Coping with Kirby: Dream Land in an Uncertain Time

You may have seen the recent article about how some are watching the West Wing as a way to cope with this whole Trump scenario. I totally get it. It’s a been a… let’s say “tumultuous” time in American history. We’ve faced a lot of dire straits over the last—Jesus, it’s been less than two months?!

Ahem. At any rate, in order to keep sanity, I’ve found it necessary to retreat into fictional worlds for some semblance of calmness and normalcy on those nights I’m lying awake in bed, waiting for the explosions to start.

It’s no surprise that Nintendo is the arbiter of all kinds of happy fiction that I can lose myself in, from Super Mario, Pokemon, to Animal Crossing, there are plenty of options to keep me smiling and sane until my mind wanders and I become a paranoid, sobbing mess.

No franchise turns up the cuteness like Kirby, though. This adorable little puffball represents all that is good in this universe. He’s always smiling, he just wants to eat some cake, and even the enemies are just cute little balls of fluff. It’s perfect. It’s zen.
No Kirby game quite strikes my fancy like Kirby Super Star on the SNES. I have very fond memories of playing this with my brothers, trying to find every treasure in the Great Cave Offensive, or using a turbo controller with TAC to destroy bosses in seconds, to sitting back and enjoying the moody sounds of the Revenge of Meta-Knight game. It’s truly one of the SNES’s best.

So now I’m going to do us all a favor and take a break from Animal Crossing, because I don’t WANT to find out whose fucking mitten this is, BILL. YOU’RE ANIMALS. YOU HAVE NATURAL PROTECTIONS AGAINST THIS SNOW. ALSO, THERE IS A SEAMSTRESS IN TOWN AND I JUST GAVE YOU 4,000 BELLS FOR AN ELEPHANT SLIDE, SO YOU CAN JUST BUY A NEW FUCKING PAIR OF GLOVES, OK? I’M THE MAYOR. I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS SHIT.

Bitch, I have real problems, like funding that topiary.

So, Kirby Super Star. It’s actual several games in one cartridge. They ramp up the difficulty as you complete each game, so by the time you get to the last boss, you’ve mastered Kirby’s trademark copy ability, which lets him absorb the abilities of his enemies, and you’re ready for anything they can throw at you. It’s a really unique mechanic. When Kirby inhales enemies, they become cute little hats that denote abilities from Sword to Fire to Yo-Yo. Yo-Yo is a favorite of mine because he wears a cute little baseball cap. Not sure what that has to do with a Yo-Yo, but hey.

If "all the food" is just corn, Dream Land has more issues than one.

We begin with Spring Breeze. It’s a walk in the park, wherein Kirby learns the basics of the game while freeing Dream Land from King Dedede. According to the opening cinematic, Dedede, something of a glutton, has stolen Dream Land’s food, so Kirby takes it upon himself to get it back. That’s seems a bit off to me, though, because we see Dedede break into the food vault (?) with a bunch of Dream Land denizens, so it seems like he was sharing the wealth. At any rate, Kirby storms the castle and ousts the king. It’s not very tough, but King Dedede is a lot of fun and you get a trial run of the game’s basic abilities.


Did Dedede do anything else that would make us think he’s a bad ruler? He’s kind of a dick, sure, but Dream Land seems no less happy with him in power. We’ve seen that he is privy to how Dream Land functions in other games. He tried to prevent Kirby from freeing the Nightmare by protecting the Fountain of Dreams in another game. Plus, we know he’s a capable fighter, because he’s always the first one any foreign power tries to take out when they invade. What did he do that was so bad that Kirby would forcibly remove him from his position? Who succeeds him? Kirby? I don’t think Kirby is really known for his political experience.

Um, where was I? Gourmet Race? This one is simple. Kirby and Dedede race through a few tracks for more food. Geez, these two like food. What did Kirby do with all that food after these first two games? The icon for the game shows him just mowing down. Wasn’t there a food shortage? That’s hypocritical. You just removed Dedede from office because he was supposedly eating too much, and now you’re being even more greedy?

Dedede looks REALLY worried.

Game three, Dyna Blade, has Kirby take down an endangered species. After killing the tree, Whispy Woods, back in Spring Breeze, it’s becoming clear that Kirby doesn’t care much for the environment. And this is only confirmed in game four, The Great Cave Offensive, where Kirby goes deep into the ground to dig up treasure, in what is a clear parallel to drilling for oil. There’s also a computer program that he encounters in here, and I can’t prove it yet, but I think it has some connection whoever is doing all this drilling. Why is this third party’s connection to Kirby? Does it have anything to do with the whole Dedede debacle that just occurred? Wait, now that Dyna Blade has been removed from the land she once inhabited, does that mean this same company who carved out the Great Cave for monetary gain can do the same for Dyna Blade’s habitat? At this point in our story I think it’s time someone with the power of checks and balances to step in. And it seems I’m not the only one.

Game five is the Revenge of Meta Knight. Seeing that Kirby has taken over Dream Land and is twisting the law to benefit himself through manipulation of the food and natural resources, Meta Knight steps in to slow him down and figure out just how legal this whole thing is. Kirby, now emboldened by his actions, defeats Meta Knight and his army and sends his ship, The Halberd, plummeting into the ocean. Kirby’s conquering of Dream Land is complete, and there is nothing to stand in his way.

Kirby ponders his new empire.

By now, it should be clear that Kirby, with his political outsider status, disregard for the well-being of those he purported to help, and assertion of control over all branches of the Dream Land governmental system, is a proxy for Donald Trump. That outside influence that paid him off during the Great Cave Offensive is more outside than you may have thought.

Game six is Milky Way Wishes. Not content with ruining Dream Land, Kirby sets out to help conquer other countries—er, planets. It’s only after everything has fallen to ruin that the one who was secretly helping him along the way reveals himself. Marx, the tiny jester, played simple, xenophobic Kirby like a fiddle in order to position himself for a power grab. Just as ultimate power is within Kirby’s grasp, Marx steps in and claims the prize for himself.

Karl Marx wishes to be Ariana Grande's manager

And it doesn’t take a genius to see that Marx, named for the Communist figure, Karl Marx, is a stand in for Vladimir Putin. Kirby has delivered everything to him on a gold platter.  

It’s all right there, plain as day. You see it, right? Everything lines up. And they think they can just do what they want and nobody will notice. Well, we noticed. And it’s up to us to do something about it.

Tell everyone! Before it’s too late!