Results

Episode 1 :

Dodge Ball : 0/20 000

Airport Mayhem : 12 000/20 000

Lie Detector : 6 000/20 000

Total Money : 18 000/60 000

Minus 2 : Dixie, Boo.

Exempted : Shokora, Waitress.

Executed : None.

Episode 2 :

Non-Elimination Round Penalty : -5 000

Kidnapping : 25 000/50 000

Escape From the Dungeons : 20 000/20 000

Boo Was Seen Penalty : -10 000

Total Money : 48 000/130 000

Exempted : Boo.

Executed : Goombario Goombarroon, Dixie Kong.

Episode 3 :

Money Rafters : 15 000/20 000

To Play or Be Played : 4 000/30 000

Total Money : 67 000/180 000

Plus 1 : Boo, Bullet Bill, Enguarde.

Executed : Bullet Bill.

Episode 4 :

Hunters Be Hunted : 20 000/30 000

Deep Wreck : 10 000/25 000

Blenderrific : 10 000/20 000

Total Money : 107 000/255 000

Exempted : Boo, Enguarde, Melody.

Executed : Shokora Enekora.

Episode 5 :

Fool Francesca : 22 000/40 000

Abysmal Depths : 5 000/30 000

Total Money : 134 000/325 000

Exempted : Kolorado.

Executed : Melody Pianissimo.

Episode 6 :

Doors and Keys : 0/20 000

Easy or Hard Way : 15 000/25 000

Total Money : 149 000/370 000

Minus 1 : Waitress.

Plus 1 : Boo, Enguarde.

Exempted : Blanche.

Executed : Kolorado Raiver.

Episode 7 :

Labyrinth of the Molotaur : 5 000/15 000

Recollections of the Mole : 5 000/15 000

Total Money : 159 000/400 000

Neutralized : Blanche.

Executed : Boo Fanto.

Episode 8 :

Truths and Dare : 9 000/30 000

Chilly Climes : 0/20 000

All Roads Lead to Mole : 50 000/50 000

Total Money : 218 000/500 000

Runner-Up : Enguarde Espadon.

Winner : Waitress Serva.

Mole : Blanche Magus.

Credits/Special Thanks :

This is a fanfiction hosted on fanfictiondotcom, which means that I do not possess the Mario series. I only own the storyline in itself, the characters, locations and other details mostly belonging to Nintendo, while the specific character of White Mage belongs to Square Enix.

I would like to thank all the readers, but also the reviewers without whom this story would probably not be as good as it is. You all deserve special thanks for helping me and giving me tips, and I really enjoyed reading your suspicions and comments.

Moley Koopa, Spike Brigadier, Kaiimi, FFWS, BoomShroom, Champ 15, PSU Lucky, XVZY, Marioman101, LightLitAflame, fredthemontymole, 111hungergames111, KingBloo, LightSpeed508, AdmiralBobbery, Freek Sheet, supermariogirl, Ice Empoleon, Guest, Khaos Omega (thx for the PMs too!), PaloozaChu, LSP, Vivalahomestar, Sepron, Kirboolesex, Logan Aura, Aphrodisia, The Inexplicable One, TheMechanicalOne, PepperWho, I-mage, Jkoopa, RandomReaderGuy, Lucky Ducky and Pretty Palutena.

And an even bigger thank you to Dark Punxysaur, The Smart One 64, Soui and Prince-Wind who were my most loyal reviewers.

I know some people didn't leave their identity behind, but I still felt like thanking them. If you left an unidentified review, thank you very much!

Trivia

During the previous season, I came to realize that I had used a lot of Paper Mario Characters. Kooper, Bootler and Flurrie all came from the Paper Mario Franchise, and I wanted to avoid having too many characters from the same series this time around.

Unfortunately, when I started to brainstorm ideas and characters, I was soon in a pinch. You see, these are the 10 characters I had first selected/considered:

Males: Boo, Bullet Bill, Bahamutt, Goombario, Bowser. (Very unsure about one of them)

Females: Waitress, Lady Bow, Ms. Mowz, Shokora, Tiny Kong (for the first victim lol).

