It’s fair to say that Bowser commands the strongest military in the Mario world. By conquering bowsers castle, they are claiming their victory over the strongest political entity in the world, giving them free rein to go wherever and do whatever they want to do. That’s what I think the Smithy gang really wants, to do whatever they enjoy, at everyone else’s expense. Some go to forests some go to towns, some to other castles, they just do what they want and by making that big play at the start of the game, they believe that they’ve already won. ‘Mario? What’s he gunna do? Certainly not dismantle our whole operation.’
Funnily enough, I don't think Punchinello is a member of the Smith Gang. He had the regular boss theme, not the Smith Gang boss theme. Nobody else in the gang seems to mention him and there aren't any replicas of him in Smithy's factory. He doesn't even have a weapon themed name which the remake makes sure everyone has. He's just some guy to my understanding.
Yeah, Punchinello is definitely Just Some Guy™. He's a bomb maker who wants fame and fortune rather than the motivations of the Smithy Gang. He even has an unfulfilled wish on Star Hill, which none of the Smithy members do.
Yeah I dont think he's part of the Smithy Gang. And most boss enemies in the game aren't either. He doesn't outright state it, but shows Johnathan Jones on screen when talking about Smithy Gang, but should be noted he's not part of the gang. May be working with them at the time, but he lived in the sea before Smithy showed up. Same for others like Belome, the cloud city lady I forget the name of, Booster, etc. Having different antagonists with different motivations unrelated or related to the main threat helps make Mario RPG's world feel more alive.
One thing I really like about the way the Smithy Gang is presented, is that Exor always seemed like a kind of fake out to me. I feel like Exor was meant to mislead you into thinking he was actually Smithy. After all, the game never states what the actual name of the sword is until you fight it atop the castle. And considering Exor is this constant looming presence over the kingdom, it wouldn't be a stretch to think he's the final boss. Thus, when you finally reach the top of Bowser's Keep to fight the sword, the player might end up thinking: "Huh? 'Exor'? Then who's Smithy?" before his defeat transports you to Weapon World. Just a neat little subversion imo
I recall the sword being referred to as "smithy the sword" for the longest time. Can't recall where or why. In ads, maybe? So it was a curveball when the battle with Exor wasn't the final battle.
unfortunatly, in the remake, the Scrapbook has an entry called "Exor the giant sword" as soon as you meet Mallow and the Scrapbook feature is unlocked.
@@melon3109 You're correct. In the U.S. commercial for the SNES game. The old man telling the story (presumably) to his grandson and a friend of his- the latter thinking he's a bit crazy.
I absolutely thought exor was the leader and would be the final boss, for just the reasons you say. The castle is a climactic zone and the lead up to the fight with him is as well. But then you get up there, he suspiciously has nothing to say, and drops a portal when you win. Great fake out, but still a solid, climactic boss to return to.
I always saw Smithy as some kind of arcane Paperclip Maximizer gone wrong. He was built to make weapons. He makes weapons. All the time. From anything and everything, no matter how vast or powerful. He even makes duplicates of himself because he is a living weapon. Everything he does is in the pursuit of making more weapons, and up until you actively break down his door, he basically has no idea what in god's name any of you are doing because he's just been sitting at his forge pumping out more and more troops. He just kept the star piece that fell into Weapon World because it looked nice and had no idea what the hell they actually were until he was outright told they were important. It's perhaps the only remote deviation from his goal, because he's so on-schedule due to never needing to sleep or eat that he can afford to stop and ponder. The reason he's so cruel and single-minded is because his brain is literally not built to conceive of any alternatives to his current goal. He has a simple motivation, but the sheer unassailably simple logic to his goal means he cannot be reasoned with because there are only two outcomes; Make more weapons, or make less. Another big note I'd like to add for the final arena you fight him in; You can see traces of other bosses he made. You can see Claymortorn's pogo stick, Speardovich's spine, Bowyer's head, and what looks like a "template" part of the Axem Rangers' bodies. It looks like the entire thing is explicitly a graveyard of scrapped gang members who couldn't be salvaged.
And that raises a question: Who built Smithy? He can't have built himself. I feel like the ones who built him were the first casualties to his indefatigable pursuit of filling all worlds with weapons.
Also Smithy is a parody of Santa Claus. Exor is located at the northern most part of the map like the north pole. He works in a factory and makes weapons all day instead of toys. His minion assistants are like his elves. He has a big white beard as well and instead of granting children's wishes he wants to get rid of all wishes instead.
The Blade kind of operates as an evil sleigh--the Axem Rangers rode it, and Speardovitch was waiting to be picked up by it. I assume the Blade dropped off most of the bosses in the first place. If the Axem Rangers stuck with the Blade regularly, that might make them the equivalent of Smithy's reindeer...
@@CDPW Robot Santa from Futurama technically wants to do all the things regular Santa does. It’s just that his standards for ending up on the nice list have been set so high that it’s impossible for anyone to fulfill them, so everyone ends up on the naughty list practically by default.
I see The Smithy Gang as the opposite to bowser and other Mario villains: They're a business. They make and sell weapons, so obviously they're going to push out their main competition, that being Bowser. But they just have money and force as their weapon, as opposed to Bowser, who is actually tactical and knows what he's doing. It honestly makes them almost relatable now, as we are seeing so many companies 'take over' and 'disrupt' business spaces before inevitably burning themselves out and fading from memory forever.
Exactly, the Smithy Gang is like those evil gods from ancient mythologies or like Satan who only destroy and do evil for the mere fact of doing it, out of pure morbidity and psychopathy, in addition to being tyrants, they spit on creation of the Lord God... it also reminds me a lot of the Combine from Half-Life 2: they invade you only to use you worse than slaves. They already directly use you as replaceable parts of a gigantic machinery that they can use and throw away after you are no longer useful, in addition to the fact that the Combine is an interdimensional force, a type 7 civilization that invades worlds and conquers them as if nothing had happened to integrate them as pure combat power or heavy, cheap labor power to their long line of conquered beings from previous planets... and they don't give a damn about your suffering. They will destroy everything in their path and will not be satisfied until they achieve their goal of precisely destroying everything or having absolute power and control over everything. I almost forgot to mention that both the Smithy and the Smithy Gang and the Combine use resources like crazy from the planets they invade and conquer, whether partially or completely... that's how cruel they are too.
They feel like the extreme end result of a military industrial complex to me. Smithy himself could be some intelligent ultimate weapon-maker who turned on his creators (kind of like Skynet) and won. And now invades other dimensions to keep that war machine ever-going.
@@lewatoaofair2522Funny you mention that. Seeing the OP's comment, I was inclined to believe that the Smithy Gang was some kind of military industrial complex.
Can't remember where I first saw it, but someone put forward the very interesting idea that the extra Smithy heads in the background of his fight imply that he himself was also manufactured, just like his minions. Maybe his creator died, maybe they abandoned their creations after the world was destroyed. Either way, it makes for an interesting motive for Smithy; he makes weapons because that's what he was built to do, and when a world is full of weapons, he moves on to the next. Also I love this, please consider making videos about other Mario rpg characters!
This is a very old theory from the snes days and probably the most popular one. Maybe him and a bunch of others were built by a race of warmongers who then turned on their creators. Classic Sci go stuff. We'll probably never know, as they likely didn't have anything in mind when they made the game.
I prefer the thought that between projects, he makes a new version of himself, letting it make scrap of him for more crafting material, and it goes on to make make a new version of itself when not making more weapons, each one never satisfied with less than perfection.
There's something really neat about taking something really surface level and conceptually shallow idea as villains in a Mario game and pushing that outwards into a discussion on character design and how gameplay and character overlap and pull against each other. I look forward to more of these goofy style of analysis.
