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.
If the Creature Design department at Pokemon studios asked you to design a Pokemon, how would you proceed and what would your Pokemon be? Type(s), Attacks, Ability/Abilities, Bio, and maybe a picture or illustrative description?
Hmm.
Well, my usual position is that I wouldn’t.
I’m not against new Pokémon per se; I just think we have enough now that creating new Pokémon for the sake of having new Pokémon should no longer be a priority.
Still, you did ask…
Continue reading “Anonymous asks:”I’m back, b*tches.
Okay, so, one of the things a few people have asked me to do is a study on the Eeveelutions (that’s Eevee’s rainbow of evolved forms, for anyone who isn’t familiar with the term). Honestly it feels like a bit of a come-down after some of the far-out crazy stuff I produced while I was supposedly on hiatus, but then again, trying to produce articles like that regularly every three days would probably drive me completely mad, so maybe it’s best I go back to discussing something I can be relatively objective about for a little while. Eevee, with her deep, sparkling eyes, perky ears, and adorable fluffy mane, is one of the most consistently popular Pokémon in the history of the franchise. This is no coincidence – quite apart from the fact that Eevee is one of the cuter Pokémon out there, she possesses limitless potential. Even if you don’t like Eevee herself all that much, chances are that one of her seven evolutions will tickle your fancy at least a little. A number of them are top-notch battlers as well (others… not so much). In many respects, I suppose they’re a lot like the starters, whom I reviewed earlier in the year. In short, they’re definitely something that’s worth a closer look.
I’ll be covering all seven evolved forms of Eevee in national Pokédex order, starting from Vaporeon – and maybe finishing with an entry on Eevee herself, with some concluding remarks on the whole set. I guess I’d better start writing…
This question continues:
“And in that instance, both balls were equally successful. But here’s the rub, in that you can’t re-use a pokeball. So how would you know if the master ball were really as perfect as advertised, (i[.]e. it will catch any pokemon without fail) if in that instance it was just as effective as a pokeball? If you caught a rattata with a pokeball, then doesn’t that mean you might have used a master ball? My question is, how can we know the master ball is really effective?
Oh! And another question, springboarding off of the one about what the pokeball means to the world in this series.
What would a master ball mean to your theory that pokemon battle trainers to test worthiness? That despite its resolve to test the trainer, it can be captured no matter what kind of fight it puts up, if it gets the chance to do so?”
My answer is as follows:
Well, in the instance of the Rattata, you can’t tell. That’s why you wouldn’t test a Master Ball against something like a Rattata; you’d test it against something a Pokéball probably isn’t going to catch, like a Dragonair or a Rhydon. Testing a Pokéball and a Master Ball against a pair of Rattata is a little like testing a Roman Candle and a tactical nuke by strapping bits of paper to each one and seeing what happens. Either way, the paper is reduced to ashes, but you wouldn’t conclude based on this test that a Roman Candle is equivalent in firepower to a nuclear bomb.
I’m not sure that actually resolved your question, but you might be better off consulting a statistician for a more thorough answer.
Anyway, your other question. Assuming I’m right about what battling and capturing a wild Pokémon actually means, a Master Ball is a terrible, terrible thing to use. It basically destroys the idea of a partnership between a trainer and a Pokémon and relegates the Pokémon to the position of a passive subordinate. This really isn’t entirely above board, and it lends an interesting perspective to the ways Master Balls turn up in some of the games: in Red and Blue, the Master Ball is the object of Team Rocket’s whole Silph Co. campaign; in Gold and Silver, Professor Elm remarks that they’re only given to trusted researchers; in Ruby and Sapphire, it’s in Archie/Maxie’s office in the Team Aqua/Magma lair; in Diamond and Pearl it’s given to you by Cyrus, of all people, and if that doesn’t send up red flags then I don’t know what does! Oh, yeah, and in Black and White, Professor Juniper is like “hey, look what I got you! Isn’t it shiny?” so whatevs.
