Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam

Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam was the sudden meeting between Mario's world and that of an identical Paper World, resulting in some skirmishes.

History

Start

Luigi and a Toad were sent to investigate a draft in Peach’s Castle, likely caused by a Scaredy Rat. Being scared of the rat, Luigi freaked out and accidentally knocked over the legendary Paper Book that had been laying in the castle’s cellar.

The book then opened on its own, unleashing a bunch of its inhabitants into Mario’s world. While the paper variants of the Koopa Troop adapted greatly to the new environment, the Paper Toads were confused and hid in every possible nook and cranny. It seems they came out of a parallel dimension where people are identical to one another. While a large amount poured out, not all of them did; the paper Koopalings, for example, are probably doing something important at home.

The Koopa Troop floating out of the Paper Book also meant that Bowser met his paper counterpart. They both fought eachother. Bowser Jr., meanwhile, takes greatly to meeting his paper self.

After acquainting themselves with Paper Peach and rounding up the Paper Toads inside the castle, Mario, Luigi, and Starlow set off with only two Bros. Attacks that were held in storage (because Nabbit stole the rest of them). Toadette cheers the two on with a small Papercraft Mario, saying she’s trying to get better at adventuring. The Paper Toads, as thanks for the rescue, give the Bros. a Copy Block, a surprise tool that will be helpful soon. Toadette, noticing the dexterity of the Paper Toads, then collaborates with the group to possibly build something useful.

As part of the adventure, Peach assigns a Lakitu to give the Bros. any assistance with their next objective. The Lakitu Info Center would also notify any new Paper Toads that need rescuing, all of which would be sent back to Peach’s Castle by them.

Casually manhandling a Paper Goomba, Mario and Luigi continue through Sunbeam Plains when they’re stopped by the Paper Goomba’s newest attack (not yet named). Suddenly, Paper Mario jumped to the rescue to defeat the stack of Paper Goomba’s. Paper Mario then joined the team in their mission.

As thanks for the rescues, the Paper Toads gifted the trio a Trio Block, an item that flattens their foes into paper, resulting in some creative offensive opportunities.

A kidnapping!

During the mission, Bowser and Paper Bowser eventually reconciled and kidnapped both Princess Peaches. Keeping the three busy, the two Bowsers sent Petey Piranha while they returned to Bowser’s Castle. To go along with that, Paper Kamek went on to design a massive Papercraft Goomba. Toadette, arriving to see the sight, is inspired by the massive structure to build one that is similar eventually.

After saving some Paper Toads, Toadette finished the build: a massive statue Papercraft Mario. After fighting Papercraft Megacrinkel Goomba and its cohort papercrafts using the Papercraft Mario, the group head into Doop Doop Dunes. All the while, the Peaches manage an escape plan.

At Doop Doop Dunes, the trio chase after Nabbit to get their items back, all the while getting their progress blocked by the two Kameks. The three even managed to invent a new move to get past stronger blocks; the Trio Hammer. Unfortunately, they were still laybacked into the Doop Doop Dunes Grotto by a giant Pokey and Power Tower Pokey. They eventually get a trampoline which launches them into a battle between Big Pokey and Tower Power Pokey.

The heroes forge on ahead until they encounter the Papercraft Kamek. In response, the Papercraft Luigi is unleashed. After decimating Papercraft Kamek, they are hit by Bowser’s Castle’s cannon and brought to prison, accidentally letting go of the Paper Book they had on them and allowing the Bowser Jr’s to get ahold of them.

Inside the Twinsy Tropics Dungeon, Paper Mario escapes prison. While all three are escaping, they find out that Bowser has taken several Toads from all across the Mushroom Kingdom to mine out the valuable Fire Ore hidden inside the dungeon. They also invented the Trio Grab at one point. Reaching the Warp Pipe leading to the outside, they are ambushed by Wendy and Roy Koopa, who the three battle. Defeating the two also led to all of the Toads being saved.

Into the sandy beaches of Twinsy Tropics, the gang saves enough Paper Toads to craft a boat to get out of Twinsy Tropics all the way back to Sunbeam Plains. There, they get notified by a Toad to return back to Peach’s Castle; Peach has been taken to Bowser’s villa at Mount Brrr by the two Bowser Jr’s.

Reaching that villa

Getting to Bowser’s villa at Mount Brrr, they first need to cut through Gloomy Woods. Before even getting to the woods itself, they fight through Paper Petey Piranha.

