So remember that pokemon whisperer story?
“[Elves and dwarves] are humanlike. They look like people. Pokemon don’t. They are considered monsters (i.e., “Pocket Monsters”) and typically act more like animals, with the same kind of instincts to go along with it — particularly their fighting instincts. Also, elves and dwarves aren’t broken down into light and stored away in Poke Balls. The vast majority of Pokemon are not ‘talking creatures’ and only on rare occasions can they speak in a way that humans understand – either because the human and Pokemon have a very strong bond (i.e., Ash and Pikachu) or because they can use telepathy.”
How appropriate for October.
AntoshiA response to your review at https://www.fanfiction.net/r/12660699/ Hello there! Thank you for your incredibly detailed review! My apologies in advance for the super-long reply.
First and foremost, I am glad to see you’re regularly keeping up with the story! For the most part, I will say that I believe a few of the issues you brought up really aren’t issues. That, or you’re overthinking it to the point where it’s not making sense to you. Just take it for what it is!
Regardless, I will reply to some of the things you brought up. I’ll start with Chapter 1!
“And those powers are…? Summaries need to tell us more than just the genre. What’s your plot?” Obviously I don’t want to spoil what those powers are — they’re critical to the plot. The plot itself is already stated in the summary, “A young Trainer’s badge collecting journey to the Indigo Plateau with his Pokémon best friend.” The summary is meant to feed just enough information to pique a reader’s interest without spilling important details right from the start.
From what I’ve only heard recently, the capitalization of Pokemon and the individual species is a gray area that fanfic authors can choose to go with or not. Personally, I severely dislike the idea of not capitalizing the term “Pokemon” or the species names — as is the official way of spelling them. Pokemon is still a proper noun. The Pokemon names are also proper nouns that work in both plural and singular form (i.e., one Pikachu or multiple Pikachu).
No, Pokemon are not people. Pokemon are Pokemon — which is a different species from that of humans.
Is the description forced? Was the day Antoshi left home not needed? I disagree. They’re meant to show that Antoshi comes from a a middle-class suburban neighborhood, he has an overprotective mother, he’s well-groomed — basically he’s coddled. This, and his personality/nature, come into play later on.
I really wouldn’t say “The impending cold of winter” is purple prose. “The heavens opened up and translucent orbs of liquid fell upon them” is more like purple prose. Mentioning that winter is coming, and his mother worrying that an 11-year-old boy is going out into the world on his own with nothing more than a backpack and a sleeping bag doesn’t seem too crazy.
I disagree with just cutting straight to the Fuchsia portion. That really seems like I’m rushing without anything before it.
Again, Pokemon are not human beings. The morality of Pokemon training is wholly up to those that with to infer it in a way that looks/sounds like slavery and/or cockfighting. To that end, I’m personally not a huge fan of peoples’ beloved Pokemon being in Poke Balls, that’s why the main Pokemon character is not in one. But it is the norm, so I have most Trainers keep theirs in Poke Balls. A Pokemon’s level of intelligence is whatever you infer it to be.
Don’t forget the battle with the Corsola was also Fireball’s idea as well — it’s not just Antoshi that decided to go for it.
“Being on fire is literally Fireball’s natural state.” I don’t see any canon source that says Typhlosion is constantly aflame, only that it can summon flames/explosions when angry. Fireball is very clearly not angry here. Fireball is the comic relief, so he’s going to say silly things and complain about things that aren’t particularly important.
“Unless you’re taking the interpretation that pokemon are magic spirits or something that literally just get stronger over time, there should be a bit more to this.” No, what I’m saying is that they have more *battle* experience. The same way that a martial arts master would easily defeat a rookie martial artist in a fight. Their year+ of training has made Fireball stronger and faster and sharper, like an athlete versus an average person. That’s what I mean by “experience” and that’s the way I would personally interpret the “EXP” mechanic in the games as opposed to just assigning them a “level” and calling it a day.
