Getting Bogged Down

Not without a little trepidation, I promptly answer Professor Sycamore’s summons and enter Lysandre’s lurid crimson café.  As far as I can tell, Sycamore just happened to be having lunch with Lysandre there and wanted to get me in on the conversation, mostly to give Lysandre an opportunity to congratulate me in person on becoming a Digidestined, something he has always wanted to do.  I also get a more explicit introduction to Lysandre’s philosophy.  According to Professor Sycamore, Lysandre is exceptionally high-born, descended from Kalosian royalty – although Lysandre himself downplays this, since he wants to leave a different legacy.  Lysandre believes that there are two kinds of people in the world – those who give, and those who take, like the legendary Pokémon of Kalos, who gave life and took it (this refers, I presume, to Xerneas and Yveltal – so they represent life and death?).  He regards the second group as scum, and notes that “there will be no foolish actions if the number of people and Pokémon doesn’t increase,” which is… an odd, faintly Malthusian and very worrying sentiment.  Apparently, the old king of Kalos only took from the world, but Lysandre wants to give back, both through his inventions and by funding Pokémon research.  The king did achieve one good thing, though – he created some kind of “ultimate weapon” and used it to “wash the era clean of its filth.”  I stare at Lysandre, trying to keep my expression neutral, nibbling anxiously at a croissant, and occasionally shooting worried looks at Professor Sycamore, who gives no indication of any concern whatsoever.  Finally, lunch is over and I am freed of this troubling man’s presence.  Lysandre wants to create a world where everything can stay young and beautiful forever… and where all population growth halts completely… and there are legendary Pokémon in this region with power over life and death.  I have a terrible feeling I can see where this is going.  More importantly, if he tries to replicate this ‘ultimate weapon,’ he’ll scour the age of all its filth – and that probably includes me!  He must be stopped at all costs!

Another call on my Holo-Caster informs me that my erstwhile rivals are meeting on the northern outskirts of Lumiose City to catch up.  Why not?  I think they’re the only people in this country who give me any respect; I might as well keep the silly little people happy.  Trevor and Serena are already waiting outside the city gates when I arrive.  Trevor, as he usually does, challenges me to what he calls “his own kind of Pokémon battle” – seeing who has the more complete Pokédex.  He’s never beaten me on that score, and doesn’t start now.  Nor does Serena overcome my Pokémon in a more conventional battle, even though her Braixen has now evolved into a mystical Delphox (I love this name, by the way; obviously it’s fox + Delphi, so connotations of mysticism, magic and secret knowledge, but I’m also reminded of phlox, one of the Greek words for fire – not sure whether that’s intentional).  Maybe they should branch out into things that I’m less good at.  That works for Tierno and Shauna; I’m sure Tierno and his Pokémon would curb-stomp me in a break-dancing competition, and Shauna by now is probably really good at… whatever the hell it is that she claims to be doing on this journey.  Something that involves spending lots of money and whistling all the time.  And, speak of the devil, Tierno and Shauna turn up as Serena and I wrap up our battle.  Now that everyone’s together, Shauna wants to check out a rumoured haunted house further up the road.  Serena, buzzkill that she is, thinks it’s a frivolous waste of time and heads straight for the next town, Laverre City, to train her Pokémon, but I consider that a haunted house may provide an opportunity to meet new Ghost Pokémon and cautiously follow.  The road we’re on is euphemistically known as the ‘Laverre Nature Trail,’ which appears to be Kalos-speak for ‘depressing fetid swamp of death.’  Everything is waterlogged and half-dead and covered in gravestones, and even the grass looks like it’s about to give up, turn black, and start preying on small animals and less agile children.  Someday I will put a penal colony here.  There are some neat Pokémon here, though: Weepinbell, Stunfisk, Shelmet, Karrablast, Haunter and Carnivine, all of which I capture… and then I meet Goomy.  Goomy is a little pink blobby polyp-like creature who blasts me with a Dragonbreath attack.  Once caught and questioned, Goomy continues to insist on being a Dragon Pokémon, albeit the weakest one of all.  Okay, Goomy, far be it from me to call such a cute little Pokémon a liar, but are you sure you’re a Dragon-type and not, say, a Poison-type with delusions of grandeur and trouble dealing with the cold?  Look, fine then; stick to whatever story you like, but you’re coming with me, because if there’s one thing I know about weak Dragon-types it’s that they repay your investments.  I was getting bored of Tereus anyway.

