Kirby | Unraveled

*upbeat music* Kirby! This pink puffball has been sucking up the inhabitants of Dream Land since 1992. He has his own games, manga, TV series and toys. It's safe to say that he is one of Nintendo's most trusted mascots. But he should not be trusted. The problem with Kirby is that he is both Nintendo's simplest and most powerful creature. These two realities cannot coexist. He is a form of life without the ambition or intelligence to make decisions, and yet the world submits to his will. Although it seems like Kirby is just a pastel-colored marshmallow, there must be some hidden wisdom that gives him the power he wields.

He has to have. Kirby's incongruity is terrifying, but that's only because we're terrified of things we don't yet understand. And today we are going to understand it. "Scientia potentia est." Knowledge is power. Humanity's attempts to harness the powers of the natural world come from intense research and understanding of those powers. And yet, Kirby is given powers far beyond his position, you ask me? There are two columns here: Simplicity and Power. What Kirby is, versus what Kirby can do. By mapping the dichotomy of these two columns, we can peel back the façade of Kirbyian simplicity and discover what is really going on.

This is not normal. Let's start with simplicity. Most people know Kirby as that cute little round guy, but is there something more to him? According to official canon information, this sounds like an apex predator? A satisfying scratch. This sounds like the lowest form of life, someone who is stuck at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. He wakes up, eats his caloric intake for the day and falls asleep watching The Great British Bake Off. However, here in the energy column... The things Kirby eats have completely disappeared. Not only did it become something else, it disappeared completely.

Kirby only cares about eating and sleeping. And yet he gets no energy or pleasure from consuming these things. Instead, he just lets them disappear. Gone from this plane of existence. So... what the fuck. Kirby doesn't speak any language beyond saying the words "Poyo" and "Hello!" Kirby communicates primarily through body language and growling. Even young children are more communicative. By all indications, he is either incapable or uninterested in speaking a language. And yet, Kirby is an incredibly skilled technician. We see Kirby piloting mechs, and if anime is to be believed, and I believe anime, this can only be accomplished by talented teenagers fighting psychosexual boredom.

He can effortlessly convert into a fighter jet, something only the most skilled air force engineers master. How can he understand these complex mechanical processes, without having the linguistic skills to read a textbook or the "I love science" Facebook page? Kirby's origins are vague. Let me take a moment to move to a different board so I can show you Kirby's origin story. There is nothing here. Very little is known about Kirby's origin. He has no canonical species. He has no canonical age. Masahiro Sakurai, Kirby's supposed creator, has stated that he does not remember how Kirby got his name.

Kirby was originally a placeholder item, which will be replaced by something... More! But not. Kirby survived. Kirby came out of nowhere. And Kirby is nothing. Or is it everything? Because Kirby can be anything. His copying ability grants him the powers and appearance of any creature he consumes. But copying is a misnomer. It does not duplicate the enemies of him. He assimilates them and replaces them. In Smash, he takes the power of his enemies and then releases them as a sign of respect. But in all other versions of Kirby, what he consumes is destroyed in the process.

Does it absorb DNA from him? Do you absorb memories of him? Is he the keeper of his soul? All of these abilities point to Kirby being intelligently designed, which we know is not the case. Sakurai woke up in a crop circle with the name "Kirby" engraved on his arm. Kirby has no emotional intelligence. No relationships. In the anime, Kirby appears to harbor no ill will towards King Dedede or Escargoon, his two main antagonists. He faces little birds and entire battalions of soldiers with the same empty smile. He eats and destroys indiscriminately, but counts no one among his enemies.

But those who count him among their own... are cosmic horrors. Look at this thing. Look at this thing! These celestial powers probably have wants and needs far beyond our human understanding, and yet they care about the destruction of Kirby, a barely-living ball. What do you see in Kirby that scares you? What could scare this? And the last simple test: Kirby is in the form of a friend. This was the premiere of Kirby's Adventure. Let me show you something. What did you notice? That's how it is. The entire time I was drawing this, I WAS NOT INTERROGING Kirby's true nature.

