Chapter 1: Does Mario actually feel pain after years of gameplay?
Does Mario feel pain? Over the last 40 years, he's been smashed by thwomps, burned by lava, and drowned thousands upon thousands of times. But does he feel any of it? The answer, loyal theorists, and I kid you not, might be the thing that finally redeems him in the eyes of game theory. Hello internet, it's Amiya Game Theory, the show that's still working on their Italian accent. Mamma mia.
I was never very good at accents. Now, I know what you might be thinking. Tom, why on earth would you be asking this question, does Mario feel pain? Didn't Matt cover this in his theory about the Mario movie? And yes, he did cover that. I was actually the one who suggested that particular mini-theory. But here's the thing, or actually, here are two things.
The movies are not considered canon to the games, and two, the original movie came out in April of 2023, and a year later, senior designer at Nintendo, Takashi Tezuka, was asked this exact question, and his response was unsatisfying. Quote, it may be that Mario does feel pain. I don't know about you, but that answer just isn't really great.
I know we're called Game Theory, but when it comes from the people who worked on the game, you'd expect it to be at least somewhat definitive. Should we be feeling guilty for every painful death we put this guy through? Or is Mario still the good-for-nothing plumber we've always suspected, hiding a dark secret from all of us?
Well, I have been racking my brain for two years trying to come up with an answer worthy of, well, me. And by luma, I think I've got it. Grab as many what-ups as you can, friends, and let's-a go. In order to do this, we're going to need to figure out how to measure Mario's pain. It's worth mentioning that we are questioning whether Mario feels pain, not if he's immortal. We see him die a lot.
When he stays underwater for too long, he drowns. If he gets hit too many times by a Goomba or any other hazard, his body simply cannot go on and he dies. What we want to know is if there is any pain involved in these instances. The easiest answer would be to listen to him like a doctor in a hospital, but given he doesn't
really talk outside of the odd phrase or yahoo, I'm not sure how helpful that's gonna be. Okay, and does it hurt if I put pressure here? Okay, and how about here? And here? Interesting. So, because we can't really talk to him, we need to instead go off his reactions. At first, my mind went to the pain scale we see in scrubs, where you select from a handful of faces to determine someone's pain.
Mr. Peel, you're about a seven on the pain chart. Yep, you're seven.
But there's no way this thing was real. Surely it was just a gag. Lo and behold, it is real, or at least similar systems do exist, like the Wong Baker Faces Test. However, what is for comedic effect is the very literal interpretation of this test.
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Chapter 2: What evidence suggests Mario might not feel pain?
They aren't designed to literally mimic the face of someone in pain. They're more for when a patient is struggling to describe the pain level. They can look at the chart and point to what feels accurate. So sorry, scrubs, I'm enjoying your reboot, but I can't give you the accuracy point, I'm afraid.
Fortunately, there are other ways to measure pain that do come from the direct observation of a person. Studies have found an extensive list of expressions and behaviors associated with someone feeling pain, and that these behaviors and expressions can be involuntary.
These studies have been turned into checklists that carers can use when they take care of patients who are unable to verbally express themselves or even fully understand their pain, such as those with things like Alzheimer's or dementia. It's called the Pain Assessment Checklist for Seniors with Limited Ability to Communicate, or the PACSLAC. It breaks down into these categories.
Involuntary noises, which are things like saying ow or screaming when in pain without any control. Facial expressions and changes in physical movements are things like stiff movements or limping due to the pain. And then there's the non-physical changes that happen when you're in pain that may be a little trickier to notice, like changes in habits or social behavior.
So with this list, we can observe Mario and the damage we put him through to assess for ourselves if Mario does feel all of those steps into the lava and bonks from a Koopa shell. We're also going to be focusing on the 3D Mario games. This is because in these games, Mario has a life gauge, which means we can take damage from something a few times and watch Mario's reactions.
Also, these games feature a lot more unique damage and death scenarios like drowning, fall damage, and taking hits from the environment. Sorry, my Italian friend. We're going to be putting you through a lot of tests today and they're gonna hurt. Or, you know, maybe not. That's why we're here after all.
let's start with the easiest one involuntary noises when we feel pain it's quite normal to let out an ouch or a shout and if it's really painful just scream and yell golly that's smart no just me either way we let out a sound when we are hurt and as i alluded to earlier our friend mario is no different I have died a lot in Mario games, so I am all too familiar with these sounds.
But it's not just the initial pain that makes us make involuntary sounds. When we stop for a moment, we may moan or groan as the pain returns. And when Mario is on low life, as in he's almost about to die, he lets out a lot of sounds when not moving. This would indicate that Mario is feeling pain. But that's just the first part of the checklist. Let's keep looking.
When someone is in pain, their mood can be different than usual. One of the most common changes that the pack slack notes is if the patient begins sleeping at random times of day, as this would indicate that they are waking up in the night or struggling to get back to sleep due to the pain, which would lead to them struggling to stay awake during the day.
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Chapter 3: How can we measure Mario's pain responses effectively?
Turns out him being a sociopath may just be coming from the constant torture we put him through. I'm starting to feel bad for the guy, and that's before we even start looking into his facial expressions. This is where things get a little more complicated. Facial expressions is absolutely the most detailed part of this checklist.
You see, when we feel pain, it triggers involuntary muscle contractions in our face. Scientists aren't certain why this happens, but suspect it's a way to communicate distress to others and tightening these muscles might help to alleviate the pain we are feeling elsewhere in our body. These kinds of facial movements are things like frowning,
furrowing eyebrows, squinting eyes, and screwing up your nose. Overall, the face is just squishing tightly together. So does Mario exhibit these facial expressions when taking damage? His face when he dies in Super Mario Bros. Deluxe sure looks like it. Eyes squinting and eyebrows furrowed. Looks pretty convincing to me, but look
Looking at all instances across the franchise, his facial reactions to pain are not what they should be and are downright inconsistent. Look what happens if Mario gets electrocuted in Mario 64. He becomes briefly paralysed and he makes a noise, but look at his face. vacant stare. No muscle contractions of any kind.
Being electrocuted should be painful, but not only that, the electric current passing through your body should be stimulating nerves, forcing muscle contractions in his face. But Mario does nothing. And this isn't an isolated incident either. When Mario is swimming and runs out of air, he slowly loses his life points, but this doesn't normally just happen with no warning.
Running out of air underwater is painful. When holding your breath underwater for more than 30 seconds, carbon dioxide builds up in your bloodstream from not exhaling, and this can lead to discomfort in your lungs. Mario should be feeling this pain and showing that pain on his face, but as he slowly loses his life, he doesn't flinch, or even look like he's in desperate need of air.
One minute he's swimming no problem, the next, whoops, he's dead. And what about freezing to death? That's gotta hurt more than drowning, right? If Mario swims in icy water, he does take damage, I mean, fair water that cold is going to hurt. You can see the effect it has on Mario's body as he slowly is covered in ice until eventually freezing to death.
But Mario doesn't show the slightest amount of discomfort being this cold, not even slowing down in the water. I get pretending the water isn't actually that cold when you go to the beach or something, but
right once you're in it's actually quite warm in here but literally freezing to death cold i don't even think the toughest guy could hide that level of pain from his face and the expressions he does give are completely bland or you might even say comical but even those reactions are inconsistent we've seen him jump into fire and scream out in pain but when he dies from the same injury he just looks shocked like whoops yes that's it not exactly the face you'd give dying a fiery
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