Just because the surface level is received most of the attention doesn't mean that surface doesn't have depth. For example, Bowser is clearly the main troublemaker in the Mushroom Kingdom, yet he casually appears alongside Mario, Peach, and the rest for sports titles, along with some generic minions like nothing's wrong, and generally there isn't. Even if Nintendo doesn't call attention to it, that level of acceptance does say something about his relationship with his political neighbors. Makes you wonder what Peach actually thinks of him when Mario isn't involved.
@@vincentleonard3797and then there’s that time in Bowser’s Inside Story where a pandemic breaks out and Bowser feels insulted that he wasn’t invited to the emergency meeting because “I live here!”
@@PALWolfOS Oh yeah, Bowser considers his domain part of the Mushroom Kingdom. It's such a throwaway detail right at the beginning that just seems like an excuse for a combat tutorial, but you're right, that is the reason he gives for his outburst, and that also implies a great deal about his and Peach's political relationship that won't get a second thought accidentally.
@@PALWolfOS The reason why Bowser wanted to get invited for the meeting because his minions also got affected by the Blorb Mushroom in the same way as how Toad got affected, at least in the 3DS remake.
Really fascinating concept the more you think about it. They’re basically an inter dimensional band of resource pillaging pirates who use a giant space time warping sword as their method of transportation invasion. Exor is basically some kind of wormhole generator. I feel like perhaps smithies is just the latest in a series of leaders to inherit the role as evidenced by the dead ones when you battle him. Pretty creepy and interesting sci do concept.
I always found it odd that it was piles of heads but not a single body. Like the two parts are separate and maybe the heads keep coming out defective. Or frequent improvements? I wonder if the OG team even had anything in particular in mind.
With regards to the final battlefield, I imagined all those abandoned Smithy heads to be the remains of previous bodies he used. He can shape his current form, so whose to say he doesn't make newer better bodies on the regular when he needs to?
I kinda assumed he was trying to get the whole "shapeshifting head" thing down, and the heads in the boiler room were scrapped attempts at that. @@xuto2693
As for what lies at the bottom of Smithy's boss arena I think the simplest explanation is likely the correct one. The scattered heads are likely defects, imperfect molds of himself, since Smithy is made of metal it isn't too far of a stretch to say that he has modified his own body with his own creations. This is more subjectively what I see but I also think of Smithy as an obsessive perfectionist when creating his weapons and if there was ever one single weapon he would want for sure to be unquestionably flawless from every possible angle with not one dent or scratch to be seen it would be himself. He is so obsessed with his own craftsmanship that any and all minor imperfections his work could have are cast aside, forgotten and left to rot because that's how he views himself, absolutely perfect.
Given your proposal that he's a creator god, I imagine Haphestus and his obsession with perfection, which has me believe the heads in the bottom chamber are maybe the remains of former Smithies, each one creating a new form of himself that's more perfect in his twisted mind, disposing of himself so the new Smithy can get to work making his version of his perfect self.
Guess it was only a matter of time before a Mario villain got the deconstruction treatment. I'd gladly listen to similar breakdowns on Olly, Count Bleck, Dimentio, heck, Bowser has been taken in interesting directions in some games. Whatever villain is up next, we're here for it.
Especially Count Bleck! Not every day you get a Mario villain who's driving motivation is _"I want to die, and I want to take all of existence down with me."_
@@blackheartzerotheundergrou3225The only other kids game villain I can think of who's similar is Cyrus from Pokémon but he wouldn't admit that he wants to die. He wants ego death essentially, and would insist that's different.
In the theme of story through gameplay, having browser's castle be their entry point you circle back to at the end, it flips the storming of his lair on its head. Helping your arch nemesis reconquer his own castle and giving it back to him, setting things as they should be. Normally you're the one taking him out of it, but here you're putting him back in.
This was a very fun video. I've always been a fan of the Smithy Gang, even if they aren't exactly fleshed out as characters. They're just so memorable with their actions and their limited screen time. There's also a bit of sadness to them, like with Yaridovich/Speardovich, when you read in his Thought Peek description that he's obsessed with getting a promotion and for Smithy to like him. It's a funny description to be sure but also a bit sad when you realize Smithy could not care less about him and, after he gets killed, just starts creating multiple copies of Yaridovich to "replace" him.
Smithy is such a good representation of most bosses and owners. Builds yarid with a desire to please and work hard for a promotion he never intends to give. Has plenty more in line when he burns out.
Ik it’s a remake but my god this main villain was refreshing. No sympathetic backstory, so greater reasoning or theology just an evil prick that you gotta beat.
"Hi there, I'd like to smash your literal hopes and dreams and turn your world into a scrap heap where obnoxious prankster weapons run wild." Good enough for an adventure for me.
This was such a fun video. It's the super in depth style video that's usually saved for deep, complex, and/or distictly written characters but now we get to look at this silly little guy and I think that's awesome
Interesting analysis man. If there's something that fascinates me about writing stories, is usually the narrative intent/purpose of stuff used in the story as that's the part that people gloss over the most. And like some people have mentioned before: Punchinello isn't really part of Smithy's gang but does sorta feel like an unintentional member due to still following the weapon motif (ie. Bombs) and being required to be defeated to get the star shards.
did they change it to "Claymorton" cause he's supposed to represent a claymore sword? but they already have Exor to represent a sword. why would there be two sword bosses?
I still struggle (and refuse) to see Mack/Claymorton as swords rather than knives simply because the blade seems too short compared to the rest of him (compared to Exor). A sword that short doesn't make sense to me, but it makes sense as a knife
Super Paper Mario was the first of the Mario RPG-style games that I ever played, and even if it got flak for ditching the turn-based fighting for more traditional platforming gameplay, it remains my favorite purely thanks to its villainous cast.
I'm OK w/the gameplay shift in SPM: b/c it was justified by the plot's threat -- the VOID. Somehow, w/an ever-growing vortex of nothingness threatening to annihilate all of existence, I can't imagine Mario (or anyone) being compelled to enter turn-based combat w/Goomba #s 582-585. Since he's a (mostly-)silent protagonist, my head canon is that Mario equipped his Bump Attack badge for this adventure.
Smithy is more a God of Creation that wants to fill the world with his creations, no matter what world that is. His work is superior, and he needs to show that as a truth.
I think what I love most about Smithy and his gang of weapons is that they so wonderfully skirt around the idea of weapons just not fitting in Mario's world in a fantastic and technically compliant way. Mario and friends twirling cold steel around would be weird and out of place? Let's make the weapons extradimensional invaders that want to take over his world instead. It's absolutely amazing how well it works and how they deliberately took a limitation of the game's setting and turned it into a plot point.
I was so excited when I saw this video, I always thought there was more to go into about the Smithy Gang and their role in the story than most people talk about and these deconstruction videos are always great
Also, I think one thing to note about the Smithy Gang is that they are a pretty perfect contrast to the Mushroom Kingdom. The Mushroom Kingdom is this colorful wonderland that's implied in the game to not even have some of these weapons, and the Smithy Gang interrupt it, coming from a gray, miserable world that's centered around weapons, which is a concept that's more real and unpleasant than the villains of the Mushroom Kingdom
I just find the premise of a parody of all-edge-no-point dim-a-dozen dark fantasy RPG villains lead by a evil santa funny and a perfectly fitting villainous group for mario's first venture into more story-focused territory.
I think you put into words why i really liked the villains in this game. In the first half of the game, i realized that i wasn't going to see Smithy untill the very last battle and was kinda bummed out by this, as i see the villains in the spin-off games like a great opportunity to create new interesting characters different from Bowser, think of Fawful or Dimentio, and Smithy isn't really like them. But at the end of the game, i really liked Smithy and his gang despite this "shortcoming" and it made the whole journey worth it. I definitely liked the final fight and most other boss fights a lot, but wasn't sure why i felt that way since most of these characters were present in the story just for their fight and nothing more.
