Sir Grodus

"Yes...correct!!! I am the supreme leader of the Secret Society of X-Nauts! I am Grodus!"

- Sir Grodus

Sir Grodus is the supreme leader of the extraterrestrial organization called the Secret Society of X-Nauts and the main villain in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. The organization consists of X-Nauts, a band of thugs determined to capture the Crystal Stars before Mario so they can dominate the world with the treasure behind the Thousand Year Door. He kidnapped Princess Peach to use her as an offering to the treasure behind the Thousand-Year Door, the 1,000-year-old demon, the Shadow Queen.

Background
Prior to the start of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Grodus learned of the 1,000-year-old demon beneath Rogueport from the Shadow Sirens. Using this information, Grodus began his plans to find the Crystal Stars and used them to revive the demon and use its power to conquer the entire world. He learned the location of three of the Crystal Stars, one in Hooktail's Castle, one in the Great Tree, and one in the sewers of Rogueport. The Shadow Sirens also provided him with additional information, including the essential need for a pure maiden to give the demon a host to regain a physical presence. The X-Naut organization eventually came into possession of the Magic Map's treasure chest, but Grodus was unable to open it due to his evil and tainted ambitions. He then decided to use the chest as a way of finding the pure maiden.

''Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Throughout Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Grodus remained leading the operations at his fortress on The Moon, sending out Lord Crump or the Shadow Sirens to perform his will. Grodus had already obtained one of the Crystal Stars found in the Rogueport Sewers, which was under tight security in the Fortress. With this valuable treasure in his possession, Grodus sent the Shadow Sirens to find a pure maiden for his plans. Beldam, the leader of the Sirens did so by disguising herself as a merchant and searched for people in Rogueport who are capable of opening the container that holds the magic map. The reason for this was that the X-Nauts desired the map as well to show them where to find the remaining Crystal Stars, and since the container could only be opened by one pure of heart, finding the maiden could accomplish two things at once.

Plans and Operations
Beldam eventually found a pure maiden who turned out to be none other than Princess Peach. Beldam attempted to abduct her there after she opened the chest, but there were too many witnesses and she had to find a more opportune moment. Peach in the meantime sent the map to Mario to aid her in the treasure search. Eventually, Grodus lost his patience and sent his organization to abduct her themselves. They went to Rogueport and abducted the princess while in a back ally in the run-down town. She was taken to the X-Naut Fortress, but did not have the Crystal Star map, much to Grodus's disgust. Hoping to gather more information on the Crystal Stars, Grodus sent Lord Crump back to Rogueport to gather any people with this possible information. Lord Crump began to interrogate people in Rogueport. When he came across Goombella, he attempted to abduct her as well. Mario, who had just arrived at the town at the request of Peach, intervened and saved the Goomba.

One of Grodus's earlier plans was initiated when he sent his armies to the Great Tree to steal the Crystal Star that was hidden there. Upon arriving, the X-Nauts took complete control of the tree and constructed several technological advancements that made the tree nearly impenetrable. The tree was ridged with explosives, supposedly to destroy the Punies and their tree once the Crystal Star was found, and all the Punies were captured, interrogated, and imprisoned. Forming an alliance with the Jabbies, the X-Nauts searched for the Crystal Star, promising the Jabbies that they would give them the tree if they helped in the search.

After failing to acquire any more information on the Crystal Stars, Lord Crump reported back to his master, Sir Grodus, who began setting his plans in order. Grodus was first shown in the game interrogating the princess about the whereabouts of the map to the Crystal Stars. Though she refused to say anything at first, she lets out a vital detail when one of Grodus's followers reports. The X-Naut reported that a figure in blue overalls, a red cap, and mustache obtained the first Crystal Star from Hooktail. Peach uttered Mario's name and this indicated to Grodus that Mario has the map. He sent her back to her holding room and begins making his plans and gathers all available information on Mario.

Grodus eventually sent Lord Crump to the Puni Tree to speed up the search and also sent the Shadow Sirens to steal the map that showed the locations of the Crystal Stars from Mario. Mario, however is much more than Grodus anticipated and defeated both the Shadow Sirens and Lord Crump. He was also able to destroy the X-Naut's control over the Tree and obtains the second Crystal Star as well. Infuriated, Grodus was left to spend more time to concoct another scheme to stop Mario. After Mario successfully obtained the third Crystal Star, Grodus once again called upon the Shadow Sirens to make another murder attempt at Mario and his partners. They followed Mario to Twilight Town and attempted to kill him using a Superbombomb. They failed miserably in this task, never even finding or facing Mario in battle due to Beldam's incompetence and tendency to blame her mistakes on Vivian. Vivian in turn left the group to join Mario and was later replaced with Doopliss, a trickster who may be indirectly involved with the X-Naut's plans.

