THE CULTURE WARS ARE A ROUT:

Recently, two titanic cultural forces converged: W. W. Norton & Co. published a new English translation of Homer's Odyssey--the first by a woman--and Nintendo released the latest entry in their long-running Super Mario video game series. They have more in common than you might think. The pixelated plumber's most recent adventure, Super Mario Odyssey, not only nods to Homer in its title but also, like its literary forebear, begins in medias res, breathlessly launching into a detour-filled picaresque through fantastic lands in pursuit of a beloved (Princess Peach instead of Penelope) whose nuptial future is endangered by malicious interlopers (an anthropomorphic turtle and his goons instead of a gaggle of leech-like suitors). Curiously, both of these narratives focus on the same questions of marriage, fidelity, and pursuit.

Admittedly, people don't play Mario games for their stories, threadbare plots solely intended to nudge players to experiment in the game's world. According to Sharon R. Sherman, because these narratives must be "instantly recognized and reinforced" by as many people as possible, they've historically appropriated stereotypes from myth and folklore to fashion quasi-universal quest narratives.

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