Waitress, Lady Bow, Ms. Mowz, Goombario et Bahamutt all come from Mario RPGs. From the get-go, I was in quite the pickle!

All in all, only Boo was guaranteed a place in the roster at that stage. Yes, you heard me. Although Waitress was very close to his status, she was not guaranteed to be there, because while Boo could go with any cast (a perk from being one of my favorite characters ever, I suppose), Waitress would not. I already had my token idiot in the other cast after all, and even though Waitress is not as dumb as she seems, the readers would not have known for certain until the ending. I could not just have two idiots for the entirety of the season.

So small changes happened here and there… Boo kept his spot, and eventually, Waitress joined him. In essence, I settled their position as power players.

Once I had decided to let every player proceed to the second round, I knew Tiny would go gurlbye. Instead I picked her sister, and Dixie joined the roster. Once I realized there was really no downside to keeping Bullet Bill, he also received his permanent spot.

Same for Shokora. She had been considered from the very beginning, and I needed my obscure lady in the game. While Bullet was kind of a WTF choice, Shokora was a 'Who the hell is she' type of character. Giving life to characters is what a story does, and since I really liked Wario Land 4 as a kid, and found her design very different from that of the other princesses, she was easy to select. As for Enguarde, well, I wanted a Donkey Kong character that would fail horribly, and after Donkey Kong himself, this swordfish is my favorite character of the franchise. Much like Shokora, Enguarde is a very obscure character, which was a bonus.

Goombario was a character I had no problem with, and I knew he would work as the token good guy who had everything going for himself. So I decided to let him on the show too, but because he was among the most 'popular', or rather, 'known' characters, he too was selected as one of the first victims along with Dixie Kong.

Bowser was a contestant that was rather easy to let go of. He is usually an overbearing presence, and I felt like I would not be able to do him justice. With the characters I had in mind, he would probably have to stand to the side. Basically, he had just too much personality for me to handle. He would always interrupt, give his input, and probably act like a leader. I didn't need him. Since I wanted a leader whose strategy revolved around directing the group (I had already tried a little in my second story and liked the archetype), Enguarde inherited Bowser's characterization as a leader.

But with Waitress and Goombario getting in the story, I knew I had to make a choice with the Paper Mario characters. The first one who got the boot was Ms. Mowz. Oh, but I'm sure you know who actually replaced her. No? You sure? It's someone with the same color scheme… Red and White… Someone who is also a bit of a flirt… Someone who is mysterious… Yeah, you got it. I replaced Ms. Mowz by the actual Mole of the story, White Mage. Basically, I thought like this: I want a mysterious character, who is female, but I can't select Ms. Mowz. Who do I take? I eventually settled on White Mage, which worked for me. White Mage basically inherited Ms. Mowz characteristics. In my head, Ms. Mowz and Waitress would also work together and have a teacher-student kind of relationship. White Mage got that as well.

At that point, I had my first roster, and here is the execution order I had in mind (possibly, I'm just telling you what was written on one of my agenda pages lol):

Dixie, Goombario, Shokora, Bullet Bill, Bahamutt, Lady Bow or White Mage, Enguarde or the survivor of the White Mage/Lady Bow, leaving Boo, Waitress and either White Mage/Enguarde/Lady Bow.

It quickly evolved like that:

Dixie, Goombario, Shokora, Bullet Bill, Bahamutt, White Mage, Lady Bow, with Waitress, Boo and Enguarde in the final three.

Anyways, obviously Bahamutt and Lady Bow did not stay. They were replaced by Kolorado and Melody Pianissimo. Don't ask me for Kolorado, I wouldn't be able to give you the rationale, except for the fact that I liked him. I think you can understand why Lady Bow was replaced by Melody though. I couldn't really use Madame Clairvoya because of her powers, so I settled for another favorite of mine.

Canon-wise, my ranking goes this way, from most-liked to least-liked: Boo, Kolorado, Enguarde, Dixie, Goombario, Shokora, Melody, Waitress/White Mage, Bullet Bill.