The haunted house, when we reach it, turns out to be a spectacular bust.  It’s a perfectly ordinary house, somewhat poorly lit, with a man inside who tells moderately disturbing stories about people with no faces and then demands a tip.  The rivals disperse, disappointed, and I decide to take some time to train up my new Goomy, whom I have named Pytho (after the dragon slain at Delphi by the god Apollo, whose name is etymologically linked with the ancient Greek word for rot), along with some of my other Pokémon who have been languishing in the PC box for a while.  Here, I learn many new things.  At level 35, Honedge becomes Doublade, splitting into two swords and gaining greater physical power.  There’s one more empty slot in the Pokédex after Doublade, which seems to indicate either that Doublade will evolve again or that Honedge has a branched evolution I’ve missed – I’m kind of thinking the latter is more likely, because where can you go after evolving from one sword to two?  Three swords?  Litleo, also at level 35, becomes Pyroar – I’m still betting this thing has major gender differences, so maybe I’ll train a male later, or just look up what they look like on the internet.  Trial and error reveals that a Sun Stone and Shiny Stone will evolve, respectively, Helioptile and Floette into Heliolisk (who is still a frilled lizard and flares his neck frill while channelling electrical power – something Clemont’s Heliolisk never got a chance to demonstrate) and the somewhat overstated and elaborate Florges, still a pure Fairy-type, but one who draws energy from flowers and claims gardens as her territory.  Amaura gets all the way to 39 and becomes a majestic Aurorus, a huge crystal-studded sauropod with long, glowing crests along the back of its neck (I want to say I’ve seen sauropods reconstructed with crests like that before, but names escape me).  Binacle, at level 39, undergoes a… surprising… transformation into a seven-headed barnacle-golem called Barbaracle (yes, seven, because his four arms and his feet are also heads), a great bulky physical tank-type thing.  I just want to draw attention, for a moment, to Barbaracle’s Pokédex entry: “When they evolve, two Binacle multiply into seven.  They fight with the power of seven Binacle.”  Really?  I would have thought that a group of seven Binacle would have fought with the power of maybe four and a half, on a good day; a pair of them can barely manage to fight with the power of one, after all, lazy little $#!ts that they are.  Finally, getting Pytho up to 40, bringing her in line with the rest of my active party, causes her to evolve into a Sligoo – a large, blind purple snail.  This… is the weirdest Dragon-type I’ve ever seen.  There’s another empty space in my Pokédex between Sliggoo and Karrablast; presumably I can expect another evolution at some godawful level around 60 or so, so I slap an Eviolite on her and hope for the best.  My Skrelp, meanwhile, still hasn’t evolved; since Clauncher had a plain old levelling evolution I’m pretty sure Skrelp will too, but I kind of expected they would evolve at the same time… either I’m missing something here, or Skrelp is going undergo a pretty dramatic transformation. From what I’ve been told, there aren’t all that many new Pokémon in Kalos compared to previous regions – I think by now I must have seen more than half of the damn things.  I wonder what’s left?

I also evolve my Flaaffy into an Ampharos, which means I get to test out another of these Mega Stones.  When Ampharos digivolves, she gains a luxurious mane of silky white hair, studded with red orbs like the one on her tail, along with tremendous offensive and defensive power, Mold Breaker (take that, Lanturn!), and… a secondary Dragon type?  That- hmm.  Does… does Ampharos actually learn any Dragon attacks?  Maybe she gets Dragon Pulse or something now, or maybe having a Dragon-type mega form would make her eligible to learn Draco Meteor?  Might be something to experiment on later; tempting as it is, I don’t particularly want Ampharos in my party (after all, I used one on my recent White 2 playthrough and I do like to mix things up a bit).  I guess I can add Mega Ampharos to Altaria (and, for that matter, Goomy and Sliggoo) under the heading of ‘non-draconic Dragon Pokémon.’  Being a ‘Dragon,’ it seems, is really no longer about being a majestic and imposing magical reptile – you can also be a… giant sheep, or giraffe, or whatever Ampharos is supposed to be.  Personally I tend to think that the uniting idea of the Dragon-types is their mystical quality and connection with life-force anyway, but it’s neat to watch the design process.  Also, it’s interesting that they chose Ampharos in particular to digivolve; to judge from the Pokémon that are receiving this honour so far, it seems like it’s at least partly a matter of popularity – and Ampharos has definitely been a fan favourite since her release Gold and Silver, in spite of her long decline on the competitive scene.  And here I was, convinced they never listened to us!

