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Paper Shredding (Mario Profile Revision)

Yeah, I can agree with the verses being split. Paper Jam doubled down on how Paper Mario and his world are separate entities from Mario and co, and Paper Jam came from the same series as whatever the random Paper Mario block appeared in as a little easter egg (Must be Superstar Saga since I've never seen the room in Bowser's Inside Story, Dream Team, or Paper Jam and Partners in Time was never remade in the later games' painted style).

Minus the Star Spirits appearing in Mario Party 5 with significantly less personalized designs, there's hardly a connection between Mario and Paper Mario before and after Paper Jam and even then, they've been detaching Paper Mario from Mario since Sticker Star, with Origami King being more or less the final nail in the coffin. There's more evidence connecting Yoshi's Story to the Mario games and that takes place in a papery entity from a game nobody cared about!
 
Flashlight237 said:
Yeah, I can agree with the verses being split. Paper Jam doubled down on how Paper Mario and his world are separate entities from Mario and co, and Paper Jam came from the same series as whatever the random Paper Mario block appeared in as a little easter egg (Must be Superstar Saga since I've never seen the room in Bowser's Inside Story, Dream Team, or Paper Jam and Partners in Time was never remade in the later games' painted style).

Minus the Star Spirits appearing in Mario Party 5 with significantly less personalized designs, there's hardly a connection between Mario and Paper Mario before and after Paper Jam and even then, they've been detaching Paper Mario from Mario since Sticker Star, with Origami King being more or less the final nail in the coffin. There's more evidence connecting Yoshi's Story to the Mario games and that takes place in a papery entity from a game nobody cared about!
Click to expand...
I’d honestly say the Star Spirits appearing in MP5 is a knock against them being interconnected if anything. The Star Spirits in that game reside in a completely different location, serve a completely different role, never reference events from PM64, and never even mention their prior role at all, they’re definitely different to the Star Spirits seen in PM64, and are likely the mainline continuity’s version of the characters.
 
Kirbonic_Pikmin said:
I’d honestly say the Star Spirits appearing in MP5 is a knock against them being interconnected if anything. The Star Spirits in that game reside in a completely different location, serve a completely different role, never reference events from PM64, and never even mention their prior role at all, they’re definitely different to the Star Spirits seen in PM64, and are likely the mainline continuity’s version of the characters.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think that explains why they looked so... Generic in Mario Party 5.
 
The paper aspect was slowly given more attention with each Paper Mario game released, so now there is the idea that Paper Mario being the same as flesh Mario has been retconned. However, claiming that the original Paper Mario game is part of a different world because it was depicted as being a story in a book that Bowser was able rewrite is like claiming that Super Mario Bros. 3 isn't a legitimate adventure that Mario went on because it took place on a stage and he can go behind objects by crouching for five seconds on a white platform. The Super Mario series implements the idea of the characters being actors in the fictional world that can fit many roles, like you wrote, so characters being treated as fictional within the fictional work doesn't contradict canon. The early Paper Mario games being paper was a stylistic choice, with few events just being exceptions.
 
James_Plays_4_Games said:
The paper aspect was slowly given more attention with each Paper Mario game released, so now there is the idea that Paper Mario being the same as flesh Mario has been retconned. However, claiming that the original Paper Mario game is part of a different world because it was depicted as being a story in a book that Bowser was able rewrite is like claiming that Super Mario Bros. 3 isn't a legitimate adventure that Mario went on because it took place on a stage and he can go behind objects by crouching for five seconds on a white platform. The Super Mario series implements the idea of the characters being actors in the fictional world that can fit many roles, like you wrote, so characters being treated as fictional within the fictional work doesn't contradict canon. The early Paper Mario games being paper was a stylistic choice, with few events just being exceptions.
Click to expand...
Isnt SMB3 literally confirmed by Miyamoto himself to just be a stage play in an interview, though? That’d be in game proof and a word of god statement that everything in that game was just for show lol, I’m not sure if that’s a good argument to use here.
 
