vovat | This Post Is the Pits!

As yet another indication that I have no life and devote too much of my brainpower to minor tasks, I've often wondered about the pits in the Super Mario Bros. series and other video games. When your character falls into one, he or she automatically dies. But what is it that actually kills them? I've heard rumors that the pits are bottomless, but if that's the case, how are they dying? If there's no bottom to hit, you presumably would stay alive until you starve to death, unless you die of shock. Or maybe you'd end up on the other side of the world, or burn in the molten core of the planet. If there IS a bottom, why would hitting that hurt, when falling out of the clouds to the ground doesn't? Are there spikes down there? Or are the pits actually wormholes to a dimension of instant destruction? What do you think?

I also have to wonder why Fire Flowers work underwater (are they GREASE fireballs?), and why Mario could originally breathe underwater indefinitely but no longer can. And how come you can only go down certain pipes, when plenty of others are big enough to fit into? Inquiring minds wants to know!

Speaking of Mario games, I might start re-watching my Captain N and the New Super Mario World DVD set pretty soon. Is anyone still interested in reading my reviews? I'll do a general post on the series regardless, but if no one has any desire to see my opinions on individual episodes, I might forgo them for the time being.