Should Donkey_Kong_(series) imply the Main Mario Tag?

BUR #56354 has been rejected.

create implication donkey_kong_(series) -> mario_(series)

Potentially controversial BUR, initially brought up in this thread which tried to do the same with Wario forum #272449

Let's talk for a moment about tagging the two. Donkey Kong and Mario are treated a separate franchises by Nintendo despite the obvious overlap. Donkey, Diddy, and sometimes Funky and Dixie get to drive cars with Mario and friends in Mario Kart. Donkey Kong gets to party in Mario Party, and any time Mario has a sports outing like Mario Tennis, Mario Sluggers, Mario Golf, ect Donkey and a few other Kongs get to tag along

Official renders uploaded to Danbooru of these instances are usually tagged with the game they are from and not Donkey_Kong_(series) post #7928228 post #7938203 post #7952725, but sometimes both Mario and Donkey Kong post #703593 post #2481306.

What prompted this BUR is the fact that as I'm uploading Donkey Kong Bananza art I realized that if I ignored the Mario tag for images of just the Kongs I still need to tag Mario_(series) for Pauline because it is based on her appearance in Super Mario Odyssey, down to a reveal of New Donk City at the end. If every image featuring one of the main characters of this game needs the tag I think it's worth discussing if there should be a series implication. This also extends to Odyssey art of adult Pauline being tagged with both DK and Mario due to the arcade cabinet origins post #5277076 post #7548755.

What should be done here and is an implication the right call? In the Wario thread attempting to do something similar (which I still support) an admin asked

My knowledge of Warioware stops at porn of Ashley. Can anyone confirm that it's not something like apex legends vs titanfall (topic #17619)?

I haven't played Apex or TitanFall, but I will say for this series they DO share characters. Not all of them, plenty of Kongs don't make their way to Mario, but most of the big players have and I think most people who look at Donkey Kong would say "That's a Mario character" not "That's a Donkey Kong character."

I'm against this. While the two series are set in the same universe, they're still very much their own things. They are very closely linked due to both Mario and DK debuting in the same game, and characters from one series sometimes show up in the other, yet I'm hesitant to call one a spin-off of the other. Unlike something like Luigi's Mansion or Yoshi's Island, which include much more from the Mario series than just their title characters, the Donkey Kong series is a lot more original. DK, Diddy Kong, and a few others make plenty of appearances in side games like Mario Kart, but that doesn't make them Mario characters in my opinion, at least not fully.

I really think it's context-dependent. I wouldn't tag a group image of the Mario cast that includes DK with donkey_kong_(series) unless it was specifically referencing something from a DK game. Meanwhile, I wouldn't tag solo fanart of DK with mario_(series), since it's just Donkey Kong. Even a character like Pauline, who's just as much a Donkey Kong character as she is a Mario character, still doesn't always need to be tagged as both IMO. I wouldn't tag art of her Odyssey design with the DK tag, and I wouldn't tag art of her Bananza design with the Mario tag.

Both Yoshi and Luigi's Mansion feature characters and enemies who do not appear in the main "Mario" titles or are regulated to themed stages in spin-off entries like Mario Party and Kart. I agree DK has less enemies in the Mario games (I think only K. Rool shows up?) but given the main characters I see them all as equally falling under the Mario umbrella. Instead of arguing that point though I would like to cut into the final paragraph.

I really think it's context-dependent. I wouldn't tag a group image of the Mario cast that includes DK with donkey_kong_(series) unless it was specifically referencing something from a DK game. Meanwhile, I wouldn't tag solo fanartart of DK with mario_(series), since it's just Donkey Kong. Even a character like Pauline, who's just as much a Donkey Kong character as she is a Mario character, still doesn't always need to be tagged as both IMO. I wouldn't tag art of her Odyssey design with the DK tag, and I wouldn't tag art of her Bananza design with the Mario tag.

I think it's ridiculous to have a character named Donkey Kong and not have every image tagged Donkey Kong (Series) presumably if you are searching Donkey Kong (Series) you would want every instance of the main character. But you'll notice solo images of him are inconsistently tagged between DK and Mario I consider this a problem. I also think missing DK or Diddy because they are in a group shot from my series search is an issue.