Kirbonic_Pikmin said:
Isnt SMB3 literally confirmed by Miyamoto himself to just be a stage play in an interview, though? That’d be in game proof and a word of god statement that everything in that game was just for show lol, I’m not sure if that’s a good argument to use here.
Click to expand...
Super Mario Bros. 3 is confirmed to be a stage play in the same way that it's confirmed that the Super Mario characters are always a "troupe of actors". Don't you remember? I mentioned it in my message and it was even linked in the original post. I'll link it in this message too. It means that the Super Mario series is portrayed as fiction within fiction all the time, so the fact that Paper Mario games are portrayed as fiction within fiction shouldn't be used as evidence for regarding them as a taking place in a separate universe than the primary one. Note that Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam isn't a Paper Mario game, so that's not part of what I'm referring to here.

It's also worth mentioning that what I wrote isn't an "argument". My message wasn't to agree nor disagree with the original post, hence the first sentence mentioning that there is creditability to its goal. What I wrote was simply to help people think about this matter intellectually.
 
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James_Plays_4_Games said:
Super Mario Bros. 3 is confirmed to be a stage play in the same way that it's confirmed that the Super Mario characters are always a "troupe of actors". Don't you remember? I mentioned it in my message and it was even linked in the original post. I'll link it in this message too. It means that the Super Mario series is portrayed as fiction within fiction all the time, so the fact that Paper Mario games are portrayed as fiction within fiction shouldn't be used as evidence for regarding them as a taking place in a separate universe than the primary one. Note that Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam isn't a Paper Mario game, so that's not part of what I'm referring to here.

It's also worth mentioning that what I wrote isn't an "argument". My message wasn't to agree nor disagree with the original post, hence the first sentence mentioning that there is creditability to its goal. What I wrote was simply to help people think about this matter intellectually.
Click to expand...
I’ve actually always disagreed with this wiki’s usage of that Miyamoto quote. In that quote he explicitly says that he “thinks of the characters as a troupe of actors”.

Quote, “thinks of”, he isn’t confirming that they’re only actors and every adventure is a play, nor that there’s no canon to speak of or anything like that, he’s just saying he views the characters as flexible ones that can be used to act out any scenario he’d like. He’s literally just saying he views them as actors in the way that they can be put in any situation.

I honestly have no idea how this wiki found a way to warp a quote like that into saying that there’s literally no continuity/canon to speak of and thus everything can be melded into one.

That however, is very different to the SMB3 situation. In that, he’s asked straight up “is SMB3 a stage play?” And he proceeds to reply “yes” in no uncertain terms. Not that he thought of it as one or that it can be seen as one, that it outright literally is one lol.

Also Ah okay, my bad for misunderstanding your intention.
 
Kirbonic_Pikmin said:
I’ve actually always disagreed with this wiki’s usage of that Miyamoto quote. In that quote he explicitly says that he “thinks of the characters as a troupe of actors”.

Quote, “thinks of”, he isn’t confirming that they’re only actors and every adventure is a play, nor that there’s no canon to speak of or anything like that, he’s just saying he views the characters as flexible ones that can be used to act out any scenario he’d like. He’s literally just saying he views them as actors in the way that they can be put in any situation.

I honestly have no idea how this wiki found a way to warp a quote like that into saying that there’s literally no continuity/canon to speak of and thus everything can be melded into one.

That however, is very different to the SMB3 situation. In that, he’s asked straight up “is SMB3 a stage play?” And he proceeds to reply “yes” in no uncertain terms. Not that he thought of it as one or that it can be seen as one, that it outright literally is one lol.

