Toad's identity crisis

warelander

Some random guy online
Some of you might already know that i'm a big fan of the character Toad, from the Super Mario series.
As with every species representand in this series his appearences are sometimes hard to proof on wheter or not they are really meant to be him or just a generic nameless red Toad, thought it can be usually agreed and accepted that a singled out red Toad is usually meant to be him.
That's all fine and good thought Super Mario 3D World threw the idendity of one particular incernation of the character into question: Captain Toad.
Because not did he make an appearence there, but there was also a blue Toad who was not only called "Toad" (a distinction that the generic playable Toads from the New series didn't have) but was also reffered to as "Mario's lifelong buddy" in one of his bios.

I figured that I could share my thought's on the subject here, since the folks at Mario Wiki seem to be rather sick of it and maybe someone here would be interested.

I firmly believe that the Captain was always meant to be the main Toad from Mario 2,Wario's Woods,etc and here is why:

1.They have the same personality.

Both are cowardly but still trying characters with a very childlike playfull cheeriness, it would find it rather curious to have two red Toad's who are basically the same.

2.The Galaxy games always use the main Toad whe mentioning him in other materials.

The Prima guide reffers to him as Toad and the only Toad artworks to come from those
Games depict him as the main one:


353px-Super_Mario_Galaxy_Toad_Artwork.png
Smg2boxart-1.jpg


3.Toadette in Treasure Tracker

They interact pretty much the same as in any other game and the first Galaxy even shows them together on the intro:

960px-Starfestival-1.jpg


4. 3D World has some evidence that suggests my theory.

It has become common believe that Toad was recolored blue as a reference to the original nes version of Mario 2, but there are a few things that speak against it:

1.Peach was initially not meant to be playable:
http://mynintendonews.com/2013/06/1...a-playable-character-in-super-mario-3d-world/
making the Mario 2 paralels a complete accident.

2. Look at CT's icon from the 3D World's reveal trailer:
Beta_Icon.png

Interesting ain't it?
Couple that with the interview above and things start to look a lot different.

3.One interview pretty much stated that the character Captain Toad had his debut in Galaxy, but Buddychrist from this Mario Wiki talk page brings up some very interesting points:
http://www.mariowiki.com/Talk:Captain_Toad

The only puzzling thing about this is the blue Toad's bio but I think that this is a case were it really causes more confusion than clarity.

What's your take on this (assuming you care in the first place) ?
 
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Well, it's not 100% related, but apparently someone at Nintendo said Toads don't have genders. So Toad could be male and Captain Toad could be female or neither or vice versa or who knows what...
 
Well, it's not 100% related, but apparently someone at Nintendo said Toads don't have genders. So Toad could be male and Captain Toad could be female or neither or vice versa or who knows what...

Huh, that's odd.
It probably comes down to different develepors having different views and interpretations of the species, this would explain why so Mario games don't have any female Toads at all
 
i think captain toad = toad and you can expect a wall of text from me sometimes in the coming week on mariowiki because this is really dumb.

Well, it's not 100% related, but apparently someone at Nintendo said Toads don't have genders.

The only thing Hayashida said is that they never really thought about Toad's gender despite them having gendered appearances. Toads being genderless is an assumption by some gamespot writer.
 
It's also kind off odd how all the Toads in that old japan exclusive OVA were female, I know that that's a different matter but it does add to the fuel.
 
All this confusion about Toad genders was made just as complicated by Captain Toad's producer, when it shouldn't be at all. SMRPG and the Paper Mario series made it as simple as it should be: Toads come in both genders. Nintendo has so much to learn from the wonderful series that is Paper Mario, yet refuses to do so, and decides to hate it instead.
 
Another thing I would like to point out is the second Treehouse showing of Treasure Tracker:

http://www.mariowiki.com/Treehouse

2:20
2:28

Toad's status as a special attack in Smash and Wario's Woods are directly mentioned.
This may not sound like a big deal, but to me it cements the notion of the Captain and Toad beeing the same character, since it is the most recent source about the character's identedy that we have.
 
Toads are probably natural hermaphrodites like slugs. However they still want to be referred to as "he" or "she".
 
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There actually was another Toad artwork from the galaxy games:
359px-Toad_Artwork_-_Super_Mario_Galaxy_2.png


I have heard the argumant that the Captain wearing a red west in the both of the galaxys proves that he is a different character, but let's take a look at Toad in Super Mario Sunshine:
671px-Toad_Artwork_-_Super_Mario_Sunshine.png

The manual comfirms him to be the main Toad and it's important to point out that Sunshine was the first Mario platformer to have multi coloured Toads, so they likely gave him a red west to stay consistent with the others.

