The problem I have with this is why did Miyamoto even mention it in the first interview? There are two possibilities: either the first interview was indeed a misrepresentation as Miyamoto says in the second interview or Miyamoto lies in the second one.

Apparently there are plenty of such stories in pretty much every culture, but Miyamoto specifically mentioned Alice in Wonderland and the mushroom is also a specific element of Carroll's story. This makes it hard to believe Miyamoto's words in the second interview, also because Iwata Asks interviews have been used on other occasions to revise Nintendo's history in their favor.

What isn't denied by Miyamoto is that he talked about Alice in Wonderland with other developers during the early stages of development for Super Mario Bros. Suppose you are doing something like this and several parallels to the thing you talked about make it into the final product. How believable is it to say that you weren't influenced by the thing you were talking about during the development process?

So we are back at my first post.

What we've cleared up is that Super Mario Bros. is indeed influenced by tales with eternal appeal, whether they were written by Carroll or not isn't that important. Carroll only gets mentioned, because Miyamoto himself specifically cited Alice in Wonderland.

In this thread the point was raised that great controls, level design and gameplay can't be the only reason for Mario's success and I think we've found the missing half. It is, as you say, about a storytelling trope that is intrinsically powerful.

I disagree. Back then people actually read instruction booklets, because most of the games' stories were only in there. Then add the quite popular cartoon show and it's probable that most people actually knew about Super Mario's story. And with how deeply Mario is ingrained in our culture today, it's not unreasonable to suggest that Super Mario Bros. is given down from parents to children like Alice in Wonderland (children want to learn all sorts of information on characters they like).

The main difference between a video games and books/movies is the interactivity, but that doesn't mean that the underlying "magic" isn't perceived anymore.

The main difference between a video games and books/movies is the interactivity, but that doesn't mean that the underlying "magic" isn't perceived anymore.

Existing investment in the property? You mean like 40 million copies of the game being out there?

Why we play a game is about as important as how we play a game. Given how abstract games were back in their early days, it was important for developers to spark the player's imagination through text in the manual and players would read that stuff, because it helped them to better understand what they were doing and more importantly, why they should even bother doing it.

Mario's trope is part of its appeal, because it resonates well with people. Or to turn the question around: Is there any compelling reason that the trope is NOT part of the appeal?

As if your reasoning is any better. Previously we had established that Mario's trope is one of the more powerful ones that has had a continued existence throughout human history, but in Mario's case you simply say it's worthless, not part of Mario's appeal.