there are several enemies and bosses introduced in SMB2 who do not show up in the games. If we are to consider the non-canonical DIC series as semi-canon, then the inhabitants of subcon were ruled by King Koopa after Wart/Mamu's defeat and integrated into the main koopa army, before being systematically genocided by Mario and co. Media produced around this time period attempts to reconcile the different designs of the primary Mushroom Kingdom enemies with the SMB2 enemies, more often conflating their co-existence while never addressing their origin point from Wart's domain, or addressing Wart's presence at all. So it is assumed there was some form of usurpation going on at the time, with Koopa raiding and taking over subcon itself. This was never confirmed however, and now the entire history of subcon once being under the domain of Wart seems to have been swept under the rug, a sort of revisionist history where instead of acknowledging Wart and subcon as the responsible parties, it appears Wart and subcon never existed in the first place, as in a dream. Perchance.
It's bizarre how people don't understand the story of Super Mario Bros 2 USA.
Subcon is world in another dimension that you can only enter in through your dreams. It's not the same as "it was all just dream" as in nothing happened or the character made it up, you just can't enter that world without dreaming. SMB2 is basically an isekai
Before bringing Jung to the table, there is one problem we must address. Subcon, The subconscious. What is the subconscious of our one of four main characters? At first, we have the pre-classic timeline to work off of. SMB, TLL, and SMB3, assuming SMB2 takes place shortly after TLL, as an interquel of sorts. Mario (or his substitute) has dreamt the adventure with, to the viewer, an interpretation of the Mushroom Kingdom archetypes based on his initiatory journey through the Mushroom Kingdom, the shell representing the koopa, Wart standing in for Bowser, etc. So far, Shy Guys and Birdo do not exist. Even the tie-in cartoons do not have Mario and co visit the dream land again, or mention Wart, as if the dream world inhabitants had always been in the Mushroom Kingdom, setting an ironic precedent for the post-SM64 period to the modern period, with the prequel Yoshi's Island arguably enhancing the broader narrative rather than overriding it. There are numerous retcons in this entry, but the Shy Guy is most peculiar. Here we see a variety of types, distinct from the common enemy in SMB2, not contradicting SMB2, but recontextualizing it. SMB2, the crux of the series so far, pivots to Yoshi's Island. Is Mario dreaming the real world of the Mushroom Kingdom, or is the Mushroom Kingdom dreaming Mario? Mario awakens to find enemies he has always known to have existed since childhood, yet oddly, has never encountered them in the Mushroom Kingdom if we only look at the classical entries. Mario's relationship with Kamek, Bowser, Yoshi, even the introduction to the Mushroom Kingdom itself, all turned on its head as if it were always there to begin with. So was this Shy Guy populated past always there, simply off camera, out of sight, out of view, or. Or. Was it an awakening. Was SMB2 a shamanic journey that rewrote the past, bypassing linear time and creating a presuppositional non-linear, simultaneous narrative in defiance of time as we know it? Ask Mario, the one who dreams.
If Mario is the only one dreaming, did the adventure happen or not happen to the other companions? To the player, there are a number of possibilities available at the character select screen. Who went through this stage, etc. Multiple choice. Yet at the end we are shown Mario dreaming, exclusively. Was this a shared dream? A collective dream? Were others involved beyond these four? Was it only Mario. Or do the others remember this shared dream and talk about it regularly. Or keep it secret, never to bring up this moment again. One evening, no more than a few hours, and yet we have rewritten all of Mushroom Kingdom history. Of course his brother was there. The Princess. Toad. How could they not be. Yet. Yet if Mario is only selected for each and every stage, what are we left with. Were the others mere spectators in Mario's dream? Why don't we see them wake up as well? No, let's not entertain the idea that all the entries moving forward are but Mario trapped in a coma, for that is but trite and sophomoric. And yet. How did this dream happen? Did all four experience and not experience each level at the same time? It doesn't matter. The player is the one to collapse the wave function, to be the god of this world, at least temporarily, deciding who will go first and in what order. How did the adventure go, how did it play out. There is no one answer, only the choice of the player at the character select screen, and the outcome, played out in real time. There is no Super Mario Bros. 2, there is only a quantum event that can be studied. Observed. But never known.