I similarly find it ridiculous that Pauline is qualified with *_(mario) but if we a approached it like you suggest a search of Mario_(series) would miss her if she is tagged with her Pauline (Young) (Mario) design.

Ideally a character is given a parent series and that series always brings forth the character in question.

I shouldn't be finding post #5412679 in a search for mario_(series).

BUR #56361 has been approved by @nonamethanks.

create alias pauline_(mario) -> pauline_(nintendo)
create alias pauline_(young)_(mario) -> pauline_(young)_(nintendo)
create alias pauline_(modern_tennis)_(mario) -> pauline_(modern_tennis)_(nintendo)
create alias pauline_(super_rush)_(mario) -> pauline_(super_rush)_(nintendo)
create alias pauline_(halloween)_(mario) -> pauline_(halloween)_(nintendo)
create alias pauline_(party_time)_(mario) -> pauline_(party_time)_(nintendo)
create alias pauline_(rose)_(mario) -> pauline_(rose)_(nintendo)
create alias pauline_(cowgirl)_(mario) -> pauline_(cowgirl)_(nintendo)
create alias pauline_(aero)_(mario) -> pauline_(aero)_(nintendo)

I similarly find it ridiculous that Pauline is qualified with *_(mario) but if we a approached it like you suggest a search of Mario_(series) would miss her if she is tagged with her Pauline (Young) (Mario) design.

Would this be better? As I mentioned, Pauline is sort of in a grey area where she's associated with both Donkey Kong and Mario. I was fine with the *_(mario) qualifier before Bananza, but with that game now accounting for a large portion of Pauline's posts, I'm a bit iffy towards it. It just feels off having a tag named pauline_(young)_(mario) when said design isn't even from a Mario game.

zetsubousensei said in forum #424018:

BUR #56354 has been rejected.

create implication donkey_kong_(series) -> mario_(series)

Potentially controversial BUR, initially brought up in this thread which tried to do the same with Wario forum #272449

Let's talk for a moment about tagging the two. Donkey Kong and Mario are treated a separate franchises by Nintendo despite the obvious overlap. Donkey, Diddy, and sometimes Funky and Dixie get to drive cars with Mario and friends in Mario Kart. Donkey Kong gets to party in Mario Party, and any time Mario has a sports outing like Mario Tennis, Mario Sluggers, Mario Golf, ect Donkey and a few other Kongs get to tag along

Official renders uploaded to Danbooru of these instances are usually tagged with the game they are from and not Donkey_Kong_(series) post #7928228 post #7938203 post #7952725, but sometimes both Mario and Donkey Kong post #703593 post #2481306.

What prompted this BUR is the fact that as I'm uploading Donkey Kong Bananza art I realized that if I ignored the Mario tag for images of just the Kongs I still need to tag Mario_(series) for Pauline because it is based on her appearance in Super Mario Odyssey, down to a reveal of New Donk City at the end. If every image featuring one of the main characters of this game needs the tag I think it's worth discussing if there should be a series implication. This also extends to Odyssey art of adult Pauline being tagged with both DK and Mario due to the arcade cabinet origins post #5277076 post #7548755.

What should be done here and is an implication the right call? In the Wario thread attempting to do something similar (which I still support) an admin asked

I haven't played Apex or TitanFall, but I will say for this series they DO share characters. Not all of them, plenty of Kongs don't make their way to Mario, but most of the big players have and I think most people who look at Donkey Kong would say "That's a Mario character" not "That's a Donkey Kong character."

If we wanna go more accurate; Mario should be implied to Donkey Kong, as he started out in a Donkey Kong game

BKaz20 said in forum #424043:

Would this be better? As I mentioned, Pauline is sort of in a grey area where she's associated with both Donkey Kong and Mario. I was fine with the *_(mario) qualifier before Bananza, but with that game now accounting for a large portion of Pauline's posts, I'm a bit iffy towards it. It just feels off having a tag named pauline_(young)_(mario) when said design isn't even from a Mario game.

That makes it sound like her copytag is Nintendo though.

AngryZapdos said in forum #424033:

I shouldn't be finding post #5412679 in a search for mario_(series).

But would you want to find post #7928228, post #9659474 or post #6521595 in a search for Donkey Kong (Series)? Because I think the fact that you won't right now is problematic given it's the titular character.

