How Super Mario Bros. (1993) Explains the Entire Super Mario Bros. Franchise?

One of the big mysteries of the Super Mario Bros. series is: who is the mother of the Koopalings (although they were initially Bowser’s children, they were later retconned to be unrelated) or Bowser Jr.? Also, what does Bowser Jr.’s mother think about Bowser pathological obsession and love for Princess Peach? Why did Bowser raise Bowser Jr. to believe that Princess Peach is his mother, as seen in the infamous scene in Super Mario Sunshine?

 

In almost every Mario video game, Bowser repeatedly kidnaps Princess Peach, truly believing that she loves him. Each game shows Peach confused and baffled by Bowser’s obsession, including the reveal of Bowser Jr. calling her “mama” In the 2023 movie, Princess Peach called Bowser’s expectation of her reciprocating his love “insane.” Could the 1993 Super Mario Bros. film explain all of this?

 

The Super Mario Bros. film is widely considered a pretty awful movie, one that seems embarrassed to be a Mario Bros. story. Instead of presenting the Mario universe as it is, it tries to explain its fantastical elements using science fiction. It might have worked if the film had fully committed to that approach, but the mix of a goofy tone with dystopian science fiction resulted in a jarring and unsatisfying experience.

 

However, the most compelling aspect of the Super Mario Bros. movie is the introduction of the character Lena Koopa, Bowser’s wife. Her presence and her subsequent death can be interpreted as explaining the entirety of the Mario franchise.

 

During the movie, Bowser kidnaps Princess Daisy. He is clearly attracted to her and unsuccessfully tries to seduce her, essentially having a one-sided emotional affair. Lena recognizes Bowser’s attraction and is clearly jealous. This leads her to try to murder Princess Daisy until Daisy is rescued by Yoshi. Bowser’s infatuation with Daisy drives Lena to take matters into her own hands, independently attempting to enact Bowser’s plans, ultimately leading to her death.

 

Integrating Lena into the Mario Series

What would happen if Lena Koopa were incorporated into the Super Mario Bros. series? Suppose Lena is Bowser’s fiancée. In the first Super Mario Bros. game, Bowser kidnaps Princess Peach, probably for political or power reasons. Over time, he develops romantic feelings toward Peach, which are not reciprocated, effectively constituting a one-sided emotional affair. Lena becomes jealous and attempts to stop Mario independently. Perhaps one of the impostor Bowser characters in the first game or the “Fake Bowser” who attacks Mario prior to the final boss in Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels could be interpreted as Lena Koopa, ultimately killed in the process.

 

When Princess Peach is rescued and Bowser is defeated, Bowser must confront the fact that his attraction and emotional affair with Peach indirectly caused Lena’s death, depriving Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings of a mother. How can he look his children in the eyes, knowing that his own moral failings led to this tragedy?

 

This experience could plausibly cause Bowser to mentally crack. In his mind, Lena and Princess Peach fuse into a single, interchangeable figure. He develops an erotomanic delusion. Not only does he believe Peach loves him, but she also becomes the mother of Bowser Jr. and all the Koopalings. If Peach is not Lena, Bowser must confront the reality that his infidelity caused his fiancée’s death and left his children motherless, a reality too painful to face.

 

By fusing Peach and Lena in his mind, Bowser denies Lena’s death and the separateness of Peach, allowing himself to pretend that his wife and the mother of his children is still alive as well as absolved himself of any wrongdoing with his attraction to Peach. This is why he raises Bowser Jr. to believe that Peach is his mother and that Mario is trying to kidnap her. This explains why throughout the series, Bowser repeatedly kidnaps Peach and attempts to force her into marriage. It is an act of undoing, an attempt to reverse the trauma of Lena’s death and atone for his betrayal. Bowser’s insistence that Peach love him, despite her hatred, is a repetition compulsion, a way to manage his guilt over betraying his fiancée and depriving his children of a mother.

. This is why he raises Bowser Jr. to believe that Peach is his mother and that Mario is trying to kidnap her. This explains why throughout the series, Bowser repeatedly kidnaps Peach and attempts to force her into marriage. It is an act of undoing, an attempt to reverse the trauma of Lena’s death and atone for his betrayal. Bowser’s insistence that Peach love him, despite her hatred, is a repetition compulsion, a way to manage his guilt over betraying his fiancée and depriving his children of a mother.

Bowser, Mario, and the Reality Principle

This also explains Bowser’s hatred of Mario. Mario represents reality crashing into Bowser’s delusions. Whenever Mario rescues Peach, he enforces the truth that Peach is not Lena and does not reciprocate Bowser’s feelings. Bowser cannot tolerate this, which explains why he repeatedly attempts to kill Mario and abduct Peach.

 

Yet this dynamic also accounts for Bowser’s eventual defeat to Mario and his occasional truces with him in various sporting and racing games. Perhaps part of Bowser subconsciously wants to be punished and to accept defeat for his sins. Notably, Bowser defeats Mario in the intros of Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Odyssey without killing him. His oscillation between mortal enemy and sporting rival reflects a psychological split: he hates Mario for shattering his delusions, but he also appreciates the punishment Mario delivers for his moral failings. Despite his hatred for Mario, Mario must survive and ultimately defeat him.

