10 Video Game Endings With Disturbing Implications You Totally Missed

4. Mario Gleefully Killed All Of Koopa's Kids

It's been said before that some video game heroes aren't actually all they seem to be, and the little Italian plumber who finds himself locked in a perpetual loop of rescuing his promiscuous princess girlfriend from the evil clutches of Bowser/King Koopa is usually top of that list.

He smashes innocent (and mostly harmless) creatures on his way to storming Koopa's various castles, stealing coins and conquering lands under the ruse of rescue and vengeance, but we still love him. It's the moustache.

So when he triumphs over King Koopa and his horde of maniacal offspring in Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World we can briefly suspend our thoughts on why Koopa is so committed to stealing princesses if he has (or had) a wife to give him kids, to indulge in triumph.

But wait...

It's no surprise that Mario - an unskilled warrior, whose only apparent skills were honed by fixing toilets - is able to vanquish the Koopa herd with such ease, and so little remorse, given that all of them, apart from the Big Daddy himself, are children.

Whether they have been indoctrinated, or forced to fight out of some misguided dedication to their father, Iggy, Ludwig, Wendy and co are fatally unsuited to open warfare, and yet find themselves dispatched with glee by a little portly man who can't keep a tight enough rein on his girlfriend.

Mario should have set the child soldiers free, or at least gave them a bit of a spank and sent them packing, but instead, he kills them, and then needlessly explodes their castles, crushing their infant corpses for double the effect. He's never done that before, and even King Koopa was able to escape his attempts to kill, so why the over-zealous over-compensation now - when the opponents are kids?