The intro of the first Galaxy highlights a group of Toads wich is often belived to be the same one from Sunshine:
960px-SMG_Prologue_Toads-1.jpg

The second Galaxy gives us a similar pic:
SMGCA6.png

Acording to Mario Wiki the colour of Toad's west is a prove of him not beeing part of the brigade:
http://www.mariowiki.com/Toad_Brigade
but all of the stuff I have brought up before and his card bio at the very end of the article throw that notion into a loop.

There's also the Grand Finale Galaxy of the first Galaxy:
talking to the Toads there will let you know that they absolutely ADORE the Captain, which makes Toad's post hole animations in Mario Golf World Tour very interesting, since the others treat him like a leader of sorts:


06:41

The only thing that the 3D World Blue Toad = Toad stance has is a vague bio that makes his identity ambigious at best.
 
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I could make the argument how him reffering to the Captain as just Toad and him bringing up the confusion about him and Toadette beeing siblings (which was only ever a thing in the Prima guide of Mario Kart Wii) in an earlier interview:
But I think what I can say is that Toadette and Toad are not siblings

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/nintendo-reveals-the-toads-gender-secret/1100-6423610/
Or anything I have posted above contradict with that statement, but I couldnt be arsed to even bother anymore...
It's not even Toad and the Captain beeing different characters that bothers me (that much), it's just the fact that here I am, pouring my heart out while trying to make sense out of this mess concerning.a character I grew up loving and now theres FINALLY a statement directly reffering to that matter and rather than giving an explenation as to why everything I thought was wrong like supplementary materials like the Prima guide not representing the developers vision, I get an half hearted "LULZ youre wrong, now go buy our stuff you twat", we now have a official stance on the thing, but nothing to tell us why every assumption made before is invalid...
I know that Mario isn't a character driven series, but stuff like this really shouldn't happen and it really makes me wonder why I even bother with to think about it anymore...
 
It's not a character-driven series but it's about time to evolve. The series can only benefit from more care being put into the characters: kids aren't that dumb, they should be more interested, I knew I was. The problem is that those directors are just lazy to even think beyond wanting to advertise and raise the sales.
 
What bothers me the most about this is the fact that he intentionally went out of his way to give an answer regarding the issue and yet still fails to anwer anything (as reduntend as that sounds), what about supplementary matterials, why just call him Toad in an earlier interview ( and I don't buy Toad just beeing an appriviation), is the 3D World Blue Toad "The" Toad and if yes, why is he blue, why put him on the cover of Galaxy 2, if he appearently isn't even in the game at all and what about the Treehouse, why are they acting as if they where the same character if that's appearently not the case?
It just creates more questions than answers, pretty much exactly like the "Koopalings are not Bowsers kids acording to the "current stiry" I still have no idea what this "current story is supposed to be...
This new statement may be the closest thing to a comfirmation that we are ever going to get, but it does absolutely nothing to explain to me why everything I listed just now is invalid, the only thing I know is that theyre wrong because....... Tomatos that's why, don't agree well to bad for you...


I hate Nintendo sometimes...
 
So, I've been rather bored the past couple of days, due to still having to wait for Treasure Tracker to come out in Europe I started to think of this thread again and after loocking around for a bit and playing Galaxy 2 again I think I might have a theory:
Captain Toad has no official identity as far as Nintendo as a whole is concerned.

Now hear me out on this one, I know that this may sound like me desperatly trying to "prove" my own observations, but believe me I think I can make some (keyword beeing some) sense out of this mess, without disregarding our newfound "comfirmation".

As mentioned before I have started to play Galaxy 2 again and upon talking to the Blue Toad brigade member I stumpled over this:
20141212_231958-1.jpg

A mug shot of Toad while the Captain is mentioned.
While thinking about the Captain identity desaster again I suddenly remembert 2 more Sourcees that label Toad as the Captain:

http://nintendoenthusiast.com/interview/nintendo-strong-female-protagonists-recent-theme-nintendo/
It's near the bottom.


I'm reffering to the title btw.

I have heard several arguments that "Toad" is just short for Captain Toad, but that kind of appriviation doesn't really work unless they are one and the same, the Yoshi's Island series does a similar thing sometimes where the babys are reffered by their normal names rather than Baby this or Baby that.

I'm not going to start going to start an argument on wheter or not any of the Pro-Toad = Captain Toad are more valid than a opposing claim from a producer, because that's not what matters to me here, but the fact that we have several official sources from various Nintendo emploeeys shows to me just how little the direction this character has...
Compare that to the Koopalings where their new found status as minions has been established as soon as their return in New Super Mario Bros Wii (in the manual to be exact) three years before Miyamoto comfirmed it and it has been consistent ever since.
Captain Toad on the other hand started out consistend and didn't become a mess until 3D World.

