Tag: QandA

What do you think about the capitalizing Pokemon names debate in relation to fanfiction or writing in general? Some people say names such as Ponyta would be considered common nouns, like the word horse, to inhabitants of the Pokemon world and thus should not be capitalized. Others say Ponyta would be a species name and therefore it is correct to leave it capital. I noticed you usually capitalize the names in your BW Playthrough journal; is there any particular reason, or is it just habit?

There’s a debate on that?

…huh.

To be honest, I never knew it was in question.  All the big fansites that I know of always capitalise them, as do the games themselves, the official website, and promotional materials.  Frankly, I’m not sure I can think of any actual evidence that, in-universe, the names of Pokémon species are not capitalised.  I suppose the easiest way to account for this is by saying that it’s simply a point of convention specific to the cultures of the Pokémon universe.  They capitalise Pokémon names because they do.  Rules of capitalisation are not universal by any stretch of the imagination – German, for instance, capitalises all nouns, while French doesn’t capitalise days of the week, months of the year, or nationalities (however, it does – I have just checked pokemon.com/fr – capitalise the names of Pokémon), and Japanese (like most languages that don’t use the Latin alphabet) has no equivalent to capitalisation at all, as far as I know.

(Also, purely as a point of incidental interest, by convention species names should not be capitalised; genus names should be – so humans, for instance, are Homo sapiens, capital H, minuscule s, chimpanzees are Pan troglodytes, capital P, minuscule t, and so on.  Attempting to apply this distinction to Pokémon is probably a waste of time, though, since according to strict biological definitions most Pokémon are actually subspecies or breeds of only thirteen species)

I just read your Celebi writeup and i noted a certain resemblance to Lord English from Homestuck. (Lord English is a time traveling demon demon born at the end of the universe, who manipulates events to perpetuate his own existence. The main difference is that he is incredibly evil.) Was this intentional?

…huh.

You know, I didn’t specifically have Lord English in mind when I wrote that, but I suppose, now that you mention it, that there are some marked similarities in concept.  They are also both green.

Sorry for the intrusion, but what are your opinions about Cherubi and Cherrim? They’re two of my favourites(I even used them in White 2, since I got him in a trade), even though I know they’re rather useless.

(Sorry about taking so long to get around to this; have been very busy lately)

Cherubi and Cherrim are… meh.  You might recall my general distaste towards Sunflora for being a Grass Pokémon whose thing is that she likes sunlight – a characteristic shared by all Grass Pokémon – and this bugs me about Cherrim as well, but at least she can claim to have a unique mechanical and thematic quirk that shows her association with sunlight is stronger than it is for most other Grass-types.  The design is not particularly inspired, but the choice of a cherry is admittedly a nice touch, since the shift from cherry fruit to cherry blossom allows for a dramatic change which still makes intuitive sense and is easy to comprehend (especially for a Japanese audience).  I don’t think they really needed to be in the game, exactly, and it’s clear that they don’t have much of a battling niche outside of doubles, but… I guess I’m not that upset that they exist?  Uh.  So yeah.

This question is about the one you recently answered about trying to fill out the Pokemon ecosystem to give variety cabon copy Pokemon. I ask because I agree with both you and the questioner, so I wonder if different forms would be a solution? Instead of Goldeen and Finneon, they could be treated as 1 Pokemon with the same stats abilities and movepools, but have their different names and appearances. They would be looked up in the same place in the Pokedex, under a name like Fin Swimmer or w/e.

Maybe?  I do feel that the idea of Pokémon forms is underused, and this would definitely be a good way of showing that kind of variety in future generations – instead of a new bird Pokémon that’s basically the same thing as Pidgey anyway, just call it what it is and create a regional variation of Pidgey (maybe with slightly different powers, a la Nidoran?).  Saves time and effort.  I don’t think I’d want to condense any existing Pokémon, though.  I mean, we have them now, so I think it makes more sense to try and create more points of difference for them, give them more uniqueness and individuality.  My real problem is that Game Freak just aren’t interested in doing that because continuing to add more new Pokémon is their top priority – excusable, I suppose, given that it’s been proven by experience to keep the franchise going, but it still bugs me.

Have you ever played any of the non-handheld Pokemon games or spinoffs? If you have a Gamecube or Wii available, Colosseum and Gale of Darkness definitely give some change to the typical Pokemon games. I loved how Instead of just using only 1 Type of Pokemon with no real synergy like Gym Leaders, bosses had various themes and strategies for the Double Battles, (Like Skill Swapping with a Slaking).

I don’t own any other consoles, nor have I ever really been able to justify the expense of buying them, so no, I’m afraid not.

Which rival is your favourite, and why?

Hmm.

I’m going to have to go with Silver.  Silver starts off just as amazingly dickish as Blue ever was, if not more so, but he has this wonderful arc of growth and development where he learns to care for his Pokémon and work with them in a beautiful union of friendship – and the thing that I find truly wonderful about all this is that, in the end, he’s still a dick.  Learning to love his Pokémon doesn’t magically change the fact that he is gruff, withdrawn, condescending and just all-around unlikable, which makes that positive shift feel so much more realistic, and emphasises that Silver, like everyone, has both good and bad in him.