Im curious to know how you think the creation of a new pokemon works? Or more importantly how you would go about it?

You mean, like, at Game Freak?

Um… good question.

They definitely seem to have a lot of stock ideas, like there’s always a comparatively useless Normal-type based on a small omnivorous mammal, and there’s always a comparatively useless (except Staraptor) Normal/Flying-type based on a generic bird, and there’s often a cute little Electric rodent thingy, and so on… and I guess for those it’s sort of a paint-by-numbers thing, which makes me suspect they have a target number of new Pokémon they want to release in a generation and don’t much care how they get there.  Not that they don’t still have awesome ideas too, of course.

I think sometimes they just go to the zoo or whatever and chill until they see something awesome.  Or read obscure zoology textbooks.  Honestly that seems to me like as good a way as any.  ‘Truth is stranger than fiction,’ so they say, and nowhere is that more the case than in animal biology.  On that note, I find it bizarre that they have yet to concoct a platypus Pokémon (though I suppose one of the stranger things about the platypus is that it lays eggs, which is standard for Pokémon).

Other times they go delving into Japanese folklore, and in my opinion that’s where some of the most fascinating and quirky designs come from.  Whereas designs based on bizarre real animals have the undeniable charm of being weirder than anything a human mind could invent, designs based on folklore have a certain timeless quality to them – myths and monsters persist for a reason; they resonate with certain aspects of our psychology, and when you have such powerful ideas available, why not work with them?  It helps, naturally, that Japan has a long-standing cultural fascination with describing and categorising the otherworldly (which, of course, was one of the major influences on Pokémon from the start).

See, I actually don’t have huge problems with the way Game Freak go about creating new Pokémon.  I think in many ways they’ve got it absolutely right.  I just wouldn’t do as much of it.  I have something of a ‘less is more’ approach to the whole thing.  Given the choice, I would rather do more work with an existing Pokémon and use it to tell more stories than create an all-new one that serves essentially the same purpose.  I also think that a lot of Pokémon would benefit greatly from the added attention.  There are a great many fifth-generation Pokémon that, in my opinion, came so close to getting the whole thing fantastically right – Darmanitan, Braviary, Cryogonal, Heatmor – and it really does pain me that the designers wasted their time on blatant filler like Watchog, Basculin, Unfezant and Emolga when they could have spent it really thinking about some of those others.  I think we have enough Pokémon now that we don’t actually need another 100+ in every generation – I would totally be happy with 30 or 40 if they were all as well-done as, say, Chandelure.

As you might have gathered from that last paragraph, my entries from last year have rather a lot on my thoughts about this if you want more; I hope I’ve managed to explain the main salient points, though.

Pokémon and Gender

So, I’ve been wanting to write this entry for a while, but haven’t because I can’t make it fit into any of the series I want to do.  In that sense, it’s actually something of a cool opportunity that I’m not committing to writing anything in particular at the moment, because I can just do whatever.  I will warn you, though, that this will be one of my most trippy and speculative entries yet.  Brace yourselves.

The premise of what I’m going to be talking about today is a choice of vocabulary that just about every person on the planet has probably taken for granted, but which has always stuck in my craw (because, as we know, I’m obsessed with languages): “gender.”  The word “gender,” unbeknownst to many, doesn’t actually refer to the biological distinction between male and female.  Male and female are sexes, not genders.  Masculine and feminine are genders.  Traditionally the word has referred to the concept of grammatical gender, an idea present in every major European language except English, whereby all nouns are considered masculine, feminine, or (in e.g. Latin, Greek, and German) neuter, and adjectives must change their forms to suit the gender of the nouns they describe (for instance, in Latin, ‘tall’ is altus if you’re talking about a mountain, but alta if you’re talking about a tree).  There is no real rule to these, and they’re not always consistent across languages either (the Latin word for tree, arbor, is feminine; the ancient Greek word, δένδρον, is neuter, and the French word, arbre, is masculine, even though it’s clearly derived from the Latin word).  In short, something that has ‘gender’ is associated with maleness or femaleness (or absence thereof) in some vague and unspecified way.  In modern usage, this meaning has expanded to include descriptions of a person’s general psychological disposition, certain traits being regarded as ‘masculine’ – typical of a man, but not exclusive or necessary to men – others as ‘feminine’ – typical of a woman, but not exclusive or necessary to women.  We’ve all met masculine women and feminine men; I’ve been called ‘feminine’ once or twice (by my best friend, no less).  Things get much worse when we throw sexuality into the mix, because that’s even more complicated and doesn’t necessarily line up with sex or gender, but honestly I don’t want to go anywhere near that particular can of worms.  Anyway, here’s the thing…

Pokémon don’t have sexes.  They have genders.

