Talk:Snowman (generic)

Paper Mario

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Let me ask you this: how does this design:

differ in any way from the lowest common denominator of either of these two so-called "consistent" designs?:

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Its bucket-hat not being askew? it having a watermelon-shaped head? Those seem rather minor. On that note, a certain other "Yukidaruma" also follows that design type, but we have it on a different page due to radical edgy localization:

Now granted, that fellow at least has skis (Oh wait!Media:Betamkart10.jpg). But my point is that this so-called "consistent" design really isn't (at least until Mario Kart DS... hello, "Crab!"), and cutting out when a design that is only negligibly different from it because it doesn't follow that (again) not-actually-consistent design is a double-standard. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 13:38, May 10, 2025 (EDT)

The Mario Kart DS snowmen are specifically an evolution of the Mario Kart 64 ones. That's apparent from their proportions, the titled hat, and the fact that they occur in a returning course. (I'm especially sold on the tilted hat.) That said, yes, they also seem to inherit some traits from the Paper Mario snowmen, such as the fact that their buckets are blue and their scarves are orange. The guideline that I proposed (but which has yet to be implemented) is meant to allow users the wiggle room to decide which instance of a subject is a generic stand-in for a real life concept and which is tied to an established Mario concept, so if the community finds that the Paper Mario snowmen are essentially just derivatives of the Mario Kart 64 ones, then they can be re-merged with the current Snowman article (no identifier). However, the way I see it, (a) buckets are a very common snowman headpiece, being widely observable even within the Mario series at the aforementioned Dr. Freezegood, the Jungle Beat Snow Men, and the Super Mario Galaxy sculptures; and (b) a thing inheriting a few design traits from another thing doesn't tie the two things ontologically, see the relation of Cheep Chomp with Big Bertha / Boss Bass. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 14:03, May 10, 2025 (EDT), edited 14:07, May 10, 2025 (EDT)

I'd honestly merge the Mario Kart snowmen with the generic snowmen tbh. Xiahou Ba^{(the Nasty Warrior)} 14:16, May 10, 2025 (EDT)

I think it's useful to have an article documenting the Mario Kart take on snowmen. For one, because it's established and consistent compared to all the other generic instances, which are all over the place design-wise. For two, there's always a chance that design starts appearing outside that series, and the way the Snowman page was previously set up, it would just obfuscate information for readers interested in that iteration. Furthermore, it's the only iteration of a snowman in Mario games to be promoted from interactive object to playable character--granted, that's really just Mario Kart World lazily repurposing assets, but hey, no matter how you look at it, a pile of snow can now win against Mario in a racing tournament. (On that note, I'd support splitting off the giant NPC in Snowman's Land since that's a fully realized character, not a "generic" snowman; I only migrated it here because there's no consensus on how it should be handled yet.) -- KOOPA CON CARNE 14:32, May 10, 2025 (EDT)

And yet the Super Circuit and Double Dash!! snowmen are absent, both of which came before MKDS codified the design. Admittedly, the latter is a mere background object rather than an obstacle, but the point stands. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 14:59, May 10, 2025 (EDT)

Yeah but even in Mario Kart it's inconsistent considering we have the more generic snowman in Snow Land from Mario Kart Super Circuit, which ended up using their 64/DS Wii design in the 8 Deluxe version anyway. Xiahou Ba^{(the Nasty Warrior)} 15:00, May 10, 2025 (EDT)

I also do have to ask: what makes a snowman "generic" or not anyways? With small birds, cows, dolphins, and penguins I can understand, as those are real animals that have a fairly consistent and distinctly non-realistic stylization in this franchise, but since snowmen are a construct, their appearance in real life is only limited by their builder's imagination and materials as well as the laws of physics - the former of which, at least, translates over to the snowmen here as well. Doc von Schmeltwick (talk) 12:55, May 12, 2025 (EDT)

The construct of a snowman—a snow sculpture built and ornated to resemble a person—is generic in its ubiquity, though. Regardless, I would agree that not all snowmen on this article fit the basic and common template of a snowman, like Jungle Beat ones, which use bananas for their body parts. I suggest using “miscellaneous” as an identifier to rectify this imprecision while still communicating how these instances of snowmen differ from all those other, more notable ones. Note that using “generic” as an identifier for these articles was explicitly not part of the proposal, so it can be changed. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 17:19, May 13, 2025 (EDT)