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It is an undeniable fact that Mario saves Princess Peach. Time and time again, the unstoppable plumber runs, jumps and fights through levels galore to rescue the queen regnant of the Mushroom Kingdom from the power hungry claws of the turtle king. He poses an indomitable figure, an indefatigable spirit that stands for all that is good and right. His recognisable red and blue costume comforts the people, allays their fears, and reminds them that there is always hope. Mario inspires belief, not merely in victory, but rather in perseverance. He is a saviour, an idol, and a hero. Yet is Mario truly the courageous man he is believed to be? 

An established fact in the Mario games is the lives system, which effectively puts a constraint on how many times Mario – or rather, the player – can fail and, as a result, die. Once all of his lives are depleted, Mario leaves this mortal coil permanently. The number of lives can be augmented in two major ways: consuming a green mushroom, or – more importantly to this argument – collecting one hundred coins. This feature, although a well designed game mechanic, has devastating effects narratively on the character of Mario, and completely undermines our perception of him. To Mario, death is nothing but a mere inconvenience, a tax to be paid to the grim reaper. Even if deaths are non-diegetic, if it is no more than a minor setback and places nothing of lasting value in jeopardy, what exactly does Mario risk in his endeavors?

This trivialisation of death extends beyond the Mushroom Kingdom and forces a far more fundamental question. Throughout history, myths and storytelling, a hero is defined not by his actions or the good brought about by them, but rather his willingness to endure irreversible, blinding loss in pursuit of his values and a greater good. Achilles chooses glory over life, Prometheus suffers eternal punishment, and Agamemnon faces divine punishment to ensure security for his fleet. Even modern heroes are celebrated more for what they stand to lose than what they overcome – the MCU’s Tony Stark sacrifices his life to stop Thanos. Thus, if heroism is intrinsically tied to sacrifice, then the absence of lasting struggle – for example in Mario’s case – demands scrutiny. Can a figure truly be called heroic if failure is temporary and death is negotiable?

Yet the problem is not Mario’s world, but rather the world that made Mario. To criticize Mario solely within the bounds of his fictional universe is to miss the true source of his invulnerability, for the absence of sacrifice within his journey is not the result of narrative incoherence, or a misunderstanding of heroism, but a deliberate constraint imposed by those that created him. Mario does not exist as a singular myth with a beginning and an end, but as a recurring asset, designed to endure. Death and permanence are not absent from the Mario universe by accident but are withheld by those who possess his IP.

To understand why sacrifice must be absent from Mario’s narrative, we must look beyond storytelling conventions and toward the economic framework within which modern media is produced. No longer a character, Mario is a commodity, designed to fit within a capitalist system that prioritizes longevity and marketability over narrative finality. You cannot franchise, reboot or endlessly resell a dead man, and as such, Mario is denied the possibility of sacrifice not because it would weaken his story, but because it would weaken his brand.

But how is this different from mythic cycles, which are also endlessly retold? What distinguishes Mario from mythic heroes such as Heracles or King Arthur is not their immortality, but the conditions under which their stories are preserved and retold. Mythic figures persist through cultural circulation rather than legal ownership belonging to no single author, corporation, or economic entity. Each retelling is an act of reinterpretation, one that is free to alter or even destroy the hero in question. Heracles may ascend to Olympus, or die in agony, depending on the telling. Arthur may return, fall, or remain a dream of kingship. Therefore, their endurance is organic, and unstable. Mario, by contrast, endures not because his story demands continuation, but because his existence is contractually enforced, with him unable meaningfully change, age, or conclude. After all, to do so would fracture brand recognition. Myths tolerate death and contradiction as the price of relevance, while corporate intellectual property enforces continuity as a condition of survival.

This reveals a deeper contradiction at the heart of consumerist storytelling. The popular narrative appropriates the aesthetics of heroism, which include struggle, adversity, and triumph, but undermines them, featuring characters that are engaged in constant struggle but are shielded from meaningful loss. In this process, heroism ceases to be a moral category and is transformed into a performative one. The moral value is no longer in sacrifice but in spectacle, no longer in courage but in persistence, and no longer in meaning but in continuity.

Therefore, Mario must be seen not as a failure but as a symptom. He represents a social context in which the ending of stories is discouraged, and characters are conserved as commodities, refined and reused for each succeeding generation. In such a world, heroism is simulated rather than lived, and sacrifice is replaced by mere inconvenience.

But perhaps the most disquieting consequence is that the consumption of these stories habituates us to a view of struggle that is consequence-free, effort that is risk-free, and triumph that is cost-free. We learn to admire heroes who can never truly lose, while living in a world where loss is very real and often permanent. Capitalism gives us immortals to distract us from our own fragility and while doing so, calls it hope.