What is truly beautiful in this game is that 2 common enemies Mario and Bowser had to unite to fight a much greater more evil villain. This was mindblowing for me especially as a 10 year old who first played this SNES version back in 1996.
there's also another reason for Exor to attack bowser's castle: it ultimately leads to bowser having a reason to team up with Mario and become a party member, in essence yet another gameplay reason behind the smithy gang's actions. another possible explanation for the heads in smithy's basement is that they could be parts of himself he discarded, replacing aprts of himself either for more power or because they got too damaged by his constant working. They could also jsut be something random and creepy with no significance XP I do find that while the mthy gang are fine as villains they are pretty wea narratively due to their lack of build up and presence. Speardovich is honestly the one smithy gang member with the msot build up due to setitng up a clever scheme to trick mario before you fight him, and in fact he's technically the only of 2 smithy gang members to be encountered before you fight him in a boss fight, along with Exor. This does mean they have VERY lacking presence in the story despite being the main villains. As you said though this doens't make them bad villains, jsut a further consequence of Mario RPG's simpler, more light hearted story, as well as being the first mario rpg villains.
I see the Smithy Gang as a contrast to the Star People - the Star Road allows the weak to overcome their strong oppressors, the Smithy Gang wants to establish a strict hierarchy of military strength that cannot be overthrown, but has no real motivation beyond that. I do have a theory that Smithy is an entity from the Star Road brought about by the paradoxical wish of villains such as Bowser, who are continually defeated by heroes such as Mario - a wish that there should be no more wishes, and the strong should reign supreme. It is no coincidence that they show up just as Bowser was defeated - they were attracted by Bowser's wish, which is similar to the wish that created them. But that's just a theory.
I think Smithy is essentially supposed to be a personification of the mentalities of overindustrialization (and given how he “wants to fill the world with weapons” he might also be a representation of the perpetual warfare inevitable under such a system). Taking away the wishes of the world is effectively a metaphor for the agency people have not being in such a rigid system and he wants to put an end to that. Weapon World may effectively show the eventual outcome of overindustrialization, barren, devoid of life, and the only thing functioning being something entirely mechanical and artificial. The only thing left to do is to do it again somewhere else. His factory mass producing weapons, him wanting to take away wishes, and seeing his soliders as disposable heavily lead into the ideas of what I think the game is trying to say, and why you’re a hero for putting it to a stop.
Very interesting theories & details about the Smithy Gang as I wondered of their plot in SMRPG. Thanks to you, now I know. Nothing more than disposable living weapons being made by some dark godly king, who's doing all of this terror for the heck of his nature. Hmmm... So, your channel is focused on villains in a narrative perspective. Does YHWH from the smt series count as a narrative type of villain? In my opinion, I think he is from what I studied on him, but I really~ want to hear from you of your thoughts & documentary about him since I made a comment of suggesting YHWH to you before.
It's kind of a shame Smithy himself doesn't appear until the very end of the game, and doesn't get much development as a result of that. I think he's got a cool design, and as the first in a series of memorable non-Bowser Mario RPG villains, he both sets the stage for those kinds of villains as well as stands out from them, both in design and execution. The weapon theming is fascinating, I almost get the impression Square went with it after they allegedly showed Mario with a sword as part of their concept pitch for Super Mario RPG to Shigeru Miyamoto and Miyamoto supposedly didn't like the idea of Mario wielding a sword, suggesting he use a hammer instead. This gets further credence when the Enemy List entry on Exor says that swords apparently don't exist in Mario's world (even though Cortez has them in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and we have swordfighter Peach in Princess Peach: Showtime!); the idea of traditional weaponry seems to be a foreign concept in the world of Super Mario RPG, making the invading force of the Smithy Gang feel a lot more alien as a result. Also 2:21 - it's weird that you talk about the Smithy Gang while showing gameplay of Punchinello, since he's not a member of the Smithy Gang. I know he feels like he should be, given that he uses bombs which are weapons in and of themselves, but he's completely unaffiliated, which gets reaffirmed in the remake where he's given a post-game rematch along with other non-Smithy Gang bosses. Same with showing gameplay of Knife Guy and Grate Guy, for that matter.
Smithy is the Sauron of Mario's world. Both Smithy and Sauron are blacksmiths who create sentient weapons (the One Ring for Sauron and the Smithy Gang for Smithy). They both are based in wastelands (Mordor for Sauron and the weapons factory for Smithy). Finally, are both gods or god like beings who want to take over the world and make the rest of the world a wasteland. This game is the closest game there is to The Lord of the Rings in spirit.
All of Smithy's gang are weapons basically wielding themselves as a motif, with the implications in the factory that they are also robots given copies of them exist. Smithy himself is wielding a hammer, both as a weapon and a tool throughout his fights. So he might be a hammer himself.
i really like this kind of in depth analysis of a character, or group of characters, that usually ends with people saying "Okay, i think youre just reading way to deep into this." and my response to that is "Why? Why not read deep into something?" You could argue that, yes, you are reading to deep, and that you are way over analyzing a group of villains from a late 90's RPG starring a Fat Plumber, a Doll, and a Cloud Child, but its that kind of in depth analysis, the kind that adds a sort of thought provoking idea to something many people will look at and think very little of. I would really love to see more videos like this, talking about characters from games like Kirby, or Pokemon. Is it obvious that the reason The Smithy Gang attacks Bowser is because he is the resident baddy and them attacking him and winning makes the audience go, "Oh shit, this threat is serious."? Yeah, but also looking at it from the perspective of the developers, that is a touch i really enjoy, and i think adds a lot to the conversation. For me its akin to looking at Historical events, and instead of just saying "Such and such happened at *place* and *date*.", its looking at how those events effect the people of that time. Very good video, as are all your other works, very good indeed!
Neat to see this video after I beat the game not too long ago. I felt a bit off about how the Smithy Gang was portrayed compared to other Mario RPGs, but I think you made a great point about how even if there’s not much too them, they’re still a lot of good to them with their boss fights. I definitely had a hell of a lot of fun fighting all of them.
I really like the idea of the episode bosses followed by the Smithy Gang bosses just is them biding their time and watching you beat the guardian of the star, only to come in last second to take it. See what they did with Johnny's star
Hmmm.. one thing you mess up is that kicking Bowser out of his castle is NOT the first thing the Smithy gang does. The first thing they do is destroy the Star Road. Which is how even mundane dreams and wishes are granted in the Mushroom Kingdom. Their first act in all of Mushroom Kingdom was to attempt to make the hopes of the helpless worthless. Luckily for the Mushroom Kingdom, they have a resident outsider who is the strongest around known as Mario "Jumpman" Mario. If Mario wasn't around its very likely Mushroom Kingdom would have flat fallen to Smithy and his gang's collective chicanery.
I don't think this is the case. They clearly had no idea what the star road was or how it worked. It was probably just incidental damage that worked both in and not in their favor.
Something interesting to add is that the Thought Peak for the Director mentions him having a son. Does this mean the machines can build their own machines and like start a family? If so, why?
The game world already had its own vilains working before Exor shows up, such as Valentina that oppressed Nimbus Land prior and would not be taken down if Mario hadn't been set on his journey and met Mallow.
Another thing to add on to the whole "Smithy not caring for his own creations" thing are the Machine Made clones of the Smithy gang in Weapon World. He can create copies of his own top tier henchmen to fight for him since he clearly doesn't care much for the actual version of them, especially when they are ultimately destroyed. The fact that they aren't even painted also adds onto that factor. The fact that he considers everything he makes expendable to the point of making replacement copies of his own creations really comes to show that Smithy is a truly despicable villain in the grand scheme of things.
my theory about the smithy heads in the background is that smithy is a robot and the heads are from copies of himself, which he builds to make sure he lives longer.
