I believe you are referring to this forum thread? http://forums.pokemontabletop.com/topic/9803938/1/

Some interesting thoughts.  I agree with the member who weighs in on the fourth page, SeaSee, pointing out that, in fact, Pokémon in the anime (which, let’s face it, has to be the main source for this kind of background stuff, since the games just don’t care much about worldbuilding) can actually leave their Pokéballs without being called and generally seem to be at least partially aware the world around them while inside, which I think seriously challenges a lot of the assumptions that people tend to make about how this stuff works.  I think most of the other conversants here are missing that.  A lot of the time Pokémon break out of their Pokéballs for comedic effect, most notably Jessie’s Wobuffet and Misty’s Psyduck, so I can understand taking it with a grain of salt, but there are important serious examples too – the one that most readily comes to mind for me is when Ash’s Pokémon refuse to let him shiver through a blizzard alone in Snow Way Out.  I would add to this the practice of keeping Pokémon in cages, as Team Rocket often do in both the games and anime – if Pokéballs really do have the kind of power often attributed to them, it seems to me that cages are an insecure and costly waste of space.  Several of the forum members in this discussion characterise Pokémon training as slavery, but I feel it clearly involves a lot more give-and-take than that.  Then again, when the games finally did weigh in on the discussion, as another member points out, it was with the Shadow Triad’s comment in Black and White 2 that Pokémon in Pokéballs are ‘fated’ to obey, and N’s subsequent call for a world without Pokéballs (this was all after I wrote my article on the subject, of course).  I think the current position of the games, then – which may change in a few days with the release of X and Y! – is that Pokéballs are a problem, but the institution of Pokémon training itself is not.  I don’t think Pokéballs do ‘brainwash’ Pokémon in any consistent or measurable sense, and as you know from my ethics article I don’t think Pokémon can even be captured at all unless they are fundamentally accepting of the concept of partnership with humans.  However, I am coming to suspect that Pokéballs do change the symbolism of the relationship and thus damage the way both sides view it, and also give the human side a greater degree of control in terms of transport and the administration of medical care.  The invention of Pokéballs has changed the way both sides view what’s going on – and not for the better.

One more point.  Member Esprit15 noted the likelihood that different species of Pokémon likely do not view capture in precisely the same way.  This, I think, is something very important to keep in mind.  The games, the anime and the fans all have a tendency to think in terms of a simplified dichotomy between humans on one side and Pokémon on the other, because it’s easier for us to deal with the issues in those terms.  That means, however, that we are putting one species on one side of the relationship and seven hundred-odd species on the other, and stubbornly treating it as monolithic.  I’m not certain this is wise.  I do not hold with those who say that many Pokémon are of only animal intelligence and can be viewed as being in the same position as pets in the real world (I think that almost all Pokémon are of at least near-human intelligence, although the waters are muddied by the fact that there are different kinds of intelligence to consider – logical and emotional, as well as more abstract things like creativity and leadership), but I do believe that different species understand life, family, society and battle in different ways, and that the assumption that capture and training affect all of them in the same way is not necessarily a sound one.

I’ll tackle your next question later.

I’m not totally sure I understand what you’re asking, but I’ll give this a shot – I’m taking this to mean “why don’t Pokémon rebel against trainers who do bad things?”; is that about right?

I don’t think Pokémon are like most animals – their comprehension of language and abstract concepts seems quite advanced.  Most of them clearly aren’t of human intelligence, but it seems like we’re looking at something much more like a dolphin or a great ape than a lizard or a pigeon, even concerning the… shall we say ‘less gifted’ species of Pokémon out there.  Ash’s Pikachu, at any rate, clearly has at least some degree of understanding of human morality, and the other main human characters’ Pokémon in the anime generally do seem to ‘get it.’  On the other hand most species aren’t concerned with that sort of thing at all in the wild.  They’re perfectly capable of understanding conventional morality, right and wrong, and so on, but it’s just not something they care about unless they’ve specifically been taught to, because their wild communities don’t function in the same way as human societies do.  I suppose what I’m getting at is that saying “they don’t know any better” is one way you could put it, but I don’t think it really gives them enough credit.

