Donkey Kong Bananza ends the explanation – How does it connect to Mario Odyssey?

warn: This article contains Destroyer For donkey bananas.

Donkey Banana is now in the wild, which is one of the biggest burning issues before DK's new best friend Pauline's previous launch. To be precise, she is the teenager of 13-year-old Bananza – which is thoroughly speculated that Bananza is a prequel to Super Mario Odyssey, who has an adult Pailine living in the new Donk City.

We've played Bananza's main story and finished most of the major post-match beats, which means we now have the answers to this question and more. But to warn, we will Destroy the overall ending of the Golden Bay Banana. So if you're still on your way to the core of the planet, look back immediately and join us once you see Bananza arrive at the end.

Bananza finally revealed that 13-year-old Pauline actually did call New Donk City Home, just like her Odyssey rival, the story's finale takes place in the metropolis as it is completely occupied by the return King K. Rool. As DK and Pauline broke through the ground, Pauline exclaimed, “This is my city!”, confirming the fan theory that Bananza will end up with bringing Pauline back to the most iconic position in the Odyssey. But is the connection of the city enough to confirm that Bananza is a prequel to Super Mario Odyssey?

First, for some of Pauline’s background, he is at the heart of this mystery. In Odyssey, Pauline (Adult Adult) is the mayor of New Donk City, perhaps her performance, superstar! At the new Tangk City Festival. The teenager Pauline and Mayor Pauline have a lot in common: They are both singers and performers besides their common names, and most of Pauline’s roles revolve around gaining enough confidence to perform in front of her hometown. She also sang Bananza Transformation songs, and Void Kong was obsessed with her voice…at least until King K. Rool completely disengaged him from the story.

Depending on Pauline's age, most of the expected Bananza will be a prequel to Odyssey and may be the origin story of New Donk City itself. The DK, acting as Pauline’s hero and best friend, would prompt people to name the town after returning safely. But in Bananza, New Donk City was already established before DK and Pauline arrived, and in one of Pauline's monologues she mentioned New Donk City's nickname “The Big Banana”, a Kong-inspired imitation of New York's “Big Apple”. This is a nickname we've heard before, originally said by New Donker in Mario Odyssey.

Using all of this as a starting point, it seems that there is actually more evidence that Bananza is sequel For Odyssey, that teenage Pauline was Mayor Pauline, the granddaughter of the original Pauline (we will call him Arcade Pauline). Let's explain it.

Pauline often quotes her grandmother throughout Bananza, including one in the main story. After the two met Diddy and Dixie Kong on the racing floor, Pauline told DK as she dived to the next floor: “I'm glad you've met your friend again! But if I don't go home, grandma will worry.” The teenage Pauline's grandmother was the only family member she mentioned directly at Bananza, so Nintendo obviously wanted us to consider who her grandmother was.

The most likely answer becomes clear when we consider the donkey's grandfather: Kong of Hu Siyu. The Qinqin that happened to be built was the original arcade donkey hole, which could have kidnapped the Arcade Pauline Road on the same day. Bananza enhances the legend because his old rivals wear work clothes, apparently referring to Mario…or Jumpers, because our favorite plumbers were known in the beginning. Cranky and Crankly Kong's son is Jr. Jr., and although the Super Mario Bros. movie may try to tell you, it's not actually our current Donkey Kong. Junior starred in the Jr. Jr. Arcade game and wiped various other playable appearances from the surface of the earth. Dai Duqin, who we know and love – first introduced in the countryside of the rare donkey country – is actually a donkey thirdDonkey Jr.'s son and an unknown mother Kong.

So we have built three generations of DKs, which brings us back to Pauline. Pauline Arcade and Mayor Pauline don't look like the same person. Pauline at the Arcade has blonde hair, while the mayor has brunette. You might say it's just a redesigned character, but billboards in Odyssey's New Donk City show Pauline's blonde version. Maybe it's just an interesting Easter egg, but maybe it's a clue from Canon that we have to use all the evidence. According to Pairine, the new Donk City Festival – seeing Mario recreate gameplay from Arcade Donkey Kong Game – was held “Telling the Story of the Beginning of Our City.” This means that the new Tangk City was built after the events of the arcade game, which was based on the beam jumper, climbing towards the donkey hole.

New Donk City is a massive metropolis that will likely require at least human processes to build such a huge scale. Adding to the different looks leads us to believe that Pauline and Pauline mayors are two different people. Maybe, dare we say that they are mother and daughter?

I think Bananza may still be the prequel, the mayor and teenage Pauline are the same, and Arcade Pauline is her grandmother, who lacks a generational connection between them, but it is cleaner that Pauline: Arcade, Mayor and Teenage have three generations of Pauline, like DK: Arcade/crancade/crancade/crancade/cranky and dk and dk and dk and cranky and jr. and cranky and jr.

We really hope our theory is that Pauline is the granddaughter of Pauline Arcade is real, because the grandsons of two oldest Nintendo characters have now teamed up to be Bananza's best friend, which is absolutely adorable. It's so cool to think that Nintendo has found a clever way to redefine one of the oldest character dynamics 40 years later. Unfortunately, it wasn't really uneasy about that to complete most of Bananza's post-match content (called Bananza rehearsals and lead to Bananza's real final platform challenge). Pauline returns to the ground and sings a song for her city, but all we see is a new work of art that appears after it appears.

So while Bananza's status as a prequel may make sense, in the end it will never be just a theory. Nintendo does not have enough concrete evidence. However, this theory does raise some questions about Mario, and perhaps even supernatural. If he really interacted with generations of Paulines and Donkey Kongs… does that mean Mario never ages and those around him do it? Or how many generations of Mario are there? Does Nintendo mean Mario and Jumpers are two different characters? It's best not to think too much.

Finally, perhaps most importantly, it is important to remember that Nintendo has historically not cared about the knowledge and continuity in games. Even The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (a direct sequel to Breathing Out the Wild) has most of the inconsistencies. So it's very likely that Nintendo has no really sure timeline between the original Donkey Kong, Odyssey and Bananza and just likes to get fans to guess.

What do you think happened in Donkey Kong Bananza? These years ago, mayor Pauline's daughter Pauline was the daughter of Mayor Pauline and the granddaughter of the original Pauline Cranky Kong, or were we totally Ri-donk-ulul? Let us know in the comments!

Logan Plant is the database manager and host of playlist editor for Nintendo Voice Chat and IGN. The Legend of Zelda is his favorite video game franchise of all time, and he patiently waits for Nintendo to announce the brand new F-Zero. You can find him online @LoganJplant.