Story-wise, I wouldn't be able to tell you except that Bullet Bill was my least favorite, probably because he was also the 'least-interesting', in the sense that he had no real gameplay. But that was what made him charming, in his own way. Kolorado, Boo, Enguarde and Waitress were way up there, though.

…

Anyways, once I had my cast, I had to select a Mole.

Mole Number 1 : Waitress. Winner : Boo. Runner-Up : Kolorado.

My first scenario, and one that lasted the longest actually. Yes, I first chose to have the most obvious suspect as the Mole. Don't trust me? Well, what if I were to tell you that I had actually Waitress in mind a long time ago, even back when I was writing 'Festive Saboteur!'?

In anticipation of her future role, I had her make an appearance in Episode 5, on the Perplex Express. Then, during the finale, I revealed that someone from the production crew had been giving Toad information.

Obviously, it was Waitress I was referring to.

Farther ahead were Bootler, Toad and Noki. All of them were in the restaurant car, eying each other warily. As they were going to enter the first class car, someone called Toad. It was a Toadette with two purple pigtails and pink hearts on her cap. "Toad! What are you doing here? It's been centuries!"

Mole Number 2 : Boo. Winner : Waitress. Runner-Up : Kolorado.

Kind of like the first scenario, expect the winner and the Mole were switched. Again, Boo was always supposed to be a visible Mole, so there were barely any differences in this scenario. Boo and Waitress would have been roommates and realized that their roommate was the Mole, so it makes sense for it to be my second scenario.

Mole Number 3 : Kolorado. Winner : Waitress. Runner-Up : Boo.

Again, Kolorado would have been a very atypical Mole, with very visible sabotages. Absolutely nothing would have changed for him, as far as the actual story went. He would have made the same choices, the same 'mistakes' and would have simply accentuated his real personality. Waitress would have been the winner because, well, she would have been besties with him too, and Boo would have lost because he wouldn't have socialized much with the old explorer.

Basically, he would fail where Bootler succeeded. This third scenario was the one I had selected until a few weeks before I actually started writing. We were awfully close to having this as the real story.

Mole Number 4 : Enguarde. Winner : Waitress. Runner-Up : Boo.

So this scenario was less explored than most of the others. I do not think I had a reason to make Waitress win, and unless she was the most popular character of the story, I do believe I would have made the switch to Boo as the winner since he was closer to Enguarde than she was.

Two scenarios could have occurred with her as the winner though: Boo underestimating his opponent due to her oblivious nature (they would have tied on the questionnaire), or Boo actually not suspecting Enguarde. TBH, it would have most likely been the first one. I wouldn't have done the second one to Boo, lol.

Mole Number 5 : White Mage. Winner : Waitress. Runner-Up : Boo.

Wait, what? Runner-up…Boo?! Wasn't it this exact scenario, though? Nope, not entirely! Enguarde would have been executed instead of Boo, and both Boo and Waitress would have known Blanche was the Mole. Both Boo and Waitress would also have been revealed as partners in the revelations, due to them sharing a room. In the end, Waitress would have bested Boo the same way Bootler bested Noki last season: she simply knew more about her friend.

Waitress would have been suspicious of both Boo and Blanche, but would have suspected Blanche after careful consideration. Boo would have done the same later on. Waitress would have suspected White Mage for the vase breaking, while Boo would have suspected her by default, after his last other suspect, Kolorado, had been executed. He would have been left with Enguarde, who he knew was innocent because of Melody's departure, White Mage, who he suspected, and Waitress, wo he was allied with.

What changed was… I wanted to make the story more interesting. Many people liked Boo, which is why I wasn't sure at the beginning, but I made my choice after Melody's departure, and it was not in Boo's favor. Few people kept reviewing at that point, so I was like… "Whatever, it doesn't look like Boo leaving one episode earlier will change much when the ones who review absolutely love Waitress and Kolorado."

After Melody's departure, I devised Boo's downfall. He would doubt everything and everyone, even himself, and end up eliminating himself when he had everything going for him. I thought this story of Boo being a loner at first and then slowly expanding his circle of friends, only to revert back to his true nature in the end, would be really more original, and fitting of his character.

