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| “ | I like music that brings people together and gets them moving! | „ |
| ~ Pauline |
Pauline is a character introduced in the arcade game Donkey Kong and serves as the damsel-in-distress Mario must save from an ape. She is Mario's former love interest before Princess Peach’s introduction in later games and is one of the few damsels in the series who is not a princess. Pauline later reappears in Donkey Kong '94 and the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series, both in which she reprises her previous role and is reintroduced as Mario’s close friend. In Super Mario Odyssey, It is revealed that Pauline has become mayor of New Donk City in the Metro Kingdom. She is voiced by Kate Higgins.
Main series
Super Mario Odyssey
Marking her debut in the main Super Mario series, Pauline appears in Super Mario Odyssey as the mayor of New Donk City; here, she is addressed as Mayor Pauline.
She first appears shortly after Mario arrives at New Donk City, where she alongside several New Donkers observes Bowser's Airship in the sky and the city being hit with torrential downpour. She then explains to Mario she can't talk with him because New Donk City's currently in a crisis: She explains that Bowser had arrived at the city and has been causing chaos, and admitted she was not impressed with his plastering posters advertising his planned wedding with Princess Peach, stating it was "tasteless". Afterward, she then thanks Mario for saving the city as it meant everything to her, and invited him to set up the city festival.
Here, Pauline asks Mario to help rebuild her band, for which she serves as the lead singer. After that, she then tasked Mario with checking out the underground power plant and restoring power. Ultimately, by the time Mario arrived at the power plant, Pauline was present, as she decided to assess the situation herself and deduced Bowser was responsible for the sabotage. They then fixed the power together, and then she personally invited Mario for the New Donk City festival as the guest of honor to repay him for making the festival possible.
She is the interpreter of "Jump Up, Super Star!", the theme song of the game. In addition, the reason she returns and acts as mayor of New Donk City is to avert the idea that the presence of a kingdom necessarily means that the people in charge are royalty.
She is later seen at the wedding between Bowser and Peach on the Moon Kingdom just as Mario enters, having been forced by the former to attend. She tells Mario he's "just in time."
In the post-game, Pauline is able to quiz Mario on facts about herself. She says that her hat is her favorite possession, she loves eating cake, and that her capture in Donkey Kong was "traumatic", although it helped her grow as a person. Her hobby was also revealed to be taking walks and it is also revealed that she doesn't usually like fixing machines.
Personality
Though in the first Donkey Kong game she was just a damsel-in-distress and, as such, didn't play an integral part in the story of the game (as characters back then were merely mechanisms for players to navigate through the game without any interactions with the environments or other characters), in her more recent incarnation in the Mini-Land games she is represented as being sweet, laid-back and caring, as well as having a sense of humor and eye for business. She seems to think highly of herself but not enough to be considered egotistic; she also is kind-hearted and enjoys spending time with her friends. Given her clothes and makeup, she also seems to be quite fashionable.
Physical appearance
In the original Donkey Kong, Pauline's appearance was similar to Princess Peach's; she had blonde hair and was wearing a pink dress. In the Game Boy version of Donkey Kong her body figure was different, she was taller, thinner, was wearing a tight red dress, big golden earrings and black shoes and had brown hair. Nowadays she is wearing a beautiful red dress, golden earrings, a golden bangle on her left hand and black shoes. She also wears a lot of make-up: a purple eye shadow, red nail polish and red lipstick. In Super Mario Odyssey she adds a purple hat and often wears a red pantsuit (with her high heels) while her dress in this game has sparkly details.
Quotes
- "Help! HELP!"
- "AAAH! Help! HELP!!"
- "Mario... Please, help me...!
- "Please...! Save me...!"
- "Oh Mario, my hero!"
- "Mario, come back here! Donkey Kong's getting away!"
- "I'm sorry, I really don't have enough time to chat right now. I need to figure out a way to save my city. Things have been utter chaos since that Brutish Monster showed up. And he has the nerve to be advertising this wedding of his all over New Donk City?! A bit tasteless, is you ask me." - Pauline's reunion with Mario
- "New Donk City really means to me... I just can't thank you enough for all of your help, Mario. You must really join us for our upcoming festival! I'd love to show my gratitude to both you and the city with a surprise. Do you think you could find me four back up musicians so I could do a small musical number? Something simple."
- "That's all the musicians we needed-thanks! I am amazed at your persistence! You should consider running for public office! Now I just need to figure out this other problem... See, the underground power plant seems to be out of commission. We need that thing to supply power to the festival. I don't suppose you're familiar with underground work, are you?"
- "Thank you, Mario! Now that you've (clears throat) powered up the city, it's time for the festival to begin! Now we can finally kick off the festival in style and power! Shall we? Oh, hey! Would you like to participate in the festival? It's right up your alley!"
- "Great! I know you'll do us proud!"
- "Thank you, again, Mario! I'm dedicating this festival to you! We couldn't have done it without your help! Please accept this as a gift."
- "Go Mario! Jump, man!"
Audio Samples
