This is about inorganic Pokemon, such as Sigilyph and Golurk. These Pokemon are generally portrayed as being created by humans to perform some task. My first question is how were they created? Since the ancients would not have had complex technology like that used to create Mewtwo, was it done through a long process of artificial selection? Second question: are such Pokemon, who seem to be emotionless, subject to the general rules of training? Sigilyph didn’t get a choice in guarding the desert.

Preliminary note: my ‘editor,’ Jim, wishes me to point out that although I believe Sigilyph are man-made, we don’t actually know – I’m not sure why else they might guard the sites of ancient cities, but then again, they’re immortal Psychic-types whose emotions, assuming they have them, we can’t readily understand. They could very well have complicated reasons of their own for the things they do, possibly related to being captured and trained in ancient times. With that little caveat out of the way, let’s talk about Sigilyph and Golurk.

Pokémon as a franchise is generally quite keen on the idea that ancient civilisations may have had mysterious technology to rival our own, but based on very different principles – witness, for example, the Ultimate Weapon of X and Y, constructed by AZ circa 1000 BC. It’s not exactly a subtle piece of technology, and it doesn’t offer much in the way of a recommendation for the ancient Kalosians’ ability to built a computer or perform heart surgery, but it does speak to a tremendous capacity for energy manipulation. I would note that Pokémon very rarely uses the word ‘magic’ in describing a number of things for which many of us probably would, and I suspect this is because it takes the position that ‘magic’ is just science you don’t understand yet – often, the nitty-gritty of Pokémon powers, what their energy sources are, and exactly what they can do, alone or in combination. Golett and Golurk have bodies of fired and glazed ceramic – we know how that works. The difficulty is in the mysterious energy source that brings them to life and grants them their Ghost-type powers – and I think the fact that they are Ghost-types might be the key here. Spirits can possess physical objects, after all; that’s a staple belief of plenty of traditions. I suggest that the glowing inner light that animates Golett and Golurk is the soul of a dead Pokémon, called by a powerful Ghost-type like a Dusknoir or a Chandelure. This could have been seen as a way of giving new life to a recently deceased Pokémon partner. The human contribution is the impressive craftsmanship involved in designing ceramic moving parts, and whatever is involved in creating the seals that prevent Golett’s soul from being drawn back to wherever it is Pokémon go when they die.  Sigilyph could be something similar, but I’m not sure.  They take inspiration from Hopi Kachina/Katsina dolls (which are educational tools for teaching children about the rituals involved in gaining the favour of nature spirits) and the mysterious Nazca lines (whose purpose is unknown but could be related to ritual – archaeologist-speak for “we have no idea“ – or irrigation).  Perhaps the Sigilyph were originally inanimate totems that gradually took on a semblance of life, and eventually actual thoughts and feelings (mimicking those of the spirits the people worshipped), as a result of the beliefs of the people who made them?

Now, what do these Pokémon think of training? I think it’s a mistake to assume Sigilyph and Golurk are emotionless; they are inscrutable, yes, but that’s something else entirely. The games describe them as possessing the full range of personality traits we see in all other Pokémon, so although they’re clearly very different, have weird goals and priorities, and probably take a lot longer than most Pokémon for a typical trainer to understand, they aren’t necessarily incapable of caring about things or forming opinions. They almost certainly recognise that their original masters are long dead, and may be aware that their last orders are no longer particularly relevant (unless their orders were to wait for something – maybe those patrolling Sigilyph are guarding against something specific that was foreseen by their masters, something powerful and troubling enough to warrant setting up eternal guardians against it…). On the other hand, most of the things that would motivate other wild Pokémon, like finding food and mates, don’t really apply to them. Left to their own devices, they may have trouble thinking of anything better to do.  It’s possible that they spend long stretches of time sleeping. They’re also immortal, or at least long-lived enough that a human lifetime is quite brief in comparison, meaning that their goals are probably very long-term. If the next pressing event in your calendar is a planetary alignment in 2092 when you’ll be able to re-enact a major festival of your dead civilisation, adopting a Pokémon trainer and spending 15 years advancing his or her career might seem like a pleasant diversion.