Nastasia

"I'm just gonna pencil you in for a ten o' clock brain washing, K?"

- Nastasia

Nastasia is a villain in Super Paper Mario, and is the right-hand woman of Count Bleck, the main antagonist of the game. Unusually for such a high-ranking adversary, though, and unlike the rest of Count Bleck's minions, she is never fought directly; instead, most of Bleck's minions were brainwashed by Nastasia's powerful hypnosis abilities. She can even use it to force people into doing things they would never contemplate in their right mind, most notably when she made Peach marry Bowser so as to allow the Chaos Heart to be created. She functions as if she is Bleck's secretary, trying to keep things running according to his schedule and relaying his orders, even going so far as to repeat them verbatim to give them emphasis. Like many of Bleck's minions, she is very close to her master, having pledged her life to him after he saved her some time before the events of Super Paper Mario. Bleck trusted Nastasia enough to let her know the story about his identity as Lord Blumiere and his lost love, Timpani. Her name is Greek for "She who shall rise up again", possibly a reference to her only falling unconscious from a deadly attack, or the story with the bat and the man. It is also a pun on the word "nasty" and possibly "Anastasia" or "Natasha".

Background
If the heroes go to Flopside and listens to Carson at the coffee bar, he will tell a story called "Of Bats and Men" (the title of which is a parody of Of Mice and Men). The story talks about a man searching for a girl he loved who is missing. While he is searching, he discovers a bat in a trap and sets it free. Later that night, while the man is sleeping, a woman whom he has never seen appears to him. In the story, it is said that the bat transformed into that woman and pledged, out of love, eternal loyalty to the man. No one knows what happened to them. It is heavily implied that the man is Lord Blumiere, the girl is Timpani, and the bat who transformed into the woman was Nastasia.

Nastasia first appears during Count Bleck's forced wedding between Bowser and Princess Peach. She brainwashes Peach and forces her to say "I do." The Chaos Heart appears and Luigi attacks it, causing an explosion that scatters Nastasia and the others about Castle Bleck. However, she soon teleports back into the room with the count and witnesses him open The Void.

At the beginning of Chapter 1, Nastasia informs her master of some dimensional travel and believes it is the legendary hero and suggests they get a "game plan" to stop him. O'Chunks goes to give him a "proper chunking," but fails. Afterwards, Nastasia sends Mimi to Merlee's Mansion to wait for the hero. When O'Chunks returns, Nastasia leaves him to think about his failure while she searches the castle for more members "Bowser organization" that haven't been brainwashed. She finds the Hammer Bro Captain and brainwashes him. Then she finds Peach and Private Koopa on a balcony. She brainwashes the private, but Peach is teleported away, much to Nastasia's chagrin.

After Chapter 2, Nastasia receives a memo from Mimi saying that she failed as well. When O'Chunks once again volunteers to chunk the hero, Nastasia forbids him to leave until he finishes his report on his previous failure, which she apparently assigned to him earlier. She then leaves to finish purging the castle. She encounters Luigi and two Goombas. She brainwashes one Goomba and the other joins her willingly. She then has her underlings hold Luigi down while she brainwashes him.

After Chapter 3, Nastasia listens to Dimentio's account of how he was bested by the heroes. She and Count Bleck decide it is time they sent "him" on the heroes. After Mr. L returns to Castle Bleck, Nastasia holds a minion orientation for her creation.

Before Chapter 6, Nastasia listens to O'Chunks sing an inspirational song about Count Bleck that she had him make up as punishment for his second failure. Mr. L and Mimi insist on having another go at the heroes, but she refuses to allow them to leave without the Count's approval and obediently waits for his return.

Later, Nastasia asks Count Bleck if he wanted to stop his plans before it was too late while he muses over whether Tippi could possibly be Timpani. He refused and offered to let her leave with his blessings. She, however, decided to stay, as she had sworn her life to him ever since he saved her. This is when Nastasia reveals to have feelings for Count Bleck, but does not want to attempt to reveal this to her master, likely because he is already very troubled by his past love experience with Timpani.

After the heroes collect the last Pure Heart, Nastasia warns the count that they will be coming to Castle Bleck. After the other minions leave, Nastasia once again tries to convince Count Bleck to close The Void, but he refuses to comply.

Nastasia was initially by the Count's side when he confronted Mario and Tippi in the center of Castle Bleck, but before the final battle with Bleck starts, he requests Nastasia to leave, a request she reluctantly obeys. After Count Bleck is defeated by the four heroes, a worried Nastasia warps back into the room; her worry turns into panic when she spots Dimentio firing a magical projectile at Bleck, a projectile which seemingly mortally wounded the hypnotic woman. However, she is later seen alive and well after the game has ended. When she learns of what the Count did to stop The Void, she starts crying uncontrollably. However, everybody still feels that Bleck and Tippi are still alive somewhere. Mimi and O'Chunks suggest that they build that perfect world that the Count had told them they'd make after disposing of the previous worlds. Nastasia, regaining her composure, agrees. After that, the player may find her on the third floor of Flopside, where she comments on her feelings for the Count, and decides that if she could not learn to love again, she probably never could have measured up to Timpani anyway.

Super Mario-Kun
Nastasia makes an appearance in the Super Paper Mario story arc of the Super Mario-Kun, volumes 37 and 38, mirroring her role in the game it is based off of. At one point, she breaks the fourth wall by holding and reading the Super Mario-Kun volume itself.

Physical appearance
Nastasia has blue skin and magenta hair tied in a bun. She wears a business uniform, showing her apparent status as Count Bleck's secretary. She wears glasses of the horn style. She is almost always seen with a neutral expression on her face, but sometimes shows emotion when she is alone with Count Bleck. She appears to be holding small discs in her hands, though these may just be part of her hands.

Powers and abilities
Nastasia has powerful hypnotic abilities. She seems to use her power by lifting her glasses, upon which a white glow flashes and the subject she wishes to hypnotize is instantly under her control. Therefore, it could be argued that she wears the glasses to control her power. It can be noticed that they are only seen open once. The player gets a glimpse of them when Nastasia is crying over Count Bleck and she rubs her eyes under her glasses. They are seen closed after being knocked out by Dimentio, and she quickly dons her glasses before opening her eyes when she wakes up. Notably, the hypnosis she uses may sometimes cause physical changes in the victim, such as hypnotized Koopa Troopas donning dark glasses and spikes around their neck or Luigi changing both his clothing and his personality after turning into Mr. L.

Personality
At first, Nastasia appears to be an emotionless henchwoman to Count Bleck. However, she later reveals that she is somewhat troubled by the count's plans and wishes he would close The Void and become Lord Blumiere again, but she is too loyal to try very hard to convince him or to leave his side.

Trivia

 * Before the game's initial release, there were artworks of Nastasia and Tiptron floating over her, suggesting that she was Nastasia's personal Pixl, but in the game, they don't necessarily encounter each other at all.

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