Does the collective of the Mushroom Kingdom dream this world into existence, or does it exist independent of the dreamer. It is presented as Mario's dream, yet we are told Mario and friends are visiting the world of dreams, just as Link in Link's Awakening is a shared experience that to the viewer, could be brushed off as an individual dream. But it's more than obvious that this is not the case, that the dream is merely an access point to a larger dream realm where even Mamu and Goombas show up, hinting that, if one were to utilize the dream realm to its full potential, one could cross between realms, as far as the Mario and Zelda realms are concerned. This could have been the backdrop for say, Smash Bros or any other crossover, rather than being the imagination of some disembodied floating hand which, we are not explicitly told is not connected to the dream world of SMB2. Smash Bros has subspace, no relation to SMB2's subspace. That we know of. But then, we don't know Kirby's Dream land is unconnected to SMB2's dreamland. Could Kirby enemies appear in Wart's domain alongside Shy Guys, etc. Why not. Speculation. Hypothesis. Tangents and circumstantial evidence. Were the Metroid and Link cameos in SMRPG just jokes, or are they evidence of a larger interconnected narrative. But here we are again. At speculation. Ephemeral. Nothing concrete. Just a dream. No, a land that can be accessed just as much as Mario can step outside into the Mushroom Kingdom, just as Link can walk upon Hyrule. The subtext: There are no dreams, only places. But how. How does one alter one's perception, one's awareness, to shift one's consciousness to those realms. The obvious joke comes to mind. Mushrooms. The answer was always there. Haha. But no, seriously. That's been overplayed, hasn't it. Mario loves his mushrooms. Stop eating mushrooms, Mario. But the mushrooms are still there. Standing there, waiting. What do they mean. What do they signify. There are two types of Mushrooms in SMB2.
If Mario is the only one dreaming, did the adventure happen or not happen to the other companions? To the player, there are a number of possibilities available at the character select screen. Who went through this stage, etc. Multiple choice. Yet at the end we are shown Mario dreaming, exclusively. Was this a shared dream? A collective dream? Were others involved beyond these four? Was it only Mario. Or do the others remember this shared dream and talk about it regularly. Or keep it secret, never to bring up this moment again. One evening, no more than a few hours, and yet we have rewritten all of Mushroom Kingdom history. Of course his brother was there. The Princess. Toad. How could they not be. Yet. Yet if Mario is only selected for each and every stage, what are we left with. Were the others mere spectators in Mario's dream? Why don't we see them wake up as well? No, let's not entertain the idea that all the entries moving forward are but Mario trapped in a coma, for that is but trite and sophomoric. And yet. How did this dream happen? Did all four experience and not experience each level at the same time? It doesn't matter. The player is the one to collapse the wave function, to be the god of this world, at least temporarily, deciding who will go first and in what order. How did the adventure go, how did it play out. There is no one answer, only the choice of the player at the character select screen, and the outcome, played out in real time. There is no Super Mario Bros. 2, there is only a quantum event that can be studied. Observed. But never known.
