Who is the Most Underrepresented Mario Character?

The song that I chose to defend as poetry is the final song on the Black Pear Tree EP by The Mountain Goats and Kaki King, Thank You Mario but Our Princess Is in Another Castle. It is very simple on the surface; it is from the perspective of Toad who is trapped in a castle after being kidnapped and he's just kind of describing his surroundings and feelings. The "one thing [he] know[s] how to say" is the title of the song which he repeats when Mario arrives thinking he is saving the princess. This performance has a good explanation of the story behind the song.

But how can a song about Toad be considered poetry? On first listen you really feel for this inconsequential character as he sits alone in his dark sulfury room. He pretty much decides he’s going to die because no one is looking for him. The songwriter, John Darnielle, is known for giving seemingly small, shallow people their own story, exposing their depth, and that is just what he has done with Toad. In a review of The Mountain Goats’ newest album, Joseph Fink (Welcome to Nightvale) encapsulates this idea perfectly.

[Beat the Champ, The Mountain Goats’ latest album] is an album about, as the chorus of one of its tracks puts it, “nameless bodies in unremembered rooms.” I think that the entire career of the Mountain Goats has been about giving names to nameless bodies, and remembering unremembered rooms. I can’t think of a more worthy cause. (Source)

Toad is not nameless and he is very much remembered but he has no thought process until he is given one by his song. For once it is not a plot-driven story of Mario and Peach but a character-driven story of Toad. Revenge of Toad may not be the most worthy cause but the deeper meaning is. Darnielle, also the lead singer, is a poet specifically for the nameless and unremembered. He is finest at this when discussing a lighthearted topic in a seemingly light hearted manner. But he is a poet and his pieces most often hold deeper meanings. 

As a child Darnielle and his family experienced abuse at the hand of his stepfather and there are hidden references to his traumatic childhood in many of his songs. He represents Toad hiding from the screams reaching him from other parts of the castle. Poetry is meaningful when it comes from someplace real and there is no reality like John Darnielle’s. Also if a song about a minor character in a video game can make you emotional or even feel something then it has accomplished some level of poetry. You can picture the speaker helpless when he says "felt pretty sure my life was over." Trapped inside a castle or trapped inside an abusive relationship, everyone needs a Mario to come and save them; save them from their "solitude" and allow them to "breathe again." The soft piano and maracas are comforting in a somber way but it is not until the end when King joins Darnielle in singing the chorus that you feel safe from the foreboding castle. She symbolizes either the music that saved him (also discussed in other songs), or the physical presence of another person (like Mario or a family member) that keeps them from harm.

I don't know if this addresses the poetry of the song completely but it boils down to this: I think the song is poetry so it is and I don't really care if you disagree.