I’m aware, of course, that this is probably a mistranslation caused by squeamishness about exposing ten-year-olds to the inherent horror and immorality of the word ‘sex’ (never mind that you’re selling them a game in which Pokémon engage in ‘breeding’).  I think we can all agree, though, that just letting it go would be far less entertaining than grabbing it with both hands and following it to its most insane possible conclusion.

The Pokémon franchise in general has always been extremely closed-mouthed about how Pokémon reproduce.  None of the characters seem to have any idea how the process works.  A number of NPCs pointedly insist that it hasn’t been proven that Pokémon lay eggs, because in thousands of years of recorded history no-one has ever actually seen it happen.  Until the events of Gold and Silver, likewise, it hasn’t been conclusively proven that Pokémon hatch from eggs either; that’s why Professor Elm is so excited when your Togepi egg hatches.  A Pokémon egg is an incredibly rare curiosity, the preserve of obsessive collectors like Mr. Pokémon.  The kind men and women of the various day-care centres, likewise, are utterly mystified whenever eggs show up in their backyards, no matter how many times it happens.  There is also a whole string of little discrepancies in the system as it’s given to us.  There are a few single-gendered species, which creates obvious problems – female-only Pokémon, like Kangaskhan and Lilligant, would need to breed with males of other species in the same egg group to maintain a population (because, of course, inter-species breeding is not especially problematic for Pokémon), while male-only Pokémon can’t even do that, since all baby Pokémon are of the same species as their mothers; players can only get babies of those species with the help of the ‘breeder’s wildcard,’ Ditto.  According to everything we have been told, Sawk, Throh, the Hitmon triplets, Braviary and possibly Tauros cannot reproduce in the wild.  The same goes for ‘genderless’ Pokémon, like Electrode and Starmie.  Now, I realise biology has never exactly been Pokémon’s strong point, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that a species which is completely incapable of reproducing cannot exist.  It doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense for Chansey, Petilil, Mandibuzz, Kangaskhan and Jynx to be totally reliant on hybridisation to continue their species either.  There’s a little question mark over Ditto as well – Ditto can Transform into an exact duplicate of a Pokémon standing in front of it… so, by all common sense, a Ditto presented with a biologically male Pokémon should Transform into a biologically male Pokémon.  Ditto might be able to alter its form to a small extent, but the games don’t really provide any evidence for that, and the anime implies that it can only make superficial changes, so I doubt it could reconfigure an entire organ system without help.  In short, whatever goes on in day-care centres, it’s not straightforward sexual reproduction on the model of real-world animals.

Here’s my weird-ass take on it all, then…

Pokémon, I will repeat, don’t have sexes.  They have genders.  That is, they don’t actually have differentiated reproductive systems; they are all, in essence, single-sex species.  They do have an unusually large degree of variance in the levels of different hormones they produce, which leads to significant variation in their psychological traits, and in many species (most notably Nidoran) this is linked to some physical aspects, creating the appearance of sexual dimorphism, though in the vast majority of cases the differences are actually superficial.  Reproduction takes place via a ‘mind-meld’-like process (I sort of imagine them pressing their foreheads together, murmuring to each other, and glowing softly); genetic information is exchanged, but selectively – the vast majority of a baby Pokémon’s genes come from its mother.  Most of the exchange actually involves psychological traits.  As a result, a baby Pokémon will be quite close to being, physically, a clone of its mother (which is why inter-species breeding always results in a Pokémon of the mother’s species – the father contributes only a few genes, selected out of those that are compatible with the mother’s species) but will have closer to an even mixture of psychological traits from both parents.  The father (as, of course, we know) is additionally capable of passing on a number of conscious mental traits and learned abilities, which become ingrained in the child’s instincts.  For most Pokémon species, mental health requires a mixture of masculine and feminine traits, so instinct dictates that two masculine Pokémon will not mate willingly, and nor will two feminine Pokémon.  The entire process is far more low-key than what real animals have to go through, and consequently much more difficult to observe, which is why the whole subject is surrounded by such abject confusion.

So, how does this help to resolve the problems with how Pokémon breeding appears to work in the games?