Does the collective of the Mushroom Kingdom dream this world into existence, or does it exist independent of the dreamer. It is presented as Mario's dream, yet we are told Mario and friends are visiting the world of dreams, just as Link in Link's Awakening is a shared experience that to the viewer, could be brushed off as an individual dream. But it's more than obvious that this is not the case, that the dream is merely an access point to a larger dream realm where even Mamu and Goombas show up, hinting that, if one were to utilize the dream realm to its full potential, one could cross between realms, as far as the Mario and Zelda realms are concerned. This could have been the backdrop for say, Smash Bros or any other crossover, rather than being the imagination of some disembodied floating hand which, we are not explicitly told is not connected to the dream world of SMB2. Smash Bros has subspace, no relation to SMB2's subspace. That we know of. But then, we don't know Kirby's Dream land is unconnected to SMB2's dreamland. Could Kirby enemies appear in Wart's domain alongside Shy Guys, etc. Why not. Speculation. Hypothesis. Tangents and circumstantial evidence. Were the Metroid and Link cameos in SMRPG just jokes, or are they evidence of a larger interconnected narrative. But here we are again. At speculation. Ephemeral. Nothing concrete. Just a dream. No, a land that can be accessed just as much as Mario can step outside into the Mushroom Kingdom, just as Link can walk upon Hyrule. The subtext: There are no dreams, only places. But how. How does one alter one's perception, one's awareness, to shift one's consciousness to those realms. The obvious joke comes to mind. Mushrooms. The answer was always there. Haha. But no, seriously. That's been overplayed, hasn't it. Mario loves his mushrooms. Stop eating mushrooms, Mario. But the mushrooms are still there. Standing there, waiting. What do they mean. What do they signify. There are two types of Mushrooms in SMB2.
appreciate the pasta bro, can't wait to share with others
If Mario is the only one dreaming, did the adventure happen or not happen to the other companions? To the player, there are a number of possibilities available at the character select screen. Who went through this stage, etc. Multiple choice. Yet at the end we are shown Mario dreaming, exclusively. Was this a shared dream? A collective dream? Were others involved beyond these four? Was it only Mario. Or do the others remember this shared dream and talk about it regularly. Or keep it secret, never to bring up this moment again. One evening, no more than a few hours, and yet we have rewritten all of Mushroom Kingdom history. Of course his brother was there. The Princess. Toad. How could they not be. Yet. Yet if Mario is only selected for each and every stage, what are we left with. Were the others mere spectators in Mario's dream? Why don't we see them wake up as well? No, let's not entertain the idea that all the entries moving forward are but Mario trapped in a coma, for that is but trite and sophomoric. And yet. How did this dream happen? Did all four experience and not experience each level at the same time? It doesn't matter. The player is the one to collapse the wave function, to be the god of this world, at least temporarily, deciding who will go first and in what order. How did the adventure go, how did it play out. There is no one answer, only the choice of the player at the character select screen, and the outcome, played out in real time. There is no Super Mario Bros. 2, there is only a quantum event that can be studied. Observed. But never known.
Does the collective of the Mushroom Kingdom dream this world into existence, or does it exist independent of the dreamer. It is presented as Mario's dream, yet we are told Mario and friends are visiting the world of dreams, just as Link in Link's Awakening is a shared experience that to the viewer, could be brushed off as an individual dream. But it's more than obvious that this is not the case, that the dream is merely an access point to a larger dream realm where even Mamu and Goombas show up, hinting that, if one were to utilize the dream realm to its full potential, one could cross between realms, as far as the Mario and Zelda realms are concerned. This could have been the backdrop for say, Smash Bros or any other crossover, rather than being the imagination of some disembodied floating hand which, we are not explicitly told is not connected to the dream world of SMB2. Smash Bros has subspace, no relation to SMB2's subspace. That we know of. But then, we don't know Kirby's Dream land is unconnected to SMB2's dreamland. Could Kirby enemies appear in Wart's domain alongside Shy Guys, etc. Why not. Speculation. Hypothesis. Tangents and circumstantial evidence. Were the Metroid and Link cameos in SMRPG just jokes, or are they evidence of a larger interconnected narrative. But here we are again. At speculation. Ephemeral. Nothing concrete. Just a dream. No, a land that can be accessed just as much as Mario can step outside into the Mushroom Kingdom, just as Link can walk upon Hyrule. The subtext: There are no dreams, only places. But how. How does one alter one's perception, one's awareness, to shift one's consciousness to those realms. The obvious joke comes to mind. Mushrooms. The answer was always there. Haha. But no, seriously. That's been overplayed, hasn't it. Mario loves his mushrooms. Stop eating mushrooms, Mario. But the mushrooms are still there. Standing there, waiting. What do they mean. What do they signify. There are two types of Mushrooms in SMB2.
