Headscratchers / Luigi's Mansion

Although Luigi's Mansion is meant to scare us, there are some things that, frankly, confuse us:

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Did Bowser die before the game?

• When does Luigi's Mansion take place? Bowser is said to have died, was he then resurrected by someone? When did he die?
  • Well, in New Super Mario Bros., Bowser Jr. did have a cauldron that brought his father back to life... it doesn't answer the question, I know, but anything could happen (especially for a series that focuses on Continuity Snarl).
  • The Bowser seen in Luigi's Mansion was most likely just a suit that King Boo created to help in defeating Luigi and scare him half to death. Madame Clairvoya said that Mario 'soundly defeated Bowser', and that King Boo 'revived' him; she may have meant that Bowser was still reeling from his last defeat and that King Boo may have healed him. She did not technically say that he was dead.
  • Without even going that deep, she was specifically wondering whether King Boo had revived him, to try and explain the sight of Bowser in her vision. That vision turned out to be showing the fake Bowser that King Boo created, so we don’t have to assume that the real Bowser was “revived”, whatever that entails.

Arbitrary Skepticism

• E. Gadd mentions that he can't ask anyone for help or try to expose his problems with the ghosts without being committed...This is despite the fact that the world he lives in commonly falls victim to, among stranger scenarios, two Italian plumbers having to use their spectacular jumping abilities in order to save a princess from a spiked turtle and his army of talking mushrooms. With this in mind, why would E. Gadd fear being thought of as insane because of his story - it should be completely plausible!
  • Whoever said it actually took place in the Mushroom Kingdom? After all, it's not like it's the only place where Toads live...
  • Well, the two places I've seen outside the Mushroom Kingdom - Isle Delfino and the continent Rogueport is on - don't seem all that normal, either, and it has to be somewhere near the Mushroom Kingdom, at least, right? Doesn't Luigi build his mansion on the site in the endgame? Or am I mistaken?
  • Well if nothing else these ghosts are very, very different then the standard boos and dry bones. In point of fact many of them seem human which is odd given how few humans are knocking about in the Mushroom Kingdom. Combined with his advanced age it isn't unlikely that a slightly crazed looking old man wandering into town screaming about bizarre ghosts who made a mansion appear out of nowhere might end poorly for Egad. That or this could be very, very early relative to the series proper with Ghosts being a rarity outside of Mario and Luigi's adventures.

Currency

• Why is a different currency used? Does this take place somewhere outside of The Mushroom Kingdom?
  • That's most likely the case, frankly. Or the Mushroom Kingdom also uses bills in addition to coins, they just don't show up much.
  • It's either foreign or just an older form of currency, there's a sort of exchange rate that applies to it - each gold coin Luigi finds in this game is said to be worth 5,000G, and if it was a fake sort of money that the Boos made up when they made the mansion, then it wouldn't be worth anything.
  • Maybe the Mushroom Kingdom currency is used; the game is simply translating it into a real-world currency so we as the audience will understand the amount. It matters knowing since it gives you a hunch what kind of house Luigi can afford building on the site.

Going to the mansion together

• Why didn't Mario and Luigi just go to the mansion together?
  • Well, they weren't expecting it to be scary and haunted. And besides, the Mario Bros. have travelled through haunted locations several times. They had no way of knowing that this time would be different.
  • It's mentioned that Mario pretty much hurried right to the mansion. He may have been overcome with excitement (or he feared it would be haunted or a scam, and so went ahead of his brother), while Luigi decided to just go on his own time. That, or Luigi only went because Mario didn't come back after some time.
  • I read in Nintendo Power once that Mario went ahead to scout it out before meeting up with Luigi there. Given Mario’s tendencies to rush into danger without thinking and protective inclination towards his bro, this makes sense.
  • King Boo also has no beef with Luigi prior to the events of this game, so the mansion was probably “rewarded” to both of them. Maybe the map to the mansion came to them by mail while Luigi wasn’t home, hence why Mario went on ahead.