You could take a look at these two articles if you want more on the subject:

http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/post/27548748071/anime-time-episode-54 

http://pokemaniacal.tumblr.com/post/34093585438/the-ethics-of-pokemon-training

This question continues: “Perhaps you could suggest that there was some sort of falling out between the two, where humans who began to seek power through advanced tech, while Pokemon would still hold nature sacred? Also, maybe the Dungeon games tell of a time *before* the main series. Humans clearly exist and seem to be able to communicate with Pokemon (T&D) and perhaps the stories of the lake gardians are exaggerated through myth. (Uxie only being able to make people forget about the lake instead of everything.)“

Hmm.

The difficulty is that myths are always awkward to interpret – to begin with, we can’t really know whether they’re based on actual events or are purely allegorical, but to make things worse, how much the story may have changed since its original telling (or when that original telling was) is rarely known.  And that’s in the real world – here we also have to ask whether Game Freak intends us to take these myths as a source of ‘canonical’ information about the Pokémon world.  Often it seems that they do; the various legendary Pokémon of Hoenn and Sinnoh seem to match their mythical depictions to a tee, but then again, can we believe that returning a fish Pokémon’s bones to the river you caught it in will restore it to life?

Now, as to the myth in question… is there actually any reason a human-trained Pokémon *couldn’t* eat at a table?  Well, aside from obvious concerns of architecture and body shape, that is (I suspect that most Pokémon, given the option, would probably not build anything a human would recognise as a table).  The myth could simply reflect a society that had a very different view of Pokémon than the present day one depicted elsewhere, or it could reflect a time when the Pokémon themselves were completely different.  I’m not sure we can know.  The idea of a world like the one you describe certainly seems to be a staple of the Pokémon world’s mythology – perhaps unsurprisingly, since stories of a past age in which animals lived alongside people are common enough in our own world.  Then again, the idea that there was some kind of ‘falling out’ between humans and Pokémon seems to be at least suggested by the backstory of Cobalion and co., so…?

The dungeon games, I think, may actually be ‘mythical’ themselves – that is, the events they depict are known, told and studied in the present day as myths.  The tricky thing about the dungeon games is that, although the Pokémon characters are definitely aware of the existence of humans, no human characters ever actually appear (except for humans transformed into Pokémon), so clearly these stories depict a very different world from one in which humans and Pokémon “ate together at the same table”.  The stories might come from a different corpus of myths to the ones from the Canalave library – or the original tellers of the stories simply didn’t care.  Folktale is notorious for its general disregard for continuity.

I’m afraid I don’t *quite* see the direct relevance of the myth about the lake spirits to what you’re saying.  It could be an exaggeration, or an utter falsehood.  It could also be true!  Uxie never opens its eyes, so we wouldn’t know.  The player never touches Mesprit physically, or harms Azelf.  Pokémon in battles would harm Azelf, true, but the prohibition might only apply to humans.  Cyrus harmed Azelf when he created the Red Chain, of course, but the effect is supposedly delayed by five days… we never actually see him again after the events at the Spear Pillar, do we?

(Note for readers: this question is in reference to an ongoing problem, raised by my belief that Pokémon can only be captured if they are willing to be partnered with humans and that the process of battling is more about winning a Pokémon’s respect than beating it into submission)

Well, it’s probably imagined to be something like that, yes, the reason that it doesn’t affect the capture effectiveness being that it works more slowly and can’t provide that nice environment instantly, while the Pokémon is being captured.  Working out what Luxury Balls seem to do isn’t the problem, though; the problem is working out why other Pokéballs don’t have the same effect on happiness – because presumably Ultra Balls work more effectively because they are more comfortable, all around, than Pokéballs, and Lure Balls are more comfortable for Water Pokémon specifically, and so on; they do the same thing as we imagine a Luxury Ball to be doing, only much faster since it’s all pre-set.  Maybe we could imagine that having a lesser effect on happiness, since the Pokéball isn’t ‘tailored’ (as it were) for the Pokémon, but surely it would still have some?

Of course, we could always revert to what would seem to be the default explanation, which is that Ultra Balls and the like introduce some element of compulsion into the whole business.  That does make perfect sense in itself; it’s more of a ‘is this the kind of theme we want our fiction to be portraying?’ question.

Hrmm.

