Why do you think Pokemon only learn a maximum of four moves at once? And also, why do you think some Pokemon can’t learn specific moves but their pre-evolutions can? An example would be Lombre, it can learn Hydro Pump in level 59(?) but Ludicolo can’t.

1) Well, the obvious answer is for gameplay reasons, but that’s probably not what you’re asking. I think a good starting point would be thinking about what ‘knowing’ a move actually entails. Do they just get these powers, have them, and then never have to practice them? I’d think not. I mean, that’s not how martial arts or sports work in the real world. You have to practice your skills constantly in order to be any good, and it’s not like you can just, like, practice firing a Flamethrower straight forward on level ground and be done with it; you want to be accurate from as many different positions and under as many different conditions as possible. Maybe five moves is just too much for most Pokémon to keep up that kind of skill level?

2) I think Ludicolo is actually sort of a bad example, because Pokémon that evolve using stones normally lose the ability to learn most moves by leveling, and that’s probably to do with the same ‘old dog, new tricks’ mentality that’s behind most evolved Pokémon learning the same moves but more slowly – the older forms are more set in their ways; they might learn new applications for skills they already have, but completely new abilities are just more complicated than they want to deal with. A more interesting example would be the transition from Lotad to Lombre, because Lombre actually continues to learn new moves, just different ones – Fake Out instead of Mist, Water Sport instead of Mega Drain, and so on. Obviously nothing physically prevents Lombre from being able to use the moves Lotad could learn, but it won’t learn them if you try to teach it, and I think maybe that’s because, specifically for Pokémon that work like this, learning the move is somehow tied to the mindset that comes with being smaller and weaker. Once they’ve got the skill they can maintain it by remembering how they felt when they learned it, but if they never learned it in the first place they just can’t see themselves needing it in the same way – like “sure, little kids have to learn to do that to protect themselves (or something) but I’m grown up now; why would I need that?”

How does electrode use rain dance?

Hmm. Interesting that you would single out Electrode. Why? Isn’t it a little bizarre that any Pokémon can use Rain Dance at all? Even for a Water-type, altering weather patterns is a fairly spectacular application of power that ought to have wide-reaching ecological impacts – let alone for the frankly ridiculous array of other Pokémon that somehow have access to this thing (pretty much “everything that isn’t a Grass- or Fire-type, and some things that are”).

I’m inclined to think that you’re asking about Electrode specifically because it’s so odd to imagine Electrode ‘dancing,’ but I really don’t think this is the right question. In Japanese, Rain Dance is called Amagoi, which Bulbapedia translates as “Rain Prayer” – as far as I can tell (bearing in mind that I cannot speak or read Japanese), it seems to be a generic term for any sort of rainmaking ceremony; “Rain Dance” is really the best equivalent we have in English because it gets across the sense of ritual, of the invocation of some kind of god or spirit – in that sense I actually think it’s quite an apt translation, although it’s unfortunate that it comes packaged with those connotations of lively physical activity. Most of the other European languages into which Pokémon is translated seem to do the same thing as English – Regentanz, Danse Pluie, Χορός Βροχής, Danza lluvia and Dança da Chuva all include the word for “dance” and all have a meaning that goes back well before Pokémon, probably as a direct result of influence from the English phrase (with the odd exception of Pioggiadanza, which has the same literal meaning but, as far as I can tell, is a brand of shampoo). It probably isn’t necessary, in fact, to imagine the Pokémon dancing as they use this move – we can, and some of them very well may if they find it appropriate, but it’s likely that others chant, or pray in silence, or some combination, or something completely different. The common thread with all of them, what they’re all doing the same, is the sense of appeal to a higher power of some description. The details of how the invocation works may not be terribly relevant.

In short, the answer to your question is “the same way as everyone else!”

