One lunatic's love-hate relationship with the Pokémon franchise, and his addled musings on its rights, wrongs, ins and outs. Come one, come all, and indulge my delusions of grandeur as I inflict my opinions on anyone within shouting distance.
Read these. http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/tagged/anime-reviews
All of them. Then go home and await further instructions.
I should really do more of those. Maybe after the 6th generation stuff. Which… you know, will probably take most of the rest of the year, but hey. Long term here, you know?
Not as such. It would just confuse people who hadn’t read that article, and I don’t think there’s much point to it anyway. I probably will discuss what, if anything, I would do to improve a given Pokémon, though.
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.
Meh.
Seriously, it’s neither clever nor well-written. Why exactly am I reading this?
Link for the benefit of others.
Okay, I want to say right off the bat that I don’t want to make a habit of this, just because it’s kinda time consuming and if I accept it in principle I’ll soon be reading every piece of Pokémon fan fiction on the internet, and seriously f$#% that (I’ll read the other one you sent me, though).
Anyway.
This is interesting. There are some things I find very odd about it – the way Rapidash seems to imply, for instance, that Tauros are unique among Pokémon in their lack of individual sentience, or what exactly we’re supposed to understand is happening when Tauros learns language. The narrator’s eloquence also seems very odd. My ‘editor,’ Jim, read this and thought it sounded like a philosophy student’s creative writing assignment, which is a little blunter than I would put it, but a fair point; this Tauros sounds like a verbose and highly literate existentialist. Given the level of self-awareness with which Tauros begins the story (i.e. none), even given the transformation that is the central theme, the narratorial voice is oddly poetic (the title, in particular, just feels unbearably pretentious), and the depth of vocabulary and sentence structure is a little jarring. Sometimes the ability to write in a simpler register can be a virtue. Having said that, this story raises some very interesting points about the reaction of Pokémon to training: that different species are inevitably going to be affected in different ways, that highly social Pokémon are likely to be confused and dismayed by separation from their communities, that Pokémon themselves may very well come to understand the intrinsic weaknesses of their own species compared to others and develop feelings of inadequacy as a result, and that gaining greater self-awareness and greater comprehension of other species and the world may not necessarily be a gift. This last I particularly like, since I’ve always thought that this is something trained Pokémon especially gain over wild Pokémon, but never considered the possibility that they might resent the broader perspectives they’ve learned. I like being shown things I haven’t thought of.
I find the Alakazam a particularly interesting character, as brief as his involvement is. As the narrative points out, a wild Alakazam is an extreme oddity anyway, and it seems to me that an Alakazam who didn’t want to be captured would have little difficulty avoiding it. I find myself very curious about what he was doing and why.
I like to say that, although I personally don’t see the Pokémon world in that way, if likening Pokémon training to slavery or otherwise presenting it in a negative light will allow you to tell a good story, then I’m behind you all the way. This is a good example of why.
Let’s recap.
I am the Champion of the Kalos region. Team Flare has fallen by my hand. Xerneas, the embodiment of life itself, stands by my side. Lumiose City is under the thumb of a likely unstable robotic ninja with some newfound delusions of grandeur and an app specifically built to steal Pokémon. I control several of the precious Mega Stones, and possess the means to find more. I have an enemy in the Elite Four, but I know her identity and can destroy her in due course. All is as it should be.
Of course, there are still one or two little things we have to take care of.
Armed with my newfound authority as a Pokémon League Champion, I return to the Pokémon Village and enter the Unknown Dungeon. I fully expected a large, complicated cave system on the model of the original dungeon outside Cerulean City, but no – this ‘dungeon’ is a single chamber, with Mewtwo meditating in the centre. I am a touch disappointed; after seeing some of Kalos’ amazing scenery, I had hoped for more from the lair of the so-called ‘strongest Pokémon,’ but I suppose I can’t have everything. I quickly realise that this Mewtwo can Recover from damage, and in my irritation decide to use my hard-won Master Ball. It’s been a long time since I last bothered to actually fight a legendary Pokémon with healing powers, and my go-to Pokémon for sleep is weak to Psychic attacks. As Mewtwo is dismissed to the PC network, I notice a glint on the floor – a Mega Stone. Mewtwonite X.
