Wait, Mario Isn't A Plumber Anymore?

Quick, what's one thing you know for sure about Mario? If your answer was, "he's a plumber," then prepare to have your reality torn asunder. According to a recent listing, it turns out Nintendo's iconic mustachioed plumber is now just an iconic mustachioed unemployed dude.

This story comes to us via the Japanese Nintendo page (via Polygon), which recently offered an updated profile on the various characters of the Super Mario games. Despite the fact that the characters frequently travel through pipes, the listing states that Mario was a plumber and it "used to be a long time ago." What's next, Nintendo? Are Mario and Princess Peach "separating for a little while?" Are we going to play a game where Luigi has to undergo an intervention for his addiction to Fire Flowers?

To be fair, and as the original post points out, Mario and Luigi haven't exactly been plumbers since the first game. In Mario Bros., their whole gig involved entering pipes and getting rid of critters. From there, there's been a minimal amount of plumbing in any of the Mario games. Sure, he's played a dozen sports, raced carts and, thanks to his recent romp with the Rabbids, he's even shot a Ubisoft mascot in the face with a bazooka, but nary a pipe has been plumbed.

Thinking back, the characters did far more actual plumbing in their other mediums, including the cartoon show and even the abysmal (but I still kinda love it) live action movie. Now that I think about it, why didn't Mario ever sport plumbing-related powers in any of the games? There's probably a lot you can do with a magical plunger or wrench, right?

Anyway, it's hard to accept, but Nintendo's word is law in this particular case. And, based on everything we've seen for Super Mario Odyssey, it doesn't look like the guy will be returning to his original profession anytime soon. Instead, he spends all his time these days "not technically possessing" other creatures with a magical hat in order to get around a bunch of themed regions of the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond. Actually, the more we think about it, the guy probably made way more scratch jumping on Goombas' heads and collecting stray coins than he ever could have made working a legitimate, honorable profession such as plumbing.

Taking a gander around the internet, it looks like nobody is pleased with this revelation from Nintendo. Our hope is that they'll take this to heart and the next game in the series will feature the brothers having to relearn the abilities of their former trade in order to save the day. It would kind of be like Rocky Balboa, only nothing like that at all.