Don't blame Princess Peach for being kidnapped. Blame Bowser for kidnapping her

[09philj]

It needs to be recognised that female characters being out of their depth is fine as long as they make up for it in other areas. Emmeryn, ruler of Yllise in Fire Emblem: Awakening, is virtuous, noble, kind, and an avowed pacifist, which means she's in deep shit when confronted by a deranged sociopath whose dearest wish is to commit genocide.

Where Mario is concerned, all the characters are a bit thick. Bowser has tried the same plan over and over and it has always ended with him being dunked in lava, swallowed by a black hole, thrown into a pit, or otherwise incapacitated by Mario and his gang, but he keeps going back for more anyway. Mario, Luigi, Peach, and the Toads, despite having witnessed these plots happen over and over, have yet to sort out some actual full time security and instead end up with Peach being kidnapped each time and the others being forced to undertake a dangerous journey to rescue her. So, in short, I blame them all.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I like to think that she says she's kidnapped, but in reality (as it were), she prefers to spend her time with Bowser.

 

[FillerDmon]

I'm entirely in the same field as Chester Rabbit. This is a stupid conversation from both sides over a stupid video game trope that literally exists only to justify the Mushroom Kingdom Remix (or whatever it was Yahtzee said). If you come into the newest one expecting to be moved like it was the next Captain Philips, then I think you should lower your standards a bit.

That said, I like being stupid sometimes, so I feel like playing devil's advocate; For everyone who says "Peach should beef up security" I'd like to ask a random question:

How?

Peach own's one kingdom, usually just the land near her castle in some cases, and even it's citizens are rivaled by the local Goombas. And outside of a few situations, she herself certainly isn't capable of training them, and Mario's "Jump and Eat Mushrooms" approach isn't one that a bunch of disabled-mushroom-people can really follow.

All 7 other Kingdoms: Full of Bowser's Minions, assuming they don't outright belong to him, and that's assuming he's even had to have the trouble of taking them over with one of his several armies of minions. About the only actual force that can take on Bowser is Mario, and even when Mario's around, Bowser usually has some new trick or strategy to incapacitate Mario and get him out of the way.

Quite frankly, the only reason I even bother responding to this sort of argument is because I actually enjoy playing as the Princess whenever we get the chance; floating is hella awesome. But, not counting all the non-canon stuff, if the only dude capable of standing up to the love-child of Eisenhower and Godzilla (who is also leading an army that's taken over 87% of the free world), is himself beaten by him and lucky to survive his initial skirmish alive, or is completely outsmarted by said love-child (or any of his 8 children/commanders of afforementioned armies), what chance does Princess Peach actually have?

 

[Nazulu]

Looks like everyone and their dog beat me to it.

Have to blame the writers only. I don't know why they can't shake it up more often. Peach was a fighter in Super Mario Brothers 2, who also takes justice into her own hands in Super Princess Peach on the DS, then does more story wise in the RPGs I've heard, and she's one of my favourite characters to play in SSB Melee.

It's not like she has to be involved the same way, so it's the writers fault to keep doing this.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Eh, in the game universe, Peach has a lucrative kingdom, she can hire people to teach the toads to jump on enemies. she can grow fire flowers. hire guards, build canons, throw some logs together and build tanks and airships coz it works for koopa. Have treasure tracker toads find debris from beaten bowser vehicles to reverse engineer. Get some invincible power up stars and have the

Spoiler: TOOOOOOOOOOOOOAD WARRIOR

<youtube=69-3-J8cq0s>

do something. Hell, spawn an army of them.
Grow an army of piranha plants. Make a series of 10ft walls. Anything not outright flying will just get turned around.

in the meta, I blame the writers. Sure they didn't want to complicate stuff, but they also don't want to complicate stuff.

Bowser generally doesn't seem to get blamed coz Mario curbstomps him in the end. he gets punished.

It's not like we ever see Peach actually use her princess power on her kingdom. We don't get to see her exercise power, and be competent.

 

[Nazulu]

It needs to be said, IT'S A FUC**** NINTENDO GAME!

Dear god, do people really need to go the whole sexism tropes on a game series that is quite literally nostalgia incarnate for a time when large complicated stories were hard to insert to a game? It's just feels like an easy target despite even it doesn't take itself seriously.

No one mentioned anything about sexism here, just which character should get the blame (or artist). I didn't even think about sexism until I saw your post.

 

[DOOM GUY]

I hardly think it matters at all, the gameplay is the focus of Mario, saving the Princess is just there to give a reason to the gameplay, now you can say "why does it have to be a Princess getting kidnapped, why not come up with a better story?" but it really doesn't matter, Mario Bros isn't trying to tell some important story, or really much of a story at all.

