Special:Badtitle/NS90:User talk:DocColress/The Great Big Examples Suggestion Topic 3: Snake Eater/reply (20)

I may have put her on the "Not a Monster" list, but I feel like reevaluating Princess Shroob thanks to the fact that I recently got to play Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time. In fact, I'm starting to wonder why I put her there at all come to think of it.

Who is Princess Shroob and what all does she do?: Princess Shroob is the nasty, sadistic leader of the alien Shroob race (or at least the substitute leader, her older sister led them before getting sealed away in a star), who is invading Mario and Luigi's planet in the past because the Shroob's home planet has no energy resources left. To this end she has the Mushroom Kingdom's Toad citizens abducted and taken to a factory where a substance called Vim which is heavily implied to be their blood is drained from their bodies and used as fuel for the Shroobs' flying saucers (And as a casual drink for her and her sister), a process which kills the Toads by leaving them as lifeless mushrooms (Though given that the mushrooms can be turned back into living Toads at the end of the game, they may be in a I have no mouth and I must scream situation... which is even worse!). To that end she has three locations (Peach's Castle, the surrounding Toad Town, and Hollijolli Village) sacked and left with next to survivors. Other evil deeds of hers include having a monstrous Yoshi/Shroob hybrid called Yoob eat all of Yoshi's Island's inhabitants and transform them into monsters inside of a factory in it's belly, and doing what amounts to a public execution by having Peach fed to a monstrous Piranha Plant (Though she does survive since it barfs her back up later, I'm not sure if that was part of the plan or not). And after this happens, Princess Shroob disguises herself as Peach so she can be taken back to the Mushroom Kingdom of the present so she can take over the other kingdom too.

Is she heinous by the standards of the story?: Yep! She's easily worse than Bowser, and is also probably THE most heinous of the handheld RPG's villains (I haven't played much of Dream Team, but I hear the game's villain Antasma isn't that much more heinous than Cackletta or Fawful.) as she's an alien conqueror played dead-straight contrasted with her at-times goofy minions in an otherwise light-hearted setting. I do wonder how you feel about her when you compare her to the already approved monsters in the franchise, though.

Any Freudian Excuse or redeeming factors?: Well, you could make the argument that she's trying to provide her people with a new home, but she gets a lot more enjoyment out of conquering the planet's rightful inhabitants than she should, making it clear in her few speaking parts that she's pretty focused on dominating the planet and laying waste to it's inhabitants. She's also shown to be a blatant sadist, laughing as she tries to kill others. As for her sister, she doesn't seem to care about her at all, making no effort to actually save her from her prison, only calling on her to defeat Mario, Luigi, and their baby selves when she's dying (Though funnily enough, her sister does care about her to the point of fighting the Mario Bros and their baby counterparts mostly to avenge her death).

However, she may or may not care for her Shroob minions. She's never shown flat-out abusing them unlike her sister who will casually swat their flying saucers out of the sky during her boss battles, and even seems angry whenever Mario and Luigi defeat her minions when she's present. However, she doesn't speak in a decipherable language during those scenes which makes it unclear if she's enraged by their deaths out of personal care, or if she's angry that they failed to defeat the Mario Bros and Babies. That, and she's never really shown flat-out petting the dog with them either. I suppose this part may go either way in her favor.

Verdict?: I've always been on the fence with Princess Shroob: On one hand, her species needs a new planet and she may care about them. On the other hand, she goes way beyond being a Well-Intentioned Extremist with her blatant sadism and lust for power over the Mushroom Kingdom's citizens and also may not care about them. I guess it all comes down to what you think about her.