this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2024
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You mean the cardboard character that's the counterpart to another cardboard character and that only exists because Wario needed a doubles partner in Mario Tennis? Even his name is an afterthought, why would Nintendo suddenly start caring enough to give him a game?
To be fair I don’t think any of the Mario characters have much in terms of character development
Waaaaaaaahhh-Luigi!
https://theemptypage.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/critical-perspectives-on-waluigi/
There is apparently a sequel post now as well.
I remembered about that post while writing my comment but couldn't find it. I didn't know the sequel but both explain the problem of Waluigi as a character, Nintendo sees him as filler and he's more useful for them as such. If they start fleshing him out he'll be less useful in other contexts... Which is also a apt metaphor for why conservative societies want people to fit faceless molds
I figured you might have read it, as your comment had evoked it for me.
I really like the reading of Waluigi as a kind of perfect symbol for our post-modern times. I don't think the article goes quite far enough. Mario is already a simulacra: a stereotype that doesn't really exist, certainly not anymore and never really did. So Waluigi is the reflection of an inverse of a simulation without a base reality.
It's very relatable, as you say, an apt metaphor for how our cultures treat the common person. Maybe the right Waluigi game isn't one that fleshes him out and brings him closer to the audience. Maybe something like Krusty's Fun House or Lemmings: burning through legions of Waluigis (1up mushroom clones? robots? one person somehow split into a multitude?) to accomplish trivial goals for Wario, the stand-in for the corporate overlords?
Waluigi is a Jean-Paul Sartre character -- defined not but what he is, but by the circumstances and how others view him
The names make a little more sense in Japanese as a pun; warui means bad, and Luigi is spelled Ruigi in katakana. So Waruigi is bad Luigi.
Ironically, using Ruigi for Waluigi in English (as Ruin+Luigi) would sound less lazy.
Because Waluigi is valid.
His name is what bothers me the most. It could have been as simple as Juigi. It sounds stupid, but not as stupid as Waluigi.