Game Theory: Luigi's SECRET Identity (Super Paper Mario)

Let's see: Mario is a psychopath, Peach is a bipolar dictator who commands an army of brainwashed mushrooms, and Bowser is a floundering single father. Is there anyone left? Well, hello... ♪ Intro ♪ Hello Internet! Welcome to Game Theory, where today you will learn how you have been brainwashed without knowing it! But more of that later. You'd think we'd have finished the entire Mario series by now. Is there really no part of the Mushroom Kingdom that is sacred? No, there is not. And honestly, if my theories have proven anything, it's that Luigi is probably the best of the bunch.

Although he is in the background in most of the 160+

game

s he appears in, yes, 160... I was surprised too. When he's not there just to count as a tennis stuntman or sit in the back of Mario's kart, he seems like a really cool guy. Sure, he may be a coward, but even if he's plagued by fear, he still gets the job done. He clearly loves and admires his brother, as we see countless times in the series. Specifically in Star Hill in Super Mario RPG and his logbook in Paper Mario. The guest dares to suffer possessed mansions and terrible spin-off titles when Mario disappears.

And even he cries tears of joy when he saves his brother. He is great. More psychologically deep than any other character in the series; with fears, hopes, dreams, desires. And come on, he dresses in green; Game Theory's color is also green, a dream wedding. I like him. Did you know? It's time we gave Luigi some well-deserved love. HOWEVER, as we continue to see time and time again in this series: appearances can be deceiving. Because while researching dear Luigi, there was one appearance in particular that stood out. If we really want to dig deep to find out what drives Luigi crazy, look no further than a

game

where we get to see all sides of him...

BOTH sides. Because the game that offers the most information about Luigi is Super Paper Mario. Although the characters may seem somewhat "flat" at first glance, they have many "dimensions." Do you understand? Paper humor. You probably understood it, but you just hoped it would pass quickly. Hey, PewDiePie, put this in your umpteenth embarrassing video. If you're not very familiar with this Mario game, I don't blame you. This game is perhaps the strangest part of Mario's official lineup. Except the gameplay is completely unique and completely crazy as you can shoot from 2D to 3D. The game itself is also much darker, much more sarcastic and incredulously cynical.

Entire worlds are torn apart, leaving only emptiness. Mario and company literally travel to hell, which here is called "Underwhere." And breaking all the rules, Bowser and Peach get married! Remember that creepy music I used in my first FNAF theories? Many of them came from this game. Yes, we've come a long way since that Mario tune your parents used to hum. Anyway, even if you don't know Super Paper Mario, all you need to know is this: the enemies in this game are not Bowser or Peach, but Count Bleck. Not "Seriously", Jontron. BLACK. And his rebellious partner Nastasia.

At the beginning of the story, Luigi ends up first at Count Bleck's castle, where he is tricked by two goombas, who lead him to Nastasia. What happens next is why this game is so important to Luigi: Nastasia uses her hypnotic laser eyes to instantly hypnotize him, and he becomes the evil Mr. L. "Mr. F" No, Mr. L, a villain arrogant man who is attracted to Peach and jealous of Mario's jumping abilities. He fights mercilessly against Mario and company in multiple forms throughout the game, including as the final boss. He's violent, aggressive and bloodthirsty / And if you're mad that I didn't warn you about SPOILERS when I said it was Luigi, then...

I... I don't have words for that. WITHOUT WORDS I SAY! To understand why this is so important to Luigi, we must talk about hypnosis. All official gaming wikis claim that Nastasia has "instant hypnotic powers" and claim that Luigi is hypnotized. In the game, Nastasia calls her hypnotic power and "brainwashing". What is it now? We should start with the differences between the two. By most definitions, brainwashing and hypnosis are different, but not necessarily completely separate. It's best to think of brainwashing as a spectrum: you can brainwash people in many different ways, some more extreme than others. When you think of "brainwashing," you probably think of things like Captain America's Winter Soldier, or worse yet, cult leaders who brainwash their followers into doing crazy things like being afraid of babies with nuclear warheads.

Well, yeah, I'm NOT brainwashed and that scares me, so uhm... cult of good work? Anyway, there are three types of brainwashing: educational, persuasive and suggestive, with hypnosis being one stop on that spectrum. The most extreme type is the educational method, which is the one seen in movies and is the best known form of brainwashing. This is Winter Soldier or CoD: Black Ops style brainwashing, where torture and isolation affect the way the brain works. Therefore, this is the only type of brainwashing that literally reverses the concept of good or evil in the brain. It takes weeks, usually months, for someone to be affected by the educational method, which is why cults indoctrinate people for years until they are finally ready to ask them to drink the Kool-Aid...literally.

One of the most notorious cases of this type of brainwashing is that of Patty Hearst. In case you don't know, 19-year-old Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. After being kidnapped, she was locked in a closet with only Liberation Army pamphlets for weeks. Every time they denounced her, they talked about politics and threatened to kill her until one day she wanted to join the group. She later became one of the most vocal representatives of the Symbionese Liberation Army. She even changed her name to Tania before robbing a bank, kidnapping two people, and making bombs to kill police officers.

And she did not do this as an act for her captors. She never attempted to escape and even went to jail for her actions as a member of the group. As you can see, the educational method is quite scary... but it is also difficult to implement. For example, during the Korean War, North Korea attempted to brainwash tens of thousands of South Koreans and American prisoners in special camps into joining North Korean interests. However, by the end of the war, only a few hundred POWs, including 21 Americans, had remained voluntarily loyal to North Korea. Simply put, we do NOT see this type of brainwashing in Super Paper Mario.