The thing about the all-masculine species, like Hitmonchan and Braviary, is that – being universally and excessively ‘masculine’ – they are extremely pugnacious and aggressive (this, again, is something we already know – just look at the all-masculine species).  As a result, practically everything they do is constantly simmering with potential to break into outright violence.  What passes for ‘courtship’ among these species is no exception, and is simply so confrontational that human observers have never actually made the leap to identifying it as courtship (if you’re familiar with Homestuck, the concept of a ‘caliginous romance’ is a decent analogy, though it’s far more developed and laden with cultural baggage) and, as I suggested, the actual reproductive act itself is surprisingly easy to miss.  The kind of aggression and conflict necessary for a pair of Pokémon from an all-masculine species to develop an intimate relationship simply isn’t allowed to happen in the context of a day-care centre, where the staff normally discourage fighting.  Thus, Pokémon from all-masculine species can and do reproduce in the wild, but never get the chance in a day-care.  Pokémon from all-feminine species have a similar, but opposite set of issues.  They are universally and excessively ‘feminine,’ and therefore extremely passive, gentle, and cautious in their relationships with each other.  Courtship is an extremely slow, drawn-out process that can last for months or years; in captivity, there normally just isn’t time to observe it happening, and even in the wild it’s so long-term that human scientists haven’t actually been able to recognise it yet.  Many Pokémon from all-feminine species will take masculine partners from other species in order to create social diversity, and this generally happens much more quickly.

‘Genderless’ Pokémon are another kettle of fish entirely.  I want to suggest that they don’t necessarily all work in the same way; rather, they’re a ‘miscellaneous’ group.  Many of them aren’t actually ‘genderless’ but actually have three, four, five or even more genders, none of which match up exactly with ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ – as a result, humans are totally unable to understand the rules that govern their reproductive compatibility.  Some of them reproduce in groups of three or more, making it impossible for a day-care centre, which takes two Pokémon at most, to observe their reproduction.  A few reproduce by fission, splitting into two or more children only at the moment of death.  In short, their reproductive practices are just so weird that human observers don’t have a hope in hell of understanding what’s going on.  This, of course, brings me to the most important Pokémon of the lot: Ditto.  Ditto, in the games, does not reproduce; it only helps other Pokémon to do so, presumably using its ability to Transform into any other species.  Although Ditto forms a perfect physical copy of its partner, psychologically it doesn’t change at all when it Transforms; since Ditto is neither masculine nor feminine, it adopts a totally different role and all the usual rules of courtship go out the window when it gets involved, which is why universally masculine Pokémon can reproduce in captivity with a Ditto.  Ditto is likewise capable of overriding whatever whacked-out reproductive norms are in play for ‘genderless’ Pokémon, even producing eggs of Pokémon species that don’t naturally lay eggs at all.  It contributes very little to the child, physically or psychologically, but does provide a way to scramble the genes provided by the other parent and throw up new combinations of dormant traits.  So, then… question: why, in evolutionary terms, does it make sense for a species to focus its energy on helping other species to propagate themselves?  Answer: the relationship is symbiotic.  Ditto actually feeds on the leftover energy of cell division to revitalise its own cells.  It gets… a bit metaphysical, but the practical result is that, as long as a Ditto continues to help other Pokémon reproduce, it will never die.  Absorbing a huge excess of cellular energy allows Ditto to split and form two new Ditto; this doesn’t happen often, but accounts for the Ditto that are inevitably killed by other Pokémon or die in accidents.

As for where the Ditto came from in the first place, I’m inclined to accept the fan theory that they’re closely related to Mew – the only other Pokémon with the ability to Transform, courtesy of her genetic library, who also happens to be bright pink – mostly because it fits well with my ideas about Mew, which suggest that her whole purpose in the world is to absorb DNA from other Pokémon and store it.  Ditto have lost the ability to store borrowed DNA on a long-term basis, and as a result their physical form has degenerated, but they retain the ability to absorb DNA and rapidly assimilate it into their own systems.  That, naturally, brings me to the last category of Pokémon I need to talk about: legendary Pokémon, who (with the notable exception of Manaphy) cannot breed at all, Ditto or no Ditto.  Most of them are also genderless.  Many legendary Pokémon are heavily implied to be unique (and presumably immortal) anyway, which means I don’t have to worry about them, but a few seem to exist as entire species; most significantly, a baby Lugia appears in a few episodes of the anime.  They’re sufficiently different from other Pokémon that they can’t breed normally with anything else, and their lifespans are so long that humans just can’t observe them properly.  Mating season might come around once every three or four centuries and last for a month or two; even then, eggs might take years to hatch.  In short, some legendary Pokémon do breed, but for all intents and purposes it’s not something humans can take advantage of.