Better than your usual low-confidence-yet-slowly-evolving-until-they-are-blooming sad story of a character, at the very least. Sue me, I'm getting bored of this archetype. X)

It also eliminated my favorite canonical character, which would make it more difficult for you to pick roles based on what I like. So yeah. Plus, I had a lot of fun writing for Enguarde. Maybe what I would change, in retrospect, is the final 3 aspect of the game. Oh well.

Mole Number 6 : Melody. Winner : Waitress. Runner-Up : Boo.

Not much to say here. It was but a fleeting thought, if I may be honest. Melody would have been the same, except there would have been a dichotomy to her sabotages. Either she would succeed to the best of her ability, or she would blow up in the most explosive ways.

Waitress would win because Boo would still believe in his main ally. Not very developed, but as I said, I didn't really dwell on it.

In the end, I am somewhat conflicted about my Mole choice. But overall, I suppose I am glad I picked White Mage, since I feel it made for a better story, and I managed to think of her acts of sabotage which were very clever and subtle. I mean, this is my very first subtle Mole.

I honestly believe you can't call Toad subtle when he threw a random rock at Flurrie's car, failed to bring back coins when others cheated and at least added something to the pot, stayed in the bathroom twice, which led to failure, refused to partake in a challenge, fake an injury and stuff. I think he was just shielded by the drama, because when you see his actions as a whole, he certainly isn't innocent by any means.

Whereas for White Mage, you could say she is responsible for the loss of the first challenge as her biggest act of sabotage, but only if you consider the Mole knew who had won the coin toss. In essence, it made every one rather suspicious if you considered that though. You could input the Fool Francesca challenge's loss on her… But she did such a good job defending herself and adapting to the situation that she wasn't that suspicious, compared to other people. And honestly, I kind of find it hard to point out other challenges where she was not subtle at all.

However, I am also disappointed I picked White Mage. I'll be honest, sometimes I felt very restricted with what I could do, and it really strained my inventiveness. I also somehow feel like I have missed a good opportunity with Waitress. I mean, at least I still used her mostly like I wanted, but it's not the same thing. As you saw from my first three finalists, my idea for this season was to have three very different yet obvious Mole gameplays in the finale, but since I switched to White Mage, it had to be scrapped.

As for the mystery in itself, I am actually satisfied with it. Honestly, and feel free to disagree with me in the comments, I feel like there were only a few ways to identify White Mage as the Mole:

-Find a clue that depicted her as the traitor. Some of you successfully did so and told me that was the only/main reason why she was so high in your lists.

-Claim to know me and my tastes. Which would be akin to luck, as White Mage is one of the characters I like the least in this cast, canonically. Not sure where this idea of me liking the character comes from but…

-Find her subtle acts of sabotage. Some were really well-hidden, so if you were to find several instances of such actions, you would have had serious doubts

-Luck. So basically, deciding randomly. Kind of like reason number 2, but with no fallacious justification this time. Perhaps Gut Feeling is more like it. You believe White Mage is strange, but cannot find a way to express your suspicions. You simply believe it is her, but cannot link her to the role in an objective way.

-Last but not least, thinking outside the box and feeling like the least suspicious player was the most suspicious. This isn't proof or anything, but why not? Expect the unexpected.

So if White Mage was so hard to find (in my opinion), why was I satisfied with the mystery?

-There were at least 70 clues. You might not think them all relevant or even fair, but they were there. Plus I can't just wave a flag saying 'Blanche is the Mole!' I mean, I kinda did it once, but 70 times? (lol, that'd be kinda funny)

-White Mage is a kind character, who also has somewhat of a mean streak. She is an altruist, yet she makes egoistical decisions. She is supposed to be a seasoned explorer, yet she acts like a dainty and vain model. She should help everyone get along, yet she sometimes participates in the fights, and occasionally starts them. She is the Mole and should stay low, yet she goes out of her way to make herself sound and look suspicious. Basically, she's a walking contradiction, and that's what I really liked about this Mole. No matter how you look at her, something doesn't make sense, which added to her mystery and mysticism in my opinion.

