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I've been working on my understanding of じゃない and I came across a line in
Super Mario RPG that I think I know the meaning of, but I'm not certain so I
wanted to check.

The scene is, Mario and Mallow go charging through a hail of arrows to reach
the boss. At some point during their charge, Mallow trips and falls down and
Mario just keeps on going. Mario then reaches the boss and Mallow shows up a
moment later. Mallow then turns to Mario and says:

> ＜マロ＞ マリオさん！ ひどいじゃないですか。

One of the meanings for ひどい on Jisho.org is 'heartless', which I think fits
the context pretty well. So I'm thinking Mallow is saying "Mario San! Are you
heartless?" Implying, "How could you just leave me back there?"

From what I've learned so far the ですか is supposed to be the text equivalent of
intonation to change what would normally be (ひどいじゃない not heartless) into (are
you heartless?)

Am I even close or am I completely getting the じゃない wrong here?
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2021-04-21T17:27:59.893
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2021-04-21T19:12:12.550
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meaning
Super Mario RPG - What is Mallow saying? マリオさん！ ひどいじゃないですか。
There are many answers covering this piece of grammar called `rhetorical
negative`, like [this one I asked
myself](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/52605/%E3%81%84%E3%81%84%E3%81%98%E3%82%83%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84-vs-%E3%81%84%E3%81%84%E3%81%AE%E3%81%8C%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84)
over 3 years ago...

Basically adding 「じゃない」 or 「（な）の/ん＋じゃない」 to the end of a sentence can turn it
into a rhetorical negative.

exploring your example:

> マリオさん！ひどいです。 - Mario-san! That's cruel. / You are cruel.

> マリオさん！ひどくないです。- Mario-san! That's not cruel. You are not cruel.

> マリオさん！ひどいじゃないですか？- Mario-san! Aren't you cruel?

If we want to be more specific, and perhaps have a more natural translation:

> Mario! Don’t you think that’s cruel of you? (Leaving me there) or Mario! You
> are so cruel, aren’t you?

In the polite form, when using this rhetorical negative you will definitely
end it with `ですか`. And for proper affirmations you will end it with `です`.

It gets trickier when we're using informal language because both affirmations
and rhetorical negatives can end with just `じゃない`.

In that case you will only be able to tell the difference by the speaker's
intonation, and / or by the context.
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answer