He is clearly helping retain the absolute monarchy in power.

Bowser is not a freedom fighter either, he is comprador. But like all compradors, he doesn’t know it. He thinks once the USA lets him have power, he will be rich. In truth he is a Batista, only allowed in power if he succeeds and deposed as soon as he stops being useful.

How do you think he’s recruiting all the goombas and koopas for his army? And their weapons? Not to mention the logistics of maintaining and deploying such an army. Of course he has an international backer.

If Mario was a communist, he would let the bourgeoisie fight while building dual power with the many minorities of the mushroom kingdom’s past imperialist conquests.

To also settle this question, toads are NOT class-conscious workers. They are the elite, loyal guards of the monarchy (see the Sunshine leaks for example: Toads formed the Princess’ escort during her vacation to US-aligned Delfino island). They are a fiercely loyal, fascist guard meant to quell any worker uprising. Is it any surprise that this guard is all picked from the same ethnic group? Much like Banderites and Azovites in Ukraine, they have a few pogroms under their belt and terrorise civilians of the Mushroom Kingdom. Hopefully the opening up of the kingdom’s archives after a socialist revolution will shed some light on events that still have no conclusive answers.

In this struggle, you might think the monarchy is the progressive force compared to whatever the comprador Bowser will enact with help from the great Satan. It is true in a way, but this would ignore that the US is actually funding BOTH Bowser AND the Monarchy!

Much like Afghanistan or Cuba in their time, the US through the CIA and NED is funding everyone and their mother and will formalise relations with whichever group comes out on top.

The Mushroom Kingdom is not being funded, you say? Then how do they rebuild so fast after Bowser shells the country and the royal capital? The mushroom kingdom has no natural resources and their economy is predicated on tourism – what little there is. There is no conceivable way they should be as wealthy as they are.

Where do you think Bowser gets his bombs and weapons? In this way the USA is double-dipping: first it sells weapons to Bowser, then it sells loans to the monarchy to rebuild the damage those bombs caused. This is a Syrian scenario and is nothing out of the ordinary for Amerika.

In this analysis, Mario might be the synthetic left, appropriating common communist symbols (such as the color red) to prevent class-consciousness from forming and redirecting any revolutionary urge into the “left-wing” of the monarchy. He might as well be funded by the CIA for all we know.

  • Ratette (she/her)
    15•2 years ago

    Yet again here I am to simp over sonic adventure series to help articulate why Sonic > Mario despite there not been a good 3D sonic games since the adventure era.

    In Sonic Adventure 2 specifically it follows:

    • GUN who are an allegory for NATO working for the Station Square government (literally the US) employ Robotniks grandfather to build them super weapons on the space colony ARK.

    • Gerald Robotnik does this to help find a cure for his granddaughter and Eggmans cousin Maria who has a disease which means she can only survive in the lower gravity environment of the space colony.

    • he researches for GUN with the intention of saving Maria first and providing humanity with something to help them e.g. a protector and hero Shadow.

    • GUN get spooked after seeing him make Shadow the Hedgehog (an immortal lifeform) and send a hit squad to the ARK to murder all scientists including Maria and arrest Gerald and take possession of project Shadow.

    • fast forward and eggman releases shadow who goes on a rampage to avenge Maria (his only friend).

    • sonic is falsely arrested by GUN who destroy and entire city with a giant truck chasing sonic who resists arrest (ACAB) but is eventually sent to GUN’s version of Guantamo Bay (where GUN execute Gerald Robotnik where after they force him through torture to finish their super weapons for them after the ARK crisis).

    • tails and the gang rescue sonic and they set off to stop eggman taking over the world while flipping GUN the bird and destroying all their mechs.

    • while all this is going on Station Square Government and GUN use their secret agent Rouge the Bat to infiltrate eggmans team and give her approval to aid them in destroying the entirety of prison island destroying a whole ecosystem and creating a giant tidal wave to justify their efforts to cover up the events of the ARK and project Shadow.

    • eventually after loads of plot they defeat this biological monstrosity released by Gerald in a plan he set in motion just before he was executed to get revenge on those who killed his granddaughter.

    Moral of SA2? Governments (specifically the clear US/NATO allegory) are shadey corrupt fuckers who use and exploit others and create their own problems.

    Oh and the events of Sonic Adventure 1 are caused by colonialism/genocide committed by the echidna clan back in the day against the chao that brought the wrath of a God onto themselves and the world. Lol what a franchise.

    • Black AOC
      6•2 years ago

      Wait who the hell is Gerald Robotnik? I thought his name was Ivo.

      • Ratette (she/her)
        5•2 years ago

        Not being a good SEGA sonic game*

        You are right, Robo blast 2 actually looks really fun and I keep meaning to get it.

        • ☭ 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗘𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 ☭
          5•2 years ago

          It’s free (and open-source), so you might as well try it. You can switch to 3D models if you prefer that over the sprites

          (I heard that the 3D parts of Sonic Generations were good, although very different from the style of the Adventure games)

          • Ratette (she/her)
            5•2 years ago

            Agreed but I recently broke my laptop so I’m PC-less currently 😭

            So my gripe with the boost games like generations is it reduces what was a platformer in the adventure, heroes and even shadow the edgehog to essentially temple run on steroids. Like there’s very little need to steer as the sides of the level keep you mostly on track so it just becomes hold boost button, l1 and r1 to temple run side step past obstacles and occasionally jump.

            Thing is I’d still enjoy the ridiculous element of speed in them but the forced 2D section in the 3D levels are like my biggest pet hate. We have classic sonic and sonic games for 2d, why force 3d sonic into a 2d section when the whole point of the game is to go fast? It kills and pace in the levels as you have to dead stop to do crappy platforming with 3d sonic controls which aren’t exactly tuned well for it. That and the fact that all the 2d sections throw environment out the window and look like they are made using a Mario level maker just sticking floating blocks and random spike balls in as arbitrary hazards djejwjrjejfjejfjejdjwjfe.

            It’s why I was so hopefully for sonic omens another fan game as it was boost sonic but different where you HAD to steer not to fall off the level and sonic could actually turn and no forced 2d sections. I adored the first couple of levels but that game kinda went off a cliff in terms of quality and loads of controversy kicked off about the devs being dickheads and a very sus texture hidden in the game files so I deleted it.

            I know I sound like a proper adventure purist but for context I did play generations to death and had a top 200 time on rooftop run so it’s not like I didn’t play them and got all G*mer about it but yeah… if people like then that’s cool I just miss adventure.