Dream Machine: A machine belonging to the Subcons, which produces the dreams that form the land of Subcon itself. In stealing it, Wart is able to force it into producing minions for his cause. During the battle with Wart, it creates Vegetables, Wart's weakness, for the player to use against him.
Collective conscious. Collective unconscious. Collective subconscious. What is the first cause. Does the Dream Machine create the world of dreams? Or does the dream create the Dream Machine creating itself. There is no beginning. How can you know there is an end. Does the dream world end when Mario awakens? No. It is still there. Still waiting to be accessed. Rediscovered. And explored. Yet we don't have a series of spinoffs exploring this setting, only cameos and references to this world that does and does not exist based on whether it is remembered.
When Mario opened a door after climbing a long stair in his dream, another world spread before him and he heard a (faint) voice call for help to be freed from a spell.
After awakening, Mario went to a cave nearby and to his surprise he saw exactly what he saw in his dream....
One night, Mario had a strange dream. He found himself climbing a long staircase leading up to a mysterious door. Opening the door, Mario's eyes fell upon an incredible world unlike anything he'd ever seen. A quiet voice spoke to Mario, saying,
"Welcome to Subcon, the land of dreams. Our once-beautiful world now suffers at the hands of the evil Wart. Please help us! Only you can free us from his tyranny. Oh, and remember one thing: Wart hates vegetables."
However, before Mario could figure out what was happening, he suddenly awoke on his bed and realized that it was all a dream. The next day, while heading out to a picnic with his friends Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad, Mario told the tale of his strange dream. Hearing this was quite a shock to his friends, who all had the very same dream the night before.
Upon arriving at their picnic spot, the group noticed a small cave. Inside was a long staircase that led up to a door. At the top, the four friends opened the door and stood shocked by what they saw. It was Subcon - the world of their dreams!
Mario discovers that Subcon has been taken over by Wart and that the events of his dream are true. Mario and co. are now on a quest to defeat Wart and restore peace to the dream world. At the end of the game, Mario, Luigi, Toadstool and Toad are seen being chanted on by the inhabitants of Subcon, who are carrying Wart across the room. Mario then wakes up and wonders about whether the events were true or just a dream. He then continues sleeping and the game ends.
So the initial dream serves as a signal, a warning from the inhabitants of this realm that Mario and friends should explore this realm. All four have the same dream, from their perspective, and discuss this commonality while heading to their picnic area, when they find a cave there that was not there before, still in the real world from their perspective. So the dream does not start until they explore this cave that was not previously there, and climb up a staircase and open a door, starting the game. So this whole series of events supposedly took place while they were awake, yet ends with Mario waking in his own bed, somewhere in the Mushroom Kingdom, presumably his own bed in his own house, or at the Mushroom Kingdom castle. If he and his friends had fallen asleep at the picnic area, this would explain the appearance of the cave in a dream, and his friends might have dragged him to either bed to wake up later, yet waking up in his own bed implies none of this happened; there was no picnic, no walk, no discussion, and no cave. So here there is an overlap between what is real and not according to the logic of the Mushroom Kingdom being real or more real than the dream world, because none of this happened even when it was being experienced directly in the Mushroom Kingdom, as if the space itself of the picnic area and cave took on the aspect of a dream, not being remembered or accessible again. Could Mario and his friends talk about that shared experience, visit it again, even verify it was still there or not there and open that door once again, this time fully awake, fully aware of what is to come? Perhaps. But it doesn't matter. Did you know you're going to other planets to fight all the bosses in Megaman 3? Did you know that? It doesn't matter.
