Tankpot

I mentioned on Twitter how weirdly uncomfortable it made me feel when Mario ‘captures’ an enemy in Super Mario Odyssey. You’ll take control of a bad guy to solve a puzzle or to navigate a level, then discard them. Sometime, you’ll capture an enemy, then use their purloined husk to obliterate their comrades.  A friend of mine drew the analogy that it’d be like taking over noted alt-righter Richard Spencer and using him to punch all the Nazis but I don’t think that’s true. For one, I’m not sure that a lot of the armies of Bowser are there by choice, they don’t share the same goals. They strike me as drafted auxiliaries, like in the Roman army, hordes of goombas fighting because they are made to. Which isn’t to say they don’t want to fight Mario, or want to expand the borders of Bowsers domain, but they have had the choice to fight or not made for them. Koopa Troopers and goombas are clearly distinct peoples; Bowser does not strike me as the kind of individual interested in forming c