If you’re familiar with the world of Mario, then you know very well that Princess Peach (formerly known as Princess Toadstool) is continually getting kidnapped. Sometimes it’s not Bowser himself doing the kidnapping, but in that case, then it’s one of his children or underlings.
Either way, Princess Peach is kidnapped pretty much regularly, and there’s not much you can do to stop it. Just be prepared to rescue her again and again if you plan on playing through all the Mario games that exist out there! But why does Bowser kidnap Peach? Well, there have been several reasons, we’re exploring some of the strangest ones.
10 Bowser Jr. thinks she’s his mom
Bowser Jr. gets his chance to kidnap Princess Peach in Super Sunshine Mario. But it’s for a strange reason. Apparently, Bowser told his son that Peach is his mother. That’s not a visual I ever needed to have in my head.
For people who thought that Bowser/Peach was just a pairing saved for the dark part of the internet, Sunshine Mario toys with the idea. Of course, we find out that Bowser was lying and Bowser Jr. knew that all along. His real motives for kidnapping Peach were to make his father proud. Couldn’t he have just drawn him a pretty picture or something normal?
9 Bowser plans to marry her
Super Mario Odyssey yet again has a disturbing theme when Bowser kidnaps Princess Peach with the intention of marrying her. Someone needs to teach that man about consent. He even buys the wedding outfits and everything and it’s Mario’s job to catch up and save Peach before she’s forced to marry the villain of the game.
I guess in this way, she actually would become the mother of Bowser Jr. Gross. It’s not entirely clear how Bowser manages to kidnap her this time around but he goes the whole nine yards in planning some big elaborate ceremony for the two of them.
8 To become the center of the universe
If you were ever unclear of how Bowser feels about Peach just consider the fact he literally places her in the center of the universe after kidnapping her in Super Mario Galaxy 2. All Peach wanted to do was celebrate a festival with Mario and share some cake but her nice is ruined when Bowser shows up.
He grows to massive size too after he eating magical stars and steals Peach away so she can join him in his new empire which he is building in outer space and intends to keep her imprisoned in the very center.
7 To ruin her birthday
New Super Mario Bros. Wii was released back in 2009 and the game was pretty popular, it even got a remastered version a few years later. It’s one of the many side-scrolling games in the Mario franchise. But yet again, Peach is kidnapped.
This time she is celebrating her birthday along with Mario, Luigi, Toad, and other members of the Mushroom Kingdom when Bowser and his Koopalings emerge from her cake and stuff her inside. They transport Peach away while caught inside of her own birthday cake. Surely that wasn’t the day she had imagined. Then it becomes your job to track her down by traveling across the many different worlds.
6 Give the Goombas some practice
We’ve already established that Bowser isn’t the only villainous character in the game who has kidnapped Princess Peach. But did you know she was once kidnapped by a dumb pair of Goombas? At some point it becomes a little bit absurd, don’t you think? Bowser kidnapping Peach is a little more understandable given his size and fire-breathing abilities.
However, Goombas are known as the bottom-rung of the ladder in terms of Mario’s many enemies. You typically encounter them in the lower level of games. But in Super Mario Maker, Peach is a small part of the game and she’s mainly there to get carted off by two Goombas for Mario to save her once again.
5 To revive Bowser
In the Nintendo DS game, New Super Mario Bros, Princess Peach’s castle is struck by lightning, of all things, by Bowser Jr. Yet again the younger Bowser gets his chance to kidnap Peach and he does right beside Mario.
The lightning strike serves as the perfect distraction for the young Bowser to swoop down and snatch Peach right from Mario’s side without him realizing in time. We find out later on that Bowser Jr kidnapped Peach for his dad who he attempted to revive by throwing his bones into a cauldron and bringing Dry Bowser to life in the eighth and final world of the game.
4 To rule over the entire universe
In the first Super Mario Galaxy game, Bowser actually abducts Peach and her entire castle with it. He picks her up with a massive UFO and sucks her right up into space. Later on in the game, when Mario is finally able to reach Bowser’s new universe, we learn Bowser’s plan is to rule over the entire universe and he intends to do with Peach as his queen.
Too bad she’d never truly been interested in something like that. To make matters worse, a supermassive black hole is opened up that swallows everything hole before a new galaxy is born.
3 So he can give his minions Squirrel Tails
Yes, you read that right. In Super Mario 3D Land, a beloved “Tail Tree” in front of Peach’s castle gets stripped of all its leaves during a heavy wind gust. In this case, the leaves are actually special leaves which can bestow the person who has them with special abilities.
Bowser’s goal is to steal the super leaves to give his minions squirrel tails and make them more powerful. He kidnaps Peach in the process. Actually, this might be the only game in the franchise where Bowser manages to kidnap Peach more than once in a single game.
2 To redecorate her castle
At least Bowser gets a little bit creative in New Super Mario Bros U. Instead of kidnapping Peach, he just holds her hostage in her own castle so that he can take over the Mushroom Kingdom and also redecorate the castle it looks more like an evil Bowser lair.
Bowser also has a giant mechanical robot arm in this game for some reason and he uses it as a way to physically remove Luigi and Mario from the castle whenever they get too close. When Bowser is finally defeated, the castle is returned to its former glory and all signs of the King Koopa’s decorative touches are removed.
1 To unleash a 1000-year-old demon
In, arguably, the best Mario game of all-time, Paper Mario and the Thousand-Year Door, Peach is kidnapped by the evil X-Nauts. There is actually a hilarious side storyline about Bowser attempting to hunt Peach down because he’s angry someone else kidnapped her before him.
That said, the reason the X-Nauts want Peach is because they know she was the one in possession of the map to the crystal stars. By finding all of the crystal stars, they will have access to the ancient magical door where a thousand-year-old demon dwells and for some reason, they want to unleash the eternal darkness on the world.