Similarly do you think that Pauline depicted in her Super Mario Odyssey design should be tagged with both Donkey Kong (Series) and Mario (Series)? If she is always going to be given both tags it seems weird they are not implicated. If she is split-tagged between Adult Pauline being tagged Mario and Young Pauline being tagged Donkey Kong then the fact that she is qualified with Mario is weird, I also think it'd be weird given the design is clearly based on her appearance in Odyssey not her design in the Arcade game.

I'm going to go against the grain here and agree with the original BUR, as crazy as that sounds. I think the fact that Donkey Kong isn't showing up in all posts for his own series is very fucking dumb. Not to mention the whole Pauline situation is a huge mess given she's now a full-fledged character in both.

Also, the fact the non-Donkey and Diddy Kongs periodically appear in spin-off Mario titles alongside New Donk City appearing in Banzana would generally imply the two series are linked in a way that's becoming increasingly hard to deny, whether people like it or not. So I don't think this state of awkward limbo is very productive, especially since the two series share aspects and characters with each other now that is actively impeding searching and tagging.

As it stands right now, no one is going to win here. So unless we want to do some nightmare umbrellaing by creating an umbrella tag meant for everything remotely related to the Marioverse (the worst possible outcome for the poor admins), something has to give here. If the fact the two are no longer completely their own odd entities that are vaguely related in the same way Warioware is to Wario's Mario series game stuff is enough grounds, I don't know what else would be, as with any other distant spin-off (like Toaru Kagaku No Railgun to Toaru Majutsu No Index off the top my head) this would be an open-and-shut implication.

I'm going to stand on the side of having the series counted under Mario's. The last thing we need is the continued spread of 'dynamic' main copytags which we see with VTubers, as the current proposed solution for Pauline is for her to have two copytags based on context (Mario (series) and Donkey Kong (series)).

Putting aside Donkey Kong for a second, I think the Yoshi series has become about as similarly distinct from the Mario series as Donkey Kong, aesthetically speaking, if not since Yoshi's Story, than at least since Woolly World and Crafted World, and Yoshi and the Mysterious Book seems to be continuing that trend, with the only shared link being the Shy Guys, which Mario got from Yume Koujou: Doki Doki Panic anyway. But because Yoshi is a character that more consistently appears alongside Mario in main franchise games, his franchise is seen as a subset of the Mario series.

Regardless, I think there's a new Nintendo franchise that's now connected to Mario that's further distanced from it than Donkey Kong is: Pikmin, due to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie's inclusion of them. I would never consider the idea of implying Pikmin to Mario, those two franchises are completely different in every sense. In contrast, Donker Kong still maintains a lot of ties with it - we literally have the Mario vs. Donkey Kong line of games!

Having Donkey Kong fall firmly under Mario (series) could also allow for some copyright organization: having a parent tag for the Classic Donkey Kong games ('81 to '94), one for the Country era (most stuff between '94 and '14), one for the Mario vs. Donkey Kong games, etc...

Most characters in the Donkey Kong series are almost never in Mario games, or they're regulated to cameo crossovers in sports games (Diddy, DK Jr., Tiny and Dixie have been in Mario sports games, Funky was in Mario Kart Wii). Pauline is an outlier, even if most of her appearances are in games with both, but, unlike the Yoshi or Wario series, the DK and Mario series have almost always been treated as separate entities over the years.

Despite their roots, crossovers and the Pauline mess, these should be kept separate.

I think most the downvoters are missing the point me, Zetsubou, and Damian are trying to point out: That was then, this is now. Things have changed, and the fact is that the franchises are connected under the Mario umbrella in a way that is a lot harder to ignore from a tagging perspective, and this separation is hurting searches that an implication would solve.

Also, the Donkey Kong stuff in Mario spin-offs is never portrayed as a crossover. Just look at Mario Super Sluggers. They are treated as if they are part of the same universe in a way that the mainline just doesn't cover. Whereas things like an Inkling Player Character in a Mario Kart game or Pikmin flying out of a flower field in Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour are treated as cameos or as a crossover.

The point is that Donkey Kong (Series) is generally portrayed as connected to Mario (Series), as if the Donkey Kong series is happening very far away from where Mario goes, at least up until Banzana. If implication would solve the Pauline (Mario) mess, and the series itself is portrayed as connected to mainline Mario, I don't see any reason why burying our heads in the sand because "I don't want Funky Kong in my Mario (series) search..." is any better than just biting the bullet.