TEC-XX monitored Peach's imprisonment. TEC was the base's computer and Grodus designed to be "the perfect computer". Grodus instructed TEC to keep an eye on Peach; little did he know that this would turn out to be a major mistake. TEC, despite being a computer, fell in love with Peach. Despite TEC being unaware of what love was at first, he quickly learned that he had feelings for Peach and helped her gather data to learn all of Grodus's plans. On one occasion Peach is asked to disguise herself as an X-Naut and ask Grodus why Peach was being kept at the base. Grodus nearly learned of her disguise, but she rushed away before he could get any closer. Grodus apparently was too busy by his destructive desires to monitor TEC himself. Eventually, Grodus learned that the seal on the Thousand-Year-Door was weakening. This delighted him, as the power of the most evil spirit to ever befall the planet would soon be his. He revealed his full intentions here to completely destroy the world and remake it in his image. He explained his goal as "A world made by [him], about [him], and for [him]!"

As more of Grodus’s plans failed, he sent Lord Crump to obtain the fifth Crystal Star. This Crystal Star would be found on a tropical island said to be haunted by the spirit of Cortez. Crump finds out that Mario has assembled a crew for the voyage and so, disguises himself as a sailor named "Four-Eyes" to join the crew. While his disguise is incredibly obvious, to the point of Crump threatening the player not to tell Mario, everyone is fooled into believing he is a harmless crew member eager to help out in their voyage. When they eventually arrived at the island, Crump waited for Mario to defeat Cortez and obtain the next Cystal Star. Once he did, Crump attacked the island using an X-Naut ship and revealed himself to the rest of the crew. Mario however was able to get Cortez to help and they were able to defeat Crump who soon retreated.

When Grodus learned of Lord Crump's third defeat at the hands of Mario, he sent his new follower, Doopliss, to sabotage the Excess Express, a train Mario was taking, and kill all onboard to stop Mario once and for all. The plan was to disguise himself as Zip Toad, a famous star, and create a concoction that would immobilize the entire train. This would be accomplished by stealing Honey Nitro Syrup, which one of the passengers was carrying, and combine it with the calcium of a sea shell and a bit of gold. The Shadow Sirens in the meantime were sent to retrieve the sixth Crystal Star while Doopliss took care of Mario, but many complications rose in the plan. Mario, with the aid of a detective penguin known as Pennington, was able to stop Doopliss and discover his disguise. Doopliss however was able to escape and Beldam decided to take another plan of action.

Sneaking into the abandoned station at Riverside, Beldam flipped the switch that controlled the lowering of the Riverside Bridge and stranded the train at the station. Mario was able to get into the station and flip the switch back, but this allowed the Smorg, an experiment of the X-Nauts, to board the train. The next day, they attacked the train and abducted all the passengers, only to be destroyed by Mario. With the passengers saved and the train secured, the train arrived safely at Poshley Heights and Mario obtained the next Crystal Star. The Shadow Sirens believe to have stolen the real one, but it is later revealed that they only took a decoy. Peach and TEC in the meantime were able to make a complicated plan to obtain Grodus' data disk that outlines all the aspects of his plans. With this in his possession, TEC is able to learn everything and ultimatly prepared to have Peach escape.

When Grodus' latest plot failed, Mario had all but one Crystal Star in his possession. Grodus decided to go in a different direction in his plans. One of his followers tells him that TEC-XX has been letting Peach in and out of her cell and even has been hacking into other files that he was forbidden to go into. Grodus shuts down TEC-XX just as the computer prepared to let Peach escape after he learned of TEC's treason and was secretly helping Princess Peach. He then takes the Princess to the Thousand-Year Door, leaving his base of operations and the seventh and final Crystal Star under the command of Lord Crump. However, unknown to Crump, Grodus had secret plans in mind: even if his minion lost, Grodus knew he could trick Mario into opening the Thousand-Year Door for him. When Mario defeated Crump, obtained the last Crystal Star, and left the X-Naut fortress to self-destruct; Grodus had Doopliss abduct Professor Frankly and disguise himself as the old professor. In this guise, Doopliss was able to convince Mario to open the door. Once it was open, Grodus entered and waited patiently for Mario in the Palace's throne room.

