#and ik they said it was a computer game but i haven't seen that yet and also i wanted to riff off the game Operation you know?

[daprosy]

Radley's Monkey Ball theories (1)

[cause i was ranting too much on twitter for this, ALSO NOTE: This post is very long.]

I'm gonna make this first one about uh... F-Gongon. I think one reason why so much worldbuilding was never brought up again (Aside from the gap between Bounce and BBHD) is because SMB wants the doubles to just be costumes. Why though? They have their own lore. And holiday posts don't even use the doubles. They even put Meemee in a witch hat ignoring the fact W-Meemee exists.

I've already rambled before about how the monkeys are not the same as their doubles but in this post I'm highlighting F-Gongon specifically because I think he does this best (And it's also my favorite character). I've been wanting to ramble about it for a really really long time actually.

So F-Gongon. Its lore is that it was awoken within an ancient castle and cannot eat bananas due to his sheer strength, being modified to be stronger than his original iteration.

^^^ Who might I add is already extremely strong on his own what the fuck. I mean. Have you seen him punch away the timebomb in the volcano.

So I'm gonna start off with its castle. The series never specified what castle it got awoken in (implying it had already been in there for who knows how long?) but he could have also been created in there. This could be the Bananightmare castle considering a lot of doubles in 3D seem to have ties with in-game worlds (cough R-Doctor cough P-Yanyan[?]). This is probably the most likely outcome considering if I wanted to stretch it, W-Meemee would have her ties with Sweet Fountain or maybe even Skyopolis but that's like I said, a stretch.

My personal theory is that F-Gongon was awoken in the Clock Tower Factory considering the exterior of the building is castle-like. The entire plot of the factory is that Bad Boon created Aiai robots there to do his bidding. And he's also from the fucking future so yeah I'm pretty sure he has enough mechanical expertise to make a zombie. And logically if he wanted to make a clone to stop Aiai and friends, he should pick Gongon because he is aforementioned extremely fucking powerful. Gongon would have worked as the robots if the end goal was to fight and cause bloodshed, but the Aiai robots were made to stir distrust (which is probably why they got destroyed immediately).

But if there's a castle in Mystic Dome (I don't think so though) he could have been awoken in there too. There's all sorts of ancient computers in Mystic Dome! They're active and they're given life. Nobody knows why, not even the game itself. And his color scheme is lots of blues/grey/green which matches with the area too.

NOT TO MENTION HIS COLORSCHEME MATCHES WELL WITH BAD BOON'S BASE AS WELL! WHICH MIGHT I ADD IS WHERE HE WAS IN A PROMOTIONAL TWEET.

WAIT WHAT THE FUCK I JUST HAD ANOTHER THOUGHT FUCK IS MYSTIC DOME THE REMAINS OF BAD BOON'S BASE-

Okay well I haven't even touched on the bananas thing yet so I should probably get to that. In 3D's description for him, F-Gongon is stated to be so powerful it can't eat bananas. In this description, this is clearly mentioned to be due to physical strength, however, in this tweet, this is implied to be a stomach thing (Which would make sense, why would a mass of electricity and probably rotting flesh be able to digest food).

Though it could also be a mix of both, actually. It's already implied to be hard enough for him to grasp things without crushing or even maybe shocking them, but in the chance F-Gongon could properly grab a banana, will the food even properly settle in its stomach? Maybe he'd get cockroaches festering in its body and need them removed?

This makes me wonder if he could eat the haunted banana. The description for it mentions that it's a ghostly spirit of a banana and that "You'd have to be totally bananas eat it!" (Ik I wrote it like that btw, it literally has that typo in game.) If that banana doesn't have a physical form, maybe he can eat it. And the holy banana's physical form is possibly dubious, considering it is potentially somewhat made of light considering it glows.

It's also worth noting that the entire plot of SMB1 is that Aiai and Gongon are in a race to Banana Sanctuary (A place with bananas). And I don't really see why F-Gongon would want to go there if he can't eat the bananas.

So what's F-Gongon's personality like? The normal Gongon in canon is shown to be a rowdy, hard headed guy who cares deeply for his friends and has a strong self image, wanting to become the strongest monkey in the world.

Though, like all the other doubles, not much is shown with F-Gongon. Although judging by the fact that he's a modified version of an ape who's already extremely strong, I don't think he has any goals it wants to set or follow. There's nothing for him to want to achieve. Normal Gongon is already off working with team Super Monkey Ball and his own aspirations, and why would F-Gongon need to do that? The only thing I could reasonably see it wanting to achieve is 1. Collecting bananas and 2. Thwart Bad Boon's plans.

At first I looked at the mention of him being all about collecting bananas in the promo tweet with the take of "But why would he collect bananas if it can't eat them?" But then I remembered "Hey, he's so different from most monkeys, and they're probably scared of it for being a monster." Maybe he wants to give monkeys bananas as a show of not being threatening? Everyone loves bananas! So if he gave people bananas, they'd want to be its friend!

(Also, back to an earlier point, Banana Sanctuary just has way too many bananas to take home and give to others which is why I didn't bring it up in that segment until now.)

And let's assume for a second that what I said about him being awoken by Bad Boon is correct, I would imagine it'd hold a lot of resentment towards Bad Boon (Who wouldn't, actually?) and probably be very angry that someone like itself has been awoken and set free into the world. That he shouldn't exist considering, well... Normal people don't have bolts in their head and multicolored fur and skin stitched together. He is not normal. He's a freak of nature.

I think that his unlock conditions in both Monkey Race and Monkey fight could also lure a bit into a sensible personality for him:

In Monkey Race, it is unlocked by getting 3rd place in the Mt. Tyrano grand prix. This is the lowest score for any character unlocked here, while P-Yanyan requires 2nd and B-Jet requires 1st. The track itself is a vast, rugged mountain with lots of spots to fall lose yourself in. Good for any explorer monkeys looking for treasure, or in B-Jet's case, a place to roam around with the rest of the tribe. In Monkey Fight, he's simply unlocked with beating the Hidden series in 1st place.

This combined with the unlock conditions of Monkey Race and the small tidbits we get from his lore make me theorize that F-Gongon is a gentle giant with no life goals who relatively tries to hide from the world due to a poor self image. It does genuinely want to have a few close friends and to be accepted for what he is but still can't help but hold resentment and frustration towards most everything and everybody around it.

(Don't ask about Monkey Race karts at the time being though I have no idea where they'd fall if they even did.)

Just as a little bonus: I have been using He/It this entire time for it! I personally view that as a headcanon though I do have a reason why I have that view. He has been called both He/Him in game + on promotional posts, but has also been called with It/Its in a translation of another post.

It was probably just a coincidence but I really love it lawl

But that's about it for my theory. This was fun to do and I always have lots of thoughts about this series so I'm hoping to do more theorizing later!

(Also help I not only 1. spent an hour on this post but 2. have just began thinking about how he ties more into my oc's lore because its important to her story lawl)