So through inference, we can say that Wart was overthrown during SMB2, left his army to inhabit the Mushroom Kingdom in the past so they would retroactively have already been there for Mario to notice them and have a dream based on them already being there creating a retroactive but stable time loop, then moved to the Wind Fish's area of the dream world to retire as Mamu, the true identity of the antagonist of DDP, which brings up another point, that even though SMB2 would cancel out the story of DDP, it in fact acknowledges it as canon to its own separate continuity, Wart being both Mamu and not Mamu of DDP at the same time. However, DDP is a dream inside of a storybook, while SMB2 only retains the storybook as a framing device with no explanation. This would imply that both SMB2 and DDP are stories on a bookshelf that cannot be accessed together as they would cancel each other out, Mamu being both DDP's antagonist and also not DDP's antagonist unless they were the same character participating in both stories, which they are not. DDP does not exist. There was no DDP. America was always at war with Wart, not Mamu. So then what is Mamu, Link's Awakening? Wart? But Wart isn't Mamu, and yet is. There is no explanation. No rationale. There is a dream. There is a frog. There are goombas. Nothing makes sense. Nothing was ever meant to.
unironically one of the best nes endings. way better than the standard black screen with two lines of chinkgrish. also its a fitting ending because this game was actually a japanese game called donkey, donkey panic
I agree. Mario briefly waking up and then immediately falling back asleep, likely to forget the entire adventure, is nice and bittersweet. The wistful music helps a lot, too.
I actually like the head canon that Mario has that dream and him telling the others about it makes them become the versions of themselves they are now. Super Peach and lanky floaty Luigi do come from tgis game after all.
I remember beating this game at a pretty early age (as young as 5 maybe) and being completely transfixed by the ending. I had never seen anything like it.
>a le
You know, on Reddit they speak like this.
But it's ok. He's probably not a troony, just a gay homosexual.
Are there other types of homosexuals?
Knowing French as well as English it just grates reading it, but that's the point I suppose.
Unironically delicious lamb balls.
For frick's sake anon they only did that on the rage comics subreddit and rage comics meme has been dead for ten fricking years.
le monkey face
If you didn't see the twist coming from a mile away then I don't what to tell you.
I never read this before and it legit spooked me out. Reads like some creepypasta.
>Subcon
One of the locations in A Hat in Time is called "Subcon Forest", I didn't know that it was a reference to SMB2.
So did Shyguys cross over from Subcon to the real world? Or did Mario just dream of a normal, no supernatural, common mook all along?
In the context of the game, Subcon is indeed a real place and the creatures in it are real creatures, so in that sense Mario didn't dream them up. I don't think it's clear if Wart and company only exist within the dream realm, like the Subcon fairies, or if they found a way to enter it from the outside world. Presumably the latter, given how some of the creature types from Wart's crew appeared in later Mario games.
They could be real but Mario still has a dream about it.
Mario didn't want a fly guy, he just wanted shy guys
This was the first game with no flaws.
Its flaw is that there isn't more of it.
I USED TO READ 1-UP MAGAZINE
hallucination*
i hate this 'theory' so much, it's so lowbrau and edgy
>i hate this 'theory' so much, it's so lowbrau and edgy
i mean fly agaric mushrooms are literally hallucinogenic so its not much of a stretch. i doubt thats what the devs were actually going for though but still
Has Miyamoto ever explained the intent behind the mushrooms?
I think it had something to do with Alice and Wonderland. I read it in Game Over by David Sheff, but I have no idea where my copy is now.
Mario is Popeye.
Popeye in Wonderland, where the mushrooms make you big.
That's it.
This is the main one I can forgive because it's iconic. The game isn't terribly serious to begin with and the entire tone of it is very charming. Rest well, kids. Your heroes are napping too.
>Someone put the biggie lyrics
SEGA NINTENDO
SUPER GENESIS
WHEN I WAS MAD BROKE MAN I COULDN'T PICTURE THIS
i used to read le word up magazine
It was just le stage play.
Canonically, would this mean SMB3 never happened, and Super Mario World is the next title following the first Super Mario Bros?