This lasts for years and often involves extreme physical and mental torture. What we see in the game happens practically instantly: Nastasia barely has to blink her laser eyes to turn Luigi into Mr. l; It is impossible for this to be the educational method. So we move on to persuasive brainwashing. This is the way all of us, including myself, have had to deal with. Have you ever received a compliment on something you were wearing and therefore wore it more often? Or did you stop doing something because your parents yelled at you? Well, congratulations, you've been brainwashed! Another name for persuasive brainwashing is simply Classical Conditioning, something many of us are familiar with, where our behavior changes because we receive a reward or punishment for doing something.

Our beliefs are no different, but our expectation of reward is. Think of it this way: when you bribe someone to go against their morals, since that is a scenario that happens very often between you, that person knows that although what they are doing is wrong, they also know that they are being paid for it. it. , so he acts depending on whether he gets a reward for it. You're not changing their moral code, just their expectation of a reward every time they break that code. And that happens to Luigi? No, not again. The dialogue at the beginning of the game is clear, Nastasia and Count Bleck have not offered anything to Luigi to join the dark side like Mr.

L. There is no bribe. There's no big threat or anything like that. Once Luigi Sr. becomes L, he starts making bad decisions on his own, without Nastasia interfering. So it's not that either, which means we have to look at the third and final way: suggestive brainwashing, also known as hypnosis. Like I said, Nastasia called her power hypnosis, but what does that really mean? Personally, I always thought hypnosis was just a Google trick. However, there are many people who practice hypnosis as a profession and they will tell you something completely different. According to statistics from the Society of Clinical Hypnosis, hypnosis is a state of selective, focused attention and up to 85% of people may find themselves in some type of hypnotic state.

But anyway this is all nonsense, right? Well, no. Last month I attended a YouTube event where JackSepticEye and I won a taco contest, judged by world-renowned chef Rachel Ray...sorry, I didn't have anywhere else to brag about it, so I decided to include it here to write. But now to the point, we were able to see a real demonstration of hypnosis, on YouTubers that I know and are friends with. And I'll tell you one thing: they weren't acting. And of course, as is done with YouTubers, it's all over YouTube. Spin the clip! It starts normally. The hypnotist asks them to relax.

How nice. Then they start to fall. Then they eat ice cream...aggressively. And then come the cows. Who, of course, needs to be milked... enthusiastic. Joey's name was changed to EIEIO and FouseyTube became a fairy. It was... a strange day. It was later heard on Joey Graceffa's vlog that he felt awake and conscious throughout the event. "Say, at that moment my brain was like, 'Oh, you can do this,' this is what you're supposed to do." From my own experience watching the show, it was pretty clear what hypnosis it was. Everything happened quickly, as fast as you can see in the video.

It's just a matter of finding people who are open to the power of suggestion. And look at Luigi; It's a textbook example, everyone orders it! People spend their entire lives deciding what to do, they are already used to doing what they ask of them. This is also the closest thing to Nastasia's powers in Super Paper Mario. According to his description, she has "instant hypnotic powers", which is faster than the YouTube event, but there isn't much difference. The hypnotist didn't shoot hypnolasers out of his eyes or anything like that. We also see the game's characters going in and out of hypnosis: Luigi alternates between himself and Mr.

L, as quickly as the YouTubers fall asleep and wake up in the video. Okay,

super

! So Luigi is hypnotized! That explains what happened to him and why he ended up in the shy Mr. L changes, right? Well, no. It turns out that Luigi's behavior cannot be considered hypnosis. Listen to this clip from the beginning of my hypnotherapy session with YouTuber. He stares straight ahead for a moment. I count to three, but not four, when I say three all you have to do is close your eyes, that's all I ask of you. One two three. Closed eyes.

Well done! Open them again. There you have it, no fuss, no magic pixie dust, Harry Potter doesn't walk on stage with a magic wand. There is no "feeling" of hypnosis. Hypnosis feels just like you imagine. Hypnosis is how you imagine it. This is very important as you will be as hypnotized as you allow yourself to be. During my research, I discovered that one of the most frequently asked questions hypnotists ask is, "Am I forced to do things I don't want to do?" And the answer everyone gives is ''NO''. So even if hypnotists want to force the hypnotized to do something they would not otherwise do, they cannot do it.

I quote: "If you hypnotize someone, it does nothing for their morals." And here's another quote: "No, you don't lose control." Hypnosis allows clients to be more focused and achieve more control, not less.'' Remember, it doesn't change what they believe, it doesn't bribe them, it doesn't force them. You are just making suggestions that, depending on the morale of the hypnotized person, seem like a good idea. That's right, Joey, milk that cow! Order it very well and strongly! What does that mean for Mr. L and Luigi? Well, if Luigi is hypnotized and doesn't break his underlying moral codes, there is only one conclusion: Luigi is NOT acting against his own will in Super Paper Mario when he meets Mr.

Becomes L! When Nastasia hypnotizes him, his morals do not change. Under those cute ones. the crazy Luigi we all love, school all the time Mr. L. he didn't even need to be re-educated, he didn't even need to be threatened! All he had to do was be in a hypnotic state where he lost all his inhibitions and fears, and for once he wasn't afraid to show how he really felt. And it makes a lot of sense, right? Sarcasm for Bowser? Feelings for Peach? Open hatred towards Mario? When they hypnotize him, the real Luigi comes out and something spicy comes in.

Serious feelings for the group are revealed. They think he has no control over it, that he is just an alternative person, but he certainly does. Thatman, Mr. L, is Luigi's true form, his thoughts and his ambitions. Lo and behold, the most real Luigi we've ever seen was under hypnosis in Super Paper Mario. So next time you play with Luigi, remember that there is a lot more under that cute monkey than you think. Ha, and you thought Luigi Death Stare was just a meme... reconsider that. But hey, that's just a

theory

! A game

theory

! Thanks for watching.