Grodus

“ Yes, that is correct! I am the supreme leader of the Secret Society of X-Nauts! I am Grodus! ”

—Sir Grodus, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Sir Grodus is the supreme leader of the extraterrestrial organization called the Secret Society of the X-Nauts and the main villain in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. The organization consists of X-Nauts, a band of thugs determined to capture the Crystal Stars before Mario, so they can dominate the world with the treasure behind the Thousand Year Door. He kidnaps Princess Peach to use her as an offering to the treasure behind the Thousand-Year Door, the 1,000-year-old demon, the Shadow Queen.

Plans and Actions

Prior to the start of the game, Grodus learns of the 1,000-year-old demon beneath Rougeport from the Shadow Sirens. Using this information, Grodus begins his plans to find the Crystal Stars and use them to revive the demon and use its' power to conquer the entire world. He learns the location of three of the Crystal Stars, one in Hooktail's Castle, one in the Great Tree, and one in the sewers of Rougeport. The Shadow Sirens also provide him with additional information, including the essential need for a pure maiden to give the demon a host to regain a physical presence. The X-Naut organization eventually came into possession of the Magic Map's treasure chest, but Grodus was unable to open it due to his evil and tainted ambitions. He then decided to use the chest as a way of finding the pure maiden.

Throughout the game, Grouds remains leading the operations at his fortress on the Moon, sending out Lord Crump or the Shadow Sirens to perform his will. Grodus has already obtained one of the Crystal Stars found in the Rougeport Sewers, which is under tight security in the Fortress. With this valuable treasure in his possession, Grodus next sent the Shadow Sirens to find a pure maiden for his plans. Beldam, the leader of the Sirens does so by disguising herself as a merchant and searched for people in Rougeport who are capable of opening the container that holds the magic map. The reason for this was because the X-Nauts desired the map as well to show them where to find the remaining Crystal Stars and since the container could only be opened by one pure of heart, finding the maiden would kill two birds with one stone.

Beldam eventually found a pure maiden who turned out to be none other than Princess Peach. Beldam attempted to abduct her there after she opened the chest, but there was too many witnesses and she had to find a more opportune moment. Peach in the meantime sent the map to Mario to aid in the treasure search. Eventually, Grodus loses his patience and sends his organization to abduct her themselves. They go to Rougeport and abduct the princess while in a back ally in the run down town. She is taken to the X-Naut fortress, but does not have the Crystal Star map, much to Grodus's disgust. Hoping to gather more information on the Crystal Stars, Grodus sent Lord Crump back to Rougeport to gather any people with this possible information. Lord Crump begins to interrogate people in Rougeport when he comes across Goombella and attempts to abduct her as well. Mario, who just arrived at the town at the request of Peach, intervenes and saves the Goomba.

One of Grodus's earlier plans was initiated when he sent his armies to the Great Tree to steal the Crystal Star that was hidden there. Upon arriving, the X-Nauts took complete control of the tree and constructed several technological advancements that made the tree nearly impenetrable. The tree was ridged with explosives, supposedly to destroy the Punies and their tree once the Crystal Star was found, and all the Punies were captured, interrogated, and imprisoned. Forming an alliance with the Jabbies, the X-Nauts searched for the Crystal Star, promising the Jabbies that they would give them the tree if they helped in the search.

After failing to acquire any more information on the Crystal Stars, Lord Crump reports back to his master, Sir Grodus, who begins setting his plans in order. Grodus is first shown in the game interrogating the princess about the whereabouts of the map to the Crystal Stars. Though she refuses to say anything at first, she lets out a vital detail when one of Grodus's followers reports. The X-Naut reports that a figure in blue overalls, a red cap, and mustache obtained the first Crystal Star from Hooktail. Peach utters Mario's name and this indicates to Grodus that Mario has the map. He sends her back to her holding room and begins making his plans and gathers all available information on Mario.