Ridiculous quote log:

Nothing for today, but rest assured, this is not because the people of Kalos have suffered a sudden outbreak of sanity, but rather because after my prolonged exposure to the light and chaos of Lumiose City I felt an inexplicable compulsion to go out into the wilderness and stick my head into soft peat for six hours.

Anonymous asks:

Do you think evasiveness and accuracy should be actual stats rather than just background stats that are the same for every pokemon unless altered in-battle by some sort of move.

I’m going to go with “no.”

Partly this is because I think the game is just better with ‘safe’ attack options, stuff you can always rely on to hit, which wouldn’t be possible with accuracy and evasion as base stats.  Mostly, though, it’s because this would make risk/reward calculations impossible and utterly invalidate a lot of the strategic thinking involved in the game.  Think about it.  If accuracy and evasion are base stats, then both will have EVs and IVs associated with them, and there’s no way you can know how much effort an opponent’s Pokémon has invested in accuracy or evasion.  With most of the other stats you can often make a rough estimate after seeing an attack or two, because if you know approximately how much damage your Pokémon tend to deal or take from different opponents (which you can get a feel for by spending time in the Battle Subway or whatever), you can say things like “well, that’s a lot more than I’d expect; he must have trained very heavily in special attack.”  For accuracy and evasion, though, a single hit or miss tells you nothing; you’d probably need to observe one Pokémon over several battles.  This being the case, not only can you no longer be sure an attack will hit, you can’t even know how likely an attack is to hit!  There is no longer any such thing as a calculated risk under those circumstances, and I just don’t think that’s an improvement.

EDIT: I suppose it might be nice to add a level factor to the equation that determines whether attacks hit or miss, so that Pokémon of high levels are more likely to dodge attacks from Pokémon of low levels, and so forth, but I’m not totally sure about the actual value of doing that – and it would make AI opponents who rely on their inflated levels to compensate for their lack of effort training, like the Elite Four, incredibly frustrating.

Would Pokémon call their trainer by what? Master? Trainer? By name? In the anime, pokemon called Ash, by his name, never by master or trainer. Do you think Master as a title sort of gives negative vibe?

Eh.  Well, this is… difficult.  We see Pikachu’s vocalisations (and those of Ash’s other Pokémon) translated as ‘Ash’ in one or two places (all I can think of, actually, is Island of the Giant Pokémon, but there might be others that I’m not aware of or not remembering) but we don’t know what he’s literally saying.  Like, Pikachu really can’t make a wide enough range of sounds that he can realistically produce Pikachu-ese equivalents to any given human name; that’s simply impossible.  I tend to believe that when Pokémon speak they rely a lot on body language and a variety of other species-specific non-verbal cues to convey information, since they clearly understand a lot more than they’re capable of expressing through words, but nonetheless, we don’t actually know how close those subtitles are to the exact meaning of what is going through Pikachu’s head.  The word he uses for Ash (pikapi) could easily mean something like ‘my trainer’ or ‘my master’ or even ‘blue jacket human’ to him, and simply be translated for us as ‘Ash.’  Furthermore, it would be assuming a lot to think that the English word ‘master’ would have the same connotations for Pokémon as it does for us.

Side note: I actually don’t believe that Pokémon understand or have any use for the concept of personal names, which is why I’m skeptical about the subtitles being a totally faithful rendition.  They’re perfectly capable of learning and responding to their own nicknames, but I don’t think that they (well, most species anyway) have any equivalent to the concept.

