Theory: Jewelry Land's Location

Theory
Status	High Consensus
Author	Marhiin
Date of creation	September 1st, 2020

Abstract

Jewelry Land is situated just north of Grass Land, with the Dark Realm attached as a peninsula to the northwest of the Light Realm.

Arguments

• Argument 1: Stage 1 is known as Grass Land (Grassland Course in Japanese), and the west portion of Jewelry Land feature hills with eyes similar to those of Grass Lands overworld map. At the end of the game it is stated that Mario and Yoshi return to the Mushroom World, rather than the Mushroom Kingdom.

• Argument 2: Mario and Yoshi can seemingly walk to the Light Realm. When Mario and Yoshi are sent to Jewelry Land, they walk to the right (presumably east) from Peach (Pic 1). The cutscene only fades black without giving any indication that any other means of travel other than walking is used. Furthermore, after having fought Roy during a free fall from Stage 7 “Floating Castle 1”, King Fret speaks to Mario and Yoshi in front of similar hills seen during the journey to Jewelry Land. This speech could be assumed to take place below Floating Castle 1, i.e. close to Stage 1 “Grass Land”.

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  Pic 1

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  King Fret speaking to Mario and Yoshi

• Argument 3: Darkland is to the northwest. From the manual:

“The earthquake that resulted from the theft of the gems split the kingdom into two parts”

—Instruction manual, Yoshi's Safari

The manual features also Pic 4, in which Stage 7 “FC1” and Stage 5 “Spirit Mountain” is seen, as well as a dark sky. This dark sky can be assumed to hover over the Dark Realm, called Yami no Sekai in Japanese, which can be translated into Dark/Shady Realm. Given the fact that both the eyes of Stage 5 can be seen, as well as FC1, the dark sky must be to the nothwest. If the Dark Realm wasn’t a peninsula (as seen in Pic 3, option A), the earthquake would have pushed the Dark Realm into a place which would contradict the dark sky of the art in the manual (i.e. the only other canon source apart from the game itself). Thus, it must be Option B.

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  Pic 3

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  Pic 4