I’m sure you’ve heard many negative comments about Princess Peach—"she’s such a ditz", "it’s 2016 game developers should stop using a damsel in distress", "she has no personality or ambition". In spite of all these criticisms of Peach, I believe that there are still many reasons to view her as a smart, strong, and positive character in video games.
“She’s such a ditz.”
For what getting kidnapped? First off those who make this argument are blaming Peach for what happens to her in most Mario games, when really the characters everyone should be mad at are Bowser or whoever else kidnaps Peach. It is their fault—they are the ones who have chosen to kidnap Peach in the Mario game. Peach has not done anything to cause them to kidnap her, most of the time she is just having a party or overseeing the Mushroom Kingdom.
Second, although Peach gets kidnapped a lot, she still manages to stay alive and be relatively unharmed by her kidnappers, and her kingdom is never blown to smithereens. Third, there are plenty of instances where Peach proves to not be a ditz. For example, in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Peach manages to teach TEC, a computer aboard the X-naut fortress, to feel love, and even creates an invisibility potion to sneak into Grodus,her kidnapper’s, room to steal a data disc. In Paper Mario 64, she routinely escapes her room with starkid, Twink, and discovers information about where Mario should go to rescue the next Star Spirit, sabotaging Bowser’s plan. In Super Paper Mario, she even appears as a playable character and beats up a servant of Count Bleck, Mimi, by herself.
“It’s 2016 game developers should stop using a damsel in distress.”
This argument is reductionist and ignores the many Mario spin-off games where Peach is not only a playable character, but also a very good one,and the argument also reduces Peach to one aspect of her character. If you look at the Mario Sport games games Peach is one of the best characters one can play as. In the Olympic games series she excels at Figure Skating, Aquatics, and Gymnastics. In the Mario Strikers series, she can pass extremely well and is incredibly fast. In Mario Super Sluggers, Peach is probably the best the pitcher because she can throw good curve balls and change-ups. And even when you play on All-star difficulty she is your best bet if you want to strike some people out. In the Smash Bros. Series, she is one of the top characters on the Smash Tiers and when I have played as her in Super Smash Bros. she has great recovery and can deal a lot of damage. The list goes on but these are a few spin-offs that I can think of where Peach is a stand-out character.
“She has no personality or ambition.”
If you have played many Mario games, you can tell Princess Peach has a personality. She is thoughtful—in Super Mario Galaxy she sends Mario 1-Up Mushrooms, she is compassionate—she gives TEC the feeling of companionship, she is strong—any spin-off game proves this, and she is feisty—she will find any way to help Mario. As for no ambition—seriously? She is a captain for her soccer team, a pitcher, a race-car driver, an Olympic athlete, an adventurer, and saves Mario from harm—case and point Super Princess Peach. Peach has a distinct personality from Daisy or Rosalina and continuously illustrates thoughts and ambitions in every game she is in. If she had no personality we would have become bored with her and game developers would have scrapped her a long time ago.
I still love Peach and always will from her pink dress to her battle prowess in Super Smash Bros.. She can truly do it all and have it all, despite being kidnapped frequently.