Aaaah yes, I can finally ask you! Have you seen the ghost girl in Lumiose? And the Mamoswine being photographed? Also, are you planning on watching the XY anime? It’s only about 10 episodes in at the moment and there are subs available. Earlier this year I tried watching the entire anime and I got to episode 300 or so before I gave up, it just wasn’t that interesting… but I’m totally hooked with this new one! I don’t know how much of it has to do with it not being a poor dub though.

Oh, right.  I did see both of those, but I forgot to comment on them.  I’m not sure I understand the logic behind choosing a Mamoswine as the spokesperson (…spokespokémon?) for a cosmetics company, but hey, if it sells, why not?  And the weird ghost chick… yeah, I have no idea what that’s about.  I sort of figured that maybe if you came back later, after filling some requirement, she’d do something else?  I don’t know.  Creepy as f#@$ though.

I’ll probably watch the X and Y series at some point, but I don’t really like watching the anime subtitled, personally.

YO DUDE. Just for clarification, do you have any pokemon world building fan ideas you like to think in addition with the canon then?

Not really?  I tend to think of what I’m doing here in similar terms to the way I think of studying history and archaeology, which is my “real job” – there are the “primary sources” (that is, the games and anime), and there are our interpretations, and although it can be interesting and productive to compare interpretations, for me everything has to go back to the sources.  When I read what another person thinks, my instinct is to dissect it into bits that make sense to me and bits that don’t, and assess it in terms of how well it fits with what we all know.  Of course, a good story is a good story, but I think that’s entirely separate to what I normally do.  Does that make sense?

First off, thank you for the amazing content…I’ve read all of it, and look forward to reading the rest. Secondly, besides Pokémon, which games would you consider your ” favorite ” ?

…I’m not sure I understand.  If you’ve read all of it, what are you looking forward to reading?

Anyway.  My… second-favourite video game?  Um.  That’s a tough one.  Uh… it kinda fluctuates?  For a long time it was probably the Baldur’s Gate series but I haven’t played those games in some time (although I would not hesitate to call them classics).  Sid Meier’s Civilisation is definitely up there, even though I never actually played I or IV.  The Age of Empires series has a lot of nostalgia value (Age of Mythology being my favourite, for reasons which should be obvious to those who know me…).

Someone who knew the games in question and had read a lot of my stuff (particularly the “If I Were In Charge” series) could probably analyse this list and come up with some frighteningly incisive observations about my personality and my value as a human being.

Tower of Glass

Finally, I am permitted entrance into the northern regions of Lumiose City – where I am immediately met by Shauna.  Good lord, the city’s only been open for a few hours and she’s already in here; this girl is the most dedicated tourist I’ve ever met.  According to Shauna, now that the power is back on, Lumiose City is going to light up the Eiffel Tow- uh, I mean, the Prism Tower, the great spire at the city’s centre, and she just can’t wait to get a look.  Sure, whatever.  I wander down the axial road at a leisurely pace, checking out what the city has to offer as I go.  Pretty standard stuff; homes, a second Pokémon Centre, a café owned by Lysandre where members of Team Flare have “lively debates about how to make a better tomorrow”… you know, nothing suspicious or anything like that.  We reach the Prism Tower just as it is about to be lit up, by two of Shauna’s friends – a little girl named Bonnie and her bespectacled older brother Clemont, Lumiose City’s Gym Leader, master Electric Pokémon trainer, and either the best or the worst inventor in all of Kalos, depending on whom you ask (I gather he’s something of an accident-prone mad genius type).  Now that power has been restored, Clemont can light up the tower once more – and, without further ceremony, does so.  Lumiose City’s Pokémon Gym is the Prism Tower itself, and with the restoration of power, it’s now open for business… but I want to check out the rest of this city.  Clemont can wait.  It’s time to explore the City of Light!

