Why does Bowser never die?

Wario's ass

King Bowser
Pronouns
He/him
He has survived falling from a bridge into lava, breaking bricks with his ass and then falling to a bottomless pit, getting blasted by bombs, and even being vaporized by the titanic explosion of his own galaxy, among other things.



And yet he's still among us. Why? Is he a god or something?



...Maybe those theories about Bowser being a ghost were true all along?
 
Don't forget being crushed with his own castle.

Maybe Kamek is responsible for that. I mean, maybe it's magic, huh?

And if he was a ghost, he'd look like this:

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Or this...

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LED42™ said:
Don't forget being crushed with his own castle.

Maybe Kamek is responsible for that. I mean, maybe it's magic, huh?

Oh right, I can't believe I forgot about the NSMBWii one. The whole castle just freaking falls over him!


and everything goes black :toad: .
 
Maybe he almost died, but his minions save him. Or if he does die, maybe Kamek uses magic to revive him.
 
Because he's the most powerful version of a race of people that are already difficult to kill.
 
So here's a theory for you.

Every time you restart a level (you died, played again, etc.), the enemies you defeated already will return. Whenever Mario (or whoever) gets defeated, he will return if he has any lives remaining. Mario receives a Game Over if he runs out of lives and dies again, but we never see this happen with the enemy characters unless we're playing as them.

Bowser can only get a "Game Over" is he's one of the main playable characters in the game. But when he's the villain, he'll keep coming back, no matter what. My theory is the bad guys have an endless supply of 1-Up Mushrooms they're hoarding. And whenever Bowser gets defeated by Mario, even if he gets thrown in lava or into a bottomless pit, a 1-Up Mushroom will pick him right up.

Now to find out why Bowser doesn't use this endless supply when he actually takes the role of the good guy.
 
I mean, I'd like an explanation or theory that isn't about any game overs, 1-ups, or who's playable and who isn't.


I'd like one that is based on the Marioverse rather than the game itself and how it works, lol.
 
Quote from Sonic the Hedgehog in Wreck-It Ralph:
Sonic the Hedgehog said:
"If you leave your game, stay safe, stay alert, and whatever you do, don't die! Because if you die outside your own game, you don't regenerate. Ever! Game over.
This implies that you always regenerate while inside your own game.
 
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Because he's protected by his iconic villain status (in other words, nothing in-universe explains it). Other villains aren't so lucky. One of the best examples is what happens at the end of Dream Team. Bowser had fused with the Dream Stone yet his defeat simply removed the extra powers while any other villain who fused with some superpower went down with it. Personally I think it's kind of cheap that they don't either stay consistent with it or explain why it's the way it is (in-universe, and not a throwaway line like Peach's "He isn't easy to get rid of" in SPM)
 
Mcmadness said:
Because he's the most powerful version of a race of people that are already difficult to kill.

He's SCP-682.

Or maybe he's just a plain ol' cartoon character. Tom (from Tom & Jerry) should have died in a lot of situations (anvils and bowling balls dropping on him, two train running him over in the toy store episode etc.), but he didn't. True fatality in a cartoony universe is usually seen as bad taste, no matter how dark or violent that piece of media gets. However, Super Paper Mario seems to have alleviated that issue pretty well with the implications of the Game Over.
 
Mr. Saltman said:
I mean, I'd like an explanation or theory that isn't about any game overs, 1-ups, or who's playable and who isn't.


I'd like one that is based on the Marioverse rather than the game itself and how it works, lol.
if you want a theory that doesn't involve all of that, you might as well ask why mario or luigi never die

if you can come up with a theory for him, you can come up with a theory for bowser


in any case, the simplest explanation is usually the right one - 1-ups (however much you want an explanation without them) exist in the Mario Universe, so they are logically the reason that nobody can die.
 
I Got No iPhone said:
Because he's protected by his iconic villain status (in other words, nothing in-universe explains it). Other villains aren't so lucky. One of the best examples is what happens at the end of Dream Team. Bowser had fused with the Dream Stone yet his defeat simply removed the extra powers while any other villain who fused with some superpower went down with it. Personally I think it's kind of cheap that they don't either stay consistent with it or explain why it's the way it is (in-universe, and not a throwaway line like Peach's "He isn't easy to get rid of" in SPM)

Mario cares not for consistency.


But if I'm going to play the mr analysis game, most badguys that aren't Bowser are not as physically capable as he is and usually put more emphasis on magic or technology.
 
I sometimes wonder why Wario never dies given the absolute misery he's been through, but I'm not complaining.
 
One idea is King Boo protects him. But both Galaxies show other ways he survive. 1 shows him coming back to the home world like Peach, Mario, and Peach's Castle as well as all species Mario meet including enemies. 2 shows him there again, but was smaller than normal.
 
Nope, they recently got turned into insurance policy that deducts from your wallet every time you die.
 
i would like to know how is there a prominent ''undead'' version of Bowser, but yet it's not very clear how he (the normal Bowser) turns back to life again and again?

Kamek?
 
Swiftie_Luma said:

It could be, but for that to be true Kamek doesn't have to have a single death in any Mario game.


But is there any game where Kamek has actually died?


I mean, in NSMBWii, when he turns Bowser into a giant, he gets hit by Bowser's hand and falls to the lava, but we don't see him getting roasted in it. So maybe he escaped from there too?
 
Problem is, Kamek looks virtually identical to other Magikoopa (Kamek being generically named in other regions not withstanding). Might as well be stand-ins every time you see a Magikoopa.
 
Or maybe it's just him cloning himself into multiple Magikoopas to kill you lol.


But the only time where I usually consider Kamek to be 100% himself when he has a Broom.


I think the single Magikoopa in SMW is Kamek, because he can turn bricks into enemies. You can kill him though, so who knows.
 
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