Dimentio

"Master of dimensions... Pleaser of crowds... I am... Dimentio!"

- Dimentio

Dimentio is the true main antagonist in Super Paper Mario. His name is a pun on "dementia" and "dimension". Like Mario and Mimi, he can flip between dimensions, but he can also manipulate them (an ability he shares with Merloo) and controls Dimension D, which he designed. Skilled in duplication, teleportation, and invisibility, Dimentio is initially one of the four main minions of Count Bleck (the central antagonist of the game), along with O'Chunks, Mimi, and Nastasia. However, over the course of the game, Dimentio eventually reveals himself to be the real villain, using his former master merely as a way to further his plans to obtain the Chaos Heart and use its power for his own agenda. He has another form known as Super Dimentio, which serves as the final boss in the game. According to The InterNed, his theme is called "Dimentio, Charming Magician" and his battle theme is called "It's Showtime".

Super Paper Mario
"Now...Ladies and gentlemen...Get ready for the greatest magic show you'll ever see!"

- Dimentio

According to Carson, Dimentio approached Count Bleck on his own, wishing to join him. While he was turned down once, he was hired after Bleck read about someone having a similar role in the Dark Prognosticus. Any other information related to his past is limited and contradictory. Regardless of his exact role in the Prognosticus, Dimentio quickly became involved in Bleck's attempt to fulfill it, if only for his own ends.

Dimentio is first shown at a meeting between Count Bleck and his other minions, not contributing until Nastasia mentions the appearance of the possible hero of prophecy (Mario). He decides to go to Yold Desert with O'Chunks to see this hero for himself, though he doesn't meet him until moments before he uses magic to force Fracktail, the robotic guardian of the second Pure Heart, to attack Mario. After Fracktail's defeat, Dimentio realizes that Mario may actually be the hero of prophecy and initiates a secret plan.

Dimentio soon learns that the prophecy tells of four heroes rather than one and concludes that Princess Peach, involved in the creation of the Chaos Heart, will be the second hero. He warps her from Castle Bleck (where she is held captive) to Flipside so she can join Mario. Dimentio likely does something similar with Bowser, who wakes up in The Bitlands with several of his minions, although it is never explicitly stated or shown. Eventually, after Mario and friends defeat O'Chunks and Mimi, Dimentio is sent to get rid of the heroes. Instead, he tests their strength by fighting them in Dimension D. After beating him, Dimentio states that he expected the heroes to beat him, returns them to the Dotwood Tree, and leaves. A scene is then shown of him muttering to himself about assisting the heroes and helping them to become strong enough to defeat Bleck. Upon his return to Castle Bleck, Dimentio learns that Luigi is the ideal host for the Chaos Heart's power. After eavesdropping on a conversation between Bleck and Nastasia, Dimentio travels to The Land of the Cragnons to meet an "acquaintance," implied to be King Croacus IV, and obtains two Floro Sprouts, testing them when O'Chunks is ordered to defeat the heroes there. Before the fight begins, Dimentio warps O'Chunks to Dimension D, increasing the latter's strength. Once the heroes defeat him, a Floro Sprout manifests on O'Chunks's head, causing him to become Dimentio's servant, as well as powering him up. After they defeat O'Chunks, Dimentio is certain that Mario and his friends are almost ready to confront Bleck.

With functional Floro Sprouts in his possession, Dimentio next plans to unite the fourth hero with the other three. Luring Mimi and Mr. L to Sammer's Kingdom in order to distract the heroes, he waits until the dimension is obliterated by The Void, the heroes return to the kingdom in search of its Pure Heart, and Mr. L engages them in combat. Capitalizing on Mr. L's defeat, Dimentio uses magic to release Luigi from Nastasia's hypnosis and send him to The Underwhere, where those whose games have ended are judged. Dimentio then tracks Mario, Peach, and Bowser to Flipside and repeats the performance, indirectly allowing Mario and his friends to repair the Pure Heart and eventually return to the world of the living. To cover his tracks, Dimentio meets with Bleck and informs him that Mr. L has joined the heroes.

