Bobby

Bob-omb
Species	Bob-omb
Debut	Paper Mario: The Origami King

Bobby (real name Bob-omb) is a supporting character from Paper Mario: The Origami King. He is a Bob-omb who accompanies Mario as a non-playable partner for an early part of his journey. While he does not actually have a unique name, Olivia finds his name hard to remember and ultimately dubs him Bobby.

Background

Bobby was a Bob-omb who was somewhat laidback and generally friendly. He could also be absentminded and accident-prone occasionally. Little was disclosed about Bobby's past, but he was known to be friends with a number of other Bob-ombs. He once lost once friend (also named Bob-omb) who he considered to be his "bestest-best bud" after he was "scrapped in an accident". Bobby kept his departed friend's fuse in a lockbox and carried it with him wherever he traveled in memory of him. Eventually, Bob-omb and his friends went off on a cruise and chipped in to stay at the VIP stateroom of the ship, which was known as The Princess Peach. The trip was fun until the ship was attacked by a Paper Macho Gooper Blooper. The Bob-ombs were all tossed into the sea in the ensuing battle, including Bobby. Bobby lost his fuse in the process and also ended up losing all of his memories.

After washing up at Toad Town, the amnesic Bob-omb decided to start traveling in hopes of finding his lost memories and ended up boarding a tram car to Autumn Mountain. This was where he first appeared in The Origami King, as he met Mario and Olivia when they shared the tram car with him. Once they heard about his plight, Olivia invited Bobby to join them in their own journey so that he would not have to find his memories alone. Bobby was initially reluctant, as he did not want to hold Mario and Olivia back. Olivia accepted this immediately, but Bobby then asked to join anyway. And so Bobby began traveling with them. Olivia quickly developed a habit of forgetting Bobby's name and settled on referring to him as "Bobby". As he accompanied them at Autumn Mountain, he got lost several times. The first time, he got lost in tall grass and ended up by the Friendship Plaza. Shortly afterwards, he was knocked off of a bridge by a Macho Goomba and ended up in Chestnut Valley, where Mario had to rescue him several times. Bobby was needed to stand on a switch to open the Water Vellumental Shrine, although he refrained from entering it himself.

Bobby continued to accompany them as they went down the Eddy River and explored Shogun Studios, although he sat out of some of the areas and remained in the audience when Mario took part in the battles at Big Sho' Tower. After Shogun Studios was saved, they celebrated with a fireworks ceremony. Witnessing those fireworks restored Bobby's lost memories. He related that to Mario and Olivia as they made their way towards the next destination, Sweetpaper Valley. Although he avoided going into detail about his past, he claimed that the memories he made with Mario and Olivia were his favorite memories. He felt that he had to leave now that his memories had returned, but Olivia convinced him to stay so that they could keep on making great memories. They then arrived at Sweepaper Valley, where King Olly appeared and dropped a giant boulder on Olivia. Although she was still alive underneath the boulder, there was seemingly no way to recover her from there. Bobby did know of one way through his memories, which would involve the ultimate sacrifice.

Without explaining his plan, Bobby had Mario bring him to The Princess Peach in search of his lockbox. As they explored the ship, they ended up facing off with the Paper Macho Gooper Blooper, which Mario was able to destroy. With The Princess Peach safe again, they were able to access the stateroom and retrieved Bobby's lockbox. They then returned to Sweetpaper Valley, where Bobby revealed the truth about his plan. He pulled his friend's fuse from the lockbox, attached it to himself and proceeded to destroy himself, in an explosion grand enough to destroy the boulder and save Olivia. Mario attempted to run over to stop him, but it was too late.

Afterwards, the debris from the explosion was gathered by the local Monty Mole miners and brought into the Breezy Tunnel. From that heap, Bobby's spirit later appeared to Mario to talk to him one last time. He felt regret about how Olivia must be feeling and encouraged Mario to try to make her laugh in order to cheer him up. His spirit did not appear again at that site afterwards, although Olivia noted that she felt a Bobby-like presence nearby. Bobby's spirit could also appear within photos taken at the Photo Studio at Shogun Studios after his demise.

Abilities

Throughout the game, Bobby lacks his fuse. The only ability he uses in battle is a simple Bomb Bump, which is stronger than Mario's attacks but only strikes one enemy.

Trivia

• He is notable as the only named character to have died onscreen within a Mario game, aside from several villains.
• Bobby referred to Mario as "Big M" and Olivia as "ma'am". Olivia also calls him Bobert and Bhomas before settling on Bobby.
• His collectible treasure refers to him as an enthusiastic young bomb, and in the Japanese version he refers to Mario by a term used to refer to an older brother. This implies that Bobby was younger than Mario.
• When meeting Bowser's Bob-ombs later in the game, Olivia believes that they are all a revived Bobby and is confused by how he could have multiplied.
• Unlike other partners in the game, he is not locked to a specific area and can be brought back to revisit most of the areas available in the game at the time.
• When trying to recall the word "amnesia", one of the terms Bobby uses is "Thinky Thinky Panic". This is a reference to Doki Doki Panic, which was the first game that Bob-ombs appeared in.