SB (non-serious) question

[Mandolin]

Remember my "do video game characters have souls?" topic? Well, I did some more thinking on the same lines, and I have a new, equally strange question to ask of you. In Smash Brothers, many different characters from unrelated gaming franchises are all together in a big slug-fest. But, now that the whole "different series are different worlds" angle is beneath the spotlight because of the Subspace Emissary, I can't help but have some doubts as to the way the characters feel about one another. Let me make it a little more clear...

Imagine Mario, Bowser, and Sonic are in a free-for-all fight. Do you suppose Mario would go a little easier on Bowser, and Bowser a little easier on Mario, because now both of them are up against a common enemy who is totally alien to the both of them? Do you think the characters would feel a sort of "series identification" that prevent them from feeling as strongly (in a negative sense) about other personas from their own series? Or would Mario's feelings of hatred toward Bowser and vice versa prevail in spite of Sonic's invlovement? You know what I'm saying here, right?

OK, here's another situation. Imagine Donkey Kong is fighting Diddy Kong. Just the two of them. Or, as an alternative, imagine Link and Zelda are up against one another. Do you suppose the feelings of friendship and affection between them cause them not to be so hard on each other? Or, do you think that if they were fighting on a tournament, they'd adopt a "you take the fall this time, I take the fall that time" stragegy to prevent one of them to be the direct cause of the other's failure? You do get where I'm coming from, don't you? By the way, the reason I did not include Fox and Falco as examples is because I honestly think those guys would enjoy beating the sh** out of each other, in a brotherly, Fight Club-ish kind of way.

Here's something a little different. Let's say Kirby is up against Ganondorf and King Dedede. Do you suppose that, because of their personal history, Kriby and Dedede would go harder against one another even though Ganondorf is clearly much more dangerous to both of them, and much, much more than either of them individually? Or would they form a temporary truce to bring down the common enemy first? I guess Kirby and K-3D have fought on the same side before, so that's not a good example... let's replace them with Mario and Bowser. Crap! Same problem! Well, you know what I mean. Would two rivals team up to defeat the greater threat first?

Discuss.

[Avarice]

Well, I suppose characters would go against their rivals first since they know what they're capable of, and then defeat the unknown enemy later.

As for things like Link vs. Zelda I can see either:

A. Link and Zelda fighting, but their personal feelings for each other ge in the way and they resolve not to fight

or

2. Link is tired of rescuing Zelda every five minutes and decides to kill her so he doesn't have to save her anymore.

That's right, I posted A, then 2.

[Dylan Yoshi]

Okay, time to post my theory on all of this...

The Master Hand. He's the supreme deity of the Nintendo world. This does not mean he created each of the worlds, however. For many of the worlds, he merely created the gods or goddesses of those worlds. He didn't create Hyrule, he created Din, Nayru, and Farore, who created Hyrule. Despite this, he still has complete control. He can bring any character to any place as a trophy to fight.

When in the Master Hand's world, the characters exist to fight. They are sent to places of their own worlds to fight, while still being under the spell of the Master Hand. For example, DK, Link, and Kirby could be fighting in Kongo Jungle. Just because they aren't in the Master Hand's dimension doesn't mean they don't exist to fight.

Now, just because the characters exist to fight in when the Master Hand takes their trophies and brings them to life doesn't mean they don't have feelings. In the Brawl intro, Peach is clearly rooting for Mario when he's fighting Kirby as he's saved her a bajillion times. On the contrary, if Peach were to fight Mario, neither of them would go easy as they exist to fight. If Kirby were to fight Dedede, they'd have grudges against each other and would want to defeat the other to laugh in their faces. But if Link were to fight Zelda, they'd fight equally as hard while doing it just for the fun of it.

If you followed this entire post, I congratulate you. *watches several heads explode*