Being a god of war and weapon creation, Smithy could have been based off Hephaistos and/or Ares. And considering The Overthere and The Underwhere being the afterlife in the Mario universe, which seem to follow Greek mythology for the afterlife, this seems accurate.
So it's very apparent to me that Smithy is a rogue AI imbuned with magical abilities that became self aware and destroyed his creators. He then continued his primary function. The smithy parts you see in the basement are his prototypes that were scrapped. He must have discovered them and became defensive.
In regards to the final boss arena. I always thought it was someplace hot. Like around a large incineration furnace or a crucible or something. Like you're near where the molten metal that smelter spits out during smithy's first form is being generated or wear failed and defeated weapons are being melted down. I've also always liked to think that the other smithy parts visible in the last phase indicate that smithy isn't the ultimate power at work after all. As he creates all the weapons, something even more powerful created him. Maybe the other smithy pieces are the remains of defeated ones from other dimensions, much like the one we defeat in this game. Maybe this one's just an ornery weaponsmith working under the true Lord of the realm. Maybe whatever built him created all the other ones first but they were all failures, and were relegated to the scrap heap.
my theory is that someone made smithy to make weapons, and smithy went nuts, made too many weapons, took over, made a bunch of itself, those copies all fought til the best version was left, and then that smithy went out to conquor everything else. or those heads are all spare parts.
Smithies generals are a lot less evil than the ones who stay in smithies factory. I can almost envision Mack Bowyer and yaridovich as having good in them if they were given a second chance. But the ones In smithy’s factory are much more ruthless and smithy himself is like a terminator. By the way yaridovich is my favorite Mario character.
I was wondering if we could get a deconstruction of Geppeto from Lies of P at some point? There is a ton to unpack there, and I love hearing you talk about characters and their emotional journeys.
I think the weapon world can be interpreted in any number of ways to make Smithy an interesting character through environmental storytelling- is Smithy responsible for his world being in its current state? Is his villainous ways responsible for the desolation of his world? Or is he stranded in an empty world, entirely alone, and the only way he can fill it with company or people is by creating sentient weapons? There appears to be other Smithies in the second stage of his fight- are these the lost members of his race who were wiped out with him being the only survivor, and then attempting to repopulate the world in the only way he knows? Did he create weapons that contributed to the destruction of his race in an act of hubris? Or, as seems to be suggested by his ability to interchange parts of the smithy graveyards with himself...were these attempts by him to create life like himself in his lonely, desolate world? Is creating mockeries of life, in the form of weapons all he can do? Is it how he fights loneliness? Did he lose the purpose of why he creates weapons, so much that he attempts to do with Mario's world as he did to his own on instinct? Probably not, but it's a cool setting.
its good to see a deconstruction of a mario rpg villain so it would be great to see other villains like the x-nauts, the count bleck or even the shroobs
8:50 He also wants to get rid of all the wishes. If i remember right that plot of the game was the giant sword fell through star road scattering the 7 stars thus wishes could never come true. Smithy was decently hard as a boss
3:14 oh I beg to disagree, 100 jumps, or gold medal beetle Mania is suffering and anguishing enough (I literally sprained my arm getting that high score in beetle mania) that, even if it’s not story related is suffering and anguish enough.
10:59 I just noticed that there's a bowyer head there amongst the smithy heads, not sure if that was in the snes version. My idea on the heads is that they're statues of himself, like valentina
smithy looks like a lego creation like his hands look like lego parts i love his tank head form tanks are badass weapons if i was a living weapon i would be a dragon tank with eyes and a maw of sharp teeth smithy would love to have me as one of his generals commanding his living weapon soldiers in battle
My favorite Villains of the Mario RPG Games would be Fawful and Antasma. The Smithy Gang were the First Mario RPG Villains. If not for them, we couldn’t enjoy other Mario RPG‘s. Super Mario RPG showed US, that Mario Games could be much more than Jump‘n Run‘s or Kart Racing Games. If not for this beloved and successful Game.
I'm not sure even smithy is the actual leader of the "smithy gang". He seems to be a robot creation. I don't think the "smithy heads" in the final boss arena are family members, but previous destroyed versions of Smithy... Like how theres multiples of the other members of the gang. I feel like if we got a SMRPG 2 this could have been expanded upon.
Please, very please do a deconstruction of villainy for either Van Der Linde or Micah Bell from RDR2, that would be interesting opinions coming from you
It’s fair to say that Bowser commands the strongest military in the Mario world. By conquering bowsers castle, they are claiming their victory over the strongest political entity in the world, giving them free rein to go wherever and do whatever they want to do. That’s what I think the Smithy gang really wants, to do whatever they enjoy, at everyone else’s expense. Some go to forests some go to towns, some to other castles, they just do what they want and by making that big play at the start of the game, they believe that they’ve already won. ‘Mario? What’s he gunna do? Certainly not dismantle our whole operation.’
I think because Bowser Castle is a perfect place for Smithy's minion foundry and coincidentally the wishing star are right above the castle.
Mario fails to register as a concern so badly exor forces him away literally by way of smack talk.
Smithy: Is an interdimensional dark god
Also Smithy: Gets bullied by a plumber, a turtle, a puppet, a princess, and a cloud
Childhood imagination is stronger. Then you grow up and realize we all work for smithy in the weapon world.
Hey, it could've been worse; he could've picked a fight with Kirby. :V
@@F1areonhe does look kinda like a Kirby boss ngl
In the grand scheme of Kirby villains he'd be pretty small potatoes though. He comes off more like a souped-up Dedede tbh @@SourWine789
@@F1areon yeah true there was stuff like Zero, ZeroTwo, Fecto Elfilin, Nightmare, Marx, etc
Funnily enough, I don't think Punchinello is a member of the Smith Gang. He had the regular boss theme, not the Smith Gang boss theme. Nobody else in the gang seems to mention him and there aren't any replicas of him in Smithy's factory. He doesn't even have a weapon themed name which the remake makes sure everyone has. He's just some guy to my understanding.
Yeah, the original also had the weapons name connection. For instance Yari from Yaridovich means spear in japanese.
Yeah, Punchinello is definitely Just Some Guy™. He's a bomb maker who wants fame and fortune rather than the motivations of the Smithy Gang. He even has an unfulfilled wish on Star Hill, which none of the Smithy members do.
Punchinello is completely unrelated to them yeah.
Yeah I dont think he's part of the Smithy Gang. And most boss enemies in the game aren't either.
He doesn't outright state it, but shows Johnathan Jones on screen when talking about Smithy Gang, but should be noted he's not part of the gang. May be working with them at the time, but he lived in the sea before Smithy showed up. Same for others like Belome, the cloud city lady I forget the name of, Booster, etc. Having different antagonists with different motivations unrelated or related to the main threat helps make Mario RPG's world feel more alive.
@@melon3109 Johnathan is not working with Smithy at all. Yaridovitch tricked Mario into getting the Star Piece from Johnathan.
One thing I really like about the way the Smithy Gang is presented, is that Exor always seemed like a kind of fake out to me. I feel like Exor was meant to mislead you into thinking he was actually Smithy. After all, the game never states what the actual name of the sword is until you fight it atop the castle. And considering Exor is this constant looming presence over the kingdom, it wouldn't be a stretch to think he's the final boss. Thus, when you finally reach the top of Bowser's Keep to fight the sword, the player might end up thinking: "Huh? 'Exor'? Then who's Smithy?" before his defeat transports you to Weapon World. Just a neat little subversion imo
I recall the sword being referred to as "smithy the sword" for the longest time. Can't recall where or why. In ads, maybe? So it was a curveball when the battle with Exor wasn't the final battle.
unfortunatly, in the remake, the Scrapbook has an entry called "Exor the giant sword" as soon as you meet Mallow and the Scrapbook feature is unlocked.
