Pure Heart

"The Pure Hearts are powerful artifacts created by the Tribe of Ancients in Super Paper Mario. All eight Pure Hearts are pieces of the Purity Heart, and they were created by the Ancients using the power of love, which was believed to be the only force powerful enough to save all worlds from destruction.

The Pure Hearts were created as part of the prophecies detailed in the Light Prognosticus, which state that four Heroes of Light must gather all eight of them in order to counteract the Chaos Heart and defeat the one who wields it. When placed in a Heart Pillar, each Pure Heart leads to a dimension where the next one is located, through a series of doors at the top of Flipside Tower. The Pure Hearts are eight pieces of the whole Purity Heart, which was divided into the Pure Hearts by the Ancients so it could be hidden across different dimensions.

The first Pure Heart is held by a descendant of the Ancients named Merlon, who gives it to Mario, the first of the four heroes, with the task of traveling through dimensions in order to gather the other seven and stop Count Bleck from destroying all worlds using The Void. During his journey, Mario eventually comes to reunite with Princess Peach, Bowser, and Luigi, all of whom are proven to be the remaining three Heroes of Light, and together, the four of them manage to collect all eight Pure Hearts and travel to Castle Bleck to battle against Count Bleck, the holder of the Chaos Heart." —Pure Heart, from the Super Mario Wiki

## Lore

Text from Merlimbis’s window in the Mirror Room states that she was the creator of the Purity Heart. However, Merlumina also seems to be involved in its creation as well, based on her English Catch Card text stating that she “made a Pure Heart”. But because the Purity Heart was first created and then broken into the Pure Hearts, this information cannot be literally true. [The Japanese version of this card does not seem to have yet been translated, so this will need to be revisiteat some point.] However, text from various sources (Merlon, primarily), and the symbols from all the other Ancient Sages’ windows also being present in Merlumina’s window, it is highly likely that Merlumina was involved in not only the Purity Heart’s creations, but every major achievement of the Sages.

After Count Bleck and Super Dimentio have been defeated and the main story has ended, Merlon states that “the prophecy has lost its power”. Because the Chaos Heart is only said to have been “banished”, and not explicitly destroyed, and the Dark Prognosticus “faded back into history”, but does not seem to have been destroyed either, nothing would appear to preclude the prophecy’s prediction of the end of all worlds coming true at some later point. But because that is evidently impossible, the prophecy the Dark Prognosticus held must somehow no longer bind the events of the future once the Void has receded.

One potential explanation is that the power of love through the Purity Heart being able to override and contradict the prophecy, and thus (forgive the pun) voiding its contents. The Chaos Heart simply being banished is unlikely to be the cause, because the book’s prophecies held true for thousands of years before it was summoned. One other potential option is that the end of all worlds was prophesied to occur at the specific time that it would have without the involvement of the heroes, and because it was on the last page, the Dark Prognosticus simply did not contain any prophecies of the future beyond that, being unable to account for its own inaccuracy.