Inside the Gloomy Woods, Paper Kamek blocks the path but gets quickly taken care of thanks to a Wiggler. Paper Kamek hypnotizes the Wiggler to attack the trio, but they defeat him hard enough for him to turn into a Flutter and bring them to Mount Brrr.

At the Mount Brrr Summit, it’s discovered that these recent cardboard landscapes strewn about the land are the result of Bowser’s minions, with King Bob-omb at the helm commanding the firing. A cardboard icicle, landing close to the trio, drilled into the ground which inspired Paper Mario to come up with the Trio Drill move.

Scaling the mountains, they reach the two Bowser Jr’s with their Papercraft Bowser Jr., while Toadette had finished her Papercraft Peach model. So they duke it out. After beating the two, they reach Bowser’s villa, but the two princesses are escorted away by the two Bowser Jr’s. Luckily, they happened to find a key that fits a door all the way inside the Twinsy Tropics dungeon.

Reaching the door, they make their way into Bowser’s Castle, but not before battling Ludwig and Larry Koopa. During their venture inside, they figure out how to pull off the Trio Glider to scale some wide pits. After a while, they’re ambushed by the two Kameks, Lemmy, and Morton Koopa with their Papercraft King Boo. Toadette was also conveniently there with a Papercraft Yoshi, so the two builds fight eachother. After the fight, Toadette’s kidnapped so as to avoid any more papercrafts from being built, but she is saved pretty quickly.

While the three have been climbing the castle, the two Peaches were also pulling off an escape plan, which didn’t work as the two Bowser Jr.'s had caught them in the act. The group fight the Bowser Jr. duo and save both princesses.

Bowser unfortunately entered the room to see his son being beat up and thus activates the castle’s booster. While the group returned safely to Sunbeam Plains, Bowser’s Castle was airborne and Peach’s Castle was demolished by Bowser's cannon. Luckily, no one was hurt in the attack.

Get that Book

Toadette’s got a new plan, which she’ll only reveal if the Bros. manage their way to Mount Brrr. To get there, they head their way into the Gloomy Woods again but are sidetracked by King Boo getting everyone split up. They eventually gather themselves and battle King Boo.

At Mount Brrr, Toadette reveals her grand plan; a stack of Paper Toads leading all the way into Neo Bowser’s Castle. The three make their way up to the summit of Mount Brrr, where they have to defeat King Bob-omb on a time limit. Taking care of any threat on the summit, the Paper Toads have arrived to put Toadette’s plan into action.

At Neo Bowser’s Castle, the Bros. make their way through the castle and meet up with the Bowsers, who burn up the papercrafts Toadette has built. While dejected at first, Toadette quickly has the idea to grab some of the Fire Ore around the castle for her newest papercraft project: Papercraft Fire Mario. Smashing their way through their previous papercraft foes, they meet up with their final foe: Papercraft Bowser. Destroying that, the three continued further as the Bowsers retreated while keeping the group busy with the impending threat of Peach’s Castle being destroyed even further with everyone inside.

Getting through a gauntlet of enemies and a rematch against the Koopalings, the Mario Bros. and Paper Mario reach Bowser and Paper Bowser. The two Bowsers combine their powers together to form Shiny RoboBowser, but even that wasn’t enough to defeat the trio. The scuffle knocks Bowser into the summit of Mount Brrr, while Paper Bowser is forced back into the Paper Book.

Mario, Luigi, and Paper Mario return to Peach’s Castle, now restored, and Toadette celebrates with a victory parade that she and the Paper Toads have worked on. All the while during the parade, the loose paper soldiers found in each area were sucked back into the Paper Book. After the parade, everyone returned to the Paper World, perhaps more urgently with Paper Bowser wreaking havoc inside that world again. At the same time, Bowser was wreaking havoc for Mario and Luigi, making the two jump into action once again.

But during all that...

Paper Luigi took greatly to this new world, laying down in a beach chair at Twinsy Tropics and listening to some tunes.

Lore

Ever since the release of Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam in 2015, discussion about the canonicity of the Paper Mario spin-off series has been a heated topic, with the non-canon side of the discussion primarily being held by people who have not played the game. As has been repeatedly mentioned throughout the game's plot, the Paper World is a "parallel world" where the characters and events run parallel to eachother, identical to eachother. It would require a more complicated, not confirmed by official writing, solution to assume the events prior and after the game's events to not run parallel between the two.

