I read your ancient slavery and I admit I didn’t think of it that way. I suppose and I did think pokemon was slavery at its core and could not be argued and that fans were being sort of delusional. I recall another blogger saying, N says goodbye to the main character, she said he puts you in charge to end pokemon slavery in BW or BW2. I guess its more about relative interpretation with different opinions from people much more than I thought. For a cynic myself, it’s hard to grasp their lifestyle

This same person later added: “So those two articles [the articles in question are these ones], I hoped they gave you a laugh. I guess its easy to see trainers as abusive always fighting for profit constantly non stop, cramming the PC with the animals caught forcibly; pokemon who are sadistic creatures with additional Stockholm syndrome. But franchise says otherwise. I treated as unrealistic propaganda. But after reading your past blog, I guess to sum it up, I am looking at it wrong? It feels unrealistic. Don’t hate me man. I remember making Michael Vick jokes too.”

I’d seen the first article before, but not the second.  From an analytical perspective there are a lot of problems with them but they’re clearly meant as jokes, and they certainly succeed at that, so I’m not really bothered.

Anyway, I’m glad I’ve given you something to think about.  I suppose ultimately for me the question is one of authorial intent, and I think it’s obvious that no-one at Game Freak actually intends Pokémon to be apologistic of animal abuse.  Clearly they feel that something is implicit in the way the setting functions which makes it fundamentally different from slavery and animal abuse, which is why I tend to favour reading more into it, and extrapolating the kind of outlook a Pokémon would need to have in order to make the system work.  Of course you could go all “death of the author” and say that what Game Freak intends is irrelevant anyway because all that matters is that people can read it as slavery, but I’m really not a fan of death of the author (maybe because, in history, reading a text without considering authorial intent is sheer insanity, and that tends to influence my outlook even when I’m thinking about literature).  On the other hand, if you can make a good story out of portraying Pokémon that way, go for it!  For instance, I was recently reminded of this comic (slowly progressing and in no state resembling completion, but nonetheless worth every second you spend reading it), which portrays Pokémon training in a much bleaker light than I’m used to arguing for, and as a result is absolutely fascinating.  I would almost think that Game Freak avoid tackling the issues head-on on purpose, to allow people more freedom for this kind of darker interpretation, except that they don’t support or even acknowledge fan fiction, so I don’t know.

Who is Michael Vick?