Now, on to what you had to say about Chapter 2.
Yeah, shoot, I do that from time to time where I just accidentally a word. I have fixed it now. Thanks for pointing it out!
I like your relation to this being like a Disney fairy tale, that actually seems like a fun description of their relationship. However, again, the morality of the relationship between people and Pokemon in general is totally up to you — I’m just going off of how the way things are typically portrayed.
“just removing pokeballs would go a long way, really.” That’s a really messy call, in my opinion. Given that the average Trainer keeps six Pokemon in balls on hand, having six Pokemon constantly hovering around each person would be very confusing in every aspect.
“But constantly drawing attention to the fact that treating pokemon like people is weird fringe behavior just underscores how awkward and unfair this system is” That’s not my intent at all. The “weird fringe behavior” in question is the fact that Antoshi can *converse* with Fireball — as is a nod toward those powers mentioned in the story summary. Humans are frequently portrayed as not being able to understand the speech of most Pokemon (outside the telepathic ones) beyond anything more than them saying their names in various syllables.
Thank you so much for your critique! You have a very unique point of view. I look forward to seeing what you have to say in the future!
[Obviously I don’t want to spoil what those powers are — they’re critical to the plot.]
The premise of your story isn’t a spoiler. I mean… There are many stories with a human main character. You wouldn’t say, ‘This story is about a bipedal mammal, can’t say more without spoiling it!’ right?
I’ll try to explain more. You can see how your summary is very similar to a lot of superhero and shonen stories, right? “Plucky kid gets special powers” is a really, really broad genre. There’s a million stories where a character has powers. What makes them different and interesting is what powers they have and how they use those powers. There are some kinds of powers I do find inherently interesting — things that imply interesting situations, like invincibility but no offensive powers, or reliance on an unusual resource like the ability to control bugs — but I can’t screen for those stories if their summaries are just a vague “Someone gets powers!” Again, what’s really important is what Antoshi DOES with his powers, but if you want to play those cards close to your chest, you can at least give us some idea of what the story will look like by telling us what his powers are. A story where he gets blasty magic powers and becomes a fighter in his own right (which might sound weird but that is a thing that happens in Pokemon fanfic) is going to be very different from one where his powers are prophetic dreams is going to be different from one where his power is just his ability to talk to pokemon.
The purpose of a summary is to let readers know whether the story is something they want to read in the first place. If yours doesn’t do that, it’s failed as a summary.
[Is the description forced? Was the day Antoshi left home not needed? I disagree. They’re meant to show that Antoshi comes from a a middle-class suburban neighborhood, he has an overprotective mother, he’s well-groomed — basically he’s coddled.]
That’s not unusual, though. Most kids have loving parents, and it would be pretty weird if he WASN’T well-off, given the pokeworld seems to be a post-scarcity utopia. You don’t need to explicitly tell readers things that can be assumed as default. You didn’t feel the need to cover Antoshi’s first six gym battles or to show the scene where he chose to keep Fireball out, despite those being important events. You correctly realized that they could be told through introspective narration if and when they became important. I feel you could have done the same with the opening, and that would have helped move the story along faster. You even have the phone call scene this chapter, which would have been perfectly good as an introduction to Antoshi’s family. As it is, it already gets across basically the same information as the opening scene.
[I don’t see any canon source that says Typhlosion is constantly aflame, only that it can summon flames/explosions when angry.]
That still means lighting themselves on fire is a natural behavior. The fact they can do so without injury rather implies a high temperature tolerance, no?
On the pokemon-as-people issue, I would like to request you post your argument at https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/11834/142476358/1/Pokemon-Intelligence , as this is easier to discuss in a thread.
Originally my summary was even more vague, but I was given some help hammering it out into something better by some experienced authors. I am happy and confident with the summary the way it is now. If it fails to attract potential readers, well, firstly I wouldn’t know that. Second, I can’t really let that hold me back. I am holding the cards close to the vest, but again I don’t think it’s a bad thing.
