Talk:Shantae

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Okay, so MarioWiki:Coverage lacking in direct guidance on pages for non-Super Mario concepts that have appeared in Mario-related media, but I think precedence tells us Shantae has not had a major enough role in Mario-related media to have a page on Super Mario Wiki. This pages notes Shantae's only three appearances in Mario-related media, a microgame about her released for WarioWare: D.I.Y. and WarioWare: D.I.Y. Showcase, a outfit for Mii Fighters in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and as a Spirit in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Going in reverse order since I picked the wrong order to write this paragraph in:

• We can discount the spirit because no pages are created for the sake of a character's spirit appearance. They only get covered if there is an existing article about the concept that the spirit is. If we do start allowing spirit appearances to get articles, we're looking at the creation of 500+ pages for things like Bronto Burt, Terapagos, and Ninjara.
• We can discount Mii Fighter costumes for similar reasons. While we keep lists of all of them on List of Mii Fighter Outfits and List of Mii Headgear, we still wouldn't make an article entirely to cover a character's appearance as a costume. Well, unless we want Sans, Travis Touchdown, Vault Boy, and Cuphead articles on Super Mario Wiki. There's an argument for saying "technically, the costume makes the depicted character playable in one sense". I agree with that... but according to MarioWiki:Coverage this wiki is allowed to make selective decisions on what to cover and what not to cover from the Super Smash Bros. series, and this is one of the "nots".
• Lastly, the WarioWare microgame. This is probably the most awkward case, given that the WarioWare series does get full coverage on Super Mario Wiki, but I believe the wiki does not want to create a page for every crossover concept depicted in microgames. (We do keep the List of source media for Nintendo-themed microgames, but that's as far as we go aside from the microgames themselves.) I for the life of me can never find the source, but I recall wiki bureaucrat Glowsquid saying at some point that we shouldn't have an article about Empress Bulbax over the microgame Pikmin 2 (WarioWare: Smooth Moves). It was something about the throwaway nature of microgames, I think, that they mostly exist to be references and the concepts within microgames at no point directly interact with a Super Mario concept short of the bomb (WarioWare series) user interface element. I don't quite understand this, given that the microgames are all directly made by 9-Volt or characters in his circle and because the player is given direct control of these characters in a 100% Super Mario franchise game, but that seems to be the breaks. I would also point out that if we were allowed to make pages for these characters, I would expect a lot of pages like Arwing, Mach Rider, and Alear being created because of how high profile these characters are. (Mach Rider less so, but I'm low on examples given my next point) Moreover, if we did allow concepts from outside the Super Mario franchise to have pages for being in microgames, then why did we merge a number of pages into the List of fighters debuting in Super Smash Bros., List of fighters debuting in Super Smash Bros. Melee, et. al, pages? Little Mac, Ice Climbers, Pit, Olimar, and others have appeared in microgames and therefore should be allowed to have full pages. (They did have full pages, prior to this proposal creating the lists.) But they don't, and the only reason that can be true is because appearing in a microgame is too minor an appearance for a non-Super Mario concept to get a page.

In general, the Super Mario Wiki creates pages when the concept has at least one appearance meriting a page, which allows the wiki to document all their other appearances. This "ruling" I'm deriving is flawed in some ways, but it is what I perceive is currently how the wiki works, and all of Shantae's appearances are not ones that merit a page in part due to her status as a non-Super Mario character. So sadly, we are currently unable to have a page for Shantae. Salmancer (talk) 18:46, October 4, 2025 (EDT)