Then there is the content within the games themselves, I mean you can't tell me that anyone in the development would have thought of putting Toadette in Treasure Tracker without having her as Toad's partner.
The idea that this:
CTTH.jpeg

Is only a accidentally similar team up to this:
254px-Toad_and_Toadette_-_Mario_Party_7.png


Not to mention that they replicated Toad's old plucking animation from Mario 2 :
MGtR9Z0.png

tumblr_mzjvh1Jp511sq3i5ho1_500-1.jpg

Kind of odd that they bothered to make the Captain even more similar to Toad if he is supposedly a different character.

It's kind of odd that we have a producer as the odd one who denies the beeing the same character, then again he also claimed that Toads arent mushrooms completely ignoring the fact that Toads have used spore and mushroom based abilitys seveal times before, most recently in Smash 3DS and Wii U, take that as you will.

The big issues here is the inconsistency between sources, more than anything else, because the games point in one direction.

It's not like anyone other than nerds like me, are going to care, they are going to play the game and view the Captain as Toad either way, Nintendo themselves don't seem to care either, otherwise they would have brought some order in to this mess (ala' Koopalings), rather than leaving it like that.

...I hope I'm making sense...
 
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You're making perfect sense, only Nintendo isn't. It's a bit sad that you and other Toad fans find many different ieces of information, join them up, but the result is confusing because the developers don't care. Pouting: Sadly this likely all we're gonna get, and it's up to the players to think and imagine their own Toad stories.
 
Thanks for the nice words and I can agree on players beeing better of when relying on their own opinions and viewpoints, which is why my thoughts on Toad beeing the Captain havent changed much, despite the apperent dicomfirmation.

I do have a few more points to make until I'm going to put this thing to rest for the time beeing, mainly why I'm still so convinced of my viewpoint.

Hayashida's viewpoints regarding the Toad species clash badly with already existing material.

No offence to Hayashida, I'm sure that he is an awesome and hard working guy, but if you take his statement regarding Captain Toad's identity as the end all- be all comfirmation, than you also agree on Toad's not beeing mushrooms at all and them just look like ones.
This could have been kind of reasonable but moments like this:


3:10

Or this:
ToadSporesBrawl.png


Or this:
960px-ToadSpecialMSM.png

Make that comment feel rather questionable and you can't have one without the other, if you take the Capain Toad statement granted, despite it's complete lack of clarification on anything. (The mushroom statement comes from the now infamous Toad gender Gamespot interview btw)

Then there is the 3D World Blue Toad = Toad assumption which I have big issues with personally.

First off him just beeing called Toad doesnt mean anything, considering that Mario Party 9's "Toad and go seek" minigame reffers to the Blue Toad in that game as just Toad as well, Mario Golf World Tour does a similar thing, the store in that game that let's you purchase the DLC is called Toad's Shop, despite Toad beeing a playable character, the Toad who runs the shop is also Blue interestingly enough.

Secondly, yes the european bio for the Blue Toad can be missleading but Peach's loyal servant and Mario's lifelong buddy while distinct sounding, could apply to muttible Toads.

Thierd, "Toad" beeing blue.
This goes back to clashing with already existing material, one could argue that it's just a reference to his Mario 2 nes sprites:
ToadwalkSMB2.gif

But I find that hard to believe since he was never meant to be blue in the first place and it doesn't even make sense as a reference since the other characters remaint the same:
Super-Mario-Characters-Luigi-Toad-Peach-1.jpg

plessie_artwork_super_mario_3d_world_8695.png

I don't buy colour convinience either since they could have easily used white as Toad's colour of choice, couple that with Captain Toad beeing around and the mess has just gotten a whole lot messier.

Again, no offense to Hayashida, but taking his statemets for grantet (and as I said, you can't have one without the other) not only contradicts what is represented ingame, but also overcomplicates things to a point that I honestly feel more comfortable disregarding them.
Because let's be honest here:
Captain Toad beeing The Toad, Blue Toad not beeing The Toad and Toads beeing mushrooms or atleast very mushroomlike creatures.
Creates far less assumtions and questions than:
Captain Toad isn't Toad and any source, interview,etc are invalid with no given reasons, Toad was recolourd blue for the sake of one game and went back to his original look for EVERY single later appearence and Toads only look like mushrooms despite possesing Spore and Mushroom based abilitys in various games.
 
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