The largest city in the Pokémon world, dwarfing even Castelia City in Unova, Lumiose City is clearly a metropolis that was planned from the ground up.  The city is structured around four main axial roads, named for the four seasons – Vernal, Estival, Autumnal, and Hibernal – and two more following the river on which the city sits.  All six converge at the Prism Tower in Centrico Plaza.  Five smaller plazas, centred on brightly coloured obelisks (red, yellow, green, blue, and purple), are spaced between the axial roads, and the whole thing is bound together by a great ring road, divided into two sections known as the North Boulevard and the South Boulevard.  It probably seems like I’m making an unnecessarily big deal of this, but the fact that Lumiose has such an orderly layout is interesting to me.  Cities don’t grow organically like this; you see this degree of neatness in the big East Coast US cities like New York and Boston (or, for example, in Roman colonies) because those cities were planned from the ground up.  If you look at a street map of downtown Paris… well, it’s not quite so meticulous, because Paris is a city that grew up quite gradually.  There is a degree of order to it, though, largely as a result of the extensive renovations conducted by Baron Haussmann in the 19th century at the instigation of Napoleon III (the Prism Tower is a very modern building, so any similar remodelling of Lumiose City probably happened much more recently).  Downtown Paris actually does have a ring of major boulevards (well, calling it a ring is perhaps a little charitable, but it’s vaguely circular), cut more or less through the middle by the River Seine and the Champs-Élysées, the so-called ‘most beautiful street in the world,’ and site of the Arc de Triomph.  The Eiffel Tower’s not at the centre of any of this, though – it’s actually quite close to the edge of this notional ring I’m imagining (the Eiffel Tower, incidentally, is far from the only or even the best of Paris’ attractions).  The fact that Lumiose City’s Prism Tower is at the centre – well, in all honesty it’s probably a reflection of how foreigners tend to imagine Paris more than anything else, but I think that from an in-universe perspective you can say some interesting things here.  Think about it.  The Prism Tower is 1) the centre of Lumiose City’s street layout and the landmark you can look to anywhere in the city to orient yourself, 2) a monument to light, creativity and hope, and 3) the city’s Pokémon Gym.  Pokémon, and the relationship between Pokémon and humans, are metaphorically cast as the source of order, goodness and inspiration in their society, which I think is a tremendously powerful ideological statement.

…okay, I’m done geeking out.  For now.

The first thing I learn about Lumiose City is that its inhabitants are completely insane (see this entry’s ridiculous quote log for documentary proof of this claim).  To their credit, though, they have some damn fine attractions.  I visit a Pokéball Boutique that stocks every kind of specialty Pokéball imaginable (they even have a Master Ball in their display case, though they don’t seem inclined to sell it), a shop that sells gourmet Berry Juice to delight and invigorate Pokémon, the outrageously expensive boutique that formerly rejected me for my lack of style, a train station modelled on the real Paris’ Gare du Nord (an architectural attraction in itself), a three-star restaurant that will only serve customers “on a par with the champion” (…interesting business model there), a slightly saner two-star restaurant with some decidedly curious menu options (to their credit, even one Michelin Star is a pretty high accolade in the fine dining scene), and a dozen different cafés (the café, incidentally, seems to be the basic unit of social organisation in Lumiose City).  I also meet a couple of Pokémon that look like floating pumpkins, although I don’t yet know what they’re called, or really anything else about them – Ghost/Grass-types, maybe? – and drop in on Lumiose Press, where Alexa, the journalist sister of the Santalune Gym Leader Viola, works.  Apparently their editor-in-chief is off in the mountains searching for a mythical Pokémon… curious.  The Lumiose Art Museum, much as I normally enjoy this kind of extraneous cultural detail, fell a little flat for me; the enduring message I was left with is that Kalosian art has an overwhelming fondness for landscapes.  At some point, as a result of battling random trainers in the city, my new Clauncher, Odysseus, reaches level 37 and evolves into a Clawitzer (which is pretty much the most badass Pokémon name since Octillery), his one big claw growing even further into an enormous jaw-like claw-zooka twice the size of the rest of his body.  I fell in love instantly.

Well, that’s enough sightseeing – time to conquer the physical and spiritual heart of the city!