E. Gadd's book in the study

• What is E. Gadd's book (about hunting ghosts, no less) doing in the study room? Don't the ghosts hate E. Gadd?
  • Maybe the ghosts stole it from him, and put it in the hardest place to find it - a bookshelf crammed with other books. Alternatively, you know how Luigi first meets E. Gadd in the mansion? Maybe he put the book there himself.
  • He might've put it there in case someone became trapped inside the mansion without his help - that way, at least they'd have a chance at fending for themselves.
  • Mayhaps the ghosts put it there to catch up on what E. Gadd knows about them and their weaknesses, allowing them to compensate in case someone comes a-huntin'.
  • Or it’s possible the book belonged to Neville when he was alive, and that he was interested in E. Gaff’s work before he ever became the subject of it.

Mario's things

• If Mario's hat and glove are hidden in other places in the mansion, then why does Mario have them on in his painting?
  • The hat and gloves in the painting are presumably just added flourish on the part of whatever process King Boo used to trap him inside it. We can presume Mario was missing his hat and one glove (and shoe) when he was captured, but because he’s most recognizable when wearing those items, they got added into the painting. Just like how the ghost portraits can contain things that were never captured alongside them, like furniture.

Redundant rooms

• From a developmental and in-game standpoint, why does the mansion have a fortune-teller's room and an astral hall? Couldn't those two theoretically serve the same purpose?
  • In game, Madame Clairvoya's fortune telling may not involve stargazing whatsoever, so giving her her own room separate from the stargazing room could have been a favor once that realization was made. One of the other ghosts could even be an astronomer with no interest in divination or psychics, someone like Vangore the artist or Pianissma the musician might have stargazing as a separate hobby. Development wise, who knows.

Imprisoned Boos

• If the Boos created the mansion to cause trouble, freed all of E. Gadd's captured portrait ghosts, and were responsible for portraficationizing Mario, what were they all doing locked in that cage in the storage room? E. Gadd thanks Luigi for "flushing them out", so he couldn't have locked them inside, and the Boos doing it intentionally to hide from Luigi doesn't make much sense either - most of the mansion was still dark at that point, so they could've hidden in a lot of places where Luigi wouldn't find them.
  • They mention that they were sleeping until Luigi woke them up. Of course why they sleep in a cage under the floor could raise further questions, though it could be that boos are vulnerable while sleeping and have gotten paranoid since they had been up to no good.

Upside-Down Bedroom

• Why was the Guest Bedroom upside-down, and why or (how) does it go back to being right-side up after you capture Sue Pea?
  • It's possible that it was Sue Pea herself, as it made it more complicated to wake her up. When she was caught, everything reverted to normal.
  • Just a guess, but maybe it's something Sue Pea's vaguely-defined ghost powers caused while she was asleep. She's already one of the youngest portrait ghosts — the only ones who are younger are Chauncey (who was born a ghost, so he could have more control) and Henry & Orville (who are probably active enough to have gotten a hold on them). People losing control of their powers while they sleep is a pretty common thing in fiction.

The Phone Lines

• During the blackout, you can enter the telephone room and receive phone calls from Toad and E. Gadd. How can the phones work without electricity?
  • They're an older type of telephone that doesn't rely on electricity to function. Non-electric phones were still in use around the time this game came out.

Powered Candles

• How is it that the lights in the mansion's hallways go out during the blackout if the only source of light from said hallways comes from lit candles?
  • Because the candles aren't the only source of light in the hallways. They also have light fixtures installed in the ceiling at certain points; they switch on once you clear a given area and switch back off during the blackout.

