According to the original set of instructions that came with Super Mario Bros. way back in 1985, when evil beset the Mushroom Kingdom, "The quiet peace-loving Mushroom People were turned into mere stones, bricks and even horse-hair plants". This means that all those blocks you were gleefully thwacking into oblivion actually contained innocent villagers - making everything you thought you knew about Mario into a total lie. The instructions even end saying you play as "Mario, the hero of the story (maybe)." Maybe indeed!