This quote is cute and simple and a blatant confusion. It is a condescending task intended to prevent people like me from discovering the truth. The truth is that Kirby has infinite power. And that's a quote. Planet Robobot explicitly states that Kirby possesses infinite power. Kirby can ride a star. Kirby can traverse a planet. Kirby is the only being in the entire universe to survive the Galeem cataclysm. One circle survived. THIS SURVIVED. AS? *deep breath* Now that we've covered these two columns, it's time to close the gap. How can we reconcile Kirby's two canonical truths: that he is both nothing and everything?

How can this sentient trash bag accomplish so much? Let me tell you... I don't know. I literally have no idea how this stupid orb can have so much power. I've worked my whole life researching and acquiring knowledge, and this shit sphere sleeps all day and has powers the gods fear. And that is impossible. It should be impossible. There has to be an answer here and I don't see it and that's NOT FAIR. If knowledge is power, then power should be knowledge, and Kirby is everything and he should know everything, and yet we know nothing! I can't think here.

I'm going out! How do I go outside? Kirby! The mystery of this flowery Dream Landian has baffled me, but I took a few months, gathered my thoughts, and am back in the studio to deliver my findings. Kirby's incongruity is terrifying, but that's only because we're terrified of things we don't yet understand. And today, truly, we are going to understand it. If you remember from our first exploration of the Pink Nightmare, the problem with Kirby is that he is incredibly simple and incredibly powerful. In the five months since, I've learned some facts that contradict some of my points.

First, Kirby can speak a language. There was a drama CD released in Japan in 1994 where Kirby speaks complete sentences. But in this he says that a telephone is “mysterious” and he doesn't know how it works. And yet, he can pilot a robot. Second, Kirby's name actually has a backstory, even if Sakurai was too screwed to remember it. Kirby is named after John Kirby, a lawyer who died last year who defended Nintendo's right to copyright Donkey Kong in the '80s. But this doesn't make the rest of Kirby's origin any less vague, and it doesn't. it changes the fact that one creature cannot embody both truths.

But that's the problem. I've been thinking of Kirby as a creature. Consider, for a moment, Moby Dick. You might get this book in your English class and say, "Hell yeah! A big whale? I can't wait to see Ahab level up and hit that big boy right in his weak spots. And of course, he puts his harpoon on Moby D's flanks, but spoiler alert! Ahab gets it, even though he's been grinding for years and Pale Whale is just a dumb fish who likes sailor feet And then you tell him. This to Mrs. Mahoney and she says, "Brian, don't you understand?

The whale is a metaphor for... something," and then you write that on your final exam and pass the class. This is what I like to call "Bookman's Bluff." It's when an author creates something and people say: "Hey, that doesn't make sense," but then the author says, "Well, it makes sense if you consider that it's actually a metaphor." Here, I think Sakurai is doing a Kirby rip-off, like Moby Dick, it doesn't make sense. meaning as a creature, but it will make sense as a metaphor. So what does Kirby symbolize? Let's start with the seven deadly sins, since everyone and their mother bases their characters on them.

Unfortunately, none of them make sense to Kirby, in any way, he's not in it for the money. You could argue for Gluttony because he eats a lot, sleeps a lot. And Envy constantly copies other people, but he never does it maliciously. random, without any sense of what he is doing. And then there is pride. Now, pride is the sin from which all other sins arise, and its punishment in hell is to be broken into the wheel, but Kirby is a wheel, so that's not going to work. Kirby could symbolize someone else's pride... The arrogance of humanity.

Think about it, has humanity ever stopped to consider that perhaps our endless consumption is not a good measure for the world as a whole? Have we altered our course or have we simply continued eating, sleeping, and copying others without thinking about the repercussions? In fact, maybe we can go one step further. Kirby is a metaphor for capitalism! Does our capitalist society assimilate and destroy? Absolutely! Technical and cultural appropriation are two of the most reliable tools of capitalism. When it comes to lack of emotional intelligence, capitalism makes people willing to absorb and destroy anything, friend or foe, nation or natural wonder, as long as it makes money.