Also Ah okay, my bad for misunderstanding your intention.
Click to expand...
The words "thinks of" were written by the article not quoting him. Otherwise, what you wrote is mostly what I thought his answer was supposed to mean, but I think there is even more to it. To further elaborate, I think that Shigeru Miyamoto meant it in a metafictional sense, like that what the characters do in the series is always legitimate but they are actors in a similar sense of how real people contribute to making the fictional work come to life, obviously without the characters actually being real people though. Sometimes the Super Mario series makes its fictionality obvious, like with Super Mario Bros. 3, but that's really only a choice of style, with all games technically just being acts, since as we know the characters are fictional. With the characters being fictional and their roles being flexible, the continuity of the series is lenient so that characters can have a purpose in one game that contradicts another, but with both of them being canon. Of course, it is certainly possible for a Super Mario game to be non-canon. The VS Battles Wiki already considers some non-canon in fact, such as Hotel Mario.

I understand both interpretations of Paper Mario in relation to flesh Mario, but indeed I find that the note on Mario's profile considering them the same doesn't seem like the best it could be at all.
TheMonkeMan said:
Wait what's the argument here? Why is SMB3 being brought up?
Click to expand...
As I've mentioned, it's not an argument. It's a comparison between two games to help further understand how the reality of Paper Mario works.
 
I don't think the Bowser thing is particularly necessary; After all, the very next game introduces 'paper mode', an entire mechanic based around Paper Mario's paper thin nature (even having him fold into other papercraft items), and something I don't think we can leave up to stylistic choices. Of course, the recent games drive this point home even further (to the point of fans even very insistently complaining about modern Paper Mario overemphasizing the 'paper' aspect, lol), and I hope I shouldn't have to explain why the Origami King by itself is hard evidence of Paper Mario being, well, paper.

But really, how many other times do we have two characters, one stated to be from "another world" cross over, interact with each other for several days on end, and acknowledge each other as two separate beings, only for us to then composite them into the same profile anyways? Not very often, I'm willing to bet, so Mario shouldn't get a special pass.
 
Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara said:
I don't think the Bowser thing is particularly necessary; After all, the very next game introduces 'paper mode', an entire mechanic based around Paper Mario's paper thin nature (even having him fold into other papercraft items), and something I don't think we can leave up to stylistic choices. Of course, the recent games drive this point home even further (to the point of fans even very insistently complaining about modern Paper Mario overemphasizing the 'paper' aspect, lol), and I hope I shouldn't have to explain why the Origami King by itself is hard evidence of Paper Mario being, well, paper.

But really, how many other times do we have two characters, one stated to be from "another world" cross over, interact with each other for several days on end, and acknowledge each other as two separate beings, only for us to then composite them into the same profile anyways? Not very often, I'm willing to bet, so Mario shouldn't get a special pass.
Click to expand...
If this is about what I wrote, it doesn't have much to do with what I was trying to convey. Anyway, I've read that the separation of Paper Mario and flesh Mario on the VS Battles Wiki is already planned to happen but is in a limbo for some reason, so the next step should be to figure out what's going on with that. Revisions being neglected isn't good, so hopefully plans move forward. I won't be helping with this though, since I have other plans on the VS Battles Wiki. There is also another reason why I won't be helping, which has to do with Mario, but it deserves its own thread and is difficult to summarize.
 
...Are Nintendo Power guides even accepted as canon here? ******* wack if they are.

Ultimately, though, I don't think a few references to past games can really override the very obvious divide between paper and regular Mario in modern canon.
 
Bump

In case even more evidence was needed (or at least showing early Paper Mario still abided by the "world is made of paper" rule):


Mephistus said:
Secondary canon, stuff that is licensed has weight to it; their intellectual property isn't something anyone has access to.

where the frick the transition to normal and back to paper and back again is ever stated, even hinted in-universe by characters would be a deal breaker lol I'm open to the possibility.
Click to expand...
That makes sense, I guess, though I don't think we should let secondary canon overwrite primary canon.
 
Bump, bit late, but I've seen this thread and I would appreciate if the issue got solved.

