Headscratchers / Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

• What if Bowser tried going into one of the pipes that lead into his body?
  • Fool can't jump like that anyway. And besides, he wouldn't fit.
    • Let's just say he could, then what?
    • Then he couldn't go down the pipe anyway. See the logo on it? No shoes, no service.
  • Malkovich? Malkovich Malkovich. Malkovich!
  • Decent people shouldn't think too much about that.
  • Once again, this boils down the problem of bringing Portal A (Pipe inside Bowser) through Portal B (Outside pipe).
  • Bowser X of course
    • That's just a clone, that's not the real Bowser.
  • It would lead to Bowser being trapped inside himself (possibly permanently, completely separated from the rest of reality. Kind of like how the universe box would work, except replace "box" with Bowser's outer body and "universe" with Bowser's interior. The real question is what would happen if he was killed while inside of himself.
    • Maybe until he exits back to the Mushroom Kingdom via the pipes.
  • Here's my question. Let's say Bowser can do whatever the Bros. can when inside himself. What happens if he uses the Rump command and becomes giant INSIDE HIMSELF?
    • Then everything gets bigger as Bowser gets bigger. Everything looks normal but technically isn't.
  • Wild Mass Guessing: A magical barrier would prevent him from entering.
• Wait, the Shy Guy Corps Attack (second to unlock) has Bowser roll up into a ball. So why did Mario and Luigi have to fix his back from the inside to let him use it out of battle?
  • Because he couldn't climb vertical surfaces without ruining his back, of course.
    • He would still be able to roll around in the field without climbing.
    • Would he? The whole point of the Shy Guys is that they do the slingshotting necessary to send Bowser at the enemy, most likely because he can't manage it by himself.
  • The Shy Guys roll him up in a ball, and since he isn't Limber enough at the time, he needs to be slingshotted in order to move. Once he IS able to move as a ball, he doesn't because the slingshot gives more force than rolling into the enemies.

• Hey, if mushrooms given by enemies (i.e., the Jailgoons and the Trashures) heal Bowser, how come he can't eat normal mushrooms, and has to eat drumsticks to heal?
  • Because he prefers drumsticks, and wouldn't eat mushrooms voluntarily unless they handed it over to him.
    • Yet he'll eat giant mushrooms during his battles as a giant.
    • You tell him where he's gonna find giant drumsticks.
    • Mario And Luigi Dream Team has got you covered ... Bowser eats giant meats to recover himself. It's only in his dreams he can do this though.
    • From a giant chicken, of course!
    • On the subject, there is a DrummiedOut mushroom that the Bros. can use to heal Bowser while they're battling inside him.
  • Also, Bowser claims he hates vegetables, and gets a stomach ache from eating them. Now, technically speaking mushrooms aren't vegetables, but I doubt Bowser knows that. Yet he can still eat the mushrooms, and actually get healed from them, which is the opposite of causing pain. Logic error?
    • Mushrooms in this kingdom are known for their healing qualities. Perhaps the act of eating one also eliminates any ensuing aches and pains?
    • Well, Bowser doesn't look like he needs logic...
    • Gameplay and Story Segregation. The Mushrooms are just there to keep you alive, but in-story, he loves spicy drumsticks. (Who doesn't?)
    • Me. I'll take my Honey BBQ, and no spicy wings, thank you.
• Why couldn't Mario and Luigi just stay outside of Bowser? Wasn't their main goal to exit him in the first place? Why couldn't they bring along the other Toads who were also stuck inside Bowser? On top of that, why can't they even see or go to Bowser when they exit him? I suppose there's Gameplay and Story Segregation, but still...
  • They probably also needed to find some way to get rid of Bowser's vacuum ability for good. (After all, what if Fawful controls him again like in the beginning?)
  • Because the first sage was inside Bowser, and Starlow/Chippy needed to stay inside him to manipulate him.
    • Okay, OP of the "get rid of his vacuum ability" post...wrote that a while back before Dream Team. I didn't expect that Bowser still had that ability right before the final boss, when he used it to inhale the Dream Stone's pieces...

• During the battle against Bowser in the middle of the game, when Bowser first uses his fire breath, Starlow tells the Bros to grab onto her so they can stay safe from Bowser's attack. Why does Bowser not recognize her voice as the voice of Chippy during this battle? He recognizes her as being Chippy after he defeats Dark Bowser, so why not during the battle with the Bros?
  • He did seem pretty focused on that roaring inferno brewing in his mouth at the time...
  • He hears Starlow's voice in the immediately adjacent conversation, and his response is to call her almost as annoying as Chippy. He simply hasn't put the facts together yet, which will become more clear once he sees her (along with Mario, Green Stache and everyone else) popping out of his mouth. (It also helps that Starlow refused his help at the beginning, while Chippy has asked for it to the point of annoyance.)
  • Well, when you're stuck inside of someone, expect your voice to be a bit muffled-sounding and distorted. Or hear it through your bones like your own voice.