I’m something of a newbie to Pokemon, but I am an absolute fan of worldbuilding and character building and GIVING POKEMON MORE AGENCY. So, what do you think of an idea of having Pokemon on your team give you sidequests? Not an AI sort of thing, just randomly get some from a large pool, based on type, level, and some individual ones. Boosting friendship, or dunking it when you botch the quest. Maybe some will want to be used against others or a certain type, while others (cont)

Question continues: “…would like to NOT face those. Some will maybe want to face certain Gym Leaders or Elite Four, while others would be afraid of them? I feel like this has the potential of being very annoying, but also it can be developed into a whole new game mechanic of managing Pokemon desires / convincing them of something. (For example, train a Pokemon against many Bug-types to make it less reluctant to face a Bug-type Gym Leader) What do you think?”

I very much think that this would be a good thing to have. I actually made a similar suggestion here and some other bits and pieces here, but in both cases it was sort of tangential to wider points I was making and I didn’t really talk about it from this angle. I sort of suspect that the reason Game Freak don’t try something like this is because of the sheer number of Pokémon that people often collect in the course of playing these games, and how utterly unmanageable it quickly becomes to try giving even a thin semblance of personality to each of them (that, and I can imagine it being very difficult to write this kind of content, given that Pokémon don’t talk). However, I think a kind of modular quest system along the lines you describe would have the potential to work quite smoothly – some quests that can be offered repeatedly by many Pokémon, others that can only happen once, some that are offered by Pokémon of a particular type, or species, or nature, maybe some that are triggered by things like using unusual items in battle or being knocked out under certain circumstances… and it doesn’t have to be all of your Pokémon doing this all the time in order to create at least a general impression that some of them, some of the time, might speak up with particular desires. Something similar worked for the Digimon World games, after all.

What’s your stance on pokeballs? Manga, anime, and games seems to treat them differently. I dissected Gladont’s response on chemical alteration and supposedly could work for the anime; except there are examples that opposes his statement of pokemon suddenly turning 180 too. His argument works better for games yet why hasn’t N said it? Real sad truth = there is nothing clear, it’s inconsistent evidence. This is why game theories typically ignore factors or else it fails (and also no fun allowed).

I’m just gonna copy-paste some stuff from the Disqus comments on that post to start this off:

GLaDONT: I believe pokeballs are the bad thing that happened in the past, at some point along the way we developed storage devices that maybe at the time had unintended side affects of affecting a pokemon’s nature. We have seen mutilpe times in the anime unwilling pokemn turning 180 after capture. I think the idea is pokeballs can make any pokemon your partner whether it wants it or not, making what may have once been a voluntary friendship into something darker.

Pokémaniac Chris: I don’t really want to devote all that much attention to poking holes in the ‘brainwashing’ thing, *or* to plugging those holes; mostly my problem with it is that it seems *too obvious*. Whatever’s going on, I think, has to have been more subtle in order to go unnoticed. At the moment, I think that Pokéballs are a problem because they symbolise the way industrialisation and modernity have changed Pokémon training. Without Pokéballs, it’s hard for one person to keep a large number of Pokémon, it’s hard for people to travel with Pokémon, it’s hard to create spaces in towns and cities where you can exclude Pokémon, and it’s hard to ignore your Pokémon even for a short time. None of these things are direct and necessary consequences of using Pokéballs, but they’re ways in which the relationship *can* change and develop because of them.

