It looks like after several decades, Nintendo has finally given Mario a promotion. We all think of Mario and Luigi as plumbers, but according to an updated profile on Nintendo’s official site (via Kotaku), Mario is now more of a freelancer, able to go and do as he pleases. His profile now reads:
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“All around sporty, whether it’s tennis or baseball, soccer or car racing, he [Mario] does everything cool. As a matter of fact, he also seems to have worked as a plumber a long time ago…”
All around sporty, huh? Have you seen that gut? I guess I’m just a few 12-packs away from being all around sporty myself. Obviously, Mario is an athlete when featured in a sports game. In Mario Paint, he was an artist! In his very first appearance in Donkey Kong, Mario was a carpenter on a job site, and we see him reprise his role as all around handyman in Super Mario Maker. We’ve even seen Mario don a doctor’s coat!
It would seem that Mario’s role is defined by the game, which makes forming any kind of solid canon around him impossible. His creator Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed as much in an interview with USA Today, saying, “With (1983’s) Mario Bros., we brought in Luigi and a lot of the game was played underground so we made him to fit that setting and, we decided he could be a plumber. The scenario dictates his role.”
We suppose that makes sense, but it’s probably the reason that we’ll never see a truly thorough Mario biography. Mario’s forthcoming outing in Super Mario Odyssey will emphasize his flexibility more than any other game. Mario is a man who has worn many hats, and in Odyssey, Mario will actually be using his supernaturally-endowed hat to assume the role of (or possess) other people, objects, and monsters. It’s shaping up to be the defining Mario experience, so it will be interesting to see how our perception of Mario changes after the game releases for Nintendo Switch on October 27.