Final Confrontation
After Mario and his pals confront Grodus in the Palace of Shadow, Grodus reveals he tricked Mario and company into collecting the Crystal Stars to open the Thousand-Year Door. Grodus engages Mario and his associates in battle, using various forms of magic and technology to aid him. Despite his powers, Grodus is badly defeated and weakened. Not accepting defeat, Grodus reveals Princess Peach imprisoned in a compact force field. Grodus, controlling magic lightning, threatens to murder Peach if Mario refuses to surrender. As Mario stands motionless, Grodus inflicts the lightning on Mario. However this plan fails, as the ceiling comes crashing down on him and Grodus is crushed by Bowser and Kammy Koopa who fall through the ceiling.

Mario is left with no choice but to fight both Bowser and Kammy, but this allows Grodus to escape to the Resting-Place of the Shadow Queen with Peach. Once Mario defeats Bowser and Kammy, he ventures to the lowest room in the Palace, the resting-place of the demon, the Shadow Queen. Here, Grodus reveals his reason for kidnapping Peach. He needs a pure maiden for the demon to inhabit to regain a physical presence and Peach served as the perfect candidate.

Declaring himself as the new ruler of the world, Grodus summoned the Shadow Queen, presenting Peach as a vessel for the Queen's spirit. The world is literally plunged into darkness as the demon returns to the world. The queen is initially surprised that Grodus is the one who brought her back, but nonetheless is satisfied with Grodus's offering of Peach as a vessel. Once the queen completely gains control of Peach, Grodus attempts to command the Shadow Queen to kill Mario and his companions. However, the Queen is not one who takes orders and it is revealed that Grodus was tricked by the Shadow Sirens to resurrect their Queen. As a result, the Shadow Queen zaps him with lightning, destroying his body.

Grodus is shown to be still alive, although barely, as a head. The queen strikes his head which sends him to unknown parts. The Shadow Sirens, actually old followers of the Shadow Queen, arrived and revealed that they told Grodus he could control the demon after resurrecting it. They did this in order to convince him to hunt down the Crystal Stars and open the Thousand-Year Door to revive their Queen after 1000 years. The Shadow Queen shows her true power and is eventually shown to be invincible. Attempting to coax Mario to serve her, the Shadow Queen prepares to conquer the planet once again. Fortunately, the power of Crystal Stars react to the evil in the area and are used to communicate the hopes of all the people Mario met on his journey to the heroic plumber. This eventually allowed Princess Peach to temporarily break through the demon's control and give Mario full power.

The Shadow Queen is soon vulnerable again and is badly defeated. The Shadow Queen is then destroyed and sent back to the Netherworld by Mario, undoing all of Grodus's plans and desires. Princess Peach is returned to normal and the Shadow Sirens retreat. Mario, his companions, and Peach return to Rogueport to celebrate in their accomplishments. After the Shadow Queen's destruction, the Shadow Sirens and Doopliss turn good and it is shown that Grodus was able to survive the second strike by the Shadow Queen. While Grodus is still alive, his head is the only active thing left after his body was destroyed. His head currently resides in Poshley Heights, with some of his forces, which consist of Lord Crump and four soldiers.

Personality
Like many Mario villains exclusive to the RPGs, Grodus's motives and origin are never revealed. While nothing is known about his past, Sir Grodus is presented as a serious, short-tempered, and emotionless villain bent on nothing but total world conquest. Grodus is completely devoted to taking control of the world and every action he performs is aimed at that goal. Taking his plans and operations extremely seriously, Grodus will stop at nothing to obtain his desires. Cruel and ruthless, Grodus is willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish his plans, even if it means taking innocent lives.

Despite being outwardly calm on most occasions, Grodus's desires often drive him to appear insane, even psychotic on some occasions. Whenever discussing the prospect of his plans, he goes off into a maddened laughter that becomes more and more frequent as the story unfolds. This can be seen as a true reflection of his obsession and just how desperate he is to rule the world and remake it into a "perfect world." When he is not laughing maniacally, Grodus is often seen giving orders and insults to his organization, seeing most of them as pathetic inferiors. He is shown to be very uptight and short-tempered throughout the course of the game, but gets more calm towards his associates when he gets closer and closer to unleashing the Shadow Queen.