My knowledge of the anime is actually somewhat limited; the only shiny Pokémon I know of other than the famous red Gyarados is Ash’s Noctowl, who is also notable for his small size and exceptional intelligence.  Except in Gold, Silver and Crystal, shiny Pokémon don’t have unusual stats, though; they’re just like any other Pokémon except for their colours.  I suppose I would say that the odd pigmentation is just the result of some rare recessive gene, like albinism, or Elizabeth Taylor’s famous violet eyes.  In some Pokémon, this unusual trait might guarantee them important leadership positions, in other species, it might make them pariahs, in still others it might be ignored completely.

This is something that I regard as rather a weakness of the traditional Pokémon game structure – becoming the Champion is basically the end of it.  Obviously you have other sideshows to busy yourself with afterwards, and the games have been getting better and better at those as we’ve moved through the series, but they are, unmistakably, just that – sideshows.  Of course, there’s always the Pokédex project, but I think we can all agree that the Pokédex project is something of a joke at this point.  With the notable exception of Gold and Silver, and the remakes of those games, the storyline is ‘finished’ when the player becomes the Champion.  I think it would be really interesting for a game to explore what powerful trainers can do in the world besides get more and more powerful, as well as the duties and responsibilities of a Champion.

Pokémon trainers are people who work with Pokémon.  That is their skillset; that is their purpose.  It makes sense to me that a powerful trainer with nothing else to do would work on solving Pokémon-related problems for people – or, to look at it another way, solving people-related problems for Pokémon!  Think of it this way: once you become Champion – or, for that matter, after you have been ousted as Champion – you are, effectively, an extremely skilled specialist in human-Pokémon relations with a team of absurdly powerful bodyguards.  Your services should, by all rights, be in very high demand!  A group wants to start a new town halfway down a long, treacherous road to act as a rest stop – but how can they keep things friendly with the wild Pokémon in the area?  There are Pokémon in the ruins that have just been discovered – how can we study the buildings and artefacts without disturbing them?  Wild Pokémon have been attacking a local power plant – what’s going on?  This is all stuff that people might well ask a Champion to check out – or a high-level trainer-for-hire.

Well… what are you asking, exactly?

I think the tacit assumption is that people in the Pokémon world follow a religion similar to Shinto, the traditional Japanese faith.  This makes things difficult for me because I don’t really know a whole lot about Shinto, although from what I can gather it’s much less dogmatic than the Abrahamic religions followed in the West, is built mainly around a generalised reverence for tradition, order and the natural world, and sort of merged with Mahayana Buddhism a few centuries back to create something that’s as much a way of life as it is an organised religion.  Basically, it’s kinda vague and it’s difficult to tell where religion ends and culture begins.  The Pokémon universe is the same kind of thing.  They revere Pokémon, but they don’t ‘worship’ them exactly, which makes it difficult to tell precisely how the nature of their relationship with legendary Pokémon in particular has changed over the centuries.  Clearly no-one worships them as gods anymore, but many of them are still thought of as ‘sacred’ in some sense, perhaps as much because of their connection to the past as anything else (think of the way N plans to gain spiritual authority by reenacting the events of the old Unova legends).  This is further complicated by the fact that many of the original myths, although largely forgotten by the common people, may actually be true – it’s entirely possible, for instance, that Dialga and Palkia really do ‘rule’ time and space in a very meaningful sense.  The people of the Pokémon universe seem to have ‘forgotten’ a lot of their religion, one way or another – they know sites like the Cave of Origin or the Celestic Town ruins were once very important, and still respect them very deeply for that reason, but most of them don’t exactly know why anymore.  Sometimes this can come back to bite them.

I think the vision Arceus shows you in the Sinjoh Ruins is as much an illustration of the scope of Arceus’ power as anything else.  It’s doing something dramatic for you, it’s got your attention, and it wants to show off, so it says to you “this is my kingdom, puny human – the land and the stars, the sea and the sky, your entire civilisation, and all life, from your cells up to the planet itself.  Make a baby Dialga for you?  Piece of cake.”  Your final comment confuses me – by ‘sigil,’ you mean the triangular design that appears where Arceus is standing?  What makes you think there’s something there to ‘crack,’ exactly?