Talk:Lady Bow

(First topic)

I just realized in Paper mario ttyd Bow has a lighter shade. Same for spm. Is it because of better graphics or what....?
— The preceding unsigned comment was added by AGoombaAndaPikmin (talk).

Lady Bow → Bow?

I almost completely forgot about Lady Bow! I'm thinking just like Bobbery, Grodus and TEC, the name of this article should also go by what she is commonly called. I regret I didn't realize this earlier. She goes by the "Lady" title by most Boos but she'd also be referred to as such without it. -User:Jude da Dude 10:05, September 11, 2024

Depends whether "Lady Bow" or "Bow" is used more frequently, but even just glancing at the page makes it seem like "Bow" is probably more common. Of course, we should check more in-depth. Technetium (talk) 13:40, September 11, 2024 (EDT)

Actually, Bow (disambiguation) exists, which would mean Lady Bow would be changed to Bow (character). She is definitely called Bow more often, even in the SPM Catch Card (whereas Flurrie and Bobbery have their full names), but it might be better for her to stay an exception. Technetium (talk) 15:02, September 15, 2024 (EDT)

Not necessarily. According to MarioWiki:Naming, "If there is one subject that is clearly more likely to be searched for or linked to than the other(s), then the prominent subject will keep the original title while the rest use identifiers.", and I'd say that could apply to Bow, especially since Bow already redirects here. Blinker (talk) 16:24, September 15, 2024 (EDT)

Coming back to this, it seems the reason she's sometimes called Bow and sometimes Lady Bow in the original Paper Mario is that in Japanese she's sometimes called レサレサ and sometimes レサレサおじょうさま. The latter isn't really a name though, so moving to Bow could make sense. The only issue is the Catch Card, but SPM has some issues with consistency with the first game anyway (ahem, Merlumina). Blinker (talk) 10:52, February 26, 2025 (EST)

Catch Card doesn't really matter here anyway considering it also uses full names for Flurrie and Bobbery, and those were moved regardless. Good point with the Japanese though! Technetium (talk) 16:18, May 26, 2025 (EDT)

Move to Bow

This talk page proposal has already been settled. Please do not edit this section or its subsections. If you wish to discuss the article, please do so in a new section below the proposal.

Keep as Lady Bow 12-15
Per the discussion above. Bow is more commonly used than Lady Bow and would fit with other article names (especially Paper Mario series characters) on the wiki. I was just hesitant before because I thought she'd have to be moved to Bow (character), but this isn't the case.

Proposer: Technetium (talk)
Deadline: June 9, 2025, 23:59 GMT

Support

1. Lady(?) Blinker (talk) Per proposal and above discussion.
2. Kaptainess Skurvy (talk) Per proposal (in a slightly feminine voice)
3. Sir Altendo (talk) Per all.
4. Lady Lady Technetium (talk) Changing vote again, per Blinker's comment. Accurately portraying the games and their intent (Bow being her actual name) is the point here, even if it is less recognizable. I don't think we should move Grape (character) to Madame Grape, for example. Also I stole "Lady" again.
5. Ladies & Ladies-adjacent Camwoodstock (talk) On third thought, changing our vote again, per Blinker and Technetium. Given the lack of a particle wins out, and just "Bow" is what is used in UI, we think this makes the most sense going forward.
6. Sir SolemnStormcloud (talk) Per all, especially Blinker.
7. Hewer (talk) I don't feel super strongly about this one given how often both names are used, but I think Blinker made a good case in the comments that "Bow" seems to be intended as her primary name and is the name used in most contexts. I guess it's also consistent with Flurrie and Bobbery lacking their titles, the former never having used it and the latter having lost it in a unanimous proposal with no opposition.
8. MiracleDinner (talk) I feel a little bit conflicted about this one since on the one hand Lady Bow is more unique and recognisable but I'm voting to move to Bow because based on the evidence it seems that Bow is intended as her name (and most importantly is how she identifies herself) and is primarily how she is called by other characters and the narrative game text, whereas "Lady Bow" is a title of respect that is mostly only used by Boos. Additionally, the move is consistent with Flurrie and Bobbery in the sequel.
9. Mr. Nelsonic (talk) Per all.
10. Lady(?) Tails777 (talk) Returning my vote. Moving to Bow is still consistent with characters like Bobbery and Grodus, both of which have only their names in menus. I also can see this being a parallel to Bowser, who is also called "King" or "Lord" Bowser almost exclusively in dialogue, while profiles and menus simply name him Bowser.
11. Rainbow Road Drifter (talk) "Bow" is used in the Super Paper Mario catch card, dialogue from Goombella in The Thousand-Year Door (and the remake), and the Brawl sticker. In her more recent appearances, she goes by simply Bow. Bow is also used when she introduces herself and in her bio from the original game.
12. Spencer PK (talk) "Bow" being used in system text, menus, and her own introduction she says, combined with other moves on the wiki that have happened (Flurrie, Bobbery, Grodus) place my vote here.

