4 Secrets That Prove The 'Super Mario' Series Is Dark As Hell

4 Mario make penguins go extinct

Everyone who's ever played Super Mario 64 has accidentally found out that it's totally possible to throw baby penguins off a cliff. Was it a development oversight? A nod to the original version of Nintendo's Ice Climber where we totally had to murder other baby animals? We don't know. What we do know, however, is that one version of Super Mario 64 actually allows players to completely eradicate penguin-kind.

Youtuber 1ted59 has recently discovered that the Japanese version of Super Mario 64 features a coding oversight that allows Mario to drive momma penguin off the cliff after reuniting her with her baby. It's very wholesome.

That only leaves only witness behind: the racer penguin. That probably marks a really good moment to challenge it to a death race 64 ™. Yeah, YouTuber UncommentatedPannen Has discovered that we can also have the racer penguin slipping off the track.

3 There's a hell in the Mario world (and Mario is destined to go there)

A now-deleted tweet from Mario scholar Supper Mario Broth explains that back in the ‘90s, if Mario were to die, he’d get a halo on top of his head, meaning that he really was living the life of a bonafide hero back then. The same tweet then goes on to mention how in Super Paper Mario our heroic plumber dies and goes straight to “The Underwhere”, which is the same as saying he goes to “Hades” instead of cutting the crap and admitting he's going to hell. This can only mean that he must have done something terrible sometime between 1990 and 2007. That's pretty scary, yes – especially since the tweet was deleted, but we're just guessing that's because the person behind the Twitter account was scared of Mario's response, so we're going to intentionally overlook that as well.

Instead, we're going to wonder why Hell even exists in a place where nobody ever kills or robs anything  – does that mean that the inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom are sent to eternal damnation just for having bad thoughts? Maybe, but it turns out that there's some seriously messed up stuff taking place in the most innocent-looking of video game worlds.

2 There's actual murder in Mario's world

Look, we know what Mario does to penguins is murder, but it's, like, uh.. cute murder. We're talking about real bloody murder. The people playing the western version of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door may never learn the truth, but the ones who have played the Japanese version of the game are aware of a much harsher reality. Whereas international players will enter a game area called “messy shed” and find exactly what the name says, and therefore won't look any further:

Japanese players going to the International version will stumble upon what's clearly a murder scene post-coverup.

In the Japanese version, not only is there a silhouette of a toad in that room, there's also what we have to assume is toad brain juice splattered all over the floor. Many Japanese games get this sort of censorship treatment in the west, but this is the only time when something this dark has ever taken place in the Mushroom Kingdom. Here's hoping that wasn't the sin that sent Mario to hell.

1 Mario can suddenly die

We know that Mario's life expectancy is short since he dies whenever the timer that hangs above his head in older Mario games reaches 0, but this isn't even about that. We're talking about random creepy glitches that can cause Mario to die from what feels like a stroke or heart attack. Yeah, sorry to tell our readers that they're not the only ones who can drop dead at any time in their lives. Below we can see Mario barely surviving getting hit in the ass by a fireball, the second scariest thing in the world of Super Mario.

Right after that, he breaks a box and, instead of getting a random power-up, he just straight-up dies, with his eyes turning into Xs and all.

To make it all even creepier, the camera moves closer to rub it in the eyes of players that Mario really did pass away from some mysterious ailment.

Anyone who thinks that seeing Mario dead and standing up at the same time isn't weird enough will be happy to know that there are a few glitches that cause the game to straight-up kill Mario just for looking at stuff he isn't meant to look at. 

What else are they hiding?

Top Image: Nintendo