Or do we count Super Mario Land? That released between SMB3 and World.
What if it did happen and what we play is just Mario dreaming about it?
What if it did happen and what we played was just a play of it?
Wish they made more Mario games like this
This was my favorite one when I was a kid.
The subcon dream world setting of the game initially implied all enemies were exclusive to the dream world so that Shy Guys would not be seen in the Mushroom Kingdom, however, Yoshi's Island and later all Mario titles established Shy Guys were present in the Mushroom Kingdom and surrounding areas of the Mushroom World so that finding Shy Guys in the dream world was not particularly unique or special as they would simply be a recurring enemy that the main cast was dreaming about in their own dream. Although this is a subtle and often overlooked retcon of the Mario series canon, it fundamentally changes the narrative of the inhabitants of the dream world being distinctly separate from the Mushroom Kingdom in SMB2, vs the now prevalent post SMB2 narrative that subcon species are interchangeable with the real world of the Mushroom Kingdom. That being said, there are several enemies and bosses introduced in SMB2 who do not show up in the games. If we are to consider the non-canonical DIC series as semi-canon, then the inhabitants of subcon were ruled by King Koopa after Wart/Mamu's defeat and integrated into the main koopa army, before being systematically genocided by Mario and co. Media produced around this time period attempts to reconcile the different designs of the primary Mushroom Kingdom enemies with the SMB2 enemies, more often conflating their co-existence while never addressing their origin point from Wart's domain, or addressing Wart's presence at all. So it is assumed there was some form of usurpation going on at the time, with Koopa raiding and taking over subcon itself. This was never confirmed however, and now the entire history of subcon once being under the domain of Wart seems to have been swept under the rug, a sort of revisionist history where instead of acknowledging Wart and subcon as the responsible parties, it appears Wart and subcon never existed in the first place, as in a dream. Perchance.
It's bizarre how people don't understand the story of Super Mario Bros 2 USA.
Subcon is world in another dimension that you can only enter in through your dreams. It's not the same as "it was all just dream" as in nothing happened or the character made it up, you just can't enter that world without dreaming. SMB2 is basically an isekai
Before bringing Jung to the table, there is one problem we must address. Subcon, The subconscious. What is the subconscious of our one of four main characters? At first, we have the pre-classic timeline to work off of. SMB, TLL, and SMB3, assuming SMB2 takes place shortly after TLL, as an interquel of sorts. Mario (or his substitute) has dreamt the adventure with, to the viewer, an interpretation of the Mushroom Kingdom archetypes based on his initiatory journey through the Mushroom Kingdom, the shell representing the koopa, Wart standing in for Bowser, etc. So far, Shy Guys and Birdo do not exist. Even the tie-in cartoons do not have Mario and co visit the dream land again, or mention Wart, as if the dream world inhabitants had always been in the Mushroom Kingdom, setting an ironic precedent for the post-SM64 period to the modern period, with the prequel Yoshi's Island arguably enhancing the broader narrative rather than overriding it. There are numerous retcons in this entry, but the Shy Guy is most peculiar. Here we see a variety of types, distinct from the common enemy in SMB2, not contradicting SMB2, but recontextualizing it. SMB2, the crux of the series so far, pivots to Yoshi's Island. Is Mario dreaming the real world of the Mushroom Kingdom, or is the Mushroom Kingdom dreaming Mario? Mario awakens to find enemies he has always known to have existed since childhood, yet oddly, has never encountered them in the Mushroom Kingdom if we only look at the classical entries. Mario's relationship with Kamek, Bowser, Yoshi, even the introduction to the Mushroom Kingdom itself, all turned on its head as if it were always there to begin with. So was this Shy Guy populated past always there, simply off camera, out of sight, out of view, or. Or. Was it an awakening. Was SMB2 a shamanic journey that rewrote the past, bypassing linear time and creating a presuppositional non-linear, simultaneous narrative in defiance of time as we know it? Ask Mario, the one who dreams.