Lady Technetium (talk) Yep, I stole it from her (per proposal).
Sparkle (talk) A rather fabulous idea!
Ladies & Ladies-adjacent Camwoodstock (talk) If Bowser isn't on "King Bowser", and if Bobbery isn't on "Admiral Bobbery", there's no real reason for Bow to be on "Lady Bow". This is why we have the "Full Name" parameter in the character infobox, folks! Per proposal.
Lady(?) Tails777 (talk) Aye Aye, Captain (wait, wrong character)
Man Kirby the Formling (talk) Per Camwoodstock

Oppose

1. Rykituette (talk) This is the first time I have ever heard this character being referred to as "Bow". As someone who isn't really into Paper Mario, the few times I've heard this characters name, people always called her Lady Bow. The reason Princess Peach's name was never changed was because the word "Princess" is very commonly heard when people say her name. At least Bobbery was widely known as Bobbery so that change was acceptable. But for some reason, Bones Bailey was only called by his full name once and that's the official title of the page so I don't know.
2. Mario (talk) Not the most keen on several of these shortening proposals. I think Lady Bow is just more discoverable (and more immediately discernible) than "Bow" whose name is shared with other things.
3. Lady Ba (talk) Per all.
4. Lady Pseudo (talk) Per all, and per the rationale in Lady Sophie's comment.
5. Lady Sophie the 17th (talk) Per my comment below.
6. Lady Okapii (talk) Per all, particularly Lady Sophie.
7. PrincessPeachFan (talk): Per Lady Sophie.
8. Waluigi Time (talk) I'm already on record as disliking these shortening renames and the semantics behind them, but Lady Sophie's comment is especially important here - Lady Bow is used more frequently than Bow! That discounts the original reasoning of this proposal and I really don't like how much jumping through hoops is going on to handwave that. Yes, most of the characters that refer to her are Boos and have in-character reasons to use her title... but that still means a lot of dialogue uses "Lady Bow" and it should be expected that's what most players would know her as. Okay, apparently on closer analysis "Bow" wins out on pure numbers by 5 (out of over 70 mentions of her in the game), and considering it's pretty much an even split... yeah just let her keep it. Per Rykitu and Mario especially.
9. Sparkle (talk) Changing my vote. A not-so fabulous idea actually.
10. Man Kirby the Formling (talk) changing sides too
11. Lady Evie of the House of May (talk) yeah that was pretty convincing evidence
12. Sdman213 (talk): Per all.
13. Daita (talk) Bow has an article on Wikipedia, so why?
14. Lady SmokedChili (talk) Per all.
15. Power Flotzo (talk) Per all.

