When I read about Mario's birth, I was a little disturbed. "He had to be more or less scraped out, Mario, like the meat of an oyster from a womb to whose sides he'd been found spiderishly clinging...(313)" The description of scraping him out of a womb sounds like an abortion, and it makes him seem like some unwanted parasite. It's strange that he survived such a traumatic birth, and in some ways, maybe it can be interpreted that part of him did die? His eyes have an odd dead gray-green color to them, and his scalp is the same color. I envisioned a semi-decaying body...(is that morbid?) Anyway a question I had, is Mario James' son or Charles'? His hair is likened to that of the "athletic director and Academy Headmaster," (314) and it flaps up in the same way Charles' hair does.

I think Hal and Mario's relationship is really endearing. Hal looks up to Mario, yet assumes the role of a protective/caring older brother (unlike Orin).

And this may seem a bit odd/random, but did anyone else think of the Simpson's episode about the land of the jockey-elves (when we are told that Mario was at a size ranging "somewhere between elf and jockey" (313))?