Also, Donkey Kong (Series) is not a big tag compared to Mario (Series). I don't think it'd really be the world-ender people are making it out to be. I feel like the benefits outweigh the cons here.

zetsubousensei said in forum #424244:

But would you want to find post #7928228, post #9659474 or post #6521595 in a search for Donkey Kong (Series)? Because I think the fact that you won't right now is problematic given it's the titular character.

Yes. I think we should be tagging Donkey Kong characters as donkey_kong_(series) regardless of what game is being depicted. DK may have originally been part of Nintendo's flagship arcade games, but the DK games branched off fairly early on with Donkey Kong Country and are now separate from the Mario series.

Nintendo does like to highlight their shared origin though, which is why there's usually a few Donkey Kong characters sprinkled in Mario spinoffs like Mario Kart, Mario Party, and the various sports games. However, the only reason it isn't called Donkey Kong Kart is because Nintendo went with Mario for their mascot character, and so all these group party games were made for Mario instead. There's an alternate universe out there where DK, Diddy, Trixie, Funky, K. Rool and so on all ride mine carts in Nintendo's smash hit kart racer, with Mario and Luigi starring as guest characters.

Similarly do you think that Pauline depicted in her Super Mario Odyssey design should be tagged with both Donkey Kong (Series) and Mario (Series)? If she is always going to be given both tags it seems weird they are not implicated. If she is split-tagged between Adult Pauline being tagged Mario and Young Pauline being tagged Donkey Kong then the fact that she is qualified with Mario is weird, I also think it'd be weird given the design is clearly based on her appearance in Odyssey not her design in the Arcade game.

Pauline is extremely annoying to categorize. She, Mario, and DK all come from the arcade games made before the split. However, while both Mario and DK each got their own series, Pauline did not, and just sort of shows up in both of their games according to the whims of Nintendo. She's in Odyssey with Mario but not Donkey Kong, she's in Bananza with Donkey Kong but not Mario, and she's also in Mario Vs. Donkey Kong where all three play significant roles.

Much to Damian's chagrin, I think that while she's a bit more connected to the Donkey Kong franchise than the Mario one (she's only part of the supporting cast in Odyssey, but a main character in Bananza), she should be tagged with whatever game is being depicted in the post. For this reason, I support the BUR to change her qualifier to _(nintendo), which (surprise surprise) happens to be the same conclusion that Wikipedia came to. I don't think implying the DK franchise to the Mario one just to smooth this wrinkle out is a good solution - while less complex than Pauline, it would be like implying Elden Ring to Dark Souls just because Patches appears in both.

By the way, we're not the only ones split on this. A GameFAQs poll asking which franchise Pauline is from received over a hundred votes and ended up 60-40 in favor of Donkey Kong, so do with that what you will.

AngryZapdos said in forum #424631:

Nintendo does like to highlight their shared origin though, which is why there's usually a few Donkey Kong characters sprinkled in Mario spinoffs like Mario Kart, Mario Party, and the various sports games. However, the only reason it isn't called Donkey Kong Kart is because Nintendo went with Mario for their mascot character, and so all these group party games were made for Mario instead. There's an alternate universe out there where DK, Diddy, Trixie, Funky, K. Rool and so on all ride mine carts in Nintendo's smash hit kart racer, with Mario and Luigi starring as guest characters.

I don't think implying the DK franchise to the Mario one just to smooth this wrinkle out is a good solution - while less complex than Pauline, it would be like implying Elden Ring to Dark Souls just because Patches appears in both.

I don't think either of these make sense. DK and DK Jr. were in the first Mario Kart game back in 1992, and DK has been a consistent racer in the franchise since then, which suggests the opposite of the claim being made here that "DK characters are guest characters in Mario Kart". Had that truly been the case, we would've only gotten DK characters starting from the later games, ala Link in Mario Kart 8.

Meanwhile, the gap between Mario and Donkey Kong is not as big as that of Elden Ring and Dark Souls, they are treated as part of the same world. At no point has there even been a clean divide made between the two. Bananza is critically seen as basically a spin-off to Odyssey, DK getting the 3D platformer in place of Mario for once from the same team that made that game.