Lady Technetium (talk) Changing my vote, per Waluigi Time. I will note that I'm not cancelling this proposal though because the point of it is that there are people who want to move the page, so there's enough debate here to warrant a proposal. I made a couple other proposals where I'm voting in opposition for the same reason, after all. Still keeping the "Lady" title I stole though lol.
#Ladies & Ladies-adjacent Camwoodstock (talk) ...On second thought, given how we tend to treat particles in page names (read: currently, we only use them in page names if they are used more often than they aren't used, see Princess Peach or Lord Crump), we understand keeping the Lady for Bow. "Bow" should definitely exist as a redirect, though, and we're still ladies and ladies-adjacent.

Comments (I only just realized "Bow" can be pronounced as the gesture...)

i would like some actual evidence that one name is used more than the other before voting... — eviemaybe (talk / contributions) 17:28, May 26, 2025 (EDT)

From just the top of my head, Bow is used in: PM64 in-game bio, TTYD tattle, Smash Brawl sticker… Bow and Lady Bow are both used in PM64, and while Bootler does call her Lady Bow in TTYD, he's always calling her that in PM64. It's a character trait of his. Catch Card uses Lady Bow but it also uses Admiral Bobbery and Madame Flurrie. I'd check a text dump of PM64 to really make sure but I don't have one at the moment. Technetium (talk) 17:36, May 26, 2025 (EDT)

The following is a list of quotes that use the name Bow or Lady Bow in Paper Mario. Unfortunately, I cannot pin down who exactly says those quotes, but most (if not all) of them are Boos, and very few are Bootler specifically.

• "My name is Bow. I'm glad to finally meet you." - The lady herself.
• "I'm Bootler, the butler. I'm Lady Bow's humble servant." - The major-domo himself
• "This mansion has been passed down through the years by Lady Bow's ancestors." - Probably Goombario? Not a Boo regardless
• "This is the highest room in the mansion. I'm guessing it's Bow's room. She seems like the type to live in a huge room. When you look at this room, it's pretty obvious that Bow was raised by a really wealthy family of Boos." - Goombario area Tattle
• "Somebody told me... Bow can easily avoid all kinds of enemy attacks." - Another Goombario area Tattle
• "Maybe he was a merchant before he became a Boo. I bet Bow orders most of this." - Goombario character Tattle
• "They should all wear bows like Bow does." - Goombario character Tattle, again
• "This Boo is guarding a treasure chest. Bow told him to, I guess."
• "Mmwaah ha ha ha! Bow is such a harsh Boo, testing her guests like this..." - A Boo
• "Say hello to Bow for me." - A Boo, I think?
• "The Lady Bow will be very angry if we let him get it too easily, fellow Boos! Do your best, like we practiced!" - A Boo
• "Hee hee hee hee... Wrong! This is so much fun... Keep it up, Boos, or Lady Bow will make us sorry!" - A Boo
• "Oh! Noooo... Lady Bow gave me one job...to guard that treasure chest." - A Boo
• "Noooo! Boo hoo! You...You guessed right. Go on, take them. Oh Boo... Lady Bow's really going to flip out on us..." - A Boo
• "Dear sir... Lady Bow is very, very, very important to us Boos. Please don't let her get in any dangerous situations." - Bootler, I think?
• "Lady Bow told me not to sell any items to Mario. You're him." - Definitely Igor
• "Lady Bow is the very definition of grace, beauty and dignity! No other Boo could fill her shoes as master of the mansion. If she wore shoes, that is. When I behold the lady, my heart goes pit-a-pat!♡" - A Boo
• "Oh. Mario, how's Lady Bow doing? She's a fine, upstanding Boo and is very delicate, so you be sure to take care of her." - A Boo? Maybe Bootler?
• "Victoria loves me back! We're going to get married when Lady Bow returns here!" - No clue. A Boo?
• "I came here so I could see Lady Bow dressed up in all her finery. I know Princess Peach is beautiful, but... Lady Bow is even prettier!" - No clue, again
• "To tell you the truth, I'm crazy about Miss Bow. She's so arrogant...so very headstrong... I love it!" - A Boo, on the back side of the Toad Town News board.