As the heroes gather the last Pure Heart, Dimentio finalizes his plans. He begins by informing Bleck that Tippi uttered the name "Blumiere," knowing that Bleck would be weakened by what that name meant (namely that his lost love, Lady Timpani, is alive rather than dead as Bleck had assumed). Next, taunting Mario and Luigi as they travel through Castle Bleck, Dimentio manipulates the reflections of the castle mirrors and creates hundreds of clones to confuse the duo as he shoots energy blasts at them. When they finally confront him, he initiates a game of "magic tag," making the brothers chase him through every dimension they visited during their quest. Once the chase is over, he reveals his intentions and offers to have Mario and Luigi join him in defeating Bleck, when in actuality, he plans on enslaving them with Floro Sprouts, as shown if the player accepts his alliance. After Dimentio explains how he's been "helping" the heroes the whole time, Tippi realizes that Dimentio is untrustworthy and encourages the brothers to refuse. They do so, and Dimentio insults Luigi, who then decides to attack Dimentio alone.

Luigi fights and beats Dimentio only to be trapped in a magic force field with him. Under the pretense of ending his and Luigi's games, Dimentio uses magic to plant a Floro Sprout in Luigi's subconscious and waits for Bleck's defeat. Dimentio then attempts to finish off his master, but his attack is blocked by Nastasia. Dimentio triggers Luigi's Floro Sprout, turning him back into Mr. L. He then merges with Luigi and the Chaos Heart to form Super Dimentio, simultaneously sending Bleck, Tippi, and Nastasia to Dimension D, declaring his intention of torturing Bleck after he is finished with the remaining Heroes of Light. Armed with the power of the Chaos Heart, Dimentio remakes Castle Bleck in his image and battles the remaining three heroes for the fate of all worlds. Believing the energy of the Pure Hearts exhausted during their use in the fight with Bleck, Dimentio is about to defeat the heroes when his plans are interrupted by the reemergence of the Pure Hearts, born out of the love and loyalty Bleck's minions have for him.

The combined power of the Pure Hearts makes Dimentio vulnerable, and he is eventually defeated. Uttering his signature "Ciao!" for the last time, Super Dimentio spits out Luigi and the Chaos Heart and then explodes, still laughing. It is quickly revealed by Bleck that despite this, Dimentio left behind "a shadow of his power" to continue controlling the Chaos Heart. With time running out, Count Bleck announces that the only way to destroy the Chaos Heart is through true love. He and Tippi exchange vows at the same altar where Peach and Bowser were married and where the Chaos Heart was created, activating the true potential of the Pure Hearts and completely destroying the Chaos Heart. Dimentio's plans are thus permanently undone as the dimensions consumed by The Void return to normal.

Super Mario-kun
Dimentio makes an appearance in volumes 37 and 38 of the Super Mario-kun manga, in the story arc based on Super Paper Mario. Since the arc is based upon the story in Super Paper Mario, Dimentio's role in the manga mirrors that from the game.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Dimentio appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as an Advanced-class Grab-type primary spirit that takes up three slots. When used, it reduces the player's weight. His fighter in the spirit battle is Meta Knight, with a giant Luigi as his reinforcement, referencing Super Dimentio. The battle takes place on the Paper Mario stage.

Physical appearance
Overall, Dimentio looks like a jester or harlequin. He primarily wears a cap and cape with purple and light-yellow stripes, with the purple striped portions of the cap containing jingle bells on each end. Underneath the cape, he has two black hands separate from his body, as well as black pointy-ended shoes. While levitating, he bends his shoes and tucks his black hands underneath his cloak. His face is stylized after a theatrical mask, split in half so that the right side is white and the left side is black. The eyes likewise are differently colored: black for the right eye, and yellow for the left. His mouth is colored red and usually set in a grin.

Powers and abilities
Dimentio, being a magician, is capable of many special abilities and powers. Dimentio is able to flip between 2D and 3D and cross between worlds. Dimentio has also created his own dimension, Dimension D, which is said to empower anyone within it.

Dimentio can teleport and conjure shuriken-like objects to shoot at his foes. He can also clone himself, though the clones are intangible. While cloned, Dimentio and the clones can shoot three magic shurikens at once. He is able to create a compact magic field around his victims in which he simply snaps his fingers, which causes several explosions within the field.

