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But did you ever wonder where that ship (and those spirits haunting it) came from? The answer was in front of you all along: In Super Mario Bros. 3, the game that came right before this one, Bowser and his Koopalings stir up trouble in airships. Airships that you, as Mario, have to go through, killing everything in your path in the process, and presumably making at least one of them crash down into the ocean. Obviously Bowser and his kids made it out, because they appear again in Mario World, but as for the other crew members? Let's just say those underwater ghosts have a reason to haunt you.

Are we reading too much into it? Probably not, because the manual seems to agree with us:

Nintendo

"Or if he wanted to serve you a court citation for destroying his property."

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But the most disturbing part is the fact that the sunken ship level ends when you collect a question mark bubble, the only one of its kind in Mario World. In Super Mario Bros. 3, these were dropped every time you defeated one of the Koopa kids. Maybe one of the Koopalings didn't make it out alive after all ... or maybe none did. Lately, Mario's creator has been pretending that the Koopalings aren't Bowser's children, despite the fact that the manual says otherwise. Perhaps that's his way of saying that Mario murdered all of them, and the ones in the current games are just clones Bowser created to try to fill the emptiness in his heart.

Nintendo

"Another soul to add to the collection. Wa-hoo!"

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