The Battle of the Second-Tier Animated Chicks Who Just Happen to Share a First Name
Daisy Duck |
VS |
Princess Daisy |
The good news is they’re both annoying.
As a complete antithesis to my previous post, which pitted two of gaming’s greatest accomplishments against each other, this one features two ladies whose sole purpose in life is to balance out the gender ratio in their respective troupes. Both had surprisingly early starts in the Mario / Disney worlds, but their staccato appearances did not even out until much later in each series’ lifespan. Daisy Duck was created as the female counterpart for Donald Duck, allowing cartoon storylines in which he has awkward first dates and tries to decide between love and money (the two are obviously mutually exclusive). Princess Daisy, of Sarasaland, was introduced in Mario’s first Game Boy adventure, Super Mario Land. Nintendo had this thing about creating magical new worlds for their IPs on the Game Boy. We might be disappointed by a black and white, blockier version of the Mushroom Kingdom or Hyrule, but Sarasaland and Labrynna have always been minimalist, pixelated nations—that’s part of their charm.
Princess Daisy began as her own woman, ruling her kingdom mostly unaided, but quickly devolved to Luigi’s assigned female counterpart (and slave laborer), and then to a Princess Toadstool rip-off. Seriously: one of Toadstool’s color themes / costumes in SSBB is Daisy. The Peach / Daisy similarities and confusion led the creators of the Super Mario Bros. movie to make their female lead an awkward mixture of the two, modeled on Peach’s history but named Daisy and with a romantic interest in Luigi. Daisy’s continued appearance into recent games merely stemmed from a need of one more character for multiplayer titles—and having an extra chick never hurts. Really, though, I expected more from the company that gave us the transvestite conundrum that is Birdo.
Daisy Duck, simply for the “shame on you, Nintendo” win.
Labels: FTW