This is one of the most famous gaming quotes:

“THANK YOU MARIO! BUT OUR PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE!”

Bellowed out by Toad from the iconic Super Mario Bros. (1985) platformer. As with many who played the game in the 1980s, you complete the end of each area and are informed your quest is not complete. You must continue on. Thus, you do! Only to be told the same bloody thing for seven stages!

It’s memorable stuff and has now spawned a different life of its own, which we shall explore here in much nostalgia mode today.

Toad: “THANK YOU MARIO! BUT OUR PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE!”

We remember this clearly as dumb kids. The NES was our first games console and we spent a lot of time on Super Mario Bros. There are eight worlds in all, but we never did finish the game back then.

Instead, we could get up to around world seven and that was an achievement in itself—this is a tough game.

We distinctly remember the habit of completing an end of stage castle level, defeating a giant lizard (Bowser), and then being told “our princess is in another castle” over and over. Back then it seemed oddly humorous, as if the game would never end.

It felt as if this princess didn’t exist at all and the game was sending us on a merry chase for nothing.

But as with other popular Nintendo memes (such as THIEF from Link’s Awakening and I AM ERROR), this one has taken on a life of its own and is frequently referenced in the gaming community.

Nintendo is aware of it, too, and occasionally makes nods to it even in modern titles. The 2023 Super Mario Bros Movie had a brief nod to it as well.

The narrator does raise a good point there—the uncooperative nature of Toad.

“OUR PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE!” Great… but, which one? Where? Will she definitely be in the next one or is Super Mario doomed to repeat this cycle like some hellish Myth of Sisyphus cycle of repetition? Albert Camus would have loved this game.

Gamers in the late ’80s didn’t question it, you just got on with things. NES era gaming was bloody difficult and with the industry still in its infancy, you trusted the vague information from Toad.

Again, Nintendo was aware of this and made a hilarious joke in the awesome Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988).

That’s at the 40 second mark. Princess—what a joker! She delivers the legendary line:

“Thank you. But our Princess is in another castle! … Just kidding! Ha ha ha! Bye bye.”

Then the game ends. Well, at least SHE WASN’T SHOUTING IT LIKE TOAD.

Just to note, if you were wondering what the Japanese version of the game says… it’s the same! In English, too. Modern Japan often sprinkles use in its culture (see our book review on This be book bad translation, video games! for more on that).

Although one of the reasons Nintendo did this was to save on cartridge memory space. English words took much much less space than Japanese.

ANOTHER CASTLE?!? Impact on the Gaming Community

Make no mistake, the Nintendo moment is a piece of legendary gaming lore.

Some gamers have taken things a to creative peaks by creating gaming tributes to the iconic text. Such as here with Another Princess is In Our Castle, a horror adaptation of the the classic Super Mario 64 (1996).

Elsewhere, there’s a song by Black Pear Tree from 2008 called Thank You Mario but our Princess Is in Another Castle.

IGN also included the Super Mario Bros. moment at number four in its list of top 100 unforgettable video game moments.

“Players remember this moment because it feels like a super effective metaphor for life: No matter how fast you run, no matter how many enemies you stomp, no matter how many bricks you punch with your bare fists or giant turtle men you drop into lava pits, there’s always another castle and another Toad that needs saving (and we’re not even trying to save him). Yes, life can be frustrating, but it can also be rewarding.”

Again, then, we can return to Camus and Sisyphus. That cycle of repetition. Gaming is an escapist release from day to day life, but in some of its frustrating moments we can find a common experience.

We think of those gamers from the mid-to-late 1980s exasperated thinking, “Another castle!? Another? Jesus H Christ!”

Exasperating, but definitely memorable, and for the kids playing then who are now all grown up, in Super Mario Bros. you can find the building blocks for forging your way into the thing that is called life.