Oh. Right. The two new Mewtwo-looking things that were revealed right at the start of the X and Y pre-release hype. I’d forgotten about them. Mega Mewtwo X and Mega Mewtwo Y. Because Mewtwo desperately needed more power and the ability to transform into a godlike physical attacker at the drop of a hat. Seriously, though, I’m not sure how I feel about this. Once you get Pokémon as powerful as Mewtwo charging around the game my brain gives up even trying to complain about game balance and just gives them a sort of startled “um… yes! Well done!” Mewtwo is particularly weird in that part of his flavour is that he’s supposed to be the strongest Pokémon, but for a long time now that hasn’t really been true; things like Lugia, Kyogre, Arceus and Reshiram can give him a serious run for his money, and by their standards he’s pretty frail. With Mega Evolution an option now, he might well have a shot at the top again… then again, from memory, Mewtwo’s physical movepool isn’t great for a legendary Pokémon, and he can already do physical damage with Psystrike anyway, so who knows? I can’t speak for Mega Mewtwo Y. If that’s just Mewtwo with more speed, special attack, and defences, we’re all dead.
Next stop is the formerly guarded bottom level of the Terminus Cave, where I meet a third Kalosian legendary Pokémon: the great serpent, Zygarde. This one doesn’t heal itself, so a traditional Sleep Powder-and-Ultra Ball battle ensues, and the creature is eventually subdued so I can get a look at it. Zygarde is a Dragon/Ground dual-type, known as the ‘Order Pokémon,’ that supposedly “reveals its secret power” when “the Kalos region’s ecosystem falls into disarray.” Its ability, Aura Break, reverses the effects of other ‘aura’ abilities – and since the only other ability I can think of with ‘Aura’ in the name is Xerneas’ Fairy Aura (Yveltal presumably has some equivalent), I have to wonder exactly how useful that would be, especially given that Zygarde is still weak against Xerneas’ Fairy attacks anyway. All this seems to mean that Zygarde has a similar relationship to Xerneas and Yveltal as Rayquaza does to Groudon and Kyogre – its job is to maintain the balance between life and death, either of which would do a number on any ecosystem if they got out of hand. Following a hunch, I take Zygarde to the move relearner in Dendemille Town, and discover that it has a signature move: Land’s Wrath, a decidedly underwhelming Ground attack that seems to act like a slightly powered-down version of Earthquake (the description seems to indicate that it’s ‘party-friendly,’ so if nothing else it’d be great for double and triple battles). People are saying that Xerneas, Yveltal and Zygarde represent some of the denizens of Yggdrasil, the World Tree of Norse mythology – four stags, an eagle, and Nidhogg, the dragon who gnaws at the tree’s roots. Alternatively, the serpent could be Jormungand, the sea monster whose body encircles the world. Personally, I want some love for Ratatosk, the squirrel whose job is to carry insults between Nidhogg and the eagle, but hey, whatevs. The thing that bugs me here is that Nidhogg and Jormungand are both unambiguously bad news. Nidhogg’s stated aim in life is the death of the World Tree, whereas Jormungand is one of the major players on the evil side of Ragnarok, the ‘Doom of the Gods’ (Jormungand, in particular, is a much more important figure than any of the other proposed identities for any of the three). Cheery stuff. What, if anything, does this mean for Zygarde? Maybe nothing more than that it’s the harbinger of momentous events – when Zygarde actually starts taking an interest in things, $#!t’s about to get real – or maybe that Zygarde is actually capable of far worse than either Yveltal or Xerneas. I’m not sure. Definitely a Pokémon to tread very carefully around in… well, I want to say ‘Z,’ but after Black and White 2 I’m taking nothing for granted.
And for now… that seems to be it.
Since I seem to have reached the end, more or less, of what this game’s story will provide, it seems appropriate to give a brief (HAH!) retrospective. To the surprise of absolutely no-one in the world, the basic eight-gyms-elite-four-champion structure remains firmly unchanged. The Team Flare storyline had its merits, but it was nothing particularly special – the plot of Black and White remains my favourite from the series for another year. Lysandre’s characterisation gave me major flashbacks to Cyrus, their motives and goals being quite similar, although Lysandre was marginally more subtle about it – both turned to villainy through despair at the human condition and a realisation that their ideals could never be fulfilled with the world in its current state, and both decided that wiping out the old world to make way for a new one (somewhat more literally in Cyrus’ case) was the only way forward. Both, I think, are best described by the phrase “messiah complex” – Lysandre is less explicit about it, but as you may have gathered from my indignant speech in the Team Flare headquarters, I have little difficulty seeing a desire for self-aggrandisement as a major factor in Lysandre’s motives. The plot itself follows what has become the standard: prevent the legendary Pokémon-induced apocalypse. However, like Black and White, there seems to be something of a retreat from the idea that the Pokémon in question are, in and of themselves, forces capable of ending the world as we know it – Xerneas and Yveltal are very powerful beings, of that there is no question, but I don’t think there’s any indication in the story that they really embody life and death in the way that, say, Dialga embodies time. The threat of what they can do to Kalos, and the world, largely has to do with the amplification of their powers by the Ultimate Weapon (so, the combination of human and Pokémon abilities). There’s nothing about them to suggest that the very fact of their being in a trainer’s possession could disrupt nature or the cosmos, which is reassuring.