The Prism Tower is a quiz Gym, not unlike Fantina’s Hearthome Gym in Sinnoh.  Correctly identify silhouettes of Pokémon, not a particularly arduous task, and you can progress up the floors of the tower, fighting trainers along the way.  Not in itself objectionable, but Bonnie has constructed this ridiculously tacky neon-studded game-show set-up with herself as announcer – really, this is the interior of Kalos’ most iconic monument?  Shame on them.  I mean, all right, it’s thematic; Electric Pokémon trainers like bright flashing lights, but Electric specialists are a bunch of pretentious glitterati who wouldn’t know culture if it attached a pair of jumper leads to their nipples.  While I’m not battling or studying the Pokémon silhouettes, I devote as much time as possible to giving Bonnie a continuous vitriolic death glare, but sadly she pays little attention, too wrapped up in her own self-aggrandisement.  Eventually I make it through the game show to the top of the tower, where Clemont is waiting.  A mad inventor from head to toe, Clemont doesn’t even throw his Pokéballs by hand – he has a mechanical arm that extends from his backpack to do that.  I make a couple of missteps in this battle, opening with my Venusaur, Ilex, hoping to make use of his resistance to electricity, and run straight into an Emolga.  Thanks to Sleep Powder, Ilex still wins, but takes a hit from Aerial Ace and is in no shape to beat Clemont’s next Pokémon, a Magneton.  I then try Tereus the Talonflame, aiming to melt Clemont’s Magneton to slag, but his Fire powers just aren’t all that impressive, and Magneton survives to nail him with a Thunderbolt.  At this point I start to feel things are getting a bit embarrassing and send in Orion the Lucario to murder Magneton.  Clemont’s partner Pokémon is a Heliolisk, a bipedal lizard that clearly seems to be the evolved form of Helioptile.  Presumably it is, like Helioptile, still a Normal-type, because the poor thing goes down to Orion’s Power-up Punch without even a chance to counterattack.  Clemont graciously admits defeat and hands over a Thunderbolt TM and a copy of his insignia, the Voltage Badge, a starburst of six golden thunderbolts set over an inverted triangle of amber.  Bonnie, true to form, interrupts to tell me the specs for the TM, irritating Clemont, who evidently has to spend quite a lot of his time talking over her.  I leave them to their bickering, silently imagining the new and far superior tower I will construct here instead when I rule Kalos.  Maybe a sort of ‘Hanging Gardens of Babylon’-type deal, except that all of the plants can kill you if you look at them in the wrong tone of voice on a Thursday.

The moment I leave the Prism Tower, I receive a call from Professor Sycamore on my Holo-Caster.  He wants me to meet him… at the nearby Lysandre Café.

Ridiculous quote log:

“A round thing is round from every direction, like the Pokémon Voltorb.  Thus, it has the ultimate beauty.”
…I’m sorry, random Lumiose child, did you just imply that Voltorb and Electrode represent the absolute pinnacle of Pokémon beauty?  Uh… whatever floats your boat, I guess.

“This sprightly Pecha pâté has been likened to a Madame masquerading as a maiden.”
You mean it’s old and dusty but its blemishes are smothered with makeup?   Sounds… appetising.

“…a braciole of fresh, Azure Bay Slowpoke Tail. It’s accompanied by Payapa Berry crudités glazed in an extra-virgin Oran oil and has been described as the gastronomical equivalent of a Gastly glaring at a Hex Maniac.”
Look.  Dude.  It’s your restaurant and I’m not going to tell you how to run it, but I strongly suggest you shoot the guy who writes your menu, because I do not want the “gastronomical equivalent of a Gastly glaring at a Hex Maniac” coursing through my digestive system.

“Simply biting into this blue cheese will give off an odour so foul, your nose hairs will burn.”
…I wonder if I could teach a Pokémon an attack like that.

“I live today for the thrill of trying to win the Loto-ID again tomorrow!”
Listen, kid, I’ve never said this to an 8-year old before, so don’t take this lightly: I think you have a serious gambling problem.

Gulp! “I-I-I wasn’t trying to drink out of the vase or anything!  You saw nothing!”
Well, room service chick, at least you’re still sane enough to try and hide the crazy; that’s more than I can say for most of this town.

“I recently moved here from a very rural part of Unova.  I feel so lost here.  I don’t even know what this building is for!”
But… you’re… the receptionist… how can you-?  Did you just wander into the building and start acting like you work here?

“Y’know, my Emolga really wants to shock your Dedenne.”
…wait, was that some kind of innuendo?