The Second Floor

• Why is there no door connecting the Area 1 portion of the second floor with the rest of the floor? It makes it kind of annoying when you have to go from one to the other (while chasing Boos or to fight Henry & Orville and Uncle Grimmly) since you have to go through the first floor to get there. They easily could've made it so the door is locked at the start with the key somewhere in Area 3.
  • Looking at the map, I guess it's a fair point that they could've put one at the right side of the foyer on the upper level. Maybe had you burn up some boards that were covering the door on the other side, since I don't know how they'd work in an actual key — it's been a while since I played, so there might be a spare room for it that I'm not remembering. I'm not really sure why they didn't think of this, other than that it just didn't occur to them. There are only a few rooms where the Boos are in proximity to Area 1, and with the mirror shortcut, they might have just not realized that going back and forth would be that big of an inconvenience.
  • It's a ghost mansion made for ghosts. They don't need stairs. None of them do.
  • According to a YouTube video about the game’s beta stages, there were early versions of the map that had doors connecting Area 1 and Area 3. As for why they were removed… Maybe they thought it would better suit the game’s mood to have you running back and forth through the empty hallways every so often. Maybe they wanted to give you an excuse to re-examine previous areas for things you missed. Maybe they thought it wouldn’t make sense for the ghosts to make it easier for Luigi to get around. Or maybe they just wanted to pad out the length of the game a bit, seeing as it’s only a few hours long.
  • With the shortcut near the rec room, it takes less than half a minute to get from the mansion entrance to Area 3. And the Boos in that area don’t have that much health, and don’t tend to flee back into Area 1 all too often. They probably just didn’t think it necessary to add in another shortcut.
  • In universe the upper left area at the front of the building is meant to be living space for Neville and Lydia's immediate family away from the function rooms. It has easy access to the parlor, dressing room, and sitting room in case they're going out or entertaining guests who have just arrived but otherwise the functional spaces like dinning rooms or hobby rooms are set away from them allowing the servants to move about tidying at night without bothering the family. Keep in kind the Mansion is an illusion designed to suit the tastes of the residents so it's built to an older style favored by wealthy families.

King Boo's crown

• If you get King Boo in a silver or bronze frame, the portrait shows him with his crown even though Luigi took it after capturing him.
  • Indeed, probably because it's a painting. Not everything in it needs to reflect what was used to make it; the inclusion of the crown could just be added flourish on the part of the Portrificationizer. (This also explains why Mario still has his hat and gloves inside his painting, despite that you find both of them while exploring the mansion.)

All that money...

• So, video game logic aside, why IS there tons of money scattered about within the mansion? It's physical money unlike the ethereal mansion. So where did they get all of that money from, and why leave it scattered around the mansion itself?
  • Maybe the ghosts were hoping that the allure of collecting so much money would've kept Mario at the mansion long enough for King Boo to capture him.
  • A throwaway line from the third game might seem to suggest that the ghosts like keeping loads of money around specifically because they have nothing left to spend it on. They can't take it with them, as E. Gadd puts it.
  • The bio for Lydia, the second portrait ghost, reads that “She’s stashed her secret savings away to prepare for her long afterlife.” Seeming to imply the money you’re collecting originally belonged to her and possibly other ghosts, and that it was being kept to spend on luxuries and trifles that would keep them entertained.

Why is there a telephone room

• Kind of a stupid question. But why does a mansion have a telephone room? Shouldn't they have the telephones spread out across different areas to make answering calls easier? I mean, do they just have a servant in the room answering phone calls?
  • An understandable question actually. The Mansion appears to be modeled on an older style building from the late 1800s, best guess puts it around 1885, and that would mean their telephones would be extremely old and cumbersome requiring specialized hardware to even be used. Presumably the phones are all in one room because if they were connected to telephone network that room is where the telephone cables would be connected to the house and they'd be the original bulky versions that don't spread throughout the building. Servants would take incoming messages of sufficient importance and pass them along to the home owners while others would he handled by the servants.

What makes someone become a boo when they die?

• This series has various ghosts that aren't boos, which begs the question, what caused them to have more humanoid forms while boos are almost ball-shaped?
  • Boos obviously aren't the same type of ghosts as the humanoid ones. Heck, boos likely aren't dead people in the first place, which is the same that goes for the mook ghosts in this game.
  • Boos could be something like Poes in the Legend of Zelda games, or Peeves the poltergeist from Harry Potter. Poes are said to be concentrated spirits of malice rather than the souls of actual deceased people. Peeves is similar, being a sort of amalgamation of all the trickery and mischievous nature of the students at Hogwarts.

What in the world did Sue Pea die from?

• I know her bio says she died in her sleep, which would make sense for an elderly person. But she was just a young girl who should've been in an exceptional physical condition. Unless of course she was an Ill Girl, but the game doesn't confirm this.
  • Childhood mortality was a lot higher in the past so there are numerous options. Congenital defect that was never noticed due to lacking medical knowledge, carbon monoxide poisoning due to poor ventilation in the interior rooms of the mansion, asbestos exposure that presented symptoms a lot earlier then average, lead poisoning, and the list goes on. It's not possible to tell because there are simply too many possible explanations.

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