Grodus eventually sends Lord Crump to the Puni Tree to speed up the search and also sent the Shadow Sirens to steal the map that showed the locations of the Crystal Stars from Mario. Mario however is much more than Grodus anticipated and defeats both the Shadow Sirens and Lord Crump. He is also able to destroy the X-Naut's control over the Tree and obtains the second Crystal Star as well. Infuriated, Grodus is left to spend more time to concoct another scheme to stop Mario. After Mario successfully obtains the third Crystal Star, Grodus once again calls upon the Shadow Sirens to make another murder attempt at Mario and his partners. They follow Mario to Twilight Town and attempt to kill him using a Superbombomb. They fail miserably in this task, never even finding or facing Mario in battle due to Beldam's incompetence and tendency to blame her mistakes on Vivian. Vivian in turn left the group to join Mario and is later replaced with Doopliss, a trickster who may be indirectly involved with the X-Naut's plans.

Peach, in her imprisonment, is being monitored by TEC-XX. TEC is the base's computer and was designed by Grodus to be "the perfect computer". Grodus instructed TEC to keep an eye on Peach; little did he know that this would turn out to be a major mistake. TEC, despite being a computer, fell in love with Peach. Despite TEC being unaware of what love was at first, he quickly learns that he has feelings for Peach and helps her gather data to learn all of Grodus's plans. On one occasion Peach is asked to disguise herself as an X-Naut and ask Grodus why Peach was being kept at the base. Grodus nearly learned of her disguise, but she rushed away before he could get any closer. Grodus apparently was too busy by his destructive desires to monitor TEC himself. Eventually, Grodus learns that the seal on the Thousand-Year-Door was weakening. This delighted him, as the power of the most evil spirit to ever befall the planet would soon be his. He reveals his full intentions here to completely destroy the world and remake it in his image. He explains his goal as "A world made by him, about him, and for him."

As more of Grodus’s plans failed, he sends Lord Crump to obtain the fifth Crystal Star. This Crystal Star would be found on a tropical island said to be haunted by the spirit of Cortez. Crump finds out that Mario has assembled a crew for the voyage and so, disguises himself to join the crew. While his disguise is incredibly obvious, to point of Crump threatening the player not to tell Mario, everyone is fooled into believing he is a harmless crew member eager to help out in their voyage. When they eventually arrived at the island, Crump waited for Mario to defeat Cortez and obtain the next Cystal Star. Once he did, Crump attacked the island using an X-Naut ship and revealed himself to the rest of the crew. Mario however was able to get Cortez to help and they were able to defeat Crump who soon retreated.

When Grodus learned of Lord Crump's third defeat at the hands of Mario, he sends his new follower, Doopliss, to sabotage the Excess Express, a train Mario was taking, and kill all onboard to stop Mario once and for all. The plan was to disguise himself as Zip Toad, a famous star, and create a concoction that would immobilize the entire train. This would be accomplished by stealing Honey Nitro Syrup, which one of the passengers was carrying, and combine it with the calcium of a sea shell and a bit of gold. The Shadow Sirens in the meantime were sent to retrieve the sixth Crystal Star while Doopliss took care of Mario, but many complications rose in the plan. Mario ,with the aid of a detective penguin known as Pennington, was able to stop Doopliss and discover his disguise. Doopliss however was able to escape and Beldam decided to take another plan of action.

Sneaking into the abandoned station at Riverside, Beldam flipped the switch that controlled the lowering of the Riverside Bridge and stranded the train at the station. Mario is able to get into the station and flip the switch back, but this allowed the Smorg, an experiment of the X-Nauts', to board the train. The next day, they attacked the train and abducted all the passengers, only to be destroyed by Mario. With the passengers saved and the train secured, Mario arrived at Poshley Heights and obtained the next Crystal Star. The Shadow Sirens believed to have stolen the real one, but it is later revealed that they only took a decoy. Peach and TEC in the meantime were able to make a complicated plan to obtain Gordus' data disk that outlines all the aspects of his plans. With this in his possession, Tec is able to learn everything and ultimatley prepares to have Peach escape.

When Grodus' latest plot failed, Mario had all but one Crystal Star in his possession. Grodus decided to go in a different direction in his plans. Grodus is finally told by one of his followers that Tec-XX has been letting Peach in and out of her cell and even has been hacking into other files that he was forbade to go into. Grodus shuts down TEC-XX just as the computer prepared to let Peach escape after he learned of Tec's treason and was secretly helping Princess Peach. He then takes the Princess to the Thousand-Year Door, leaving his base of operations and the seventh and final Crystal Star under the command of Lord Crump. However, unknown to Crump, Grodus had secret plans in mind. He intended for Crump to fail so that Mario would obtain all the Crystal Stars and use them to open the Thousand-Year Door. When Mario defeated Crump, obtained the last Crystal Star, and left the X-Naut fortress to self-destruct; Grodus had Doopliss abduct Professor Frankly and disguise himself as the old professor. In this guise, Doopliss was able to convince Mario to open the door. Once it was open, Grodus entered and waited patiently for Mario in the Palace's throne room.

