For some reason people want to view Mario like it's Dragon Ball or Marvel, an epic tale of good and evil in a vast and highly developed world, when really it's a lot more like SpongeBob or Popeye - the rules of the world don't have to be consistent, they can retread old ground as much as they want, and while stories with high stakes are good they're also an outlier (and should stay that way)
I remember seeing someone, might've been on CharacterRant, complain about the whole "Bowser is a good guy after all!" meme with the parental controls video by listing all of Bowser's various atrocities - kinda missing that Bowser isn't Beerus or Lex Luthor, he's Bluto or Plankton: he can be anywhere from a maniacal monarch, to a pathetic pest, to a reluctant ally, to an outright hero - it just runs on whatever's most fun in the context of a given game. Same goes for Wario.
I remember seeing someone, might've been on CharacterRant, complain about the whole "Bowser is a good guy after all!" meme with the parental controls video by listing all of Bowser's various atrocities - kinda missing that Bowser isn't Beerus or Lex Luthor, he's Bluto or Plankton: he can be anywhere from a maniacal monarch, to a pathetic pest, to a reluctant ally, to an outright hero - it just runs on whatever's most fun in the context of a given game. Same goes for Wario.