@@melon3109 You're correct. In the U.S. commercial for the SNES game. The old man telling the story (presumably) to his grandson and a friend of his- the latter thinking he's a bit crazy.
I absolutely thought exor was the leader and would be the final boss, for just the reasons you say. The castle is a climactic zone and the lead up to the fight with him is as well.
But then you get up there, he suspiciously has nothing to say, and drops a portal when you win. Great fake out, but still a solid, climactic boss to return to.
IIRC a lot of the promo media actually calls him "Smithy the Sword", so yeah they were definitely trying to fool people into thinking Exor was Smithy
I always saw Smithy as some kind of arcane Paperclip Maximizer gone wrong.
He was built to make weapons.
He makes weapons. All the time. From anything and everything, no matter how vast or powerful. He even makes duplicates of himself because he is a living weapon.
Everything he does is in the pursuit of making more weapons, and up until you actively break down his door, he basically has no idea what in god's name any of you are doing because he's just been sitting at his forge pumping out more and more troops. He just kept the star piece that fell into Weapon World because it looked nice and had no idea what the hell they actually were until he was outright told they were important. It's perhaps the only remote deviation from his goal, because he's so on-schedule due to never needing to sleep or eat that he can afford to stop and ponder.
The reason he's so cruel and single-minded is because his brain is literally not built to conceive of any alternatives to his current goal.
He has a simple motivation, but the sheer unassailably simple logic to his goal means he cannot be reasoned with because there are only two outcomes; Make more weapons, or make less.
Another big note I'd like to add for the final arena you fight him in; You can see traces of other bosses he made.
You can see Claymortorn's pogo stick, Speardovich's spine, Bowyer's head, and what looks like a "template" part of the Axem Rangers' bodies.
It looks like the entire thing is explicitly a graveyard of scrapped gang members who couldn't be salvaged.
Including scraps of himself with spare heads lying around.
And that raises a question: Who built Smithy? He can't have built himself. I feel like the ones who built him were the first casualties to his indefatigable pursuit of filling all worlds with weapons.
Incredibly well made take, thank you for the theory dude
@@AmrasFelagundhis mom
Also Smithy is a parody of Santa Claus. Exor is located at the northern most part of the map like the north pole. He works in a factory and makes weapons all day instead of toys. His minion assistants are like his elves. He has a big white beard as well and instead of granting children's wishes he wants to get rid of all wishes instead.
The Blade kind of operates as an evil sleigh--the Axem Rangers rode it, and Speardovitch was waiting to be picked up by it. I assume the Blade dropped off most of the bosses in the first place. If the Axem Rangers stuck with the Blade regularly, that might make them the equivalent of Smithy's reindeer...
@@MoMoeMoais And Smithy is riding in the Blade during the parade in the credits, so that really lends credence to that.
Or to be more precise, he wants HIS wish granted. To fill the world with more and better weapons. Like an evil Santa Claus would.
So he's basically the evil Santa from futurama.
@@CDPW Robot Santa from Futurama technically wants to do all the things regular Santa does. It’s just that his standards for ending up on the nice list have been set so high that it’s impossible for anyone to fulfill them, so everyone ends up on the naughty list practically by default.
I see The Smithy Gang as the opposite to bowser and other Mario villains: They're a business. They make and sell weapons, so obviously they're going to push out their main competition, that being Bowser. But they just have money and force as their weapon, as opposed to Bowser, who is actually tactical and knows what he's doing.
It honestly makes them almost relatable now, as we are seeing so many companies 'take over' and 'disrupt' business spaces before inevitably burning themselves out and fading from memory forever.
Exactly, the Smithy Gang is like those evil gods from ancient mythologies or like Satan who only destroy and do evil for the mere fact of doing it, out of pure morbidity and psychopathy, in addition to being tyrants, they spit on creation of the Lord God... it also reminds me a lot of the Combine from Half-Life 2: they invade you only to use you worse than slaves. They already directly use you as replaceable parts of a gigantic machinery that they can use and throw away after you are no longer useful, in addition to the fact that the Combine is an interdimensional force, a type 7 civilization that invades worlds and conquers them as if nothing had happened to integrate them as pure combat power or heavy, cheap labor power to their long line of conquered beings from previous planets... and they don't give a damn about your suffering. They will destroy everything in their path and will not be satisfied until they achieve their goal of precisely destroying everything or having absolute power and control over everything.
I almost forgot to mention that both the Smithy and the Smithy Gang and the Combine use resources like crazy from the planets they invade and conquer, whether partially or completely... that's how cruel they are too.
Sell weapons...to who?
@@xuto2693 I guess Bowser's minions for one, since they all start working for Smithy as soon as he boots Bowser.
They feel like the extreme end result of a military industrial complex to me. Smithy himself could be some intelligent ultimate weapon-maker who turned on his creators (kind of like Skynet) and won. And now invades other dimensions to keep that war machine ever-going.
@@lewatoaofair2522Funny you mention that. Seeing the OP's comment, I was inclined to believe that the Smithy Gang was some kind of military industrial complex.
Can't remember where I first saw it, but someone put forward the very interesting idea that the extra Smithy heads in the background of his fight imply that he himself was also manufactured, just like his minions. Maybe his creator died, maybe they abandoned their creations after the world was destroyed. Either way, it makes for an interesting motive for Smithy; he makes weapons because that's what he was built to do, and when a world is full of weapons, he moves on to the next.
Also I love this, please consider making videos about other Mario rpg characters!
Sounds like Swankybox.
Shoutouts to simpleflips
This is a very old theory from the snes days and probably the most popular one. Maybe him and a bunch of others were built by a race of warmongers who then turned on their creators. Classic Sci go stuff.
We'll probably never know, as they likely didn't have anything in mind when they made the game.
I prefer the thought that between projects, he makes a new version of himself, letting it make scrap of him for more crafting material, and it goes on to make make a new version of itself when not making more weapons, each one never satisfied with less than perfection.
There's something really neat about taking something really surface level and conceptually shallow idea as villains in a Mario game and pushing that outwards into a discussion on character design and how gameplay and character overlap and pull against each other. I look forward to more of these goofy style of analysis.
Just because the surface level is received most of the attention doesn't mean that surface doesn't have depth. For example, Bowser is clearly the main troublemaker in the Mushroom Kingdom, yet he casually appears alongside Mario, Peach, and the rest for sports titles, along with some generic minions like nothing's wrong, and generally there isn't. Even if Nintendo doesn't call attention to it, that level of acceptance does say something about his relationship with his political neighbors. Makes you wonder what Peach actually thinks of him when Mario isn't involved.
@@vincentleonard3797and then there’s that time in Bowser’s Inside Story where a pandemic breaks out and Bowser feels insulted that he wasn’t invited to the emergency meeting because “I live here!”
@@PALWolfOS Oh yeah, Bowser considers his domain part of the Mushroom Kingdom. It's such a throwaway detail right at the beginning that just seems like an excuse for a combat tutorial, but you're right, that is the reason he gives for his outburst, and that also implies a great deal about his and Peach's political relationship that won't get a second thought accidentally.
@@PALWolfOS The reason why Bowser wanted to get invited for the meeting because his minions also got affected by the Blorb Mushroom in the same way as how Toad got affected, at least in the 3DS remake.
Really fascinating concept the more you think about it. They’re basically an inter dimensional band of resource pillaging pirates who use a giant space time warping sword as their method of transportation invasion. Exor is basically some kind of wormhole generator. I feel like perhaps smithies is just the latest in a series of leaders to inherit the role as evidenced by the dead ones when you battle him. Pretty creepy and interesting sci do concept.
