Hooktail

Hooktail
Artwork of Hooktail
First appearance	Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (2004)
Latest appearance	Super Smash Bros. Brawl (sticker cameo) (2008)

“Snack time, little appetizers! But which one of you morsels should I taste first?”

—Hooktail, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Hooktail is a dragon featured in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. She resides in Hooktail Castle, and serves as the boss of Chapter 1.

Description

Hooktail's battle sprite.

Hooktail is a large red dragon, with a cream-colored underside, jaw, and cheeks. She is female, although Mario and company do not know this until they confront Gloomtail in the Palace of Shadow. She has small red-and-purple wings on her back, and antennae resembling ponytails on her head. She has large red feet with purple claws, and her tail is light purple, thin, and forked into three parts.

History

Mario battles Hooktail

As explained by the residents there, Hooktail terrorized Petalburg for a long time, devouring many of its residents. Those who tried to stop her were ultimately devoured as well, including Kolorado's father and Koopley. However, her victims discovered that her weakness was cricket chirps, noting that she became nauseated and weakened upon hearing them.

When Mario visited the Thousand-Year Door and held the Magical Map aloft, the map revealed that the Diamond Star was located in Hooktail Castle. After progressing through it, it is revealed that Hooktail is the guardian of the Crystal Star, and Mario battles her to retrieve it. Wearing the Attack FX R badge in the battle against her will progressively weaken her attacks, making the battle much easier.

Upon defeat, she tries to bargain with the player. She at first offers 1,000 coins, then a "Really Ultra Rare Badge", and finally a chance to sniff her feet. All three are false offers, and she will attack the player if they accept any of them. After this, she eats some of the audience members, healing her by 10 HP and causing the rest of the audience to run away. Mario then defeats her, and she coughs up the missing Koopley after fainting. He then rewards Mario with the Diamond Star, which was trapped inside her gut.

Other appearances

Hooktail appearing in the Super Mario-Kun series.

Hooktail also appeared in Super Mario-Kun in issue 32 of the series, the Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door issue. In it, she attacks Mario, Goombella, and Koops. As this manga is based on the original Japanese game, she gets weak by a frog's croak rather than a cricket's chirp.

Hooktail appears as a Sticker in the game Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The sticker is usable in The Subspace Emissary by every character and increases resistance to fire-based attacks by 36 points.

Profiles and statistics

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Enemy
Hooktail
	Max HP	20 (+10 upon revival)	Attack	5	Defense	1	Location(s)	Hooktail Castle
	Sleep?	20%	Dizzy?	50%	Confuse?	50%	Tiny?	0%
	Stop?	0%	Soft?	0%	Burn?	100%	Freeze?	0%
	Fright?	0%	Gale Force?	0%	KO?	0%	Moves	Fire Breath (4, Piercing), Stomp (5), Chomp (5)
	Level	65	Exp. points	0	Coins	N/A	Items	None
Bestiary         99	Log	This giant dragon attacks by munching, stomping and breathing stinky, fiery breath. She hates things that make chirping noises, especially creatures that start with "cr-" and end with "-icket".
	Tattle	That's Hooktail! Max HP is 20, Attack is 5, and Defense is 1. It'll stomp and munch on you, and it has a more dragonish attack: stinky, fiery breath! It's tricky, especially when it's losing, and it'll try to fool you into being merciful. Oh, yeah, and one more thing. It hates things that start with "cr" and end with "icket". Supposedly, there's something related to that somewhere in this castle. Did we find it?

Super Smash Bros. Brawl sticker

Name	Image	Artwork from	Effect in The Subspace Emissary
Hooktail		Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door	[Flame] - Resistance +36

See also

• Bonetail
• Gloomtail

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning
Japanese	ゴンババ Gonbaba	From ウンババ Unbaba (Blargg), and possibly ドラゴン doragon (dragon).
Spanish	Gombaba	Taken from the Japanese Gonbaba, but with the "M" before "B" because, in Spanish, "N" does not come directly before "B".
French	Carbocroc	Pun on "carboniser" (burn, char) and "croc" (fang)
German	Lohgard	Portmanteau of "Lohe" (blaze) and the feminine name suffix "gard" (e.g. "Hildegard" or "Irmgard")
Italian	Crimilde	Portmanteau of "crimson" and the feminine name suffix "hilde".

Trivia

Hooktail as the Ender Dragon.

• There will always be eight Toads seated in the lower right seats in the audience.
• In some translations, like the Spanish one, Hooktail is actually male.
• In the files for the Super Mario Mash-Up Pack in Minecraft: Wii U Edition, there is an image of Hooktail as the Ender Dragon. The concept for Hooktail as the Ender Dragon was scrapped before release, where the Ender Dragon is Gobblegut instead.