Super Mario's LEGO Debut: Teaching Kids to Murder

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - I remember when LEGO used to instill family-friendly values, like pizza beats jail cells.

I thought of several different angles this article could take. One is complaining that LEGO sets are more expensive and technologically complicated than they used to be, but on the cost front, that's debunked with statistics. As for the technology, from what I can tell, this may be the most technologically advanced LEGO set ever, combining the LCD screens from the LEGO alarm clocks and the colour sensors from the LEGO MINDSTORMS STEM-education series. Meet the collaboration between Nintendo and LEGO, big enough for a press release, with the product releasing August 1, 2020:
 

For $60, you can purchase the starter set, and then for an additional $30 and/or another $100, you can get the Piranha Plant Power Slide Expansion Set and the Bowser's Castle Boss Battle Expansion Set, respectively. There are plans for additional future expansions, such as the Monty Mole & Super Mushroom Expansion Set.

Here's the angle I am going to take in this article: It's blatantly encouraging evil activity. Like, what's going on here:

Putting the question of “what happened to Bowser Jr.'s spikes?” aside, how the hell is this morally acceptable?
This whole set is all about Mario stomping on other, innocent people beneath his boots of evil!
(And you thought stepping on LEGO is supposed to be painful.)

Mario fans/defenders—and these are either really bad or really misguided people that KoopaTV seeks to change the minds of with our Enlightenment Movement—insist that Mario is justified in his terrorist, genocidal actions because it's all in the name of justice and rescuing a princess, or whatever flimsy reasoning they'll come up with.

Well, you can go read that press release, watch that video, and go check out the whole mini-site LEGO put together. There's no information on motivations or any princess or any plotline. Mario is just in this violence-based excursion because: 

“LEGO® Mario™ collects virtual coins as he runs and jumps from the Start Pipe to the Goal Pole via LEGO bricks, cloud platforms, the ? Block and clashes with the Goomba figure and Bowser Jr. ”

Oh. He's just murdering for money. It's not even real money. They're VIRTUAL coins. I wonder if Mario is cryptomining on behalf of LEGO and/or Nintendo. It's closer to the truth than the recent FAKE NEWS about Cooking Mama: Cookstar. Either way, he's happy just to be hurting other people who haven't wronged him in any way, given the happy face expression in the above screenshot as he's stomping a defenceless Bowser Jr. into the ground.

Even if the currency is virtual, the friendships (forged in blood) are apparently real. Here's what Nintendo executive Takashi Tezuka had to say:

“It's very exciting to think of LEGO Mario becoming a real friend to children and to picture them playing in their very own Mario world that they imagined themselves.” 

That's not exciting. That's disturbing, and that's not even considering the “Mario is a mass murderer for virtual money.” part. A LEGO person isn't a “real friend” by definition, no matter how many LCD screens and sensors you put on it. Besides, what happens to your “real friend” when the two AAA batteries (not included) run out of power?

I'm not saying this moment is worth spending $60 on, but...
It IS an alternative use case to innocent Goombas and Koopas being killed.

 

Ludwig opposes Mario's senseless (and supposedly sensible) killings, and he opposes new efforts by companies to commercialise on it. Share this article to spread the truth, and avoid this violence-based LEGO product! He's not sure why you'd want to spend $60 (which is just the starter set) on LEGO when you could just buy a videogame for that.


If you thought the commercialisation here was scary, wait until you see the COSTUME PACKS.
A full list of the expansion sets—there are ten—are here, with a deep dive on one in particular.
Also for August 1: A Nintendo Entertainment System LEGO kit.
Bowser Jr. isn't the only innocent LEGO set Koopa in trouble. There's Larry Koopa as well!
For teaching children important things about Mario, this article won the Best Enlightenment Movement Article and Best KoopaTV Article awards in 2020. The collective LEGO Super Mario series won 2020's Best Koopa Article Series as well.
A year later, Luigi is joining as a LEGO figure with his own set.
Besides murder, kids will also learn from LEGO Mario how to break the laws of gravity.
Ludwig and Lemmy are now becoming LEGO figures. Ludwig is freaking out.