What you haven’t asked me, and the point where my model currently falls down, is how other kinds of Pokéball like Ultra Balls, Lure Balls, Dusk Balls and so on fit into the scheme of things. At present, I simply don’t know. Clearly they influence the Pokémon somehow, but how they do it – and what the implications for the series’ internal morality might be – is beyond me. For now.
That’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? Some Pokémon, presumably, are as hungry for glory as their human masters and relish the opportunity to show off their powers in front of a cheering crowd… but not all of them will be like that. My ideas about trainers and Pokémon suggest that many (perhaps most) Pokémon are in it to gain broader experience and a range of skills that they would never develop in the wild, ultimately with the goal of returning to a wild community as powerful leaders. Tournament-style battles are a very artificial set-up, though, with limited relevance to developing that wider knowledge base, and are mostly about prestige and entertainment. I think for a lot of Pokémon this is just ‘their end of the deal’ so to speak – they certainly don’t dislike the attention, and any who have good relationships with their trainers will probably benefit from the prize in some way, so why not? Unless they’re particularly committed to the whole trainer-and-Pokemon lifestyle, it’s probably just business as usual for most of them.
Hmm. Go go gadget Google.
Oh, RIGHT; I remember this!
Yes; okay. So, for everyone who hasn’t seen this – ‘Generation Zero’ is an idea for a prequel to the existing Pokémon games, in which the player takes on the role of a young Professor Oak or Agatha, writing the first Pokédex, inventing new Pokéballs from apricorns, using the DS touch screen to sketch Pokémon you catch for the Pokédex… and with an infant Articuno, Zapdos or Moltres as the starter.
Anyway, as to that question… Personally I have rather different views on legendary Pokémon to most people; in particular I actually don’t think they should be obtainable by players at all (with some exceptions). If you wanted to make a whole storyline out of it, on the other hand, that could become quite fun. I would rather like to see a game in which your relationship with your starter Pokémon takes centre stage, building on the way Yellow handled Pikachu with the more advanced storytelling that the games have been developing since then – raising a legendary Pokémon would be an interesting way to do that. Naturally, you would have villains – possibly multiple factions of villains – trying to claim your partner for themselves. The law-abiding citizens and police of your region might be on your case too – it’s dangerous for anyone to have that kind of power, let alone a kid! Meanwhile your Pokémon is getting stronger and stronger – as a legendary Pokémon it might need to assume an important place in the order of nature, but it has to learn to control its powers first. You could do some interesting things with the game mechanics too, having your interaction with your partner affect the way it learns and gains new powers. Reshiram and Zekrom might be particularly good choices for a game like this, because the most important theme of their story is partnership with a human ‘hero’ (and, of course, if you have one of them, the immediate question arises… who has the other?).
So yeah, if you actually built the story around it, rather than ham-fistedly pasting a legendary Pokémon into a standard Pokémon plot, I think it would be fascinating!
Strange, isn’t it? I suspect what keeps the whole system from falling apart is that “Pokémon Trainer,” aside from being a sport, is also a perfectly legitimate occupation. Pokémon are integral to many aspects of their society and you can find Pokémon workers in almost any major sector; without their powers, several industries would have to be reinvented from the ground up. Given this kind of reliance on Pokémon, I think perhaps the benefits of having a large class of readily available specialists in dealing with Pokémon might outweigh the need for universal high-school education. I doubt all or even most kids become full-time trainers; in fact I suspect that most Pokémon trainers come from families with a history of working closely with Pokémon (Ash’s father was a powerful trainer, Gary’s grandfather is a researcher, Misty’s sisters are all trainers, Brock’s parents are both trainers, May and Max are the children of a Gym Leader, and so on and so forth). Hundreds of years ago, these people would have been a wealthy aristocracy who were responsible for creating this Pokémon-centric society in the first place, made up of the people who had enough land and money to support large numbers of Pokémon who were trained solely for combat. Today anyone can enter this class, though people with the family traditions are more likely to do so.