The whole discussion is pretty silly if you ask me, but whatevs, if people wanna make a big deal out of something that's totes not a big deal, that's up to them.

 

[FillerDmon]

Eh, in the game universe, Peach has a lucrative kingdom, she can hire people to teach the toads to jump on enemies. she can grow fire flowers. hire guards, build canons, throw some logs together and build tanks and airships coz it works for koopa. Have treasure tracker toads find debris from beaten bowser vehicles to reverse engineer. Get some invincible power up stars and have the

Spoiler: TOOOOOOOOOOOOOAD WARRIOR

<youtube=69-3-J8cq0s>

do something. Hell, spawn an army of them.
Grow an army of piranha plants. Make a series of 10ft walls. Anything not outright flying will just get turned around.

in the meta, I blame the writers. Sure they didn't want to complicate stuff, but they also don't want to complicate stuff.

Bowser generally doesn't seem to get blamed coz Mario curbstomps him in the end. he gets punished.

It's not like we ever see Peach actually use her princess power on her kingdom. We don't get to see her exercise power, and be competent.

In most of the 'verse, Toads are the absolute worst jumpers. I didn't know Fire Flowers were grown, rather than just found. And just because Koopa has the resources of 7 countries doesn't mean what he is capable of, Peach and the Mushroom Kingdom are also capable of in terms of technology and production. I thought Bowser controlled the Piranha Plants. And I don't see a 10 foot wall stopping a Tank. You'd think some of Bowser's bigger bros, let alone Bosses, would walk right through them like the Kaiju did in Pacific Rim.

Though I agree that Power Stars and such would make a good resource (and her castle has at least 120 of the things in it), and that it would be nice to see the title of Princess actually -mean- something.

Edit: Also, holy fuck, I don't even remember that show. And yet I know it to be a thing that filled my heart with joy once upon a time.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

It's all Peach's fault for trying to rule the world with mind control zombie mushrooms.
Don't blame Bowser, he's just trying to protect the royalty of a neighbouring kingdom. It's not his fault he doesn't know it's all part of her evil plan.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

Eh, in the game universe, Peach has a lucrative kingdom, she can hire people to teach the toads to jump on enemies. she can grow fire flowers. hire guards, build canons, throw some logs together and build tanks and airships coz it works for koopa. Have treasure tracker toads find debris from beaten bowser vehicles to reverse engineer. Get some invincible power up stars and have the

Spoiler: TOOOOOOOOOOOOOAD WARRIOR

<youtube=69-3-J8cq0s>

do something. Hell, spawn an army of them.
Grow an army of piranha plants. Make a series of 10ft walls. Anything not outright flying will just get turned around.

in the meta, I blame the writers. Sure they didn't want to complicate stuff, but they also don't want to complicate stuff.

Bowser generally doesn't seem to get blamed coz Mario curbstomps him in the end. he gets punished.

It's not like we ever see Peach actually use her princess power on her kingdom. We don't get to see her exercise power, and be competent.

In most of the 'verse, Toads are the absolute worst jumpers. I didn't know Fire Flowers were grown, rather than just found. And just because Koopa has the resources of 7 countries doesn't mean what he is capable of, Peach and the Mushroom Kingdom are also capable of in terms of technology and production. I thought Bowser controlled the Piranha Plants. And I don't see a 10 foot wall stopping a Tank. You'd think some of Bowser's bigger bros, let alone Bosses, would walk right through them like the Kaiju did in Pacific Rim.

Though I agree that Power Stars and such would make a good resource (and her castle has at least 120 of the things in it), and that it would be nice to see the title of Princess actually -mean- something.

Edit: Also, holy fuck, I don't even remember that show. And yet I know it to be a thing that filled my heart with joy once upon a time.

Nintendo and Koei could band together again, and make Romance of the Toad Kingdoms for 3ds/Wii U/IOS/Android where you can play as Peach, and manage resources against the forces of Bowser, and stuff in a strategy game. Not only do we get Peach use her royal power, but we also get to see her try to mount a defense against bowser's forces.
Of course you'd get the option of playing as other forces, and maybe create your own officer, or something, too.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I'm going to blame Nintendo here. Nintendo has other villains who can kidnap other Princesses but more importantly, Nintendo has shown a capability of doing more interesting things than having Peach get kidnapped by the same King again and again. What ever happened to Wart? Shy Guys escaped from Dreamland but Wart hasn't come up with a way to invade the real world? What of Tatanga? Did the purple alien guy die in Super Mario Land? Most importantly of all...What of Wario and Waluigi? How awesome would it be to play a Wario and Luigi platformer where you try saving Wapeach and Wadaisy only to discover in the end that there is no Wapeach or Wadaisy and that you're really kidnapping Peach and Daisy? Final fight against Mario and Luigi, it's a supposed-to-lose fight when Peach and Daisy tag-team Wa and WaLu, end of game, Waah.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

It's just a quick way of kickstarting the plot. Don't overthink it. Nintendo doesn't.

