Super Smash Bible

I’ve been playing a lot of Super Smash Brothers: Brawl lately, and I played Super Smash Brothers Melee religiously for years (at least, wow six or seven years by now).

Religiously, hm?

At the heart of Super Smash Brothers is solid gameplay, but on the surface is misplaced familiarity. Take something that doesn’t belong in a fighting game, put it in a fighting game, and suddenly there are all sorts of unintended joys. It took everybody a while to warm up to the Tekken guys (and I, frankly, still haven’t), but there’s a sincere pleasure to playing with these familiar characters as they fight. It’s the sort of fantasy that’s always part of the artistic imagination. It worked for tennis, it worked for golf, it worked for paper, it worked for karts — when you shoehorn in Nintendo characters, the game becomes more familiar, more interesting and more fun.

Shoehorning, hm?

More fun, hm?

What follows is an experiment . . .  can the Smash Brothers principle make anything fun? How much of the original shines through, and how much is just nonsense? Can it spice up something that’s solid at its core, but could definitely gain something from being more familiar, more interesting and more fun . . .

. . . like the King James Bible?

Genesis

. . . And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived, and bare Luigi, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD. And she again bare his brother Mario. And Mario was a thrower of fireballs, but Luigi was a breaker of blocks.

And in process of time it came to pass, that Luigi brought of the question blocks a coin to the LORD, and Mario, he also brought of the first of the Koopa Klan and a goomba thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Mario and to his offering: But unto Luigi and to his offering he had not respect. And Luigi was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

And the LORD said unto Luigi, “Why art though wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou halt rule over him.”

And Luigi talked with Mario his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in Mushroom Kingdom, that Luigi rose up against Mario his brother, and smashed him. And the LORD said unto Luigi, where is Mario thy brother?

And he said “I know-a not: Am I-a my brother’s keeper? I’m-a Luigi, number one!”

And He said, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s stock crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the Mushroom Kingdom, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s stock from thy hand.

When thou breaketh the blocks, they shall not henceforth yield unto thee their coins; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the Mushroom Kingdom.

And Luigi said unto the LORD, “Oh-a No! My punish-a-ment is-a greater than-a I can bear. Behold-a, thou hast-a driven me outta this day from the face of-a the Mushroom-a Kingdom; and-a from-a thy face shall I be-a hid; and I-a shall be a fugitive and a vagabond-a in-a the Mushroom-a Kingdom; and it shall-a come to pass, that every one that findeth-a me shall smash-a me.”

And the LORD said unto him, “Therfore, whosoever smasheth Luigi, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD set a mark upon Luigi, lest any finding him should smash him.

And Luigi went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Mushroom Kingdom II, on the east of the Mushroom Kingdom . . .

Judges
. . . It came to pass within a while after, in the time of the tomato/heart container harvest, that Jigglypuff visited Squirtle with a kid; and he said, “Jigglypuff!! Jiggly Puff Puff!.” But the Pokemon Trainer would not suffer him to go into Squirtle’s chamber.

And the Pokemon Trainer said, “I verily thought that thou hadst utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to Mewtwo: Is not Bulbasaur fairer than Squirtle?  Take Bulbasaur, I pray thee, instead of Squirtle.”

And Jigglypuff said concerning them, “Jigglypuff. Jigglypuff! Puff! Jiggly!”

And Jigglypuff went and caught three hundred foxes, and took firebrands, and turned them tail to tail, and put a firebrand in the midst of their two tails. And when she had set the brands on fire, she let them go into the standing corn of Mewtwo, and burnt up both the shocks, and also the standing corn, with the vineyards and the olives.

Then, Mewtwo said, “Who has done this?”

And Jigglypuff answered, “Jigglypuff!”

And Mewtwo came up, and burnt Squirtle and the Pokemon Trainer with purple fire.

And Jigglypuff said unto them, “Jigglypuff!!”

And she smashed Mewtwo hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and she quadruple jumped away and dwelt in the top of Poke Floats.

Then, Mewtwo went up, and pitched in Pokemon Stadium. And the Pokemon Trainers said, “Why are ye come up against us?

And Mewtwo answered, “To smash Jigglypuff are we come up, to do to her as she hath done to us.”