I don’t believe that Pokéballs ‘brainwash’ Pokémon in any absolute sense. I do wonder whether it’s possible they could alter Pokémon’s brain chemistry in a way that makes them more suggestible – not so they actually can’t disobey an order or anything like that, more so that, in most circumstances, most Pokémon will be easily persuaded to obey orders. I don’t think that’s what happens, but I also don’t think it’s easy to prove it’s not happening, and I really don’t want to start rewatching anime episodes hunting for examples and counterexamples, because seriously f&$% that. Mostly I think that my sort of explanation is just more consistent with the themes of the series – the way it presents the contrasts between tradition and progress, and between nature and civilisation. Some kind of scenario where Pokéballs alter the brain chemistry of Pokémon almost seems to necessitate a sort of bizarre conspiracy on the part of the makers of Pokéballs – because it seems clear that most people aren’t aware of any compulsion or mind-altering influence – or an even more bizarre accident of the workings of the technology that was somehow never noticed. That’s why I prefer to imagine that the problems with Pokéballs stem from things you might not even think of when you first started using them, or even from things that seem obviously beneficial at first, but turn out to be double-edged swords. Pokéballs reduce the constraints of food and space – which means that you can have more Pokémon, and will inevitably pay less attention to each one (early excesses in this regard may have led to criminal neglect that ultimately resulted in laws limiting an active party to six Pokémon – in fact I think this is a much more likely explanation than anything related to battles, since the vast majority of battles use far fewer Pokémon than six anyway). Pokéballs allow you to travel easily with Pokémon – which means you can take them far away from their native habitats and don’t have to think too hard about what you’re doing. Once Pokéballs are in common use, it’s easy for civic governments to enforce legislation (if they choose to enact it) that excludes Pokémon from certain buildings or areas, because asking someone just to recall their Pokémon is never going to seem like an unreasonable request. Pokémon can and sometimes do leave their balls without being called, but they also can’t seem to ignore being recalled unless they can actually dodge the beam, so if you just don’t want to deal with them right now you can always enforce a short ‘time out.’ None of this actually compels Pokémon to do anything; all of it puts trainers in a greater position of implicit authority than they would otherwise have – and to me that’s actually a much more interesting situation than a global brainwashing conspiracy.

People keep asking you lol. I have one too; which may not be viable an answer but why don’t you? First, I recall pokemon being very big back in the day. Same slavery arguments or not applied. I guess it was 50 split view? Is it still now? Or do more sway towards one way or neutral? Out of curiosity I find that people who believe it is slavery tend to have worse superficial arguments. On pokeballs history. There is a History of Pokémon Training by Dragonfly that talks about it. Critique it?

I’m actually not totally clear on what you’re asking me here, but I can talk about the Cave of Dragonflies article. I’ve been pointed at it before; it’s interesting. More than a little ‘out there,’ but it’s not like some of my ideas aren’t just as weird, and more to the point it never claims to be authoritative – just an interesting and speculative way of interpreting what we see. There are things in it that I like and things that I’m more sceptical about. Broadly speaking, the narrative makes a lot of sense – humans befriend weak Pokémon; through cooperation and the strategic skills of humans, weak Pokémon become strong; humans formalise and codify strategies to increase their advantages; settlements become secure; travel and communication become freer and easier; after Pokéballs are invented, everything becomes streamlined. In particular, the notion that wild Pokémon fight trainers because they’re looking for partners, and submit to capture if and when they feel a trainer is worthy, has a lot in common with my own ideas.

One thing that bothers me is the idea that Pokémon have a genetic imperative to seek out competition and that this is universal across all species, because it seems pretty clear that their temperaments and their attitudes to battle vary a lot more than that – it’s hard to imagine characterising, say, Slowpoke or Oddish as “fiercely competitive and [desiring] strength for its own sake.” I think it’s easier just to say that not all Pokémon do like fighting, which fits well enough with what we see in the anime – and this article actually does say something similar later on, noting that Pokémon who don’t like fighting and don’t want trainers will normally just stay out of our way. Another potentially objectionable point is that the way apricorns are imagined to work is just so… bizarre. It’s certainly clever, but the way apricorns are treated in the games and anime seems totally incongruous with the idea that they can eat Pokémon (my own suggestion for dealing with the first apricorn Pokéballs is that their bizarre properties are brought out by the Natural Gift attack, since we know that Natural Gift can make berries do all kinds of weird things). But yeah. It’s interesting. Worth the read.

Do you ever feel overburdened or annoyed by questions that you don’t even post them? I ask because of the sudden influx of past few days. Some of the posted questions seem cringeworthy in my opinion. Nothing against you though. You’re cool like Etika.

Eheheh…

Not often. Sometimes what seems to happen is that people get the idea that I’m here answering questions and decide that means it’s a good time to ask them, not realising that, 90% of the time, the questions I’m answering are ones that have been sitting in my inbox for 3-10 days. Like, at the moment I have three or four questions in here that are clearly responses to stuff I’ve just been talking about, but when those came in I already had four or five that were almost a week old and which I have to answer first. And of course some of the people who are chiming in on the whole ‘is Pokémon slavery’ thing at the moment clearly haven’t read any of the old stuff that I linked to in the post that started that conversation, because they’re asking me to talk about things that I’ve actually done in excruciating detail in the past. I really wish people would use the Disqus comments if they want to respond to things I’ve said; it’s just less hassle.