“one where his power is just his ability to talk to pokemon”
But it’s not. I explicitly said in the summary “until he begins to discover he possesses extraordinary powers.” That implies that he’s going to discover he possesses powers *beyond* the talking to Pokemon thing.
“I feel you could have done the same with the opening, and that would have helped move the story along faster. You even have the phone call scene this chapter, which would have been perfectly good as an introduction to Antoshi’s family. As it is, it already gets across basically the same information as the opening scene.”
Again, I’m not okay with the feeling that it’s just being rushed and pushed forward. The biggest reason why I feel that way is because I had actually written a previous incarnation of this very same story in 2009. That one was horribly rushed because I was trying to get to specific other major plot points that I was excited about. This time around, I feel more comfortable with the casual, relaxed opening chapter that feels somewhat slice-of-life with a little world building sprinkled in. As always, life’s a journey – not a destination.
“That still means lighting themselves on fire is a natural behavior. The fact they can do so without injury rather implies a high temperature tolerance, no?”
Again, Fireball is the comic relief. No need to overthink it — just take it for what it is.
Finally, there’s two problems I have with going to your link. One, they’re not your words — they’re someone else’s. Two, this is fanfiction — you can do whatever you want here. That’s why I said Pokemon intelligence is up to you and what you make of it.
[Finally, there’s two problems I have with going to your link. One, they’re not your words — they’re someone else’s. Two, this is fanfiction — you can do whatever you want here. That’s why I said Pokemon intelligence is up to you and what you make of it.]
They’re not my words, but they’re words I agree with, and again, it’s just generally easier to talk via forum than PM. And while you can write what you like, that doesn’t mean other people will like it. Stories should still make logical sense. While the canon is pretty ambiguous, I would argue that introducing the element that all pokemon are of human intelligence means it is not valid to interpret them as nonpeople. Elves, dwarves, and related fantasy species are typically treated as people in fantasy stories, so what makes this species of talking creatures different?
Yeah, I understand that you agree with it. But, I don’t care what some person who’s probably never going to read my story thinks. You do, so I care about what you think.
“Elves, dwarves, and related fantasy species are typically treated as people in fantasy stories”
In my opinion that’s because those types of characters are humanlike. They look like people. Pokemon don’t. They are considered monsters (i.e., “Pocket Monsters”) and typically act more like animals, with the same kind of instincts to go along with it — particularly their fighting instincts. Also, elves and dwarves aren’t broken down into light and stored away in Poke Balls. The vast majority of Pokemon are not ‘talking creatures’ and only on rare occasions can they speak in a way that humans understand – either because the human and Pokemon have a very strong bond (i.e., Ash and Pikachu) or because they can use telepathy.
That’s the way I see it, though I don’t think I’m going to change your mind, and that’s okay. There’s no right way or wrong way in portraying characters, especially ones of your own creation. I never expected that my story was going to attract, engage or satisfy every single person who reads it. I’m totally fine with there being parts of it that some people will feel doesn’t fall in line with their view of various aspects of the series. That’s just the nature of the beast — or Pokemon.
[Also, elves and dwarves aren’t broken down into light and stored away in Poke Balls.]
Neither were pokemon before the invention of the pokeball. This is a totally external factor. Think about the real-world equivalent of what you’re saying: “The fact we can force Africans into chains is proof they’re not people.” Same goes for your other arguments:
[They look like people. Pokemon don’t.]
“Africans don’t look like us, therefore they’re not people.”
[The vast majority of Pokemon are not ‘talking creatures’ and only on rare occasions can they speak in a way that humans understand]
“Look at those silly barking noises the Africans are making! We can’t understand it, therefore it must be nonsense. They don’t have real language. They’re not people.”
These are real arguments real people made. You’re defining personhood based on the subjective perception of a privileged class, not based on the actual traits of the group in question. Do you see why I’m so creeped out by this?