I always found it odd that it was piles of heads but not a single body. Like the two parts are separate and maybe the heads keep coming out defective. Or frequent improvements? I wonder if the OG team even had anything in particular in mind.
@@xuto2693in the remake they were shown to be defective, so maybe they're failed prototypes
I was thinking they were all incomplete copies of him.
With regards to the final battlefield, I imagined all those abandoned Smithy heads to be the remains of previous bodies he used. He can shape his current form, so whose to say he doesn't make newer better bodies on the regular when he needs to?
That's the thing though, it's ALL heads. Not one body. That feels like it had to be a deliberate choice.
I kinda assumed he was trying to get the whole "shapeshifting head" thing down, and the heads in the boiler room were scrapped attempts at that. @@xuto2693
As for what lies at the bottom of Smithy's boss arena I think the simplest explanation is likely the correct one. The scattered heads are likely defects, imperfect molds of himself, since Smithy is made of metal it isn't too far of a stretch to say that he has modified his own body with his own creations.
This is more subjectively what I see but I also think of Smithy as an obsessive perfectionist when creating his weapons and if there was ever one single weapon he would want for sure to be unquestionably flawless from every possible angle with not one dent or scratch to be seen it would be himself. He is so obsessed with his own craftsmanship that any and all minor imperfections his work could have are cast aside, forgotten and left to rot because that's how he views himself, absolutely perfect.
Given your proposal that he's a creator god, I imagine Haphestus and his obsession with perfection, which has me believe the heads in the bottom chamber are maybe the remains of former Smithies, each one creating a new form of himself that's more perfect in his twisted mind, disposing of himself so the new Smithy can get to work making his version of his perfect self.
Guess it was only a matter of time before a Mario villain got the deconstruction treatment. I'd gladly listen to similar breakdowns on Olly, Count Bleck, Dimentio, heck, Bowser has been taken in interesting directions in some games. Whatever villain is up next, we're here for it.
Especially Count Bleck! Not every day you get a Mario villain who's driving motivation is _"I want to die, and I want to take all of existence down with me."_
@@blackheartzerotheundergrou3225 You know, for kids.
@@vincentleonard3797Rated E for everyone’s going to cry
@@blackheartzerotheundergrou3225The only other kids game villain I can think of who's similar is Cyrus from Pokémon but he wouldn't admit that he wants to die. He wants ego death essentially, and would insist that's different.
In the theme of story through gameplay, having browser's castle be their entry point you circle back to at the end, it flips the storming of his lair on its head. Helping your arch nemesis reconquer his own castle and giving it back to him, setting things as they should be.
Normally you're the one taking him out of it, but here you're putting him back in.
This was a very fun video. I've always been a fan of the Smithy Gang, even if they aren't exactly fleshed out as characters. They're just so memorable with their actions and their limited screen time. There's also a bit of sadness to them, like with Yaridovich/Speardovich, when you read in his Thought Peek description that he's obsessed with getting a promotion and for Smithy to like him. It's a funny description to be sure but also a bit sad when you realize Smithy could not care less about him and, after he gets killed, just starts creating multiple copies of Yaridovich to "replace" him.
Smithy is such a good representation of most bosses and owners. Builds yarid with a desire to please and work hard for a promotion he never intends to give. Has plenty more in line when he burns out.
Ik it’s a remake but my god this main villain was refreshing. No sympathetic backstory, so greater reasoning or theology just an evil prick that you gotta beat.
"Hi there, I'd like to smash your literal hopes and dreams and turn your world into a scrap heap where obnoxious prankster weapons run wild."
Good enough for an adventure for me.
Nice job Smithy! By kicking Bowser butt, you forced all the major powers of that world to unite against you in a single dream team! :P
This was such a fun video. It's the super in depth style video that's usually saved for deep, complex, and/or distictly written characters but now we get to look at this silly little guy and I think that's awesome
Interesting analysis man. If there's something that fascinates me about writing stories, is usually the narrative intent/purpose of stuff used in the story as that's the part that people gloss over the most.
And like some people have mentioned before: Punchinello isn't really part of Smithy's gang but does sorta feel like an unintentional member due to still following the weapon motif (ie. Bombs) and being required to be defeated to get the star shards.
I think Claymorton is supposed to represent a knife or dagger. The original he was named Mack, like Mack the Knife.
did they change it to "Claymorton" cause he's supposed to represent a claymore sword? but they already have Exor to represent a sword. why would there be two sword bosses?
He IS actually a sword like Exor, yes. Him being a knife is a mistranslation. @@melon3109
One-hander and two-hander
@@SobmicSSBB mm he does use two hands to hold onto the... handles...
I still struggle (and refuse) to see Mack/Claymorton as swords rather than knives simply because the blade seems too short compared to the rest of him (compared to Exor). A sword that short doesn't make sense to me, but it makes sense as a knife
Super Paper Mario was the first of the Mario RPG-style games that I ever played, and even if it got flak for ditching the turn-based fighting for more traditional platforming gameplay, it remains my favorite purely thanks to its villainous cast.
I'm OK w/the gameplay shift in SPM: b/c it was justified by the plot's threat -- the VOID. Somehow, w/an ever-growing vortex of nothingness threatening to annihilate all of existence, I can't imagine Mario (or anyone) being compelled to enter turn-based combat w/Goomba #s 582-585. Since he's a (mostly-)silent protagonist, my head canon is that Mario equipped his Bump Attack badge for this adventure.
I'd love to see a deconstruction of Paper Mario characters from the thousand year door when that comes out!
Smithy is more a God of Creation that wants to fill the world with his creations, no matter what world that is. His work is superior, and he needs to show that as a truth.
I think what I love most about Smithy and his gang of weapons is that they so wonderfully skirt around the idea of weapons just not fitting in Mario's world in a fantastic and technically compliant way. Mario and friends twirling cold steel around would be weird and out of place? Let's make the weapons extradimensional invaders that want to take over his world instead. It's absolutely amazing how well it works and how they deliberately took a limitation of the game's setting and turned it into a plot point.
3:28 Alpha Dream: "We missed that part where that's our problem"
I was so excited when I saw this video, I always thought there was more to go into about the Smithy Gang and their role in the story than most people talk about and these deconstruction videos are always great
Also, I think one thing to note about the Smithy Gang is that they are a pretty perfect contrast to the Mushroom Kingdom. The Mushroom Kingdom is this colorful wonderland that's implied in the game to not even have some of these weapons, and the Smithy Gang interrupt it, coming from a gray, miserable world that's centered around weapons, which is a concept that's more real and unpleasant than the villains of the Mushroom Kingdom
Always liked the Smithy gang! Gotta love a mischievous group of weapon themed baddies!
I want a sequel to this game, just to have more fun.
Me too, maybe even add Luigi as a playable character
@@SourWine789 back when this game first came out he was lost in the shadow realm until Smash 64 made Nintendo remember him. Those were the dark times
@supremefankai5480 Or Luigi is an enigma that never existed in the first place and everyone thinks he's there when he's just a hallucination
@@SourWine789 that's why his first final smash was the negative zone, he's a strange guy
Huh. I wasn't expecting a smithy deconstruction.
I just find the premise of a parody of all-edge-no-point dim-a-dozen dark fantasy RPG villains lead by a evil santa funny and a perfectly fitting villainous group for mario's first venture into more story-focused territory.
I think you put into words why i really liked the villains in this game. In the first half of the game, i realized that i wasn't going to see Smithy untill the very last battle and was kinda bummed out by this, as i see the villains in the spin-off games like a great opportunity to create new interesting characters different from Bowser, think of Fawful or Dimentio, and Smithy isn't really like them. But at the end of the game, i really liked Smithy and his gang despite this "shortcoming" and it made the whole journey worth it. I definitely liked the final fight and most other boss fights a lot, but wasn't sure why i felt that way since most of these characters were present in the story just for their fight and nothing more.