-Like I said, hunting her was unconventional.

-The reveal. Yeah, you might have suspected her, and you might have found some clues about her, and you might even have found her hidden attempts at sabotaging the games…but you could never hope to truly pierce her armor. No matter how sure you were of her identity as the Mole, there are things that you ought to have missed, which makes it so that the reveal isn't boring for anyone.

-I enjoyed making the others doubt her, and make comments about her choice of clothes, and how it was a recurring issue throughout the story, because after reading the story once and realizing what the title was about, you may shake your head and tell yourself: how did I miss that?

-Her sabotage. Most of her actions were extremely subtle. I was honestly more interested in revealing how she had sabotaged than who the Mole was. Which is probably part of the reason why I was a little disappointed in my Mole choice. I was more excited about the 'how' than the 'who', and I feel like it should be the other way around actually?

Well, I wrote this in advance to get it out of the way, and I don't know what else to say. I made some references to other stories, however… I am not going to explain them. If you find them, then you were meant to find them. If not, then it might be for the better? You never know after all.

As for scrapped challenges, I would rather not reveal them here. I will say, however, that only one or two were changed/added.

I spoke about the clues, and there is one clue that was changed, simply because it was sooooo obvious. The very last place the players were supposed to visit was initially called the 'Holy Place'. Holy being one of the most known spells a White Mage can learn. The reason why I scraped it was because, much like Toad Road was a clue pointing to Toad in the previous season, Holy Place was pointing to White Mage in this fourth installment.

Both clues having a very similar meaning and being at the very same place in the story, I felt like it was uninspired and really obvious, much more than 'THE MOLE IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU'. I like to use clues similar to one another throughout my seasons, but this time it was a literal copy/paste, so I changed the name to Halcyon Grounds. I don't regret it because if someone had no idea who the Mole was but knew a little about Final Fantasy, it would have been a very anticlimactic reveal for them.

One last trivia bit I have to share with you is that… I goofed up with the pot. So shortly after publishing this particular chapter, I'll have to go back all the way to episode two and start to edit the total amount of coins that has been won by the players. Between the beginning of episode 2 and its end, I remember that a good amount of time had passed, and when I returned to the story, I used the coin summary of chapter 5 and not chapter 6. Essentially, I forgot to account for the penalty that Shokora took during the first episode.

It's a pain in the butt, but I only have myself to blame for my negligence. Lol.

ONE LAST THING… There were fake clues. I'm going to reveal one of them for each player that made it to the final four!

Boo: Picture Clue 5. Look closely at the stream that flows from the left hole of the cavern. It ends up forming a small body of water. You can see Boo's face where the stream connects with the body of water.

Enguarde: In the 25th chapter, Kolorado and the host discuss the challenge while waiting for the others to emerge from the Silena Cave. Monty Mole says:

"They say that when you wish upon a star, it makes no difference who you are," Monty Mole spoke up, staring at the sky.

"But it couldn't be farthest from the truth in this game: the Mole and the players both wish for two different outcomes, so who you are does matter," the host concluded mystically.

'When you wish upon a star' is the name of the song that plays in the Disney movie entitled 'Pinocchio', a reference to Enguarde's elongated bill.

Waitress: Picture Clue 7. If you rotate the first line of the maze clockwise, you will see that the triangular arrows representing the Molotaurs suddenly seem to point to Waitress.

There were more than that, of course! But these three examples were fairly diverse, and since I don't think I'll ever utilize them again, I wanted to reveal them!

Recommendations

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The Mole: Traitor Aboard by Krisetchers.

The Mole: Saboteur's Island by Krisetchers.

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The Mole: Paper Mario Edition by The Smart One 64.

The Mole: Super Smash Bros Edition by TheGreatAvenger.

The Mole: Fiend's Burrow by Vivalahomestar.

Total Drama Mole by author999.

The Mole: Pokemon & Digimon Edition by Gomamon.

The Mole: Saboteur Investigation by Moley Koopa.

These are either some of my favorites or stories that have been completed or both, sometimes.