I see that you seem to be taking this a little too far. Again, the difference here with this new argument you’re making is that Africans are, in fact, people; human beings. As I’ve stated multiple times in my previous replies, people are people. Pokemon are not people. In my view, at their core, Pokemon are animals — like real-world animals and not ‘animals’ as in a disparaging remark — that happen to have incredible, magical powers. Yes, quite a few of them have intelligence beyond that of real-world animals. Like real-world animals, they also have feelings and emotions. However, they are not *human beings.*
The decision of a Trainer to keep their Pokemon in or out of a ball is solely up to them. Just like it’s up to us as the fans to decide the morality, decency and compassion of keeping Pokemon in or out of a ball. Despite keeping them in balls, the series frequently implies that Trainers and Pokemon keep strong bonds of friendship. To that end, it’s reasonable to assume that Pokemon in Poke Balls is not cruel and could potentially be an enjoyable experience for them.
We don’t actually know what life in the Pokemon world was like before the invention of the Poke Ball — at least, I’ve never seen anything beyond I think the Lucario movie, where Lucario was always by Sir Aaron’s side. But that brings me back to your previous argument of wanting to get rid of Poke Ball’s altogether — it’s just too much of a mess. Trainers with six Pokemon are going to be way too hard to constantly describe in my story. I cannot and will not do that.
I get it, you want all Pokemon to be equal to humans. I *cannot* change your view on that. But at the same time, I am adamant in not getting rid of Poke Balls altogether. It’s a standard format for this series — just like capitalizing the word ‘Pokemon’ and the various species’ names. There are going to be quite a few Pokemon in this story, and beyond, as either not being in a Poke Ball or being in the wild.
At the end of the day, these are all just fictional characters in a fantasy setting. There’s no reason to take it so far that you would feel “creeped out” over something like this.
[I get it, you want all Pokemon to be equal to humans.]
No, I don’t. In canon, they are *not* human-like and do indeed act like animals; in that situation, the trainer setup is ethically valid. *You* are the one who threw this wrench into the works when you decided to give them all language humanlike personalities. The ambiguity of canon is irrelevant — you have removed that ambiguity in your universe.
[Again, the difference here with this new argument you’re making is that Africans are, in fact, people; human beings.]
An awful lot of people from the Colonial era would disagree with you by citing the exact same arguments you’ve used.
The reason I’m creeped out by this is that this goes beyond fictional circumstances now. Our definitions of personhood are extremely important and affect real people. If you can’t come up with an objective test for personhood and just go with popular opinion, that’s *really dangerous*, because popular opinion can be shaped by people with ulterior motives. Yes, Africans are people, but WHY are they people? Why were the Colonial slavers wrong? What makes a person a person?
“*You* are the one who threw this wrench into the works when you decided to give them all language humanlike personalities. The ambiguity of canon is irrelevant — you have removed that ambiguity in your universe.”
I see your argument a little better now. To that, I disagree. There’s always been language humanlike personalities from official Pokemon media. Look at episode 17 in the anime. That’s the one where Ash’s Pokemon are separated from him and have to communicate with each other. Subtitles are provided at the bottom of the screen, implying that Pokemon have their own language. *That* is what I’m tapping into here with my story. Pokemon speech typically is heard as grunts and growls by normal people. Antoshi is able to discern that sort of “Pokemon language” that all Pokemon seem to understand.
“An awful lot of people from the Colonial era would disagree with you”
I don’t … care? This isn’t the Colonial era, nor am I part of that. I believe all people are people, no matter their skin color.
“Our definitions of personhood are extremely important and affect real people.”
I mean, this is starting to border on a really messy SJW-level argument and *I’m* getting creeped out by it. My Pokemon fanfiction does not and should not affect real people — it’s a fictional story, not something based off of real events. It also does not warrant provoking serious philosophical debates about humanity. Again, this takes me back to the beginning of my very first reply where I said you’re overthinking things and bringing up issues that are not issues. Would you rather I put in the typical ‘fiction’ disclaimer in there somewhere? The one that goes, “This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.”
