10 Defining Rules Of Iconic Characters (That Came Later Than You Think)

He's the greatest video game icon of them all. And, although he may take the occasional break for wacky go-karting escapades or to compete in the Olympics against a giant blue hedgehog, he has spent the better part of forty years dedicatedly rescuing a princess from one castle or another.

He may be an ordinary blue-collar plumber, but in his devotion to questing through fantasy lands to save Princess Peach, Mario is dedicated to the rules of chivalry in the classic medieval sense. Certainly he would never intentionally be mean, cruel or abusive.

In his original appearance in 1981's Donkey Kong, however, Mario was a carpenter whose mistreatment of the titular giant ape was enough to push the gorilla over the edge. It was what caused Donkey Kong to run away and kidnap Mario's girlfriend Pauline (not a princess).

The sequel, Donkey Kong Jr, even went a step further, making the cruel moustachioed overall-wearer into a full-on big bad, the final boss that the heroic ape had to defeat to rescue his caged father.

Animal abuser Mario didn't last. By 1983's Mario Bros he was still fighting animals in New York, but this was more because they were menacing sewer monsters than because he was a bad pet owner.

Finally, with the NES game Super Mario Bros in 1985, our hero became the noble plumber-adventurer we know today, questing to rescue the princess and save the fantasy kingdom. Not that Mario's new chivalric code meant that he completely left the violence toward animals behind, given how destructive he can be to the Mushroom Kingdom's ecosystem.