Is the enemy of capitalism a cosmic horror? What could be more cosmically horrifying to a capitalist society than a guy named Marx? KIRBY IS A METAPHOR OF CAPITALISM. Sure, capitalism can sometimes be crueler in its intentions than Kirby can handle. That's it... I'll accept it. Uh, also, it sure looks like it could burn up any second, so the infinite power thing: it's not 100% true. Um, and, very-it's-it's hard to describe capitalism as if it were in the form of a friend... and all that eating and sleeping is just... it doesn't really make sense because we have a hyper obsession with productivity and that's being value-bound... so that's not...

This is not a very good metaphor, is it? In fact, most of these metaphors are nonsense. Especially this one. I thought I could take five months and pause and contemplate, and then I'd come back and have the perfect explanation for Kirby's dichotomy, but nothing has changed. This awful bolus slips through my fingers again. Maybe I'm just not good at this... Jenna, can you...? I need you to keep my papers and thumbtacks safe. I'll be gone for a while... I'll find Kirby. Jenna: Okay. Good luck friend. I went to the woods because I wanted to face only Kirby's essential facts.

He wanted to live deeply and suck out all the marrow of life, just as Kirby could suck a Waddle Dee down his throat. I've been at this for a while. Judging by the length of my beard, I've been living here for 2, maybe 3 years? There are no bulletin boards in the forest. I don't have three cameras to capture all my looks. They don't teach you that... It's just me. And nature, which has reduced me to my base instincts. I only care about finding food and shelter, eating and sleeping. I have become Kirby. I wish I could say that this has given me a clear mind, but no, nature has broken me.

I'm confused by that. And we are terrified of things we still don't understand. Kirby is nature! ...I thought, after spending my first day in the forest. Sure, the origins of nature are still hazy, and what is evolution if not a very, very slow form of Kirby's copying ability? *inhaling* And like Kirby, nature is neither cruel nor kind: it distributes blessings and punishments indiscriminately. For every delicious handful of berries, it also triggers a completely unrelated attack of diarrhea. But it only took me a few days to realize that this was another dead end. Nature does not destroy matter nor does it possess infinite power, and its enemy is not a cosmic horror, it is us.

Sorry for using so much paper. So I went back to the proverbial drawing board and have been stuck there ever since. Nature is still terrifying to me. And it certainly doesn't have the shape of a friend. How can Kirby live like this and stay so happy? How can he only care about his basic needs and conquer the enemies that come his way? I can't conquer anything, not even the mystery of a character in a children's game. All I can do is spin nonchalantly across the wood, like a star spat from Kirby's jaws. *waves crashing* I wake up one morning on the shore of a strange sea.

I don't know where I am or how I came to be here. The sea stretches endlessly in front of me, revealing the gentle, Kirby-like curve of the planet, and I finally understand it. I was so focused on investigating this bulbous boy's inner machinations that I never asked why he was investigating. I'm tormented by an eternal itch for things to mean something, but Kirby didn't need an explanation, I did. There are no vignettes or wiki entries for fans. Kirby is notnature nor a metaphor. Kirby doesn't need a dark story or logical justification. Kirby is just Kirby. As I stand here watching the waves crash against the sand miles away from civilization, I realize that I am not simply at the edge of the ocean, but at the edge of the world.

A world that I have accepted without knowing its hidden meaning. Maybe there is no hidden meaning. Maybe it's better this way. Maybe it's time for me to go home. “First you draw a circle, then you put dots on the eyes. Add a big smile and voila, it's Kirby.” Kirby is an extremely strong circle and that's all the explanation I need. Unfortunately, the same CANNOT BE SAID FOR DIDDY KONG. WHO GAVE HIM A GUN? DID YOU BUILD THE JETPACK? THAT MAKES NO SENSE, HE'S A MONKEY, WHAT IS HE... *suit ripping* Ahhh yeah! This is satisfactory. If you get into this, you're going to want to...

Pat: Yeah. Brian: Rollo... just put that in a pile of dirt right now. I'm going to wander around a little. *a lot of people are heard hanging around* *shirt ripping* Brian: Ohhhh amazing! Pat: Are we going to ride the train like this to Coney Island? Brian: Yeah, maybe!