Stories absolutely affect real life and absolutely should be used to discuss serious philosophical issues. Like, we have entire fields of study dedicated to it, dude. You may not have intended for your story to bring up these issues, but it did, and it’s fair to discuss them. (And if you want to avoid that, it’s helpful to you to understand these points so you can avoid bringing it up by accident again.)
You really seem confused about this, so I’m just going to bring it to a single question: What is your definition of “person”?
“Stories absolutely affect real life and absolutely should be used to discuss serious philosophical issues. Like, we have entire fields of study dedicated to it, dude.”
Yes, but not *Pokemon fanfiction.* Things like Robinson Crusoe and To Kill a Mockingbird. Real, significant novels — not a fan story done as a hobby, tucked away in it’s own small corner of the internet.
“And if you want to avoid that, it’s helpful to you to understand these points so you can avoid bringing it up by accident again.”
You’re literally the only person that’s brought this up. I don’t see the point in it, and I don’t understand what was “brought up” by accident.
I actually have to tap out here. This is way too much debate for something that I personally see as minute and trivial. If anything, this discussion is only succeeding to distract me from actual further progress on this series.
[Yes, but not *Pokemon fanfiction.* Things like Robinson Crusoe and To Kill a Mockingbird. Real, significant novels — not a fan story done as a hobby, tucked away in it’s own small corner of the internet.]
It makes me very sad that you believe that. Don’t discredit your own work just to get out of an argument.
[You’re literally the only person that’s brought this up.]
The only person to bring it up *thus far*, yes. I think the thread evidences that there are other people who care about this. Ignore the topic if you must, but don’t be surprised if this comes up again.
I mean, I won’t be surprised, that’s for sure. Look, I appreciate your comments and your passion for this subject and the fact that you care this much to carry on a debate concerning my story for this long. But it’s just too much, at least for me. I’ve already said everything I needed to say. I don’t feel there’s some kind of underlying problematic issue with the way I’ve portrayed Pokemon in this story so far.
Thanks again. Now I need to lie down.
Yikes. That really happened in the anime? And people still think like this? Jesus.
I can understand not questioning the source material as presented, but this inability to even see the issue when pressed is really horrifying. Why are people like this?
Pokemon talking to each other? Yeah, that’s actually one of the episodes I vaguelly recall catching on TV a decade or so ago.
Yes! Island of the Giant Pokemon. It’s a first season episode (i.e. it’s interesting.)
4:45-8:00 contains most of the interesting pokemon dialogue — a discussion of masters and the morality of pokemon in their natural state.
Yeah, it’s particularly interesting because it’s not Koffing and Ekans explaining this directly to Pikachu and friends – it’s to Meowth, who clearly demonstrates pokemon are mentally capable of moral reasoning. Also, it’s the pokemon who are ordered to do the worst things that seem most childish (Ash’s pokemon, while not quite as proactive as Meowth, have just told one member to stop being a dick about this rather than rejecting all concept of good and evil) as if there’s a corrolation to how much a pokemon avoids the idea of personal responsibility and how functional they are in general.
Overall, it seems pokemon under trainers get infantilized because nothing is their responsibility. That Ash’s group is acting pretty normal is one of those suggestions Ash really is a good trainer, but you can still see they have less agency than a fully independent pokemon like Meowth.
(Oh, it’s also interesting that the moral everyone else takes from it is “Meowth is fucked in the head”.)
Meowth is really one of the most fascinating characters in the anime, since he embodies the problem of “people vs pokemon”. He walks, he talks, he dreams, he falls in love, and he chooses to be bad. And yet he is nevertheless a pokemon, which makes these actions freakish, since they aspire at personhood.