I think that’s enough from me for now – it’s not every day I try to totally redefine the way we look at a major aspect of the Pokémon games.  As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on my latest weird-ass theory; if you point out something that doesn’t make sense, I might be able to improve on it.  Anyway, that’s all from me – thanks for reading, and have a fun day!

Apparently, the Trapinch evolutionary line is based off of antlions, a type of insect which gained popularity through the sink hole traps of the larva. Here’s what bugged me, they were classified as Dragons (excluding Trapinch, of course) instead as part Bug. What do you think was the reason for this?

I think they probably started with the idea of a desert dragon, implying a Dragon/Ground type, and only later tried to come up with an unassuming ‘baby’ form for it.  When they did, they eventually settled on Trapinch and then worked the dragonfly aesthetic into the mature designs to build on it.

Also, do notice that they’re in the Bug breeding group, but not the Dragon breeding group.  Although they have many of the traits of Dragon Pokémon and few of the traits of Bug Pokémon, they can breed with most Bug-types, and are presumably more closely related to them than they are to other Dragon-types.

What is your favourite pokemon of each type?

Hmm.  Y’know, I’ve never actually gone through them all and thought about it.  Let’s see…

(For convenience’s sake, I’ll assume that one element is ‘dominant’ for any Pokémon that have two – otherwise, a lot of these will appear twice.  Also, de gustibus non disputandum – these are my personal favourites, and not the ones I necessarily think have the best or most interesting designs and concepts, though there is naturally some overlap.)

Grass – my favourite Pokémon of all is, and has always been, Vileplume, whom I consider to be in many ways the archetypal Grass Pokémon: peaceful, tranquil, but able to hit back with downright sadistic disabling attacks when provoked.

Fire – Ninetales, elegant, clever, enigmatic, and terrifyingly vengeful – reminds me of a Greek goddess.  I’ve always had a soft spot for Camerupt too.

Ground – Marowak.  What can I say?  I like darker takes on Pokémon, and Marowak is one of the cooler ones.

Poison – Mmm… probably Nidoqueen; a mother’s love, wrapped up in a battle-tank body.

Electric – Ampharos.  This is the GSC nostalgia talking; I’m not even going to try to deny it.

Water – My favourite is Milotic, but there are a lot of other Water-types I love as well; Starmie, Carracosta, Kingdra, Relicanth, Octillery, Gastrodon… I could go on.

Rock – Hmm.  This one’s tough, but I’m probably going to go with Rampardos, partly because dinosaurs are awesome and partly because, like I always say, there’s no ‘kill’ like overkill.

Flying – I’ve never been much of a Flying-type kind of dude… probably Archeops, with an honourable mention to Tropius for having such a crazy awesome design.

Ice – Froslass, who does the whole ‘mysterious wandering spirit’ thing so very, very well.

Normal – There are so many it’s hard to choose, but I’m going to go with Dunsparce, because Dunsparce needs more love.

Bug – mmm… tricky… I want to say Venomoth, but I’m also very tempted by Masquerain and Galvantula, both of whom I think have really interesting designs… call this one a three-way tie.

Ghost – Spiritomb, who is literally made of the imprisoned souls of 108 unrepentant murderers, has always been the one for me.

Fighting – Mienshao, hands down, for totally redefining how Game Freak design Fighting-types.

Dragon – Am I allowed to say Kingdra?  Eh, she already got a mention… let’s go with Flygon, because Flygon is awesome.

Psychic – Sigilyph.  The archaeology fanboy in me just can’t go past this one.

Dark – Houndoom, probably, with Umbreon and Absol a close second and third.

Steel – Bronzong, just for being friggin’ indestructible.

Has Pokemon ever helped you to understand anything outside the video game-centric world, like with school, with your friends, or anything beyond video games?

Y’know, I wish I could tell a nice inspiring story about this, but… no… not really, no.

I suppose in a general sense it’s part of the whole 90’s cultural mishmash that I was brought up in, with all that that implies – the importance of equality, emphasis on a person’s ‘inner beauty,’ a generally positive but cautious attitude to technology, the value of friendship… all those things have shaped the way I think, to an extent, but no, I don’t think my actions in any one situation have been informed by Pokémon specifically.  Honestly, it’s more the other way around, like I was saying in my last post – my life experiences and worldview shape the way I think about Pokémon, and fiction in general.

