whats your favorite game of all time

[Piano_Pika_]

I know right?  although my sister says that Yoshi is a slave of the other characters, what do you all think? 

[Jub3r7]

I THINK YOUR OPINION IS STUPID BECAUSE I HAVE A DIFFERENT ONE.

[Winter]

Uh-oh.

[Cobraroll]

I know right?  although my sister says that Yoshi is a slave of the other characters, what do you all think? 

Nah, that's just ignorance  

Yoshi is a species rather than a single "person". Shared characteristics for the species tend to be that they're all a bunch of helpful, happy fellows. After all, an entire island habited by Yoshi helped babies Mario and Luigi return safely to their parents.
Though, it can be argued that the arrival of the babies was the triggering event that started a counter-attack against the Koopian forces that had invaded the island. After all, the Yoshi went on a slaughter rampage, carrying Mario as a sent-from-heaven symbol of the resistance. Mario witnessed all the bosses fall, the destruction of Bowser's fortresses around the island, and wearing his signature yellow cape killed a fair few enemies as well. Perhaps the Yoshi all see Mario as their leader and saviour, and will happily follow him to their demise, helping him defeat the evil king Bowser.

It should be noted, however, that Bowser had already established himself on Yoshi's Island at the time of the arrival of the Mario Brothers. The Yoshi were driven from their homelands by invading Shy Guys, roaming Magikoopas made the island unsafe, and Bowser's lieutenant Kamek mutated the local animals in order to beat the Yoshis and the infant Mario. The feud had definitely gone on for some time before the birth of Mario and Luigi.

Also note that even though the Yoshi are several individuals, they tend to act with a single plan, and a new egg always appear when another dies vanishes (as seen in Super Mario Sunshine, SMG2, and others). We never see a Yoshi die either, he only dissolves and floats away (again, looking at Super Mario Sunshine) or even just throws off his rider while being completely unharmed himself (Yoshi's Island, SMG2), so it can be argued that the Yoshis are immortal, and perhaps share a hive mind.

Anyway, let's put aside the events of Yoshi's Island and look to our first meet with adult Mario. Bowser has invaded Mario's homeland this time, kidnapping Mario's girlfriend, and generally does everything he can to kill Mario. But why? We have to go back to Yoshi's Island again. The previous time we saw Bowser, it was the Yoshis who took care of all the killing, while all Mario did was running around while invincible. He only took out enemies when they got in his path, or the geography of Yoshi's Island disallowed alternate routes.
However, neither Bowser nor his minions noticed this. Survivors told the tale of several Yoshis going rampant, but they all carried the same boy: Mario. Wherever fortresses fell, or Kamek was forced to retreat, Mario was there, while the Yoshis varied all the time. In the end, Bowser got to meet the boy himself, sitting calmly and cooly on Yoshi's back while the rampant dinosaur threw eggs at him, eventually bringing him down and ending his reign on Yoshi's Island. It could almost look like Mario manipulated the Yoshi to throw themselves into danger just so Mario could get his brother back. Bowser found a mortal enemy in the little baby.

This, of course, was all according to the Yoshis' plan:

Note that Baby Mario only fought himself under extremely contolled conditions, and he was invincible all the time while doing so. This suggested that he was actually trained to fight by the Yoshis. The Yoshis never took the direct approach and actually asked Bowser to get Luigi back. After all, their terrifying power and apetite would be apparent soon after the counterattack started. They could easily have gone diplomatical after the assault on the first castle, but didn't. Mario's first few days after his birth were filled with intense violence and death by stomping, eating or throw of blunt items, possibly emotionally scarring him for life. He was seen replicating these techniques with immense sucess later in life.

Bowser himself was influenced heavily by his second-in-command at the time, Kamek the Magikoopa. After all, it was the latter's decision to kidnap the young Mario brothers, and he himself oversaw the final stands of all the castles, or "boss fights" as the Yoshis called them. From Bowser's point of view, the Yoshis invaded all his castles on the island, while the powerful Kamek was unable to do anything, and finally Mario and Yoshi stormed his stronghold as well, hurting Bowser and sending him off the island.
Kamek, however, was an incompetent fool. First, he kidnapped a child, fuelling the already burning rage of the native Yoshis on the island. He never tried to negotiate when pressed into a corner, he just made the first underling he could find a lot bigger, then sent it out to combat without devising any real strategy, or indeed changing the strategy when the initial attack fails. No, he makes the monster grow, then leaves like a coward. This strategy is repeated until his final defeat, and we never see him that close to Bowser again. The adult Bowser quickly degraded him, but apparently kept him around as his magic powers came in handy.

What conclusions can we draw? It is fairly obvious. The Yoshis used Mario as a perfect decoy, they put Bowser up against him and even gave him some basic ass-kicking training along the way. Later, Bowser focuses all his wrath towards Mario, who time and time again kicks his tail and steals back the princess, further fuelling the rage spiral. And whenever the terrain, or Bowser's minions prove too tough for Mario to handle alone, the Yoshis conveniently appear to aid him, but they rarely face their common nemesis Bowser themselves. They just push Mario forward, and assist and encourage him whenever he needs it. They make sure Mario can always get to Bowser, defeating him time and time again. As discussed earlier, they never face any real danger themselves.

Always smiling that creepy smile. Revenge is sweet, or what?


That's right, folks. Yoshi is by no means the slave of the other characters. It's the complete opposite.

[Winter]

The rare time I read through Cobra's walls of text. i am pleased.

[Greg]

Cobra, THAT IS WIN.

 

[fabbemannen]

Cobra, THAT IS WIN.

 

nothing more to say

Would be interesting if SMBZ was developed by Nintendo and taken into the story

[Greg]

OH MY GOD.

THAT IS A GREAT IDEA.

Now you've gotten me all excited about something that's not going to happen... 

[fingerz]

Cobraroll, did you write that all from scratch? THAT'S MASSIVE!! :O

[Cobraroll]

^Looks massive just because it's a forum post, I suppose. It didn't take me very long. And yes, I did it from scratch. It did help that I played SMW2 just hours beforehand, though.

[fingerz]

Wow. Well done. I would never be able to post something in a forum that big.

[mastervenusflytrap]

This is completely erelevent but there where no threads on this so.....
Is any of you an expert on bugs?

[Greg]

...

Make a new thread.

[mastervenusflytrap]

...

Make a new thread.

How?

[Winter]

Hahahaha. what...