Sorry, that was a bit of a rant. I like getting questions, for the most part, but it’s frustrating when people try to join a conversation that way because it simply doesn’t work, given the reality of when and how I can deal with these things.

You notice that pokemon are at such a low levels at the beginning areas of your adventure, but when you revisit those areas in certain sequels (such as Gold and Silver and Black and White 2) the pokemon are at much higher levels? Is it possible that every area in the pokemon world goes through cycles of the pokemon being weak and strong? If so, do you think aspiring new trainers use this to gauge the appropriate time to start their journeys?

Y’know, I was rereading some old questions and comments the other day and someone else actually made a similar suggestion ages ago; I meant to give it more thought than I did, but I sort of forgot about it and never picked it up again, which is a shame because it’s a really interesting idea. Let’s remedy that, shall we?

In ecology, there’s a concept called ‘succession,’ which describes the way ecosystems respond to change. After an ecosystem is disrupted or damaged – by a forest fire, an earthquake, human activity, whatever – the first organisms to recolonise the damaged area are ‘pioneer species,’ very basic, hardy organisms that can survive anywhere because they just don’t do much, things like lichens, mosses, and soil bacteria. They’re followed by species that depend on them – ants, earthworms, shrubs and grasses, then small vertebrate animals after that. All those boring little organisms are necessary to build up the rich soil that allows larger plants to grow, and those plants are necessary to support large herbivores, and a wide variety of herbivores is necessary to support things like big apex predators, so the community builds up slowly and gets more and more complex. In ecological theory, the ultimate result of succession is a ‘climax community’ – a complicated, high-biodiversity ecosystem containing numerous specialised organisms which is in a state of equilibrium and, assuming it’s left alone, won’t develop any further, because that particular combination of species is perfectly balanced for the local climate. There’s actually some debate about whether true climax communities really exist; some ecologists think that all ecosystems are in a state of constant change, or that the kind of stability envisioned by climax theory would take centuries or even millennia to develop, which is simply unrealistic (even without human intervention, natural disasters disturb communities all the time).

Basically, then – high level and particularly evolved Pokémon are only likely to be found in more ‘mature’ ecosystems, because that kind of longevity and prosperity depends on having a rich environment filled with things like nutritious high-energy plants and specialised organisms with complex interactions. Moreover, because it takes a long time for Pokémon to level in the wild, those conditions have to be sustained for years, even decades, before you actually start seeing really powerful ones. Once they do exist, though, their very presence stabilises the ecosystem because their powers allow them to make efficient use of resources and provide buffering against natural disasters – or, in some other cases (I’m looking at you, Tyranitar), they might throw the whole thing out of whack again and begin the process of succession anew!

Do you know Extra Credits? If not, could you watch their episode on Perfect Imbalance on YouTube? I watched it and was wondering how the concept applies to Pokémon, especially with you constantly mentioning the balance issues in the game (or indeed if Game Freak even treats them as issues!)

Here’s the video, for the benefit of other readers. It does a good job of explaining some tricky concepts; it’s worth watching.

