Wario has also consistently been portrayed as being quite vain which strangely contributes to the idea that he is actually selfish and ultimately projects his obsession with himself through superficial relationships and surface-level fascinations with others. He’s also brutish, arrogant, often portrayed as being quite stupid, and even constantly obsessed with money in the way that some fanboys are whenever they use a company/product’s fiscal success to justify their love of the thing itself.
If you reexamine elements of the character’s evolution through that lens, then you also may start to see some of the ways Wario isn’t just a hardcore Mario fan but the ways he strangely represents fanboys in general.įor instance, Wario apparently has notoriously awful hygiene, which is certainly a characteristic commonly associated with the worst of the worst fanboys. That idea has been disputed by some in the past (as well as contradicted slightly by subsequent Wario stories), but it again leaves you with the basic idea that Nintendo saw Wario as a familiar rival to Mario who represents different (even opposite) characteristics.įor the moment, allow yourself to buy into the idea that Wario did morph into a Mario fanboy at some point. Officially, Nintendo used supplementary materials to suggest that Wario and Mario were once childhood friends who became bitter rivals. It’s an amusing theory, but since Nintendo has never referenced it again, we’ll just ignore it for now. Interestingly, the spirit of that idea is echoed somewhat in an old Club Nintendo magazine comic which suggested that Wario is essentially a clone of Mario that was accidentally created by Dr. The creation of Wario gave them their own character to work with. In fact, it’s been said that the creation of Wario was partially inspired by the Mario Land 2 team’s initial hesitancy to develop a game based solely on another team’s characters and worlds. Interestingly, though, the motivation to make Wario the “anti-Mario” may be based on more than a simple visual way to convey his villainous nature. Indeed, it’s easy to see a lot of Bluto in Wario’s physical design and generally unappealing characteristics. As mentioned above, he was pretty much seen as “bad Mario” or “anti-Mario” at that stage, with some reports suggesting that he was viewed internally as the Bluto to Mario’s Popeye. Wario was created to play the villain in the 1992 Game Boy classic, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. Wario’s Mysterious Origin Story Suggests He and Mario Were Old Friends Actually, there’s a popular fan theory that suggests Wario is not only secretly an obsessive Mario fan but that he might just be a sly piece of commentary on the entire fanboy concept. Yet, a deeper dive into Wario’s strange history reveals that he might be more than that. His trademark symbol is essentially an upside-down “M” and the origins of his name roughly translate to “bad Mario.” He initially appears to be little more than the most obvious villain you could think of. Indeed, it’s doubtful Wario was ever supposed to be little more than Mario’s “ Star Trek-esque” evil doppelganger. We don’t want to remind you of SNL episode where Elon Musk dressed as Wario, but here we are. WarioWare: Get It Together! not only revives one of Nintendo’s most enjoyable pick-up-and-play experiences but reminds us that Wario has managed to become far more popular over the years than Nintendo seemingly ever intended.