In terms of the game’s mechanical changes from the fifth generation, the two big, obvious steps are Fairy Pokémon and Mega Evolution, both of which I am, perhaps unsurprisingly, fairly ambivalent about. I want to discuss Fairy Pokémon on their own later, and, hell, maybe Mega Evolution as well; we’ll see how that goes. I do want to take the opportunity now, though, to rave once again about Pokémon Amie and Super Training, both of which I love as additions to the game, because there hasn’t really been a good moment to do that since I first met them. Pokémon Amie makes a relationship with a Pokémon something you really have to work at, rather than something that just kinda ‘happens,’ it puts the interface for those relationships right in front of you as you move around the world so that they’re always on your mind, and it links them to direct, if minor, mechanical benefits – Pokémon with high affection in Pokémon Amie can avoid attacks, withstand finishing blows, purge status effects, and score more critical hits, all of which is described as resulting from the concordance of the trainer and Pokémon’s thoughts and desires. Like Mega Evolution, it adds to the idea that Pokémon can do extraordinary things not just through being with humans but through being friends with humans, which is one of the concepts that allows the whole setting to function. My only real complaint is that it’s difficult to conceptualise how Amie and the affection ‘stat’ are supposed to relate to the traditional friendship mechanics – although people are pretty sure they do affect each other, they seem to be separate, so what exactly is friendship supposed to represent? To put it another way, how do we imagine a Pokémon with high ‘friendship’ and low ‘affection’? Super Training, similarly, helps the ‘feel’ of the game by demystifying the effort system, something we all recognise as very important to high-level play but which past games made almost no attempt to introduce players to, leaving that task to the internet and the fan community. X and Y are up front about this aspect of the games; they tell you from the start “okay; this is something you should probably figure out how to use at some point” instead of tip-toeing around it as previous iterations always have. Attentive readers may remember that when I spoke last year about what I would do If I Were In Charge, themes like this were among my greatest concerns – specifically, I dealt with friendship here and effort training here – and while my ideas for dealing with them were rather different to what Game Freak presented to us in X and Y, I think the results show an interest in similar goals. It should hardly need to be said that I approve!
As for all the new Pokémon… well, I really suppose I’d better talk about them individually, don’t you? That is why I started this blog in the first place, early in the Unova era. It’s a daunting project, but this is a much smaller generation than Black and White – indeed, the smallest yet, where Unova was the largest – so maybe I can pull it off. There are a few other things to get out of the way first, of course: we need to talk about Fairy-types, Team Flare and Diantha both deserve fuller, more focused discussions to go with my old series on villains and Champions (as does Iris, for that matter), I have to review Origins, and I do want to spend some time thinking about attacks from a flavour perspective as well. The game is over, but the show, as ever, must go on!
Well, if it’s anything like the US, show up.
(At home – and, from what I can gather, most other places in the world – being called ‘Professor’ means you’ve really made it; a university department might only have one or two full Professors, whereas here just about any old schmuck put in charge of a classroom seems to get called ‘Professor,’ even adjuncts living below the poverty line – I’m not sure you even need a PhD)
Seriously, though, in the real world there’s no particular qualification you need to gain the title ‘Professor’ – it’s more like a job description than, say ‘Doctor’ (which implies a specific high-level academic or medical qualification). It probably means something like ‘senior/chief researcher’ and indicates that the person in question runs his or her own lab, or occupies an important government-appointed scientific position. Some of them may be appointed by the Pokémon League, depending on how much you think that organisation is in charge of.
Of course, it goes without saying that your surname has to be the name of a tree (although you can just get it legally changed for this purpose).
Heh. I don’t drink beer – can’t stand the taste – but don’t worry, anonymous grey sphere, I don’t think that’s creepy at all. 🙂
Yes.
Sorry, was there a question in there? My blog does actually have Disqus comments set up, so I’d appreciate it if people used those if they just want to… well… comment on an answer to a previous question.
Hmm. You know, I would like to… I think I could probably do a worthwhile single entry on that. Tell you what; I’ll see if I can come up with something to fit somewhere in between the end of my playthrough journal and the start of my reviews of the Kalos Pokémon. No promises, though.
