Pure Heart

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Count Bleck surrounded by all eight Pure Hearts.

“Pure Hearts are the very feelings of our souls. As long as we feel love, they live on!”

—Tippi, Super Paper Mario

The Pure Hearts are eight sacred artifacts created by the Tribe of Ancients to save the world from the Chaos Heart. The Pure Hearts seem to be Super Paper Mario's equivalent of Paper Mario's Star Spirits and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door's Crystal Stars. They appear as large, heart-shaped gems with rounded edges, and are collected in the order of colors as they would appear on a rainbow (save the final Pure Heart, which is white; the result of all colors being mixed together).

Mario receives a Pure Heart from Merlon before the player even controls him in the beginning of the game, and must find the other seven throughout his adventure to form the Purity Heart. After acquiring a Pure Heart, Mario must take it to a Heart Pillar and insert it into a shaped indentation. This creates a door to a new world atop Flipside Tower, with the color of the door matching the Pure Heart used to create it. The only exception is the white Pure Heart, which causes the large black door to Castle Bleck to appear atop Flopside Tower.

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The red Pure Heart, given to Mario by Merlon.

According to Carson, the Pure Hearts are powered by love (parental, romantic, etc.). The Ancients researched love, believing it to be the universe's only salvation; the Pure Hearts are thus the physical embodiment of love. It was written in the Light Prognosticus that a group of heroes must find all of the Pure Hearts to destroy the Chaos Heart and save all worlds from annihilation.

Despite their incredible power, the Pure Hearts are not indestructible. If a dimension collapses while a Pure Heart is in it, the artifact loses most of its power, becoming a large, heart-shaped stone. It can only be repowered by an extremely powerful entity, but suffers no loss of potency when the act is complete.

It was also believed that the Pure Hearts would disappear forever if used together against the Chaos Heart's power. This became a major factor in Dimentio's plan to remake the universe; by tricking the heroes into "wasting" the Pure Hearts against Count Bleck, he would be able to take control of the Chaos Heart and The Void. However, it is revealed that the Pure Hearts can be recreated by powerful feelings of love, which spells the end of Dimentio's schemes and allows Count Bleck and Tippi - now revealed as Lord Blumiere and Lady Timpani - to finally destroy the Chaos Heart.
Here are all eight locations of the Pure Hearts:

1. red Kept by Merlon in Flipside and given to Mario when he begins his journey.
2. orange Guarded by Fracktail deep within the Yold Ruins in Lineland. Fracktail was prepared to hand over the Pure Heart without a fight, but he went berserk after being short-circuited by Dimentio. After Mario destroyed the malfunctioning machine, the Pure Heart was given to him by Merlumina. It seems to represent love.
3. gold Kept by Merlee in Gloam Valley. It may be a symbol of faith.
4. green Emerged in the Bitlands's Fort Francis after Mario rescues Tippi. The heart was gained by trust.
5. dodgerblue Hidden by the ancient Squirpians in the Whoa Zone somewhere in Outer Space. The party fought Luigi, who at the time was Mr. L. It might represent Squirps' love for his mother.
6. darkblue Kept by the Floro Sapiens in the Land of the Cragnons. It may represent their love for their ruler, King Croacus, or a monarch's love for their subjects.
7. purple Kept by King Sammer in Sammer's Kingdom. It was severely weakened by The Void, but is later repowered by Queen Jaydes.
8. grey Personified as a Nimbi named Luvbi. Her foster parents are Grambi of the Overthere and Queen Jaydes of the Underwhere. After the battle against Bonechill, the heart was restored to its true form.

All Pure Hearts are drawn by their own power toward those strong with love, likely due to their aforementioned love-powered creation. They lead the player to the next one, with the exception of the eighth one, which leads the player to Castle Bleck. It is also interesting to note that Pure Hearts may be sapient, as the Luvbi character spoken of above actually managed to remember being a Pure Heart when her true being as a Pure Heart was revealed to her after a prolonged amount of time in which she thought she was born a Nimbi.