Maybe I went overboard on the quotes, but there are a few more left. I'd also like to point out that the use of Bow almost always correlate to レサレサ (Resaresa), her Japanese name, while Lady Bow equally correlates to レサレサおじょうさま (Resaresa-ojōsama), which is her name alongside an honorific, being a very polite way to refer to someone's daughter (like "young lady" or "miss"). What I can tell from this is that most characters that refer to her are certainly Boos, and the vast majority of those use Lady Bow, in both Japanese and English. Besides the collective Boo-hood, The second character to refer to her by name the most is Goombario, who simply calls her Bow most of the time, in both Japanese and English. If you want to decide the name of the page based on number of mentions, I'd say it's probably 60% Lady Bow against 40% Bow (mostly just Boos vs Goombario here). — Lady Sophie ^(T|C) 18:07, May 26, 2025 (EDT)

I do think context is important with these kinds of things too, not just frequency. There's a difference between honorifics of respect and legit titles that are a part of someone's name. The former would be like, the Sour Bunch calling Grape "Madame Grape" out of respect but not others who aren't under her. Compare this to Lord Crump, who is called "Lord Crump" the majority of the time even by characters who aren't working under him or with him, the remake even editing a line from a random Jabbi post Chapter 2 (so after their alliance ended) to say "Lord Crump" instead of "Crump". And yeah, there's Princess Peach, but there's more warrant for that being her actual title since she is the leader of a kingdom and all... I'm making sense here, right? Technetium (talk) 18:23, May 26, 2025 (EDT)

No. PrincessPeachFan (talk) 08:55, May 27, 2025 (EDT)

I'd like to open another question regarding the results of this proposal. Currently, both the page's name and most of its NIOLs cover the name Lady Bow (I added the Japanese one myself). Is it necessary to also cover the Bow name separately? (See the original japanese name that was already there) Or should we just remove the first Japanese name (and probably correct the Chinese names)? — Lady Sophie ^(T|C) 14:38, May 27, 2025 (EDT)

Between the first two Paper Mario games, there's 37 instances of "Bow", 32 of "Lady Bow", 2 of "Miss Bow" and 2 of "Lady Boo". Additionally, all but one instance of "Lady Bow" come from Boo dialogue (The exception is Goombario's Tattle for Bootler, which uses just "Resaresa" in Japanese. A small oversight, perhaps?). On the other hand, the name "Bow" is used:

• In the UI (including "Letter to Bow from Bootler" and her character bio)
• By Peach in the ending
• By Goombario (and Goombella) in character Tattles for Boos, in enemy Tattles for the Duplighosts, Hyper Goomba, Tubba Blubba and Swoopula, and in area Tattles.
• By Bow when introducing herself
• By Boos, occasionally
• By the narration when Bow joins the party and at the end of the Chapter.

By the way, there was some confusion about the name used in the Super Paper Mario Catch Card, possibly due to my mistake in the previous discussion. The Catch Card also uses only "Bow". All in all, not only is the short "Bow" more common than "Lady Bow", but the latter is also mostly relegated to the dialogue of other Boos, where it is simply being used as a sign of respect akin to "Sir Grodus" or "Lord Bowser". In almost all other contexts, only "Bow" is used. Blinker (talk) 16:18, May 27, 2025 (EDT)

Hmm, my quick research on my text dump missed quite a few details, particularly because I overlooked the UI elements and enemy tattles, the former of which should have some significance to the name of a character. Regardless, I am keeping my vote because "Lady Bow" is by no means rare and it is certainly more recognizeable than simply Bow. — Lady Sophie ^(T|C) 20:49, May 27, 2025 (EDT)

@Rykitu I get where you're coming from, but I'd be surprised if this wiki calling her Lady Bow didn't have an influence in how people refer to the character. Besides, wouldn't you agree that these decisions should be made based on what is in the game itself, rather than on the way people talk about it? Blinker (talk) 17:17, May 30, 2025 (EDT)

@Daita What? Blinker (talk) 07:40, June 2, 2025 (EDT)