What defines a "king" in Super Mario world?

Dorayaki

Dorayaki

King Bowser
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As we know, there are many kings, queens or other equivalent titles in Super Mario world. However, when it comes to each ruler's background, some of the villain kings seem to not actually rule a specific kingdom.

While Peach is best known as the ruler of Mushroom Kingdom, Bowser doesn't really claim to rule an equivalent territory such as Koopa Kingdom, where Koopa citizens enjoy their normal life, or is directly referred in any official occasion when Peach and other rulers acknowledge thier royal identity. Yes, most villain kings do have a castle or a fortification, but we usually don't have further info about them aside from being a battlefild in mainline, in order to tell whether the kings aqcuired this territory legally or illegally.

A possible theory could be that King Bob-omb, King Boo or King Goomba mean to rule a species, since they're the most majestic being of their tribe, but such tribes just live in other kingdom or country, which are actually ruled by other people. Some of these kings invade other kingdoms because they want their own territory.

In some other examples, such as Shake King from Wario Land and Ollie from Origami King, specifically point out that they're self-claimed and want to be real kings via domination.

Do you think all the titled kings get to rule a kingdom? Or some kings use a different system of naming? Or you believe some of them are not real kings?
 
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I don't really think there is much information to glean about the political workings of nations in the Mario universe because that's not a focal point of the series.

But with that disclaimer out of the way I'd say that for characters who are called kings without being shown as the ruler of a territory, I think some reasonable hypotheses would be either that they have a kingdom somewhere off screen or that some like King Goomba or King Bob-omb are rulers of client states under Bowser's Empire.
 
All the kings I know in the Super Mario franchise have crowns. Bowser, K. Rool, King Goomba, King Boo, King Bob-omb, etc.

King Bowser usually doesn't have a crown, but he did in the past!
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They're all figureheads, all the real work is done by the behind-the-scenes warlords and strategists.
 
Pauline and some other people rule the Mario equivalent of New York City. Bowser is pretty much all over the place and fixed to a certain spot at the same time, it's kinda weird. Honey Bee Queen appears in 1 galaxy of Super Mario Galaxy 2

If you are actually talking about Super Mario World (SNES 1991), then the Koopalings rule their respective areas of Dinosaur Island
 
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To me, Bowser rules any place occupied mainly by the members of the Koopa Troop. That includes the Darklands, World Bowser, Valley of Bowser, etc.
 
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