In Luigi’s Mansion 3, Luigi, Peach, Mario and the Toads are invited for a stay in a glamorous and exciting hotel. While all seems right with the world at first, it isn’t long before the mansion goes dark, and Luigi becomes the target of malevolent ghosts, each with their own personal vendetta against Luigi. Why are these ghosts so hellbent on destroying Luigi? I put it to you that it’s because he’s the Mushroom Kingdom’s most prolific serial murderer.
As they say, it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for, and Luigi definitely fits the bill. He’s shy, timid and awkward — all the classic hallmarks of a violent and depraved individual. But beyond this, he always seems to be running from ghosts. What do they want with Luigi? What has he done?
Luigi’s troubles first started in Luigi’s Mansion, where he discovers he’s been invited to a haunted mansion by a mysterious figure that turns out to be King Boo.
Luigi’s Mansion doesn’t make clear why exactly Luigi was the target of Boo’s wrath, particularly as the game spells out that it was the strange Professor E. Gadd who had captured King Boo’s ghostly subjects inside portraits and caused him to seek revenge in the first place.
King Boo is a frequent nuisance for Mario and Luigi, appearing in several of their adventures with murderous intentions, including the Nintendo DS version of Super Mario 64. Here’s the thing, though. He’s a ghost, or at least some form of malevolent spirit. He has to have died at some point. But his origin is unclear. All that is clear is his murderous intentions towards Luigi.
In Luigi’s Mansion, King Boo chases Luigi down with revenge and torture in his mind. In Super Mario 64, he captures Luigi and locks him away in a portrait. I put it to you that the reason King Boo is deadset on capturing and killing Luigi is because Luigi was responsible for his death. The canon doesn’t present a single reason for Boo’s hatred of Luigi, so we can only read between the lines.
But the simple fact is that both Luigi and Mario spend the majority of their games killing other beings. From goombas to bomb-ombs and koopas, no creature is safe from their ground-pounding stomps. Mario and Luigi are murderers, plain and simple.
Though Luigi tries to hide his true nature, behind those wobbly, crying eyes is a cold-blooded killer. Boos aren’t inherently evil. They just want some closure on their untimely deaths.
There’s also the small matter of Luigi’s appearance in a mystery 1996 audio magazine for the Super Famicon’s Japan-only Satellaview add-on. According to a tweet from @MarioBrothBlog, which regularly features fun facts about Mario’s history, Luigi appeared in this program with a random and deadly violent streak. While the program goes unnamed, the source video indicates the image appeared in a broadcast of the Super Famicom Hour — an official Nintendo broadcast. Thus, we can consider these events canon.
A 1996-1997 illustrated audio magazine for the Japan-only Satellaview add-on for the Super Famicom had a running gag of depicting Luigi as a sinister figure. Here, Luigi is shown being responsible for an explosion engulfing a bus Mario and Peach are riding. pic.twitter.com/E0sxPqmFOV
— Supper Mario Broth (@MarioBrothBlog) November 26, 2019
Here, he’s depicted exploding a bus with Mario and Peach trapped inside. That’s a psychopathic move if ever there was one, and reveals something deeply sinister brewing in Luigi’s psyche.
There’s a reason why the ghosts keep luring Luigi back into their haunted den. He must pay for his hideous crimes. It’s time to bring Luigi to justice.
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