Final Confrontation

After Mario and his pals confront Grodus in the Palace of Shadow, Grodus reveals he tricked Mario and company into collecting the Crystal Stars to open the Thousand-Year Door. Grodus engages Mario and his associates in battle, using various forms of magic and technology to aid him. Despite his powers, Grodus is badly defeated and weakened. Not accepting defeat, Grodus reveals Princess Peach imprisoned in a compact force field. Grodus, controlling magic lightning, threatens to murder Peach if Mario refuses to surrender. As Mario stands motionless, Grodus inflicts the lightning on Mario. Before dealing any more, Grodus asks Mario to give up. If Mario refuses, Grodus will murder Peach, if he does surrender, Grodus will torture him and his friends. Either way, before Grodus can cause anymore harm, the ceiling comes crashing down on him and Grodus is squished by Bowser and Kammy Koopa who fall through the ceiling.

Mario is left with no choice, but to fight both Bowser and Kammy, but this allows Grodus to escape to the Resting-Place of the Shadow Queen with Peach. Once Mario defeats Bowser and Kammy, he ventures to the lowest room in the Palace, the resting-place of the demon, the Shadow Queen. Here, Grodus reveals his reason for kidnapping Peach. He needs a pure maiden for the demon to inhabit to regain a physical presence and Peach served as the perfect candidate.

Declaring himself as the new ruler of the world, Grodus summoned the Shadow Queen, presenting Peach as a vessel for the Queen's spirit. The world is literally plunged into darkness as the demon returns to the world. The queen is intially surprised that Grodus is the one who brought her back, but nonetheless is satisfied with Grodus's offering of Peach as a vessel. Once the queen completly gains control of Peach, Grodus attempts to command the Shadow Queen to kill Mario and his companions. However, the Queen is not one who takes orders and it is revealed that Grodus was tricked by the Shadow Sirens to resurrect their Queen. As a result, the Shadow Queen zaps him with lightning, destroying his body.

Grodus is shown to be still alive, although barley, as a head. The queen strikes his head which sends him to parts unknown. The Shadow Sirens, actually old followers of the Shadow Queen, arrived and revealed that they told Grodus he could control the demon after resurrecting it. They did this in order to convince him to hunt down the Crystal Stars and open the Thousand-Year Door to revive their Queen after a thousand years. The Shadow Queen shows her true power and is eventually shown to be invincible. Attempting to coax Mario to serve her, the Shadow Queen prepares to conquer the planet once again. Fortunately, the power of Crystal Stars react to the evil in the area and are used to communicate the hopes of all the people Mario met on his journey to the heroic plumber. This eventually allowed Princess Peach to temporarily break through the demon's control and give Mario full power.

The Shadow Queen is soon vulnerable again and is badly defeated. The Shadow Queen is then destroyed and sent to the Netherworld by Mario, undoing all of Grodus's plans and desires. Princess Peach is returned back to normal and the Shadow Sirens retreat. Mario, his companions, and Peach return to Rougeport to celebrate in their accomplishments. After the Shadow Queen's destruction, the Shadow Sirens and Doopliss turn good and it is shown that Grodus was able to survive the second strike by the Shadow Queen. While Grodus is still alive, his head is the only active thing left after his body was destroyed. His head currently resides in Poshley Heights, with the remains of his forces which consist of Lord Crump and four soldiers. With his entire organization practically destroyed and only being a head, it is assumed that Grodus is incapable of further evil.

Personality

Sir Grodus is presented as a serious, short-tempered, and emotionless villain bent on nothing, but total world conquest. Grodus is 100% devoted to taking control of the world and every action he performs is aimed at that goal. Taking his plans and operations extremely seriously, Grodus will stop at nothing to obtain his desires. Cruel and ruthless, Grodus is willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish his plans, even if it means taking innocent lives.