What is truly beautiful in this game is that 2 common enemies Mario and Bowser had to unite to fight a much greater more evil villain. This was mindblowing for me especially as a 10 year old who first played this SNES version back in 1996.
there's also another reason for Exor to attack bowser's castle: it ultimately leads to bowser having a reason to team up with Mario and become a party member, in essence yet another gameplay reason behind the smithy gang's actions.
another possible explanation for the heads in smithy's basement is that they could be parts of himself he discarded, replacing aprts of himself either for more power or because they got too damaged by his constant working. They could also jsut be something random and creepy with no significance XP
I do find that while the mthy gang are fine as villains they are pretty wea narratively due to their lack of build up and presence. Speardovich is honestly the one smithy gang member with the msot build up due to setitng up a clever scheme to trick mario before you fight him, and in fact he's technically the only of 2 smithy gang members to be encountered before you fight him in a boss fight, along with Exor. This does mean they have VERY lacking presence in the story despite being the main villains.
As you said though this doens't make them bad villains, jsut a further consequence of Mario RPG's simpler, more light hearted story, as well as being the first mario rpg villains.
I see the Smithy Gang as a contrast to the Star People - the Star Road allows the weak to overcome their strong oppressors, the Smithy Gang wants to establish a strict hierarchy of military strength that cannot be overthrown, but has no real motivation beyond that.
I do have a theory that Smithy is an entity from the Star Road brought about by the paradoxical wish of villains such as Bowser, who are continually defeated by heroes such as Mario - a wish that there should be no more wishes, and the strong should reign supreme. It is no coincidence that they show up just as Bowser was defeated - they were attracted by Bowser's wish, which is similar to the wish that created them. But that's just a theory.
I think Smithy is essentially supposed to be a personification of the mentalities of overindustrialization (and given how he “wants to fill the world with weapons” he might also be a representation of the perpetual warfare inevitable under such a system).
Taking away the wishes of the world is effectively a metaphor for the agency people have not being in such a rigid system and he wants to put an end to that.
Weapon World may effectively show the eventual outcome of overindustrialization, barren, devoid of life, and the only thing functioning being something entirely mechanical and artificial. The only thing left to do is to do it again somewhere else.
His factory mass producing weapons, him wanting to take away wishes, and seeing his soliders as disposable heavily lead into the ideas of what I think the game is trying to say, and why you’re a hero for putting it to a stop.
Very interesting theories & details about the Smithy Gang as I wondered of their plot in SMRPG. Thanks to you, now I know. Nothing more than disposable living weapons being made by some dark godly king, who's doing all of this terror for the heck of his nature. Hmmm... So, your channel is focused on villains in a narrative perspective. Does YHWH from the smt series count as a narrative type of villain? In my opinion, I think he is from what I studied on him, but I really~ want to hear from you of your thoughts & documentary about him since I made a comment of suggesting YHWH to you before.
It's kind of a shame Smithy himself doesn't appear until the very end of the game, and doesn't get much development as a result of that. I think he's got a cool design, and as the first in a series of memorable non-Bowser Mario RPG villains, he both sets the stage for those kinds of villains as well as stands out from them, both in design and execution. The weapon theming is fascinating, I almost get the impression Square went with it after they allegedly showed Mario with a sword as part of their concept pitch for Super Mario RPG to Shigeru Miyamoto and Miyamoto supposedly didn't like the idea of Mario wielding a sword, suggesting he use a hammer instead. This gets further credence when the Enemy List entry on Exor says that swords apparently don't exist in Mario's world (even though Cortez has them in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and we have swordfighter Peach in Princess Peach: Showtime!); the idea of traditional weaponry seems to be a foreign concept in the world of Super Mario RPG, making the invading force of the Smithy Gang feel a lot more alien as a result.
Also 2:21 - it's weird that you talk about the Smithy Gang while showing gameplay of Punchinello, since he's not a member of the Smithy Gang. I know he feels like he should be, given that he uses bombs which are weapons in and of themselves, but he's completely unaffiliated, which gets reaffirmed in the remake where he's given a post-game rematch along with other non-Smithy Gang bosses. Same with showing gameplay of Knife Guy and Grate Guy, for that matter.
Good vid man. Mario RPG has given more content than I thought it would.
I love the build up to him in this game. Makes it more terrifying and surreal when you actually meet him in the end!
10:40 I think of these head as his old heads every time he is "killed" he just replaces his head with a new one
Smithy is the Sauron of Mario's world. Both Smithy and Sauron are blacksmiths who create sentient weapons (the One Ring for Sauron and the Smithy Gang for Smithy). They both are based in wastelands (Mordor for Sauron and the weapons factory for Smithy). Finally, are both gods or god like beings who want to take over the world and make the rest of the world a wasteland. This game is the closest game there is to The Lord of the Rings in spirit.
All of Smithy's gang are weapons basically wielding themselves as a motif, with the implications in the factory that they are also robots given copies of them exist.
Smithy himself is wielding a hammer, both as a weapon and a tool throughout his fights. So he might be a hammer himself.
Originally followed for God of War content, ABSOLUTELY love that you're doing this video.
Punchinello was never apart of the smithy gang. He was just a dude making bombs. Outside of his concept art. He wasn’t meant to be a weapon 😅
i really like this kind of in depth analysis of a character, or group of characters, that usually ends with people saying "Okay, i think youre just reading way to deep into this." and my response to that is "Why? Why not read deep into something?" You could argue that, yes, you are reading to deep, and that you are way over analyzing a group of villains from a late 90's RPG starring a Fat Plumber, a Doll, and a Cloud Child, but its that kind of in depth analysis, the kind that adds a sort of thought provoking idea to something many people will look at and think very little of. I would really love to see more videos like this, talking about characters from games like Kirby, or Pokemon.
Is it obvious that the reason The Smithy Gang attacks Bowser is because he is the resident baddy and them attacking him and winning makes the audience go, "Oh shit, this threat is serious."? Yeah, but also looking at it from the perspective of the developers, that is a touch i really enjoy, and i think adds a lot to the conversation. For me its akin to looking at Historical events, and instead of just saying "Such and such happened at *place* and *date*.", its looking at how those events effect the people of that time. Very good video, as are all your other works, very good indeed!
Neat to see this video after I beat the game not too long ago. I felt a bit off about how the Smithy Gang was portrayed compared to other Mario RPGs, but I think you made a great point about how even if there’s not much too them, they’re still a lot of good to them with their boss fights. I definitely had a hell of a lot of fun fighting all of them.
I really like the idea of the episode bosses followed by the Smithy Gang bosses just is them biding their time and watching you beat the guardian of the star, only to come in last second to take it. See what they did with Johnny's star
Hmmm.. one thing you mess up is that kicking Bowser out of his castle is NOT the first thing the Smithy gang does. The first thing they do is destroy the Star Road. Which is how even mundane dreams and wishes are granted in the Mushroom Kingdom. Their first act in all of Mushroom Kingdom was to attempt to make the hopes of the helpless worthless. Luckily for the Mushroom Kingdom, they have a resident outsider who is the strongest around known as Mario "Jumpman" Mario. If Mario wasn't around its very likely Mushroom Kingdom would have flat fallen to Smithy and his gang's collective chicanery.
I don't think this is the case. They clearly had no idea what the star road was or how it worked. It was probably just incidental damage that worked both in and not in their favor.
I suspect he's another fallen Maia of Aule corrupted by Morgoth, like Sauron and Saruman.