Dimentio's 'Warp', used by nearly all the villains at some point, also has its own distinctive animation and sound. A square expands then contracts on the teleporting object, making it disappear with a sound while a small shock-wave distorts the air around it. He is also able to fly and levitate, and is never shown walking at any point in the game, though his model does have an unused walking animation that can be found by hacking the game and replacing a walking NPC with him.

Personality
Dimentio initially appears to be a lighthearted villain, but also shows a psychopathic side. He is very mischievous, and gets most of his information by eavesdropping on Count Bleck and the other minions. He often speaks in a mocking or condescending manner and constantly smiles, only breaking his grin when hit in battle and upon defeat.

He has a very colorful style of speech, often throwing gleeful insults at the heroes throughout the game, and in the English version, using numerous similes. In the Japanese version, he instead peppers his speech with foreign phrases like "It's showtime!" and "Comment allez-vous?" He also has a tendency to bid people farewell with a "Bon voyage!" or "Au revoir!" ("Ciao!" in the English version).

Dimentio is intelligent and a skilled actor and trickster, being able to fool all of his peers into believing his loyalty is true. Dimentio is rather sadistic, taking pleasure in attacking his enemies and ending the games of Mario, Peach, Bowser, Luigi and even himself (though his game-ending explosions were not truly lethal and had only transported those caught in them elsewhere). He is also very arrogant, never believing there was even a chance of him failing to get his hands on the Chaos Heart.

Unlike Count Bleck and his other minions, Dimentio only cares about himself, having no qualms about recreating the universe in his own "perfect" image regardless of the consequences, and he only tolerates or values people on the basis of how useful they are. Dimentio initially feigns a mutual respect for Mario and the others, but he decides to end their games with the exception of Luigi, because at that point he was the only one of any use to him. When he openly reveals his disloyalty to Count Bleck near the end of the game, he appears to be angry at the count's intentions to wipe out existence and leave it in ruin; it soon becomes clear he was only acting in order to coerce Mario and Luigi into joining him, and because he wished to have the Chaos Heart for himself. In addition, when ultimately defeated, he was perfectly willing to destroy all of existence beyond repair post-mortem if he could not rule over it out of pure spite, even leaving behind a shadow of his power to ensure the Chaos Heart can exist long enough to achieve this purpose.

Quotes



 * "And so I arrive, like a sudden windstorm at a kindergarten picnic!"
 * "Ah ha ha. Finally, you arrive!"
 * "Yes, yes, no one likes the icky stuff... Yessss... A perfect world... Sounds magical!..."
 * "It would be so very DULL if your journey ended so easily... Instead, it ends with...magic!"
 * "It is truly enchanting to finally meet my hapless victims."
 * "You must be Bowser. I knew the moment I saw the flailing nubbins you call arms."
 * "Well met, lady. Your beauty is as refreshing as a slap to the face on a crisp winter day!"
 * "At last, the hero... I know of you from the festival of hair that dances upon your lip!"
 * "Now we must duel, like two gleaming banjos on a moonlit stoop!"
 * "Can you pierce this...illusion?"
 * "Your blows are like miniature jackhammers wielded by tiny, angry road workers!"
 * "The next time we meet, you will feast on a deadly eight-course meal!"
 * "I am not violent by nature, you know. I'd prefer to settle this peacefully, in fact."
 * "Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Again, for dramatic effect! AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA."
 * "You've proven to be worthy foes in the past, so I'm not going to make it easy."
 * "I'm saying that you no longer have value to me, so I'm ending your games."
 * "And so I strike, like an unseen dodgeball at an echoing gymnasium!"
 * "Ciao!"

Trivia

 * In the English localization, Tippi seems to immediately recognize Dimentio upon first encountering him. However, in the original Japanese script, her reaction is more ambiguous, simply affirming that Dimentio is one of the count's minions.
 * Dimentio has unused animations for both walking and running in Super Paper Mario. These animations go unused as Dimentio is always floating in the air while moving.
 * In Chapter 8, when confronting both Mario and Luigi, Dimentio insults Luigi by calling his mustache a "shag" in the NTSC English version, but as this doubles as a vulgar slang term in British English, it was changed to "pushover" in the PAL English version.