LOL SCHIZO FEVER DREAM
appreciate the pasta bro, can't wait to share with others
If Mario is the only one dreaming, did the adventure happen or not happen to the other companions? To the player, there are a number of possibilities available at the character select screen. Who went through this stage, etc. Multiple choice. Yet at the end we are shown Mario dreaming, exclusively. Was this a shared dream? A collective dream? Were others involved beyond these four? Was it only Mario. Or do the others remember this shared dream and talk about it regularly. Or keep it secret, never to bring up this moment again. One evening, no more than a few hours, and yet we have rewritten all of Mushroom Kingdom history. Of course his brother was there. The Princess. Toad. How could they not be. Yet. Yet if Mario is only selected for each and every stage, what are we left with. Were the others mere spectators in Mario's dream? Why don't we see them wake up as well? No, let's not entertain the idea that all the entries moving forward are but Mario trapped in a coma, for that is but trite and sophomoric. And yet. How did this dream happen? Did all four experience and not experience each level at the same time? It doesn't matter. The player is the one to collapse the wave function, to be the god of this world, at least temporarily, deciding who will go first and in what order. How did the adventure go, how did it play out. There is no one answer, only the choice of the player at the character select screen, and the outcome, played out in real time. There is no Super Mario Bros. 2, there is only a quantum event that can be studied. Observed. But never known.
Does the collective of the Mushroom Kingdom dream this world into existence, or does it exist independent of the dreamer. It is presented as Mario's dream, yet we are told Mario and friends are visiting the world of dreams, just as Link in Link's Awakening is a shared experience that to the viewer, could be brushed off as an individual dream. But it's more than obvious that this is not the case, that the dream is merely an access point to a larger dream realm where even Mamu and Goombas show up, hinting that, if one were to utilize the dream realm to its full potential, one could cross between realms, as far as the Mario and Zelda realms are concerned. This could have been the backdrop for say, Smash Bros or any other crossover, rather than being the imagination of some disembodied floating hand which, we are not explicitly told is not connected to the dream world of SMB2. Smash Bros has subspace, no relation to SMB2's subspace. That we know of. But then, we don't know Kirby's Dream land is unconnected to SMB2's dreamland. Could Kirby enemies appear in Wart's domain alongside Shy Guys, etc. Why not. Speculation. Hypothesis. Tangents and circumstantial evidence. Were the Metroid and Link cameos in SMRPG just jokes, or are they evidence of a larger interconnected narrative. But here we are again. At speculation. Ephemeral. Nothing concrete. Just a dream. No, a land that can be accessed just as much as Mario can step outside into the Mushroom Kingdom, just as Link can walk upon Hyrule. The subtext: There are no dreams, only places. But how. How does one alter one's perception, one's awareness, to shift one's consciousness to those realms. The obvious joke comes to mind. Mushrooms. The answer was always there. Haha. But no, seriously. That's been overplayed, hasn't it. Mario loves his mushrooms. Stop eating mushrooms, Mario. But the mushrooms are still there. Standing there, waiting. What do they mean. What do they signify. There are two types of Mushrooms in SMB2.
Dream Machine: A machine belonging to the Subcons, which produces the dreams that form the land of Subcon itself. In stealing it, Wart is able to force it into producing minions for his cause. During the battle with Wart, it creates Vegetables, Wart's weakness, for the player to use against him.
Collective conscious. Collective unconscious. Collective subconscious. What is the first cause. Does the Dream Machine create the world of dreams? Or does the dream create the Dream Machine creating itself. There is no beginning. How can you know there is an end. Does the dream world end when Mario awakens? No. It is still there. Still waiting to be accessed. Rediscovered. And explored. Yet we don't have a series of spinoffs exploring this setting, only cameos and references to this world that does and does not exist based on whether it is remembered.
When Mario opened a door after climbing a long stair in his dream, another world spread before him and he heard a (faint) voice call for help to be freed from a spell.