Despite being outwardly calm on most occasions, Grodus's desires often drive him to appear insane, almost psychotic on some occasions. Whenever discussing the prospect of his plans, he goes off into a maddened laughter that becomes more and more frequent as the story unfolds. This can be seen as a true reflection of his obsession and just how desperate he is to rule the world and remake it into a "perfect world." When he is not laughing maniacally, Grodus is often seen giving orders and insults to his organization, seeing most of them as pathetic inferiors. He is shown to be very uptight and short-tempered throughout the course of the game, but gets more calm towards his associates when he gets closer and closer to unleashing the Shadow Queen.

Grodus has shown no form of emotion other than anger and bitterness, mostly directed at his henchmen for failing their many tasks. Grodus does not have any sympathy for his minions, seeing them as only pawns to be manipulated. He does not care for anybody or anything other than himself and will willingly take the lives of his own followers in order to insure his own benefit. This is shown when Grodus does not tell Lord Crump of his plans of Mario defeating him. Grodus appears to have as much compassion and sympathy for his own associates as his enemies, showing mostly everyone around him as little respect as possible. Grodus also sees Mario’s relationship with Peach as a weakness and was ready to murder Peach if Mario refused to surrender.

Along with stereotypical villain traits, Grodus is also shown to be highly intelligent. He is shown to be very skilled at technology for the simple fact that his fortress and all his equipment are constructed from technological advancements that exceed those found anywhere in the Mushroom Kingdom. His technology goes as far as manipulating magic and using it at his whim. Grodus also always thinks ahead and is never ready or willing to admit defeat. He always has backup plans in case his original plans fail. He has shown to be very manipulative, even to his own organization, in order to play out his plans exactly as he imagined them. This tactic often works and is primarily the reason why Grodus came so close to throwing the world into endless despair and chaos.

Grodus’s faults, which ultimately led to his demise, are his arrogance and overconfidence. He underestimated Mario’s abilities, especially in his battle with him, and believed that Mario could never overcome all the trials that have been placed before him. Grodus’s arrogance led to his ultimate defeat in which he attempted to command the Shadow Queen even after she displayed that she is not so easily controlled. This mistake led to the destruction of his entire body at the hands of the Shadow Queen and nearly killed him. Grodus remains alive in some state at least partially. It is unlikely that he will return however as it is strongly hinted that he won't at the end of the game.

Powers and Abilities

Sir Grodus can create Mini-Yuxes called Grodus X (explains why he has that mechanical head). He requires 4 Grodus X's to create a force field to protect himself. If a single Grodus X is destroyed, the force field breaks. However, Grodus's Defense is increased by 1 for every Grodus X that he has. His main form of attack is that scepter he's holding. Grodus is a powerful opponent because not only does he have an army and advanced technology at his disposal he is also very adept at magic.

It is unknown how Gordus learned how to use magic, but he has combined in with his technology to make it adept to use. His scepter is the weapon in which he uses to conduct the magic. The magic seems to posses no limitations. With this weapon, Grodus is capable of shooting lightning, setting fire to his enemies, and freezing them. One more ability Grodus has is the seeming ability to summon the Shadow Queen. However, it is not known if this is an ability or merely an action that anyone is capable of performing.

It is possible that Grodus allowed the Shadow Sirens to infuse their magic into his technology as they all have the same powers his scepter possesses.

Trivia

• Grodus apparently carries Lozenges on him as he looks for one when he thinks that a X-Naut has a sore-throat, although it was really Princess Peach in disguise.

• It is never clear if Grodus is purely a machine or has a more humanoid, or like the X-Nauts, extraterrestrial appearance. Regardless, his head is at least fully mechanical as it can operate on it's own without the use of a body as shown at the end of the game.

• It is hinted in the game that Grodus was plotting to conquer the world even before his knowledge of the Shadow Queen. It is only after the Shadow Sirens arm him with this dangerous knowledge that he attempts world conquest through this method. It is unknown how many other schemes Grodus has made to conquer the world prior to the game if any.

• In Super Paper Mario, a novelist in Flopside (the inverted Flipside) wrote the script for the TV Show The Grodus Chronicles (a pun on "The Martian Chronicles"), apparently featuring Sir Grodus. This show is watched by Francis.

• Interestingly Sir Grodus can use the three elements that the Shadow Sirens can use Fire, Thunder and Ice.