Then three thousand Pokemon Trainers went to the top of the Poke Floats, and said to Jigglypuff, “Knowest thou not that Mewtwo rules over us? What is this that thou hast done unto us?”

And she said unto them, “Jigglypuff!”

And they said unto her, “We are come down to bind thee, that we may deliver thee into the hands of Mewtwo.”

And Jigglypuff said unto them, “Jiggly! Jigglypuff!”

And they spake unto her, saying, “No; but we will bind thee fast, and deliver thee into his hand: but surely we will not kill thee.”

And they bound her up with two new cords, and brought her back from Poke Floats.

And when Jigglypuff came into Pokemon Stadium, Mewtwo shouted against her: and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon her, and the cords that were upon her stubby little arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and her bands loosened from off her hands.

And she found a new homerun bat, and put forth her hand, and took it, and smashed Mewtwo a thousand times.

And Jigglypuff said, “Jigglypuff!”

And it came to pass when she had made an end to speaking, that she cast away the homerun bat and called that place Homerun Derby Stadium . . .

Matthew

. . .  Link sayeth unto them, Which shall I do then with Kirby?

They all say unto him, “Let him be smashed!”

And the Hero of Time said, “Why, what evil hath he done?”

But they cried out the more, saying, “Let him be smashed!”

When Link saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, “I am innocent of the stock of this just person: see ye to it.”

Then answered all the people, and said, “His stock be on us, and on our children.”

Then released he Donkey Kong unto them: and when he had scourged Kirby and raised his percentage, he delivered him to be smashed.

Then the soldiers of the governor took Kirby into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped him and put him in a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and an empty Super Scope in his right hand, and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, “Hail, Player 1! SUCCESS!” And they spit upon him, and took the Super Scope, and threw it at his head. And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to smash him.

And as they came out, they found a man of Fire Emblem, Marth by name: him they compelled to carry a barrel. And when they were come unto a place called Final Destination, that is to say, the place of a giant floating hand, they gave him vinegar to drink mixed with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.

And they smashed him, and took away his powers, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, “Now you’re playing with power.” And sitting down to edgeguard, they watched him drift back toward the level, and set over his head his accusation was written: “PLAYER 1.”

Then there were these two Arwing pilots smashed with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left.

And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads. And saying “Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, SHOW ME YOUR MOVES, save thyself. If thou be Player 1, SHOW ME YOUR MOVES, climb up off the ledge and back onto the level. SHOW ME YOUR MOVES.”

Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, “He saved others, his game he cannot save. If he be Player 1, let him finish the level, and we will believe him. He trusted in his controller, let him deliver him now, if he will have him, for he said, ‘I am Player 1.’” The pilots also, a fox and a bird, which were smashed with him, cast the same in his teeth.

Now from the sixth minute there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth minute. And about the ninth minute Kirby cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is to say, “Game! Game! Why do you keep edgeguarding me?”

Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, “This man calls for Game and Watch!” And straightaway one of them ran, and got a mop, and forward smashed it into his face.

The rest said, “Let be, let us see whether Game and Watch will come to save him.”

Kirby, when he cried again with a loud voice and missed the ledge, gave up his stock.

Discuss!

So, what do you think? Does Smashbrotherification make everything better? I’ll leave with a final note.

People complain a lot that the Bible has too much violence in it and shouldn’t be read, and yet the general response to Super Smash Brothers, which is about on par with the Bible in terms of the quantity and enthusiasm of the violence, is passionate, enduring, and full of self-identification and love. Perhaps there is something essential to the Super Smash Brothers style of storytelling, and robbing ourselves of the rock-em, sock-em sensibility takes some of the sincerity out of religion. Perhaps shifting phantasmagoria and shifting vocabulary of symbol, rather than shifting values, are the biggest reasons why people feel distanced from orthodox religious literature.

Is it a good thing or a bad thing to stamp your own image on your sacred stories? How does it help, and how does it hurt? It seems to me part and parcel of the aesthetic that drives pieces like 8-bit Theatre and Dr. McNinja (look for a future article on “Neoninjaism”). Certainly, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies means that now even people who listen to NPR are finally, vaguely cognizant of one of the dominant socio-intellectual trends of the last decade.

I’m looking forward to a spirited discussion that will go off in unpredictable directions, like poison-mushroom Ness being hit by a star rod.