After awakening, Mario went to a cave nearby and to his surprise he saw exactly what he saw in his dream....
One night, Mario had a strange dream. He found himself climbing a long staircase leading up to a mysterious door. Opening the door, Mario's eyes fell upon an incredible world unlike anything he'd ever seen. A quiet voice spoke to Mario, saying,
"Welcome to Subcon, the land of dreams. Our once-beautiful world now suffers at the hands of the evil Wart. Please help us! Only you can free us from his tyranny. Oh, and remember one thing: Wart hates vegetables."
However, before Mario could figure out what was happening, he suddenly awoke on his bed and realized that it was all a dream. The next day, while heading out to a picnic with his friends Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad, Mario told the tale of his strange dream. Hearing this was quite a shock to his friends, who all had the very same dream the night before.
Upon arriving at their picnic spot, the group noticed a small cave. Inside was a long staircase that led up to a door. At the top, the four friends opened the door and stood shocked by what they saw. It was Subcon - the world of their dreams!
Mario discovers that Subcon has been taken over by Wart and that the events of his dream are true. Mario and co. are now on a quest to defeat Wart and restore peace to the dream world. At the end of the game, Mario, Luigi, Toadstool and Toad are seen being chanted on by the inhabitants of Subcon, who are carrying Wart across the room. Mario then wakes up and wonders about whether the events were true or just a dream. He then continues sleeping and the game ends.
So the initial dream serves as a signal, a warning from the inhabitants of this realm that Mario and friends should explore this realm. All four have the same dream, from their perspective, and discuss this commonality while heading to their picnic area, when they find a cave there that was not there before, still in the real world from their perspective. So the dream does not start until they explore this cave that was not previously there, and climb up a staircase and open a door, starting the game. So this whole series of events supposedly took place while they were awake, yet ends with Mario waking in his own bed, somewhere in the Mushroom Kingdom, presumably his own bed in his own house, or at the Mushroom Kingdom castle. If he and his friends had fallen asleep at the picnic area, this would explain the appearance of the cave in a dream, and his friends might have dragged him to either bed to wake up later, yet waking up in his own bed implies none of this happened; there was no picnic, no walk, no discussion, and no cave. So here there is an overlap between what is real and not according to the logic of the Mushroom Kingdom being real or more real than the dream world, because none of this happened even when it was being experienced directly in the Mushroom Kingdom, as if the space itself of the picnic area and cave took on the aspect of a dream, not being remembered or accessible again. Could Mario and his friends talk about that shared experience, visit it again, even verify it was still there or not there and open that door once again, this time fully awake, fully aware of what is to come? Perhaps. But it doesn't matter. Did you know you're going to other planets to fight all the bosses in Megaman 3? Did you know that? It doesn't matter.
So through inference, we can say that Wart was overthrown during SMB2, left his army to inhabit the Mushroom Kingdom in the past so they would retroactively have already been there for Mario to notice them and have a dream based on them already being there creating a retroactive but stable time loop, then moved to the Wind Fish's area of the dream world to retire as Mamu, the true identity of the antagonist of DDP, which brings up another point, that even though SMB2 would cancel out the story of DDP, it in fact acknowledges it as canon to its own separate continuity, Wart being both Mamu and not Mamu of DDP at the same time. However, DDP is a dream inside of a storybook, while SMB2 only retains the storybook as a framing device with no explanation. This would imply that both SMB2 and DDP are stories on a bookshelf that cannot be accessed together as they would cancel each other out, Mamu being both DDP's antagonist and also not DDP's antagonist unless they were the same character participating in both stories, which they are not. DDP does not exist. There was no DDP. America was always at war with Wart, not Mamu. So then what is Mamu, Link's Awakening? Wart? But Wart isn't Mamu, and yet is. There is no explanation. No rationale. There is a dream. There is a frog. There are goombas. Nothing makes sense. Nothing was ever meant to.
What the frick?
Frick the what?