As a symbol, you mean? Hmm. Well, for humans it seems to be hugely important; they splatter Pokéball logos all over the place. A Pokéball is the symbol of the Pokémon League, for heaven’s sake. As the tool of a Pokémon trainer, it represents the foundation of the partnership between humans and Pokémon that sustains many important aspects of their society. For many people, it doubtless has another meaning: security, and the subordination of nature to humanity. This is something you could take in a number of directions, and different people would probably view it in very different ways – the rank and file of Team Plasma, for instance, would probably view Pokéballs much as we view shackles, as symbols of slavery. The fact is, for humans, partnerships with Pokémon lead to almost infinite possibilities, and the ways in which people react to the image of a Pokéball logo would be similarly varied.
For Pokémon, the image is likely to be just as complex, and largely dependent on their personal experience of humanity. Some Pokémon who have suffered at human hands would, like Team Plasma, view Pokéballs as tools of slavery and cruelty. I suspect Pikachu has something like this in his past – consciously, he knows that Ash’s Pokéballs aren’t harmful in and of themselves, so he’s okay with Ash’s other Pokémon climbing in, but the idea of using one himself triggers bad memories and irrational fear, making the very idea unthinkable. For other Pokémon, a Pokéball is a place of security for when they’re tired or injured. For still others, the beginning of a dramatic change in their lives, something that changes their fate forever – whether for good or ill.
In short, the image of a Pokéball encapsulates everything you believe about trainers and Pokémon, whatever that may be. It’s an incredibly powerful symbol but, much like the swastika (for thousands of years a symbol of good fortune, but for much of the last century the dark signature of a regime of hatred and oppression), it doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing to everyone.
Hmm. Interesting. I will note that I’ve seen hardly any of the Sinnoh series and don’t really know anything about Piplup’s portrayal as a character, but putting that aside…
In some ways it’s a similar situation to what Bulbasaur faced in Bulbasaur’s Mysterious Garden, except that here the pressure to evolve is internal, not external. My usual position on evolution is that it’s triggered at least partially by a state of psychological readiness (with certain exceptions, such as the use of evolutionary stones or the evolution ritual in the Mysterious Garden) so on the one hand, it makes sense for Piplup to be able to hold it off by an act of will, but on the other hand, in the absence of any obvious external stimulus, I have to wonder what was causing Piplup to evolve in the first place. Maybe a subconscious desire for growth and strength was prompting the change in body chemistry that triggers evolution, but on a conscious level Piplup didn’t actually want to evolve – he wanted to get stronger in his current form. The conflict would be enough to forestall evolution indefinitely, but at the cost of maintaining a heightened state of stress which would normally be associated with a short burst of rapid growth, hence Piplup’s weakened state.
What I seem to be saying here is that Pokémon don’t normally ‘choose’ when to evolve, per se; although it will usually happen partly because they want it to, it’s triggered by psychological factors outside of their conscious control. Normally evolution takes place in moments of heightened emotion – it might be a rush of adrenaline that pushes them over. A Pokémon who understands the process might be able to cultivate deliberately the kind of mental state that prompts evolution – or, in Piplup’s case, force himself to calm down and slow the process.
I suspect if you were to ask someone from the Pokémon universe, they would respond that this is one of the ‘wondrous mysteries of Pokémon’ which Professor Oak and his ilk are doing such a rubbish job of pursuing.
The anime certainly seems to imply that they understand human speech; people regularly talk to Pokémon, and the Pokémon seem to react appropriately to the words they’re hearing, even wild Pokémon who’ve had no previous exposure to English, or Japanese, or whatever language these people supposedly use. You could argue that Pokémon have adapted to be able to respond effectively to human orders since it allows them to work with humans more efficiently, but their comprehension seems to go beyond that; Ash regularly talks to his Pokémon about subjects that go well beyond simple tactical commands, and they clearly understand him. On the other hand, when Meowth first attempts to learn human speech in Go West, Young Meowth and tries to read words out of a book, it’s clear that he doesn’t initially understand the meaning of what he’s saying – he just knows they’re words used by humans.