Grodus has shown no form of emotion other than anger and bitterness, mostly directed at his henchmen for failing their many tasks. Grodus does not have any sympathy for his minions, seeing them as only pawns to be manipulated. He does not care for anybody or anything other than himself and would willingly take the lives of his own followers in order to insure his own benefit. This is shown when Grodus does not tell Lord Crump about his plans of Mario defeating him. Grodus appears to have as much compassion and sympathy for his own associates as he does for his enemies, showing mostly everyone around him as little respect as possible. Grodus also shows an extreme dislike for disobedience, as he demonstrated when he angrily demanded one of his soldiers to bring the Shadow Sirens to him (and not allowing him to finish his sentence in the process), as well as when he attempted to command the Shadow Queen. Grodus also sees Mario’s relationship with Peach as a weakness and was ready to murder Peach if Mario refused to surrender.

Along with stereotypical villain traits, Grodus is also shown to be highly intelligent. He is shown to be very skilled at technology for the simple fact that his fortress and all his equipment are constructed from technological advancements that exceed those found anywhere in the Mushroom Kingdom. His technology goes as far as manipulating magic and using it at his whim. Grodus also always thinks ahead and is never ready or willing to admit defeat. He always has backup plans in case his original plans fail. He is also very cunning and is always prepared for an infiltration, as seen by the puzzles and traps he sets up in his base. He has shown to be very manipulative, even to his own organization, in order to play out his plans exactly as he imagined them. This tactic often works and is primarily the reason why Grodus came so close to throwing the world into endless despair and chaos.

Grodus’s faults, which ultimately led to his demise, are his arrogance and overconfidence. He underestimated Mario’s abilities, especially in his battle with him, and believed that Mario could never overcome all the trials that have been placed before him. Grodus’s arrogance led to his ultimate defeat in which he attempted to command the Shadow Queen even after she displayed that she is not so easily controlled. This mistake led to the destruction of almost his entire body at the hands of the Shadow Queen and nearly killed him. Grodus remains alive because of the fact that his head is still intact. It is unlikely that he will return however as it is strongly hinted that he won't at the end of the game.

Powers and Abilities
"Meet your ends, you meddlesome fools! You will know my power!"

- Sir Grodus

Sir Grodus can create Mini-Yuxes called Grodus X. He requires 4 Grodus Xs to create a force field to protect himself. If a single Grodus X is destroyed, the force field breaks. However, Grodus's Defense is increased by 1 for every Grodus X that he has. Interestingly, Bobbery's explosive attacks can penetrate his Grodus X defense - as long as there are less than 4 Grodus Xs surrounding Grodus, and therefore no force field, Grodus will always have a defense of 1 against Bobbery's attacks. His main form of attack is the scepter he holds. Grodus is a powerful opponent because not only does he have an army and advanced technology at his disposal but he is also very adept at magic.

It is unknown how Grodus learned how to use magic, but he has combined in with his technology to make it adept to use. His scepter is the weapon in which he uses to conduct the magic. The magic seems to possess no limitations. With this weapon, Grodus is capable of shooting lightning, setting fire to his enemies, and freezing them.

It is possible that Grodus allowed the Shadow Sirens to infuse their magic into his technology as they all have the same powers his scepter possesses.

Quotes

 * Please see here for a full list of quotes.

Trivia

 * In Super Paper Mario, a novelist in Flopside (the inverted Flipside) wrote the script for the TV Show The Grodus Chronicles (a pun on "The Martian Chronicles"), apparently featuring Sir Grodus. Francis watches this show.
 * Grodus apparently carries Lozenges on him as he looks for one when he thinks that an X-Naut has a sore-throat, although it was really Princess Peach in disguise.
 * It is never clear if Grodus is purely a machine or has a more humanoid, or like the X-Nauts, extraterrestrial appearance. Regardless, his head is at least fully mechanical as it can operate on its own without the use of a body as shown at the end of the game.
 * Grodus's dialogue has an error within the game's script. If the player chooses "Don't attack", he will say "WORM! You dare defy me?!?", even though the player is doing what he said. Likewise, if the player chooses "Attack", Grodus simply tells Mario to stop his blubbering. The responses appear to be the wrong way round.
 * It is hinted in the game that Grodus was plotting to conquer the world even before his knowledge of the Shadow Queen. It is only after the Shadow Sirens arm him with this dangerous knowledge that he attempts world conquest through this method. It is unknown how many other schemes Grodus has made to conquer the world prior to the game if any.