• Why is the Beehoss enemy not weak to fire attacks? It's a beehive crossed with a plant, and both beehives and plants don't take too well to fire. Yet fire attacks do normal damage to these things.
  • The makers probably Didn't Think This Through…
    • Not everything have to follow Pokemon strength/weaknesses chart. Also, there's the glaring fact that not too many living organisms wouldn't like to be set on fire in the first place.
    • They're weak to it in the fourth game though.
  • The remake actually gives them a proper fire weakness, addressing the issue.

• So when you finally receive the Miracle Cure, Dr. Toadley mentions that he's sure it will destroy the barriers blocking the path, but he doesnt know if it can defeat the Dark Star. This however ends up irrelevant since the Miracle Cure is never heard from again after you destroy he barriers, odd.
  • When the barriers are smashed, you can see the "core" of the Miracle Cure ejected from the star-shaped shell, suggesting that the energy necessary to break the barriers destroyed it.

• When you're chasing Wisdurm for the Star Cure, when you reach the boo barrier it crawls under, Luigi falls into the mucus. and he come back to mario's location that contains pits only crossable by the spin jump, which requires both bros. How?
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation most likely, and Luigi can jump better than Mario can.

• When you first unlock the Pipe Yard area, it's blocked off by a red pipe that's too high to jump over. At some point in the game, the pipe is broken, allowing the Bros. to proceed. The pipe doesn't go anywhere once it's been broken, Mario and Luigi can't reach the top before said pipe is snapped, and there aren't any other red pipes in the overworld. Where would red pipe have gone?
  • Nowhere, just like many of the pipes in regular Super Mario games (if memory serves).
  • Bowser only seemed to inhale important pipes, so I doubt that.
  • Actually, if you look at the ground in the Trash Pit◊ closely (bottom right corner in the screenshot), you can see that the place is littered with green pipes.

• Why did the Star Sprites not bother to destroy the Dark Star or hide it somewhere safer, or are the ancients stupid to not even think about what happens in the future?
  • Maybe it was too powerful for the ancient Star Sprites to destroy, and weakened in the present by its long slumber.
  • Most stories about sealing an ancient evil come mention that outright destroying it wasn't an option through one way or another. In this one, even with a weakened star it was pretty much invulnerable until you started hitting it with pieces of itself. After that you hurt it after it's power is split and it's unleashing it's power which you could hand wave as a trading defense for offense sort of deal. As for the location, really there's just no such thing as a safe place to hide a Sealed Evil in a Can period in any story ever. Fawful was able to turn both the Mushroom Kingdom and Bowser's Kingdom upside down on his own, there's aren't really many more places you could put the thing any safer.
    • Speaking of stories about sealing an ancient evil, WHY the flipping heck would anyone want to make a way to unseal it?

• What even IS the Dark Star? Why does it exist? Where did it come from? Who or what created it?
  • I've always just assume it's the Mario universe's take on an eldritch space monster, I mean it is a star after all, that crashed into the Earth and laid dormant for a bit. As for all the other stuff, I wouldn't consider it any more relevant than who Fawful's parents are or something.

• How is it that Mario and Luigi don't know about the Dark Star to the point of needing Peach to basically tell them what it is.
  • The Mario Bros. are in the dark about a lot of the important things in the series. For instance in Superstar Saga, Queen Bean tells Mario and Luigi about the Beanstar, how to wake it up and why Cackletta stole Princess Peach's voice. The Mario Bros. don't know about the Dark Star simply because they've never needed to up to this point.

