"ATONE"
"The Devil pulled off no greater trick than convincing the world he didn't exist. So too has Mario convinced us he's actually a hero."
Mario is a Monster is a parody creepypasta story by Slimebeast. Like his earlier I HATE YOU, it concerns the Super Mario Bros. series. It can be read here
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The unnamed first-person narrator is convinced that Mario, the protagonist of his eponymous series, is actually a horrible villain. He makes his case by describing Mario's actions in his 8-bit and 16-bit games in the most heinous-sounding way possible. The last game the narrator analyzes in Mario Nights, which was allegedly the final Mario game released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. He's so obsessed with proving Mario is evil that he overlooks the disturbing contents of this game that have nothing to do with his theory....
Forum user OldManMurphy posted a video under the YouTube account "whyare youscared" showing alleged footage of the Mario Nights game.
Tropes:
- Acid Attack: The gray Yoshi featured in Mario Nights pukes acid on enemies instead of swallowing them. (The narrator stretches to turn this into yet another condemnation of Mario — "[he's] so intolerably cruel, he can give dinosaurs painful acid reflux!")
- Artistic License – History: Deliberate: The final section of the list, concerning Mario Nights, opens by claiming it's "the last franchise game for the Super Nintendo." Not only is that blatantly not truenote , but it's the first clue that the story just switched genres.
- Black Comedy: The terrifying content of Mario Nights is contrasted with the hilariously pigheaded obliviousness of the narrator.
- Darker and Edgier: In-Universe, the description of Mario Nights makes it sound like an outright horror game where Mario explores pitch-black environments full of terrifying monsters, with one ending having the Big Bad Eeyagh taking a bite of Peach's skull. The humor of the story comes from how the narrator tries to make a creepypasta-style description of Mario's actions while completely ignoring all of the blatantly obvious, actually terrifying elements in the game.
- Down in the Dumps: The Night Kingdom is described as a "trash-strewn dystopia". The YouTube clip shows this trash in the midst of destroyed skyscrapers among other buildings, implying that the trash is the result of an After the End setting.
- Draco in Leather Pants: Parodied In-Universe. To go along with the Ron the Death Eater treatment of Mario, all of the villains are portrayed as completely innocent. The enemies were just minding their business before Mario stomped them, Donkey Kong is an abused animal trying to escape while also rescuing Pauline, Bowser is Peach's father and trying to keep her safe, and Eeyagh is likewise only trying to protect Peach (despite the fact that he eats Peach's skull in the bad ending).
- Face of a Thug: The narrator claims that Emperor Eeyagh is an example, supposedly an altruistic character who looks freaky but is trying to protect Peach. But the part where Eeyagh starts eating Peach indicates that he's really as evil as he looks.Narrator: Don't judge an Emperor by his inky black cover! Spider fingers or not. Red saucer eyes or normal ones. It doesn't matter, because you don't know if that's just how normal people look where he comes from. (We already know Mario's a bit of a bigot.)
- Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": The narrator posits that Super Mario Bros. 3 is a stage play written by Mario himself, taking the events of Super Mario Bros. and distorting them significantly to feed his own ego."I can change into a raccoon... and a frog... and I can be a statue if I want... and I can fly... and..."
- Insane Troll Logic: In playing into its nature as a spoof of
Ron the Death Eater-esque character interpretations, the narrator takes some pretty big leaps in order to paint Mario as the real Big Bad of the franchise. Examples include: the eggs Yoshi uses as projectiles are actually alive, Bowser is the true ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom (with Peach potentially being his adopted daughter), Mario and Luigi were the real aggressors in the sewers, and Yoshi doesn't lay eggs due to stress. Tellingly, though, Mario Nights is when this argument starts falling apart. - Nightmare Face: Emperor Eeyagh, the Big Bad of Mario Nights, is described as having an "inky black cover" and "red saucer eyes". Another user in the narrator's forum thread showed off a picture of the game's box art that depicts Eeyagh as a sinister Bat Person with Scary Teeth.
- Related in the Adaptation: The narrator speculates that since Bowser is "King Koopa" and the "rightful ruler" of the Mushroom Kingdom, then Princess Peach must be his adopted relative.
- Ron the Death Eater: Parodied In-Universe. The whole conceit of the story is that the narrator insists that Mario is actually a murderous psychopath, not the hero he's presented as in his eponymous series. However, his theory is intentionally far-fetched — among other things, he claims that "letting himself get injured by [the enemies in Mario Bros.]" is a nefarious deed and attempts to paint the enemies in Mario Nights as victims of Mario (even as his descriptions imply they're genuine monsters that Mario is justified in vanquishing).
- Sudden Downer Ending: While this story was mostly a parody Game Theory-esque rant against Mario, it becomes a "missing game" Creepypasta when the Narrator describes the game "Mario Nights"note , only to be shocked that no one else remembers the game.
- Theory Tunnel Vision: The narrator is so focused on portraying Mario himself as a bad guy that he glosses over all the frightening stuff happening around Mario in Mario Nights. By his own admission, his insistence that Emperor Eeyagh is actually trying to protect Princess Peach from Mario (like he insisted was the case with Bowser) falls apart with the Non-Standard Game Over sequence where Eeyagh takes a bite out of her skull cap.