Do you have any thoughts/rantings on the fact that Gamefreak are intent on favouring certain type combinations? It was only recently that I realised that Bug/Steel has been reincarnated 5 or so times, and it really got on my nerves for some reason. I mean, I understand that Normal/Flying or Grass/Poison often go hand-in-hand, but it makes me feel like there’s a huge area of untapped potential that is always overlooked. What is your opinion?

Y’know, I can totally give you a reading list for that.

http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/post/17760664957/pidove-tranquill-and-unfezant
http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/post/17760683982/rufflet-and-braviary 
http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/post/17760675914/larvesta-and-volcarona  
http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/post/17760669001/tympole-palpitoad-and-seismitoad
http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/post/17760670559/mienfoo-and-mienshao

The first one is probably the most relevant but they should all give you a pretty good idea of my general thoughts.

In brief: yes.  Oh, dear gods, yes. 

Your anon who mentioned rivals I agree with. Also I look forward to that. I know it’s been a meme, but I want to see if we can draw some real evidence, that in the games, Green/Blue/Gary is actually a kid who has it as bad as the memes have claimed him to. Not to mention Silver, I haven’t gotten far enough into mangas to know his story, but he has been such a mystery for so long.

Well, I don’t know anything about the manga, but Blue in the games is a total jerk.  I don’t really think you can rehabilitate him at all.  Also, I kinda think I said everything I care to say about him in my Champions series, so I probably won’t cover him again when I do the rivals.

Silver, though… Silver really fascinates me.  He has actual, honest-to-goodness character development!  Actually, Silver is practically the whole reason I want to do a series on the rivals; I think he’s far and away the most interesting.  Well, unless you count N, which I think I might.  Hmm.

The rivals of the various games are worth a post or two i feel. They honestly have quite alot of interesting features that id love to here your point of view on.

It’s on the list – along with Eeveelutions, the top ten creepiest Pokemon, a playthrough journal of Black/White 2, more anime, a series of unstructured ramblings entitled “If I Were In Charge,” and a history of Kanto.

Basically I have a tonne of stuff I want to write, and I promise I’ll get around to it all eventually. 🙂

Hello. I’m Chris.

One and a half years I’ve been writing this damn blog and I don’t think I’ve ever stopped to introduce myself.  What has happened to my manners?

I’m Chris, and I write about Pokémon on the internet.

I’m not, and have never been, a particularly skilled battler, though I’m familiar with all the important concepts of competitive Pokémon.  I stopped paying attention to the anime about halfway through the Johto series as I was growing up, and have only recently started to pick it up again.  I’ve never read any Pokémon manga.  On a good day, I can remember perhaps a dozen words of Japanese.  I can’t draw to save myself.  I certainly can’t rip apart a game’s coding within a week of its release to produce a comprehensive list of the egg moves and tutor moves every Pokémon can learn.

So why the hell are all of you reading this nonsense?

One imagines I must contribute something, besides my immense personal charisma, because as far as I can tell people do read this blog (I have an account set up on Google Analytics, and I don’t really know what any of the numbers mean, but my website designer friend tells me they’re pretty strong for a personal web page).  I like to think that there are basically two things I bring to the table: good written English skills and an extremely unusual perspective.  I see things in a very different way to most people, including most Pokémon fans, and I know how to express my ideas – and I actually think that both of these things come from the same place.  I get both of them from my background as a classicist, studying the history, culture and languages of ancient Greece and Rome.

I get the impression that most people learn to write formal English in English classes, which makes sense (I think it’s also why a lot of people never do learn to write formal English very well – the people teaching the English classes would rather talk about Keats, Austen and Shakespeare than lecture their students on the finer points of English grammar, which would arguably be much more useful – but that’s by the by).  I didn’t learn proper written English in an English class.  I learned how to write English properly by studying Latin.  Studying other languages opens your eyes to how language actually works and, in the process, your own will start making a lot more sense to you; I think Latin is particularly good for this simply because it’s extremely logical, with a number of core principles that run through every aspect of it.  This also makes it relatively easy to learn.  English, by contrast, is utterly demented.  It’s what my Latin professor likes to call a ‘magpie language’ – it compulsively steals shiny things from other languages it comes into contact with.  As a result, it is fiendishly difficult to learn, but also has just about the largest vocabulary of any language ever (there are, like, 50,000 Latin words, tops – estimates for English vary, but it could easily be ten times that), and is thus incredibly flexible and powerful once you know what you’re doing.  The moral I want to bash clumsily into your heads today is that being raised with English as one’s native tongue is an incredible gift, something which people raised in other cultures have to earn with a great deal of effort, due to English’s status as the international trade language of the current era.  Learning other languages will allow you to make the most of that gift.  I honestly don’t care if you learn Latin, or Mandarin, or Spanish, or Old High German.  It’s the act of learning that matters to me.

