Manuals packaged with the original 1985 Super Mario Bros explicitly state that the evil Koopa wizard used dark magic to transform the innocent citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom into stones, bricks, and horsetail plants.

A closer look

Manuals packaged with the original 1985 Super Mario Bros explicitly state that the evil Koopa wizard used dark magic to transform the innocent citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom into stones, bricks, and horsetail plants. This is a very fun piece of lore until you realize your heroic protagonist spends the entire game ruthlessly shattering those exact same brick blocks with his fist to scavenge for loose change. You are not a savior liberating a captive nation, but rather a hyperactive demolition man actively mass-murdering the very locals you were supposedly hired to protect, all because you wanted an extra digital coin. The game secretly casts you as a ruthless sociopath casually obliterating an entire cursed civilization