From her role as the mayor of New Donk City in 2017’s Super Mario Odyssey to her appearance as a teenage girl in this year’s Donkey Kong Bananza, Nintendo has been shining the spotlight on longtime character Pauline. But despite the characters’ new appearances across different timelines, it seems the developers prefer to leave the relationship between the adult and teenage Pauline up to players’ imaginations.
In a recent interview with Famitsu, Donkey Kong Bananza producer Kenta Motokura offered some extra insight into how Pauline came to be included in the game. Pauline’s role was to perform actions that Donkey Kong could not, including singing to activate DK’s Bananza transformations and serving as a guide. As this version of DK cannot really talk outside of spouting his love for bananas, the developers felt that Pauline would serve as a character that players could empathize with.
Since Pauline is supposed to accompany DK throughout his journey, the devs experimented with different body shapes and sizes until they settled on the smaller, more “portable” version of her that exists in the final game. Her age was also taken into consideration, as 13 years old is around the time when children begin to branch out on their own. Pauline’s shyness at the start of Donkey Kong Bananza eventually gives way to a more confident personality.
While Pauline’s evolution from timid child to confident singer could serve as an origin story for her Super Mario Odyssey iteration, the developers neither confirm nor deny any connections. When asked about whether the two Paulines are the same person, Motokura tells Famitsu, “We do, of course, have our own lore about it in the development team, but I’m afraid I can’t elaborate. We’d like to leave it to your imaginations.
Several fan theories exist regarding the relationship between teenage and adult Pauline. Some think they are the same person, with Donkey Kong Bananza being a prequel to Super Mario Odyssey. Others speculate that teenage Pauline is a descendant of both the Pauline from the original 1981 Donkey Kong arcade game and the one from Super Mario Odyssey (Bananza Pauline makes several references to her grandmother, an unnamed singer whom she looks up to). A future Nintendo title could end up revealing more about the Paulines, but in the meantime, this looks like a secret that the developers are more than happy to keep under wraps.
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