Conclusion

Viewed through this lens, Lena from the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie offers a darkly coherent explanation for Bowser’s obsession, the delusions surrounding Peach and Bowser Jr., and the repetitive cycle of kidnapping and confrontation that defines the Mario franchise.

There needs to be an AVGN episode of Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels

I just finished The Lost Levels on the original Famicom version. I do not feel any guilt whatsoever about save-state scumming the game to achieve 100 percent completion. This includes beating the game eight times to unlock the bonus worlds. It is fortunate that Nintendo Switch Online includes rewind functionality, which allows the player to reverse time whenever they die. What makes this game unique is that it is essentially a troll game, deliberately designed to frustrate the player and actively induce an Angry Video Game Nerd–style rage, while laughing at the player in the process. Think of all the games AVGN becomes angry at due to incompetence or poor design decisions, and replace that with highly competent designers who are deliberately trying to provoke the same emotional response as a practical joke. The long-running joke about Super Mario Bros. 3 being “the Devil’s game” is far more applicable to The Lost Levels, as its designers are consciously cruel to the player. It is the personification of an evil game. What is particularly striking is how the game actively punishes muscle memory and competence developed from the original Super Mario Bros. The player is forced to unlearn what the first game taught them. A simple jump that would succeed every time in the original game now results in hitting an invisible block and falling to one’s death. These invisible blocks are deliberately placed where experienced players instinctively jump, specifically targeting veteran players rather than newcomers. The original Super Mario Bros. encouraged exploration. Entering a green pipe often led to a hidden sub-level filled with bonus coins, teaching players to investigate every pipe for secrets. In The Lost Levels, the player jumps down a pipe expecting to enter it, only to find that it leads nowhere. When they attempt to escape, they hit two invisible blocks and die by a Piranha plant popping out. This philosophy extends throughout the game through the infamous poison mushroom, backward warp pipes, and wind physics that disrupt familiar jump timing. There are trampoline levels where Mario is launched off-screen, forcing the player to estimate where they will land with no visual reference, which feels fundamentally unfair. Other trampolines have altered physics and fail to provide the expected height, requiring extremely precise timing to clear jumps. Some sections are impossible to complete as Big Mario, forcing the player to intentionally take damage and proceed as Small Mario. Later levels demand pixel-perfect landings on single blocks or precise timing to chain jumps across multiple Paratroopas. One particularly egregious example involves a running jump to land on a green pipe that is completely off screen. Upon landing, a Piranha Plant immediately emerges, guaranteeing damage. The only way to survive is to slowly inch toward the ledge to scroll the camera until the pipe becomes visible, then time the jump so the Piranha Plant is retracted. This solution is impossible to discover without dying first. Even if the player is skilled enough to complete the game, they are then required to beat it eight times to unlock Worlds A through D. This requirement was mercifully removed in Super Mario All-Stars. It is easy to imagine the Angry Video Game Nerd’s jaw dropping when, after immense frustration in completing the game, he realises he must do it seven more times. Is this a bad game? In its original form, I think the answer is yes. In an era limited to three lives and no save system, death meant restarting from the beginning. The game contains unavoidable death traps that cannot be survived on a first playthrough and require memorisation to progress. Being killed by an unavoidable trap and sent back to the early levels is already punishing enough. Requiring the entire game to be completed eight times in a single uninterrupted play history to access bonus worlds, which are themselves brutally difficult, is pure sadism. I cannot imagine anyone achieving full completion on the original Famicom without leaving the console powered on for weeks, repeatedly practising without ever turning the system off, as doing so would reset the completion counter. In fact, it is difficult to even consider The Lost Levels a conventional game. Gameplay does not feel like the primary purpose of its existence. Instead, it functions as a sophisticated prank. One can easily imagine the developers designing this game, watching focus-group playtesters fall into trap after trap, and laughing at their suffering. It is easy to picture an evil, demonic Mario taunting the Angry Video Game Nerd as he repeatedly dies. However, in the modern era of save states and rewind features provided by emulation or Nintendo Switch Online, many of these complaints lose their severity. I would actually recommend players experience The Lost Levels, not as a traditional video game, but as an artistic statement. It may be one of the most artistically interesting Mario games ever made. Most Mario games prioritise fun through refined gameplay mechanics. While some argue that the Galaxy games introduce atmosphere and narrative depth, these claims are somewhat overstated. The atmosphere and story may be advanced for a Mario title, but they remain superficial by broader video game standards. The Lost Levels, by contrast, presents a uniquely original artistic statement within the medium. The game is a practical joke played on the player. Its purpose is to lure the player into developer-designed traps and kill them. In its original form, this induces rage. With the modern removal of consequences through save states and rewind mechanics, the meaning changes. Instead of pure frustration, the experience becomes a shared joke. The developers laugh at the player’s expense, and the player responds, “That was a clever prank, you got me,” before laughing along and continuing. Through this lens, The Lost Levels may have evolved into one of the most original and compelling experiences in video game history. It may be an awful game in traditional terms, but it is also one of the medium’s great artistic experiments. There are many games out there that are hard, but The Lost Levels is unique in the fact that it is hard by subverting expectations and deceiving the players which is the video game equivalent of slapstick comedy. One can even see how it directly paved the way for Mario ROM hacks and Mario Maker troll levels, where sadistic design is no longer accidental but celebrated.