I love the world made my Mario Rpg. It was the first rpg my dad showed me ever, and it’s always held a special place in my heart
Something interesting to add is that the Thought Peak for the Director mentions him having a son.
Does this mean the machines can build their own machines and like start a family? If so, why?
The game world already had its own vilains working before Exor shows up, such as Valentina that oppressed Nimbus Land prior and would not be taken down if Mario hadn't been set on his journey and met Mallow.
he gets so angry he overheats his cpu causeing it to blue screen of death him
SUPER PAPER MARIO. A fatbrett essay about itwould complete my life
Another thing to add on to the whole "Smithy not caring for his own creations" thing are the Machine Made clones of the Smithy gang in Weapon World. He can create copies of his own top tier henchmen to fight for him since he clearly doesn't care much for the actual version of them, especially when they are ultimately destroyed. The fact that they aren't even painted also adds onto that factor.
The fact that he considers everything he makes expendable to the point of making replacement copies of his own creations really comes to show that Smithy is a truly despicable villain in the grand scheme of things.
If the heads in the boiler room are indicative of anything, it's possible even Smithy himself is expendable to some degree.
2:48 It's MACK. I can never call him Claymorton because of my nostalgia glasses...
“Smithy throws a tantrum” got me laughing 😂
See this is why a sequel would be loved. We can learn more about Weapon World and Smithy, maybe about Geno too.
my theory about the smithy heads in the background is that smithy is a robot and the heads are from copies of himself, which he builds to make sure he lives longer.
Smithy's head morphing and general visuals reminded me of the Gnome King from Return to Oz, I wonder if there was some inspiration there...
Or Mombi, but she had a removable swappable head and not a shapeshifting head
Being a god of war and weapon creation, Smithy could have been based off Hephaistos and/or Ares. And considering The Overthere and The Underwhere being the afterlife in the Mario universe, which seem to follow Greek mythology for the afterlife, this seems accurate.
Thank you for making this video I enjoyed it
So it's very apparent to me that Smithy is a rogue AI imbuned with magical abilities that became self aware and destroyed his creators. He then continued his primary function. The smithy parts you see in the basement are his prototypes that were scrapped. He must have discovered them and became defensive.
Such a fun video and love letter to one of my favorite childhood games!!
I’d imagine that the room the final boss takes place in is where smithy discards his failed creations.
I'm so glad I'm not working for Hal Laboratory right now.
Why?
@@TheDiggity42 Because they make Smash Bros.
In regards to the final boss arena. I always thought it was someplace hot. Like around a large incineration furnace or a crucible or something. Like you're near where the molten metal that smelter spits out during smithy's first form is being generated or wear failed and defeated weapons are being melted down.
I've also always liked to think that the other smithy parts visible in the last phase indicate that smithy isn't the ultimate power at work after all. As he creates all the weapons, something even more powerful created him. Maybe the other smithy pieces are the remains of defeated ones from other dimensions, much like the one we defeat in this game. Maybe this one's just an ornery weaponsmith working under the true Lord of the realm. Maybe whatever built him created all the other ones first but they were all failures, and were relegated to the scrap heap.
It's the factory's boiler room, to be more specific.
my theory is that someone made smithy to make weapons, and smithy went nuts, made too many weapons, took over, made a bunch of itself, those copies all fought til the best version was left, and then that smithy went out to conquor everything else.
or those heads are all spare parts.
Never thought i'd ever see you. Cover the smithy gang but I'm glad to be surprised. I really need to play more of this game
Smithies generals are a lot less evil than the ones who stay in smithies factory. I can almost envision Mack Bowyer and yaridovich as having good in them if they were given a second chance. But the ones In smithy’s factory are much more ruthless and smithy himself is like a terminator. By the way yaridovich is my favorite Mario character.
I was wondering if we could get a deconstruction of Geppeto from Lies of P at some point? There is a ton to unpack there, and I love hearing you talk about characters and their emotional journeys.
Greatly enjoyed this video despite less complexity. Well done
I can't express how happy I would be to get a Super Paper Mario review
I think the weapon world can be interpreted in any number of ways to make Smithy an interesting character through environmental storytelling- is Smithy responsible for his world being in its current state? Is his villainous ways responsible for the desolation of his world? Or is he stranded in an empty world, entirely alone, and the only way he can fill it with company or people is by creating sentient weapons? There appears to be other Smithies in the second stage of his fight- are these the lost members of his race who were wiped out with him being the only survivor, and then attempting to repopulate the world in the only way he knows? Did he create weapons that contributed to the destruction of his race in an act of hubris?
Or, as seems to be suggested by his ability to interchange parts of the smithy graveyards with himself...were these attempts by him to create life like himself in his lonely, desolate world? Is creating mockeries of life, in the form of weapons all he can do? Is it how he fights loneliness? Did he lose the purpose of why he creates weapons, so much that he attempts to do with Mario's world as he did to his own on instinct?
Probably not, but it's a cool setting.
Imagine how creepy would be if Smithy similar to Mario and Luigi Partners in time Kidnapped People to make them into machines
its good to see a deconstruction of a mario rpg villain so it would be great to see other villains like the x-nauts, the count bleck or even the shroobs
he's an evolved chain chomp
I rocked the shit out of Smithy in the remake. But then, I've been playing this game since 96 and the remake wasn't too different for the most part
I would love to see you do a deepdive on the Super Paper Mario villains. I swear people are sleeping on some of the best Mario antagonists.
10:36 I like to interpret them as the clones or himself as many entities you mention in some seconds.
2:34 Aw yeah, i love Puck! Good to see him getting some appreciation
I didn't expect video from you on Mario game of all things. That being said though I liked it.
Nice essay! Also i love that theme from Twilight Princess
8:50 He also wants to get rid of all the wishes. If i remember right that plot of the game was the giant sword fell through star road scattering the 7 stars thus wishes could never come true.
Smithy was decently hard as a boss
3:14 oh I beg to disagree, 100 jumps, or gold medal beetle Mania is suffering and anguishing enough (I literally sprained my arm getting that high score in beetle mania) that, even if it’s not story related is suffering and anguish enough.
10:59 I just noticed that there's a bowyer head there amongst the smithy heads, not sure if that was in the snes version. My idea on the heads is that they're statues of himself, like valentina
The remake added bits and pieces from the minions; there's Bowyer's head, Yaridovich's ponytail, and Mack's pogo-knife
smithy looks like a lego creation like his hands look like lego parts
i love his tank head form tanks are badass weapons
if i was a living weapon i would be a dragon tank with eyes and a maw of sharp teeth smithy would love to have me as one of his generals commanding his living weapon soldiers in battle
My favorite Villains of the Mario RPG Games would be Fawful and Antasma.
The Smithy Gang were the First Mario RPG Villains.
If not for them, we couldn’t enjoy other Mario RPG‘s.
Super Mario RPG showed US, that Mario Games could be much more than Jump‘n Run‘s or Kart Racing Games.
If not for this beloved and successful Game.
Great content 💪👍🐣
Bro what. I love this game.
I'm not sure even smithy is the actual leader of the "smithy gang". He seems to be a robot creation. I don't think the "smithy heads" in the final boss arena are family members, but previous destroyed versions of Smithy... Like how theres multiples of the other members of the gang. I feel like if we got a SMRPG 2 this could have been expanded upon.
Make weapons, not wishes.
Good video
Do you think there is enough material to do a video on BT from Titanfall 2?
Please, very please do a deconstruction of villainy for either Van Der Linde or Micah Bell from RDR2, that would be interesting opinions coming from you
Wario + FF4 Cid = Booster
He looks like he was exiled out of Zharr-Naggrund by his fellow Dawi Zharr
Lore of Smithy - A Deconstruction of Villainy Momentum 100
Mario villain not Kirby villain, let's remember that before speculations of interdemensional gods.