• Just how did those three inept minions manage to get the massive Bullet Bill Cannon so far from Bowser's Castle during an attack? You could see how much of an effort it took them to move it a couple inches when you find them. It just bugs me that they weren't spotted or hindered by anything at all.
  • It probably got blown out during the first attack. Those three happened to land near it and bragged to Bower that they managed to "sneak" it out.
  • Rule of Funny?
• Bowser referred to the Mushroom Kingdom as where he lived. Does this mean that Dark Land was annexed by the Mushroom Kingdom? Or maybe Bowser has a house in the Mushroom Kingdom? ... Okay, now I want to see how the people in charge of real estate in the Mushroom Kingdom reacted upon seeing Bowser and a couple of his Troops show up to buy an End-of-Stage Fortress or a nice mansion or something.
  • They probably thought, "Hey, cool. I'm selling the future site of an embassy. Maybe this war is coming to an end."
    • And the guys selling the mansion/castle are thinking, "Hey look, Bowser is giving me money."
• If Luigi has things like jumping, a hammer, Bros. Attacks, items, and (maybe) electricity powers (although they aren't usable in this game, there's no telling whether or not he still has them from Superstar Saga), why does he just let that Toad at the beginning insult him for no reason and with no consequences?
  • Well, because he's Luigi. He's just not the type to retaliate when someone's rude to him. He's honestly kind of a pushover in that regard.
• So, after Fawful's plans are stopped and all is said and done, has anything changed regarding Bowser? He still has that Vacuum Block, and we didn't see him regurgitate any pipes. Can the Mario Bros. still enter and exit his body at will? There could still be some very strange days and battles ahead...
  • It's not like Bowser has ever really been consistent with his abilities. One day he's a fifty-foot incarnation of evil capable of incredible dark magic, the next he's an eight-foot doofus barely smart enough to breathe fire. If the game designers want him to, he'll have that power. If not, then he won't.
  • Shouldn't you really be wondering how the pipes can connect from outside Bowser to inside, even when he moves around?
    • We're talking about pipes that just about teleport you, in a realm well versed in magic. Obviously, A Wizard Did It.
  • Bag of Spilling applies to Bowser too.
    • Nope. He can use his vacuum powers in Dream Team.
• Exactly why did Fawful bother with spreading the Blorbs? His (apparent) plan for Bowser could have been accomplished at any point, so they didn't help there. The disease only affects Toads, and they've proven to be only slightly tougher than old cheese, so it doesn't really help him get rid of guards. What was the point?
  • Presumably to get everyone important in the Mushroom Kingdom into the same room at the same time. He would have been far more successful in his plan if Dr. Toadley had made the meeting.
    • Ffffffffffffff-
  • Actually, the remake shows that the disease can also effect some of Bowser's Minions.
• Why didn't the Toads in Bowser's gut simply take the pipes out? They all talk about how much they want to leave, but they've got a ticket straight to Toad Town in an easily accessible area of Bowser. Even worse, Starlow, whose been out of Bowser every time the Bros. left, started complaining about how to leave! Did they just forget?
  • Maybe to move around anywhere in Bowser's body, you have to go through the areas. To get to the pipe areas alone, they would have to go through places where there were enemies. Toads can't fight all that well. It may be Gameplay and Story Segregation, but it's at least plausible...
  • Even after the red one broke, the pipes they need to cross are very high up. And those Toads can't duck for several seconds to increase their jump height anymore.
  • In one of the cutscenes, a Toad had no trouble jumping into one of those fleshy, pseudo pipes in Bowser's body. The real pipes were no higher. They've also had no problem traversing Bower's organs at will. It's not like they had much else to do, so why not leave?
  • Because Mario and Luigi still had stuff to do in Bowser's body and they wanted to help out their heroes, maybe? Or maybe Toads can't take warp pipes...no, wait, that's not possible...Eh, first one is the best I've got.
  • Because they're weak puny toads, unsure of where Blorbs come from, and know that Bowser's tummy is the safest place in the Kingdom until the whole Fawful/Dark Star threat boils over.
• I know it shouldn't, because of all the rest of Bowser's weird biology, but the Spike Ball move really bugs me. I thought turtle shells were hard and solid! And, more importantly, how does he grow double the spikes when he's curled up? And where do the white parts of his shell go?!
  • Stupid answer: The sprite you see is actually Bowser rolling really, really fast, so fast you can't even see him moving. Actual answer: I got nothin'. See stupid answer.
    • But you see the same sprite even if he's not moving. That's not it. Instead, remember that Bowser is a Koopa, and not technically a turtle - presumably Koopas have weird shells.
    • That was what I meant - that the sprite you see while he's sitting still is actually him rolling in place really, really fast. Yeah.
    • If he's rolling in place really really fast, why can you see individual spikes?
    • Because he's rolling at 60 Hz.
    • SPIN DASHING
    • Perhaps he can bend his shell?
    • The games are very inconsistent about Bowser's shell. A good example would be how much of Bowser's body is shell, and how much is just his body. Half the time the green part with spikes on his back is his shell. The other half the back part and his front part are the entire shell. The Smash Bros. series is a great place to see this.
