It’s easy enough to accept the idea that Miyamoto’s quote may have been mistranslated or simply misinterpreted by those who read it, but it still seems strange that he feels the need to do everything possible to address the problem. Alice in Wonderland comparison. After all, it seems so obvious that the idea of Mario eating a mushroom to grow would be borrowed from a story that made that particular idea famous. Why would Miyamoto seem so determined to back that idea?
The answer may have something to do with it Alice and Wonderlandrelationship with psychedelic drugs.
Alice in Wonderland, drugs, mushrooms, fantasy stories and other Super Mario influences
Look, I’m not going to blow anyone up by saying this Alice in Wonderland it is now commonly associated with drug use. The idea that the whole story is a kind of hallucinogenic journey gained momentum in the 1960s and has really only become more popular since then. Jefferson Airplane wrote a song about it, whole Matrix The franchise is based on this idea (in its own way), and everyone, from your roommate in college to dear literature teachers, has offered some sort of interpretation of Alice in Wonderland this suggests that everything is about drugs, was written under the influence of drugs or can be interpreted in a way that is easy to see as an allegory of drugs. It is not unreasonable to suggest that many people’s minds probably jump to drugs when they hear. “Alice in Wonderland. ”
However, the fact is that there is very little evidence to suggest this Alice in Wonderland Author Lewis Carroll intended it to be a “secret” story about drugs or even that he was under the influence of any notable drug when he wrote the story. In fact, most hallucinogenic drugs do Alice in Wonderland is usually associated with these days (LSD, mushrooms, acid, etc.) or would not have been available or were not popular recreationally at the time Alice in Wonderland was written. Carrol was known to drink wine from time to time and could theoretically have consumed some opium during his lifetime (it was a fairly common drug at the time), but there is certainly nothing to suggest that he was experimenting with the type. of hallucinogens that Alice in Wonderland he was often associated with or even particularly interested in the subject above other more frequent themes in the novel.
As Miyamoto pointed out in that 2009 interview, mushrooms have also historically been associated with other fantasy realms. The relationship between mushrooms and magic gained strength in the early 1800s, when fantasy writers such as the Brothers Grimm became fascinated with the pace at which people moved out of the country and into cities. Some feared at the time that migration from the countryside to the cities would not only mean that more rural areas would be swallowed up by urban sprawl but that the country’s folklore, history and culture would also be lost in the process.
As such, more and more fantasy stories used aspects of nature (such as mushrooms) as a kind of shorthand symbol for the idea of these magical settings where mysticism was still alive. The close relationship between nature and magic was not invented during that time (Shakespeare and others had played with this concept long before), but certainly that time saw an increase in mushrooms that were used to symbolize fantasy lands.