AngryZapdos said in forum #424631:

By the way, we're not the only ones split on this. A GameFAQs poll asking which franchise Pauline is from received over a hundred votes and ended up 60-40 in favor of Donkey Kong, so do with that what you will.

I think this has more to do with the fact that Pauline was moreso specifically associated with the original Donkey Kong game than anything specific in terms of franchises, and you see that very point raised in the thread, resulting in the question of "is arcade/classic DK more a Mario franchise than a DK franchise?" and "is the original DK a Mario game?"

I think my biggest gripe with this is that barely any other characters that are part of the Donkey Kong series make a crossover appearance to Mario games, with Mario Kart being the exception. It's hard to associate Dixie Kong or King K. Rool as Mario characters when they are so firmly established in Donkey Kong (And I'm not taking the Super Mario Bros. Movie in consideration here).

Damian0358 said in forum #424633:

I don't think either of these make sense. DK and DK Jr. were in the first Mario Kart game back in 1992, and DK has been a consistent racer in the franchise since then, which suggests the opposite of the claim being made here that "DK characters are guest characters in Mario Kart". Had that truly been the case, we would've only gotten DK characters starting from the later games, ala Link in Mario Kart 8.

DK Jr. was the only DK character in Super Mario Kart; the other seven were Mario characters.

DK was the only DK character in Mario Kart 64; the other seven were Mario characters.

DK and Diddy were the only DK team in Double Dash; the other nine were Mario teams.

DK, Diddy, and Funky were the only DK characters in MK Wii; the other twenty-one were Mario characters.

This same ratio holds true for Mario Party and all the Mario sports games, despite the DK series having its own plethora of characters Nintendo can choose from. Recurring guests are still guests.

Couldn't you say the same thing about Yoshi which is another series Nintendo considers distinct from Mario?

zetsubousensei said in forum #424658:

Couldn't you say the same thing about Yoshi which is another series Nintendo considers distinct from Mario?

Yoshi routinely appears in the regular Mario games as a playable/support character both before and after they started making Yoshi games, all of which feature baby versions of the Mario cast or enemies from Mario games. Yoshi isn't even close to splitting off from the Mario franchise, he just stars in some spinoff games here and there.

AngryZapdos said in forum #424659:

Yoshi routinely appears in the regular Mario games as a playable/support character both before and after they started making Yoshi games, all of which feature baby versions of the Mario cast or enemies from Mario games. Yoshi isn't even close to splitting off from the Mario franchise, he just stars in some spinoff games here and there.

Honestly, I think DK is very much a similar case actually. While the character himself doesn't appear in most mainline Mario games, you can bet there have been tons of little references to Mario in the Donkey Kong series ever since the very beginning (such as Cranky alluding to the original arcade game). All this seems to treat the series as another section of the Mario vein, with Banzana becoming the logical conclusion to this.

All of this points to a canonical (at least as far as one can get with Mario) stance that the two series are not exactly distant spin-offs, and are in fact intended to be taken together. If Warioware was divorced from its Mario context outside the title character, very little would change about it. But if one tried to do the same with Donkey Kong, a lot would become missing.

Is the problem here really "I don't want King K. Rool in my Mario search" ultimately? Because I don't think that's a very good argument against implication.

Knowledge_Seeker said in forum #424706:

Honestly, I think DK is very much a similar case actually. While the character himself doesn't appear in most mainline Mario games, you can bet there have been tons of little references to Mario in the Donkey Kong series ever since the very beginning (such as Cranky alluding to the original arcade game). All this seems to treat the series as another section of the Mario vein, with Banzana becoming the logical conclusion to this.

Mario is riding Yoshi on the cover of Galaxy 2. When was the last time any DK character appeared so prominently alongside Mario in a mainline Mario game? The closest we get is the homage they pay to the original arcade game in Odyssey (in which DK's original sprite is on screen for all of ten seconds), and the only reason that's in a Mario game is because Mario was in it. You don't see them referencing DK 64, or Country, or Tropical Freeze; it's always the original Donkey Kong™, and it's always because of Jumpman, not DK. There's a reason the iconic song from that Odyssey segment is called "Jump Up, Super Star!" and not "Donkin' Around the Kong" or whatever.