Why does Mario wear a hat?

Originally, we said that Mario is wearing a hat because drawing a fancy hairstyle in pixel sprites proved to be far too difficult. In reality, there are much deeper reasons for Mario’s hat-wearing. See, Mario is actually just a flesh husk, and the real main character in every game is the hat he is wearing. You may have noticed that many of the power-ups in Mario games are reflected in his hat. Each power-up has a different personality as each hat is its very own person with goals and ambitions. This idea is the most exemplified in the latest installment of 3D Mario games: Super Mario Odyssey. We were finally ready to reveal the most important part of Mario lore with the introduction of Cappy, a sentient cap. If you pay close attention to the introduction sequence of the game, you can clearly see how Mario is helpless without a hat host and how he has to acquire a pilot in order to proceed. So, this is the real reason why Mario wears a hat: he is just a body, with no soul, goal, objective or thoughts.