I am very much in agreement that PM should be considered split from mainline, there's some arguments to the opposite but the ones in favor of the split are so much more blatant and common, and ultimately you can't expect a series so reliant on fanservice like Mario not to do that fanservice, and I definitely don't think you should hold those callbacks in higher regard than straight-up proof that the world is made of paper. Speaking of, I had gathered some more of that here.

Also Nintendo Power should absolutely not be a source of canon just cause it's licensed, unless you wanna claim Zelda CDi was ever canon.
 
Bumperino

CDi Link would need more than Nintendo's authorized mouthpiece to prove its canon, but holy mother of strawman though bringing that up to discredit them as a source of all things when they have to pay Nintendo to use their brand. Personally we should ignore them in only this instance for them covering the non english release.
 
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Mephistus said:
CDi Link would need more than Nintendo's authorized mouthpiece to prove its canon, but holy mother of strawman though bringing that up to discredit them as a source of all things when they have to pay Nintendo to use their brand. Personally we should ignore them in only this instance for them covering the non english release.
Click to expand...
No, not really, Nintendo gave them the license to use certain aspects of Mario and Zelda, same as any second or third party developing a game. In fact that was part of the agreement of dissolving their deal, so it was Nintendo paying CDi, not the other way around.
 
Part of me thinks the approaches of PM being part of and not part of mainline are both true, in the sense that PM 1-3 may be canon (due to the copious amounts of references to the first game and some from the second and how the first three games are all part of the same timeline with things like the Superstar saga block museum, Bowser’s castle in Super Circuit Rainbow Road, Dark boos from TTYD appearing in PiT, etc), while the Sticker Star entries onward are where the series morphed into its own timeline. Advertising around the time of the first game seemingly intended it to just be connected to mainline, the Japanese commercial said that it was considered another of Mario’s adventures in the same vein as his golf and party games. Paper Jam doesn’t reference anything from the original trilogy so it could probably work, and you can explain away things like the Star Spirits having different jobs by saying they are still tied to the theme of wishes in some form, since dreams and wishes can coincide.
 
He had a couple moments where he acted like paper in the first game, although there it could just be argued as one-off gags since the paper theme wasn’t emphasized that much.
 
Lou_change said:
“After all, the very next game introduces 'paper mode'”
Wouldn’t him having the ability to turn into paper given to him through a curse disprove the idea he is paper.
Click to expand...
No it just means he's using his paper body to do things lol, why does everyone take everything hyper-literally on this website
 
Lou_change said:
a "curse" gave him the ability to do that it wasn't something he could do innately
Click to expand...
There’s literally a scene in PM64 where he floats down out of the sky like a piece of paper, he’s made of Paper lol. Paper Mode just gives him the ability to manipulate his paper body in different ways he couldn’t previously
 
Mad_Dog_of_Fujiwara said:
Bump

In case even more evidence was needed (or at least showing early Paper Mario still abided by the "world is made of paper" rule):
Click to expand...

A stylized animation in a stylized game
Kirbonic_Pikmin said:
There’s literally a scene in PM64 where he floats down out of the sky like a piece of paper, he’s made of Paper lol. Paper Mode just gives him the ability to manipulate his paper body in different ways he couldn’t previously
Click to expand...
could you provide a video
 
lol

IMG_9044.png
 
Why are we even discussing this when there's still the elephant in the room of Mario and Paper Mario being in different worlds and interacting with each other as two separate beings in Paper Jam lmao
 
I guess my question is then; why is there specifically a Paper Mario Block in a room referencing blocks from Mario’s past adventures.
 
You mean fan service anyway in paper Mario there is a mention that Herringway is going to create a book called Paper Mario/Mario Story the intro cutscene involves opening a book, a thousand year door has an audience and stage for fights and starts with another book, super paper Mario starts by showing the dark prognosticus.
 
I mean post-SPM in the Paper Mario series, directly showing sprites from PM1.

I feel like that’s meant to demonstrate those events did happen in the context of the modern PM titles.
 
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