WISH GRANTERS, WISH TWISTERS, AND WARIO: a slightly messy but totally plausible theory on some subtle interconnected threads in the super mario bros extended universe
i was talking with a couple discord friends (so that makes this peer reviewed) and just out of the blue came up with a way the stories of wario master of disguise and wario world could be connected, and further connected to paper mario 64 and the mainstream mario canon
before we begin this theory contains massive, Massive, MASSIVE spoilers to the story of Wario: Master of Disguise. while it's not a super popular game by any means i don't want to take away the surprises that shocked 10 year old me watching a walkthrough of the game on youtube for ipad 1 from anyone interested so if you want to go in without having the entire last act spoiled for you, do NOT CLICK THE BUTTON BELOW (it also talks about stuff that's in paper mario and wario world but it's mostly stuff that's already discussed in the opening cutscenes anyway)
LAST CHANCE TO TURN BACK BEFORE B-LIST WARIO GAME SPOILERS
ok NOW WE BEGIN THE EXPLANATION
THIS, you might know, is the form the wishstone, supposedly a wish granting artifact that wario collected over the course of master of disguise, takes once it's put together and about to release the evil demon terrormisu
and THIS is the main villain from wario world, the evil jewel, who wario has to stop by traversing the hell realm it made from his house
notice any similarities? purple, blocky rocks with one big eye... 👁️
but they're not just similar looks wise, oh no, we've only just started spinning our yarn
take a look at the opening narration thingy from wario world
ALT TEXT: Long ago, there was an evil black jewel that fed on the wishes of people, turning their desires into power.
This dark jewel gave birth to many evil spirits who then tormented the good creatures of the world.
Then, just when it seemed like the evil spirits would overrun the land, the Spritelings of the Sacred Forest ensnared the black jewel and hid it away deep within their ancient ruins. END ALT TEXT
evidently it says that the evil jewel did its evil deeds by using the wishes and desires of people (as in greed) for power
and if you've seen the cutscene before the last battle in master of disguise, you'd know that that's similar to how terrormisu manipulated the pharaoh (and perhaps even more hapless weirdos 'cause i definitely don't think that would be her first rodeo) by twisting their wishes and deepest desires and greed
EERILY SIMILAR MALEVOLENT MACHINATIONS, don't you think? and it gets thicker
after you defeat terrormisu in master of disguise, and this is the OTHER big reveal in that game, you find out the creator of the wishstone was goodstyle, wario's magic wand throughout the game and also count canolli's ancestor. goodstyle made the wishstone to house terrormisu and keep her from causing any more trouble
now, why does goodstyle's artifact look so similar to wario world's tricky meanie?
here's a bit of speculation to what's going on there. perhaps the evil jewel was another creation of goodstyle's, maybe intended for the same purpose as the wishstone, that being keeping terrormisu in check, but rebelled against him for some reason or another
perhaps they were angry that they would exist solely to fulfil a greater purpose, house an all powerful villain and then be split into pieces, so as a karmic protest against their creator, they escaped and started enacting evil plots similar to terrormisu's to add some delicious irony?
and now it gets even MORE thick, because now you have to consider that these are taking place in the same world the mainline mario games do! well, it's not THAT clear, cause idk if nintendo has commented on it, but i don't really see much proving that wario's solo games can't fit in the same wacky world of the main mariology, plus them being one world is more fun anyways.
now we add paper mario to the mix
so, yes, mario and luigi paper jam does reveal that the events of the six paper mario games take place in a seperate universe, but
a) the star spirits, the wish granters from paper mario 64, do appear with the main universe iteration of the mario characters in mario party 5
and
b) the paperverse can be explained as a parallel reality that has similar events (if not exactly a 1 to 1 facsimile) to the main universe, so it's not like it throws TOO many wrinkles into the facade
and what do the star spirits do
they're benevolent spirits that GRANT PEOPLE'S WISHES! but not evil! no loopholes, no monsters, just "here you go son a new nintendo switch cause you wished so hard"
and when you're a society of spirits that grant wishes for the good of the universe, there being two evil jerks out there using people's wishes for nefarious purposes is probably bad for you
so we know wario master of disguise's true villain terrormisu, before goodstyle gets involved, is twisting the wishes of people, the department of the star sprites, for nefarious purposes
and THAT'S a problem™
so they get this guy goodstyle/cannoli to go to where terrormisu lives on the mushroom world to make sure she doesn't do that anymore, but in the process creates another villain that uses the wishes of people for nefarious purposes
and that's ANOTHER problem™
so then the star sprites need to bring in the spritelings, the helpful little critters in wario world who give you tips and help you take down the jewel in the end
star SPRITES. SPRITElings.
are wario world's spritelings are workers for the star sprites, or at least an affiliated faction? it seems plausible if you look at it like that
anyways, the spritelings go make sure the evil jewel can't use people's wishes for evil anymore either
now comes the part where Wario in his infinite wisdom RELEASES THE BOTH OF THEM ON TWO SEPERATE OCCASIONS
but he more than makes up for it by the time both misadventures are all over
by first, with the spritelings' help, destroying or at least throroughly defeating the black jewel so it wouldn't hurt people anymore
and then second, defeating terrormisu, which makes her think twice about sucking the souls out of everyone in the mushroom world and decide instead to go back to the Underwhere and not mess with earthlings (mushroomlings?) any longer
therefore, wario mostly assuredly made it so that the two wish-twisting villains wouldn't mess with wishes for their evil plots ever again
and if the above math is to believed, he did it with the guidance of the star spirits' associates, goodstyle and the spritelings
thusly making sure that both of them would no longer be a headache for the star spirits
therefore, wario was helping out the star spirits handle their nemeses, and didn't even realize it! seems like his selfish plots always seem to have a way of turning out alright in the end
and, umm, since super mario rpg on the snes is also about wishes, i assume geno and the star road are involved in the story as well but i don't know too much about that game unfortunately so that makes this THE END
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