  • Classic Rule of Funny. The same reason that Bowser can slim down by doing crunches really fast.
  • Better question. How does he roll up walls? Even forgiving his ability to stay anchored on the wall, it would require him to place his own center of gravity not only outside his own body, but inside the wall! I'm all for the MST3K Mantra, but the line has to be drawn somewhere.
  • For that matter, if he can't use it on the field until Mario and Luigi fix his back, how can he use it every single time he does his Shy Guy Squad move? Seriously, what is up with that?
    • He could always roll up like that, he needed to fix his back to be able to roll around on his own. The Shy Guys help slingshot him at his opponent, something he couldn't do on his own.
  • Bowser has been able to curl up in a ball in other games, like Galaxy, and has even shown to be able to retract his spikes if needed. Maybe he just has impeccable control over his body? And the back thing - he gets locked in a tight safe, forced to hunch over around the middle of the game, so maybe that threw it out of whack?
• Crawful. Seriously. WHAT. THE. HELL. It's a giant dinosaur with Fawful's face and huge teeth, who primarily attacks by tripping over rocks and banana peels. I'm thinking it's either a reference to a "Famous Japanese Comedian", or just absurdity for absurdity's sake.
  • Its name in Japanese (and every European language bar English) is a pun based on Fawful's name and alligator, which it looks like. Note:
  • Japanese ゲタゲター Getagetā From Gerakobittsu, Fawful's Japanese name, and English "alligator".
  • To be more relevant: Crawful = Crocodile + Fawful. Class dismissed!
    • Moreso: 'Craw' means mouth... so, it has a mouthful.
  • Am I the only one that's freaked out by that enemy? That smile is freaky as hell... and the fact that you can suck its teeth out, leaving only a black hole of evil and despair.
    • And then they choke on their own food.
    • On Crawful, does anyone else notice that if you're fighting more than one Crawful or a Crawful and something else, should you get hit by the other enemy... Crawful laughs at you? I'm still torn between being seriously annoyed at the chortling gits and being slightly freaked out by them.
  • Was I the only one who took forever to realize that Bowser counters BOTH of their attacks by punching (rather than punching to counter one attack and crouching to counter the other attack)?
• What would happen if Bowser went through one of those pipes leading into his own body?
  • Malkovich Malkovich!
  • He spits the pipes (and everyone/thing he swallowed) in the ending of the game, so he wouldn't be able to go down them into himself. Also, he can't exactly jump.
  • I believe he'd just get to walk around inside himself, and when he walked inside himself, the himself he is walking on would walk inside himself. Kind of like Rule 34 of Portal.
  • His body would shrink, as going through the pipes shrinks people.
• Why did Fawful decide to give Bowser a treadmill to unchub him? He just threw a wrench into his own plan.
  • The primary purpose of that treadmill wasn't to slim Bowser down. It was to get him heated up so he'd blow himself out of the castle.
    • Which raises another question: how could they be so savvy about cartoon physics to know that doing exercises would cause him to light on fire, yet be so unsavvy to not realize that any resulting explosion would be comedic and nonfatal?
    • Who's to say they didn't realize the latter point? What mattered was that it got Bowser out of the way for a while.
  • Bowser already beaten up Midbus, loads of Fawful's minions, and his own castle. Leaving Bowser there, even morbidly obese, would mean leaving him in a castle full of his own former minions. Since Fawful didn't have anything that could get rid of him permanently, a series of temporary setbacks was the best that he could do.
  • I think he put the threadmill as more of a joke and didn't think that Bowser could escape.
• In the third game, where were Bowser's kids when Fawful took over Bowser Castle?
  • There's a trope for that.
  • They were baking a cake!
  • Vacations? Somewhere else? It is worth mentioning Bowser owns a LOT of castles, with that one being just his "main" one, they could be in any of those.
    • Remake answers this. They were off beating up crazy exercise buffs and trying to cure the Blorbs.
• In Bowser's Inside Story, Fawful takes 5 squads of Bowser's minions, locks them in a cage and just tosses them all over the Mushroom Kingdom. Why didn't Fawful brainwash them like the rest of Bowser's minions? Better yet, why not just brainwash Bowser, Mario, Green 'Stache, Peach and Starlow as well? And what was the point in "blorbing" the Toads? They're not really the biggest threat to any Mario villain.
  • It's likely that the caged minions were too loyal to be brainwashed, and Fawful saw it as an opportunity to distract Bowser by scattering them. As for not brainwashing the others, Fawful must have realized that it would be to too risky to confront Mario, Luigi, or Bowser directly and that they would be too strong to brainwash. Fawful also needed the princess for his plan, and didn't need to brainwash her afterward because he was powerful enough that he didn't need more minions. Fawful also most likely didn't know Starlow existed. And "blorbing" the Toads distracted the Mushroom Kingdom while Fawful began his plan. It also got Mario, Luigi, Peach, and several other fairly important people in one place to be inhaled by Bowser, leaving Peach's Castle defenseless and allowing Fawful to take the princess so he could power the Dark Star and take over the world.
• What the heck happened to Midbus after the game? Did they throw him in prison? Did they let him go? Is he dead? Or was he just put in the freezer? And where did he even come from to begin with?

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