I think the key to making sense of this is that Pokémon can understand each other as well, and can communicate relatively complex information between different species despite having very few phonemes to work with and almost nonexistent syntax. Clearly the actual sounds involved in communication are of secondary importance to them; they’re receiving and understanding something else. I think Pokémon are capable of this kind of universal comprehension because they’re excellent at interpreting nonverbal cues – things like gestures, posture, tone, and eye movement. When Pokémon speak to each other, this is how they get most of their meaning across. The actual vocalisations are used mainly for emphasis. Likewise, when they listen to humans, they’re not actually listening to the words – they’re listening for shifts in tone and inflection, watching your eyes and the way you hold your weight, and so on. Because this is how they communicate all the time, they’re extremely good at it. The kind of conversation Ash most often has with his Pokémon – conversations about emotions and relationships – are very easy for them to understand. Learning to recognise specific attack commands is a little harder, though distinguishing between ‘attack,’ ‘defend,’ and ‘dodge’ is basic. Creating complex strategies in advance is difficult at first, but gets easier as the relationship between a trainer and a Pokémon develops. Making heavy use of gestures can make this much easier. Many, perhaps most Pokémon are intelligent enough to understand any concept you could possibly want to explain to them, but getting the message across may be difficult for more complex ideas.
For the benefit of readers who don’t know what this is about:
Female Nidoran and Nidorina can breed with male Pokémon from the Monster or Field egg groups and lay eggs which will hatch into Nidoran of either gender. This makes sense. Male Nidoran, Nidorino and Nidoking can breed with female Pokémon from the Monster or Field egg groups, who will then lay eggs which will hatch into Pokémon of the mother’s species. This also makes sense.
What makes no sense at all is that Nidoqueen are sterile.
EDIT: I was mistaken; I think I had several Bulbapedia articles open at once and looked at the wrong one at some point. Nidorina can’t breed either; only female Nidoran can. This is actually what I *thought* was the case originally, until I decided to check my facts and then misread the reference. Oh, the irony. Anyway, this makes all of my speculation below much less plausible and I have no longer have any sensible explanation. Game Freak are just silly.
Adult Nidoqueen cannot breed at all. No, not even with a Ditto. As far as I can tell, this is merely one of the stupider oversights that Game Freak haven’t quite gotten around to fixing yet for some reason. I couldn’t tell you why; someone probably made a mistake in the original coding when they did Gold and Silver (given Nidoqueen’s unusual gender status, it’s not unbelievable that they could slip up with her) and it’s been copied and pasted ever since. Strange that they didn’t fix it when they overhauled the entire game engine for Ruby and Sapphire, but perhaps they hadn’t noticed it by that point. Hmm.
Anyway, there is actually a perfectly reasonable in-universe explanation they could use if they wanted to. There’s a conjecture in anthropology, which has been floating around for a while now and has never gained a whole lot of support but never quite seems to die either, called the grandmother hypothesis. Basically, the idea is that human women are able to live well beyond reproductive age because having older women around to help care for the children presents a tangible benefit to the survival of the community. It’s a common sense explanation for the phenomena of menopause and post-menopausal longevity, but it’s very difficult to prove scientifically (you can read more about the hypothesis in P.S. Kim et al., “Increased longevity evolves from grandmothering,” Proc. R. Soc. B. 2012). If you wanted a good reason for Nidoqueen to be unable to breed, this would be a solid place to start: Nidorina are the breeding adults, while Nidoqueen are the ‘grandmothers’ who hang around to help their daughters raise their own children and protect the whole group. This makes a great deal of sense considering that very few Nidorina would ever make it that far – they evolve using Moon Stones, so in the wild you’d expect to see one, perhaps two Nidoqueen in an entire herd. They have a more complex social function than just continuing to reproduce.