So… the thing with Pokémon. The thing with Pokémon is that Game Freak’s idea of balancing it – as far as I can tell – is just to shake things up regularly, to the point that a stable metagame never forms in the first place. New Pokémon, new TMs, new move tutors or new forms of existing Pokémon turn up practically every year, while older Pokémon don’t actually get banned or anything but may become more difficult to get hold of as the games to which they are native get older; meanwhile there are several different formats like doubles, so that a Pokémon which is useless in one is actually quite good in another, and then official tournaments will often do things like restrict players to one generation, which mixes things up a great deal. When they do formally ban things, there’s almost no rhyme or reason to it; they ban a Pokémon based on its status as a ‘high-tier’ legendary, not based on how good it is (probably because they don’t actually know) – stuff like Mega Kangaskhan would never be banned despite being ridiculous; stuff like Zygarde would never be allowed despite being mediocre. The end result is that there are a whole lot of different contexts in which one can play Pokémon, and it’s almost certain that none of them are actually ‘balanced’ in themselves, but there are so damn many of them that it doesn’t actually matter, and none of those contexts lasts more than a year or so before the next random shake-up anyway. Meanwhile you have a sort of power creep happening because Game Freak only ever give new stuff to Pokémon – they almost never take it away, which means that a Pokémon who, through no fault of its own, doesn’t get something shiny and amazing in every generation steadily falls behind as other stuff gets stronger. The situation of ‘perfect imbalance’ described in the video is a lot more like what Smogon tries to achieve with their tier system, where a Pokémon can rise or fall within the system as people discover ways of using it or countering it. However, because Smogon doesn’t actually control the game and can’t issue patches or make balance tweaks, they can’t build the kind of carefully calibrated imbalances that the video talks about – the can only pick things to ban or unban from different levels, which is haphazard at best. Moreover, because so many people just don’t fully understand what the hell they’re trying to do, it earns them as much scorn as praise.

And then Game Freak tops it all off with whipped cream and a cherry by tossing in Mega Rayquaza, a Pokémon so ridiculously overpowered that even the other ridiculously overpowered Pokémon can’t deal with the damn thing.

To be honest, I gave up caring at that point; I think Mega Rayquaza was the straw that broke the Numel’s back. Pokémon as Game Freak and Nintendo run it is just not a serious competitive game and never will be, and that sort of doesn’t matter because it’s not trying to be, not really. Perhaps as many as two thirds of the Pokémon in the game are just objectively worse than other Pokémon that do basically the same thing, and a lot of the skill involved in the game is in team construction, so ultimately the big hurdle is in figuring out which Pokémon are ‘good’ and which ones are ‘bad,’ but that whole process is counterintuitive to a lot of players because the game encourages attachment to individual Pokémon. Ultimately, I’m starting to think it’s better just to go with it – do stupid stuff, like play a single-type team, or take your playthrough team to a tournament, or actually use Corsola. Do Nuzlockes. Play with other people who like doing stupid stuff. If you want a game that’s actually balanced, there’s always online simulators and Smogon rules.

I read your latest question on pokemon slavery. However, I am more concerned with this. That webcomic you said, so I read and it was a bit sad. But see it goes with my problem with nuzlockes with story standpoint. It shouldn’t be viable or something that would work out. It makes no sense for pokemon training to have evolved that far with that kind of consequence all the time. It feels the story is there, no matter how good it is, forcedly to support game mechanics several which are unrealistic.

Well, why doesn’t it make sense? War has lethal consequences, and humans have perfected that to a frightening degree. People do horrible things to each other. I think if someone insists that Pokémon has to be read in this kind of darker light, or extrapolates from that to argue that liking Pokémon makes us worse people, then they’re just trying to spoil other people’s fun, but that’s not what this is about; this is about a story that exists for its own reasons and wants to develop its own ideas. Alterity is basically supposed to be a story about what it means to be considered ‘different’ and marginalised by the dominant groups in a society (hence the title), and I think Pokémon offers some very interesting possibilities for examining that theme, which the author (in my opinion) does extremely well. I mean, I don’t expect everyone to like it, and that’s fair enough – there’s some heavy ideas in there, and Pokémon is normally very lighthearted. I don’t think there’s any point in complaining that it’s unrealistic, though.

The answer to the question of why ppl think Pokemon are slaves is very simple… because they kind of are? Humans trade them, stuff them into PCs, choose who to battle and for what reason. There is 0 Pokemon agency in the plot of the games at least, except for select legendaries. It’s possible to do human/mon partnership so it doesn’t smack of that, go watch Digimon and note all the differences :

I have. Digimon is a lot of fun, but I would suggest that comparing a story-driven anime to a gameplay-driven RPG is really rather fallacious, and a lot of the comments you make don’t really apply to the Pokémon anime, which does often give Pokémon agency.

Are you telling me to stop liking Pokémon? ’cause you’re gonna need to do a lot better than that.