That had nothing to do with Pokémon, but it’s something that’s quite important to me, which I guess is sort of what this entry is about.

All that stuff about languages affects the style and tone of my writing.  Where a lot of my stranger content and ideas come from is my worldview as a historian – not so much last year, when I was talking about individual Pokémon, but even then I’d occasionally slip into fits of euphoria when confronted with a Pokémon like Sigilyph or Cofagrigus.  It’s actually the reason for a lot of the stuff I’m interested in, though, when I do my anime reviews, and talk about broader ideas like what legendary Pokémon are for.  See, the thing a lot of people don’t seem to realise about studying history is that it’s mostly not about memorising facts and dates at all.  Ask me when Julius Caesar was born and I’ll tell you “100 BC.  Ish.”  I don’t know the exact date, anyone who claims to know it is lying, and that goes double for Wikipedia (but that’s another rant entirely).  Ask me to list all of Euripides’ surviving plays, and I might manage half of them on a good day.  Knowing trivia is useful, don’t get me wrong, but you can always look it up; the wonderful thing about life is that no-one ever expects you to do anything under exam conditions.  Studying history is actually about embracing a particular way of looking at the world.

Let me tell you a story.

A couple of weeks ago, I was roped into watching Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter with my dad and brothers (yes, I am going somewhere with this).  Now, I don’t know that I’d say it was a good movie; actually I thought the dialogue was forced and the plot twists transparent.  I thought that the fact it even existed was absolutely fascinating, though.  Obviously no-one goes to see a movie called Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter expecting anything resembling historicity, but it takes itself really seriously; it’s actually a fairly standard take on the ‘myth’ (if I can call it that) of Abraham Lincoln – dripping with patriotism, lots of stirring rhetoric about freedom and slavery – except that it happens to have vampires in it for some reason.  I spent most of the movie thinking about how interesting it is that we, as a culture, can now ‘do’ history by turning it into an action movie and putting vampires in it to make people pay attention.  In short, I really enjoyed the movie, even though I thought it was objectively bad, because I was so mesmerised by the cultural context in which it was produced.

Yeah; ‘weird’ doesn’t begin to cover it.

When I watch an episode of Pokémon, I don’t think about things like “how do these actions translate into game mechanics?” or “when is Ash finally going to grow up?” or “I wonder what Pokémon the kids are going to catch next?”  The questions that run through my mind are invariably things like “what kind of society would create an institution like the Pokémon League?” or “what would the general public think of using stones to evolve Pokémon?” or “what does this episode imply about how Pokémon and humans started working together in the first place?”  I’ve spent nearly five years of my life picking apart Herodotus, Livy, and the rest of the crowd of classical authors, asking myself about the kind of things that they tell us without necessarily meaning to, what we can infer from what they don’t say, and what they seem to be taking for granted.  It seems to have messed with my head a little and now that’s how I reflexively look at everything (including Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter).  Show me a world like the one we see in the Pokémon games and anime, and I’ll have a lot of fun playing with the cool creatures, but it also won’t be long before I try to pick apart what makes that setting different and figure out what that implies about its society, culture and philosophies.  This is why I produce all these weird entries analysing the ethical implications of evolution, discussing how trainers and Pokémon relate to each other on a personal level, and trying to figure out what the Pokémon League actually does.  It’s why I heap so much praise on Pokémon that suggest, imply or explain things about the past.  It’s also where a lot of my more specific weird ideas come from, like my insistence that Pokémon can’t really ‘do’ epic and shouldn’t feel like it needs to anyway, but explaining that one would be another entry all to itself.

I sometimes get comments that I take all this stuff way too seriously and I’ve forgotten how to have fun.  Well, not exactly.  This, for me, is what constitutes ‘fun’ (or at least, one sort of fun – I’ve also been spending far too much time lately reading a Song of Ice and Fire, and I did once get drunk in Rome with my best friend, but that’s another story…).  I’m well aware it’s odd, but I like to feel I cater to a niche audience.  If you’ve read this blog and felt I’ve drained all the fun out of Pokémon… well, I think Puck said it best:

“If we shadows have offended/Think but this and all is mended/That you didst but slumber here/While these visions did appear/And this weak and idle theme/No more yielding but a dream.”