 

[FillerDmon]

Nintendo and Koei could band together again, and make Romance of the Toad Kingdoms for 3ds/Wii U/IOS/Android where you can play as Peach, and manage resources against the forces of Bowser, and stuff in a strategy game. Not only do we get Peach use her royal power, but we also get to see her try to mount a defense against bowser's forces.
Of course you'd get the option of playing as other forces, and maybe create your own officer, or something, too.

... it's ideas like this that make me wish companies had people who got paid to sift through the endless masses of crap on the internet, in order to find the random jewelry within. A Mushroom Kingdom strategy game... we've had them on Vanilla Starcraft, but it'd be cool to see it for real.

 

[imperialwar]

Maybe all the Mario adventures are actually a TV show put on to keep the people of the mushroom kingdom entertained

 

[MHR]

I smell trollbait. I really do, but I'm going to bite.

How about she get some better security? If the president of the USA got kidnapped 3 times, don't just get angry at the terrorists, someone needs to get blamed for security lapses.

Stupid inept toads apparently aren't very effective against bowser. At least tell toad to stop forgetting his bazooka at home.

This isn't "victim blaming," that woman really does get kidnapped too much.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

I think the actual canon of Mario (if it can be called as such) is that the main Mario games are a play being put on to be watched and enjoyed, which is why they go karting and play tennis later.

 

[FPLOON]

Spoiler: *ahem*

http://cdn.meme.am/instances2/500x/1542927.jpg

Anywho, either everyone's an idiot or everyone suffers from long-term short-term memory lost...

Or everyone gets paid to do their schtick like a much more lucrative Fix-it Felix...

 

[Ayen Matthews]

I hardly think it matters at all, the gameplay is the focus of Mario, saving the Princess is just there to give a reason to the gameplay, now you can say "why does it have to be a Princess getting kidnapped, why not come up with a better story?" but it really doesn't matter, Mario Bros isn't trying to tell some important story, or really much of a story at all.

The whole discussion is pretty silly if you ask me, but whatevs, if people wanna make a big deal out of something that's totes not a big deal, that's up to them.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't see anyone disputing gameplay being the focus of a Mario game. Just that it'd be nice to have variety in their premises, which they have proven to be capable of in the past. And to be fair, I think they have in the present. It's easy to get caught up in all the examples where they didn't, though I'm not 100% on this.

I don't think anyone is really going to lose sleep over this. We're just having the discussion because we're nerds.

 

[Amaror]

Do I blame Sansa Stark for getting (.....) by (......)? No. I blame the writers for putting her in the fucking victim role for the umpteenth time.

Just the one writer, unless we're talking about show discrepancies, which would be a very fair talking point vis-a-vis Sansa's role.

No in this case it's completely the show's writers fault. This doesn't happen in the books. In the books

Spoiler

She stays with Littlefinger, learns from him and assists him in his schemes. She gets a lot more confident and learns to control her situation.
Littlefinger arranges a marriage for her, but it's with the one that will inherit the throne of the Vale after the weakling dies. They plan on then using the armies of the Vale to conquer the North back in her name.

I just hate how the show does it. They show part of her progression to get more control over her life and then just f*ck it all up again with their retarded changes to the story.

 

[Sarge034]

Why are we blaming Peach for this? She didn't want this. She's the victim here, and yet we're constantly putting her down because of somebody ELSE's crime, namely Bowsers. HE'S the villain here. HE'S the one kidnapping this woman and dragging her from her home, so why isn't HE the one who gets the criticism.

Because perhaps he's not the villain...?

In all seriousness this hits on a real life topic and I hold an unpopular view on it, victim blaming. Yes, the one who commits the act is responsible for it, but if the victim made the act easier in some way then they too hold some blame. IE drinking and walking home alone. Think of it like this, if I stuck my hand in a blender to get something and it turned on, mangling me, it's the blenders fault right? It turned on. It chewed me up. But do I not hold some blame for putting my hand in a blender while it was plugged in? Same thing with Peach, Bowser may be the one kidnapping her (if it is in fact kidnapping...) but she's been kidnapped so many times why hasn't she raised an army and fortified her castle? Why hasn't she taken steps to negate this obvious threat to her?