On the topic of the Paper World, the book holding it is a great deal of speculation. It's sheltered in Peach's Castle, and yet Kamek at least had knowledge of the parallel Paper World beforehand. If this was a recent documentation or known for a long time, it brings further depth to the layered Mario universe ever since Super Mario Bros. 2.

Biologically, the introduction to the Trio Attacks adds a further malleability to the characters of Mario's universe, further showcasing their ability to be fully flattened via magic and/or hijinks.

Slavery is still present to captured prisoners of the Koopa Kingdom, with the captured Toads in Twinsy Tropics Dungeon being forced to mine for Fire Ore. This slavery was first introduced in Super Mario RPG with the Chained Kongs in Bowser's Castle.

Ever since the Fire Ore allowed Bowser's Castle to float up in the sky, this flight has been a consistent characteristic of the castle in future Paper Mario games, with the nextly released Paper Mario: Color Splash and Paper Mario: The Origami King keeping it consistent. The fact that this also happened in the Paper World leads even more credence to these events happening parallel between the two worlds. Roy and Wendy O. Koopa comment on the absence of their paper selves, Wendy answering that their versions are busy doing important stuff. The two are the leads behind the Fire Ore mining operation, so the retrieval of the ore and lift-off of the castle likely ran parallel as well.

Mapping

The close distance between Peach's Castle and Bowser's Castle is further cemented due to the spare amount of areas bordering the two castles; Sunbeam Plains and Doop Doop Dunes.

Character

A cutscene while Peach and Paper Peach are caged together results in the two sharing their frustrations of being raised a princess. While vaguely alluded to in earlier games, Paper Jam outright confirms Peach's need for variety in her life; despite her already liking her yellow hair and pink dresses, she's been wanting to cut her hair short, maybe dye it purple, and even try a maroon outfit. This need of excitement in her life has first been seen in Super Mario RPG, but you can trace this even further back with her competing in a dangerous karting tournament in Super Mario Kart.

Toadette is one of the characters given a larger focus in this game, responsible for gathering all the Paper Toads together to create massive Papercrafts that the Bros. can fight on. She affirms her independence by saying she's "tracked a treasure or two", meaning that her adventure during Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker has helped her gain more self-confidence in going on her own.

Bowser further shows his immaturity by admitting that he can't even work alongside a perfect copy of himself, saying that he's annoying him to no end. Kamek, previously Bowser's caretaker as a child, also further shows his lack of parental touch by convincing Bowser to become more evil by betraying his counterpart via trapping him inside the Paper Book and burning it.

Bowser is dealing with too much repressed insecurities that his first meeting with his counterpart resulted in the two fighting eachother because of their tough guy persona. By contrast, Mario and Paper Mario immediately became in sync with eachother by jumping and making poses together. The two Bowsers do become later in sync with eachother at the final battle, capable of combining their fire breath together and forming a papercraft battle suit. And yet prior to their battle, the two squabbled over who would take over the world, making their alliance only consistently temporary.

Paper Jam is a fine character study on the age-old question of working together with your counterpart implemented in the Mario universe.

Timeline

• Starlow appears, placing this title after the events of Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story.
• Toadette references the events of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, placing this game after the events of Super Mario 3D World.
• The Bros. attacks that Mario and Luigi had collected in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team were in storage in Peach’s Castle, placing this title after the events of that game.
• Luigi is concerned about Toadette fending for herself against the Koopa Troop, likely placing this title before he had gone on an adventure with her in New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe.
• Bowser’s Castle is given the ability to fly here thanks to Bowser’s use of the Fire Ore.
• Starlow mentions the Year of Luigi in the past tense, placing this title after the events of Dr. Luigi.
• King Boo appears, placing this title before he is recaptured in Luigi’s Mansion 3.
• Nabbit appears as an enemy of Mario & Luigi, but does briefly join them as an ally, possibly indicating this is a precursor to his turn towards heroism in New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe.
• In this title, the Paper Goombas have only recently discovered how to perform the Goomba Wheel move, as indicated by the fact that they don’t yet have a name for it. This places this title before the events of Paper Mario: Sticker Star and Paper Mario: Color Splash, as the Goomba Wheel is named in those titles.
• The Junior Clown Car appears to lack its defense shield, as Bowser Jr and Paper Bowser Jr merely duck within their Clown Cars to protect themselves, likely placing this title prior to the events of New Super Mario Bros. U and Paper Mario: Sticker Star.

See Also

• Theory: Paper Mario is Canon to Mainline