Go West, Young Meowth is an interesting episode to consider. In it, Meowth works hard to become like a human so the meowth he loves will love him like she loves her master, but in the end she rejects him as a freak of nature. Meowth ends up with Team Rocket in part, it seems, because they are somehow the only ones open to accepting him as an independent person. (Training Daze is another great episode.)
Meowth’s employment at Team Rocket was always really weird and only makes any sense with the meta setup where the evil group always has the most pro-diversity hiring policies, even if they’re officially racist/sexist/xenophobic.
[with the meta setup where the evil group always has the most pro-diversity hiring policies, even if they’re officially racist/sexist/xenophobic.]
I think that’s probably a function of people’s desire to group together percieved transgression. Trangression against convention is associated with transgression against morality. To go with the Team Rocket example, Jessie and James have very gender-bent coding. Jessie is the aggressive partner who always takes the leader, while James is weak and passive. And they’re always cross-dressing in their disguises.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/08/24/12-times-that-cross-dressing-team-rocket-stole-the-show-on-pokemon/
They’re “transgressive” in regards to gender, and so they’re on the side of evil. Or, uh, high-spirited lawlessness.
It’s an interesting conflict of impulses — prejudice is supposed to be bad, so obviously the evil group must be prejudiced, but people who upset norms are transgressive, and obviously can’t be “good.” So you get the weird set-up you described. I think it mainly shows that anti-prejudice is often very surface level in worldbuilding set-ups — it’s on the check-box for good, but people still shove all the things that are actually diverse, and therefore upsetting, onto the evil side.
And that’s how you get Voldemort the racist supporter of marginalized groups (like werewolves and giants, the former of which were used as a metaphor for AIDS).
Whenever I see discussion of Meowth, I think of that interview where the anime creator said his original intent was a Pokemon rebellion where Meowth served as the mediator. He was proof to the humans that pokemon are people, and proof to the pokemon that humans are capable of treating them as people, even if they don’t always. He doesn’t quite fit in anywhere, yeah, but in the end that’s what saves everyone. We need people who understand both sides, who can bridge cultural and social gaps and create understanding, but it’s so hard to be that person when you’re alone in it.
And now we’ve got talking Rotomdex who everyone just ignores even though it’s talking…
I guess what happens if you’re trying to do subtlety and nuance and then it blows up into an immortal cash cow is that all the stuff meant to be temporary/raise questions how long this could last turns into status quo.
Yeah, I haven’t thought about that fact at all, I overlooked it, but maybe you’re right. The Rotomdex makes the argument of pokemon being non-human very problematic.
Okay, we know that rotom, being a living being (I guess) have some degree of sentience with enough control of its own electricity to manipulate electric devices and at least some degree of intelligence to sort it out how to use those devices properly (if not by trial-error, which still shows intelligence). So, what Rotom brings to the pokedex it is a renewable power source and more importantly, processing power. The first thing to assume it is as that the Rotom dex just function as a translator and that it manipulates all the data inside the device in order to help the user, but thing is that the dex had inside programs (as shown by the various upgrades) it just plays with the inside programming, Rotom is no artificial intelligence like Porygon (which I think would have been a better pokedex helper), how can we be sure that the pokedex didn’t also have some kind of artificial intelligence that helps Rotom interact with the internal programming to not only aid the translation of Rotom’s language, but the sum of the programming with Rotom’s mind enhance its intelligence making an entity of human sentience and intelligence in the process.
I know, a really convoluted explanation that seems counter-intuitive, but that’s a possible explanation. The most we can infer from the Rotom dex in the game setting is that Rotom has a human-like awareness making itself a person, opening the scenario that there might be pokemon that are people.
No, I mean, even ignoring any implications for other pokemon, or whether or not Rotomdex is a rotom talking through a pokedex or a fused entity, people in the game just don’t care about what Rotomdex says and they still treat it exactly the same as non-talking regular pokemon: “Ahahaha! What was that for, Rotom? Go and put that little trickster back in your Bag, <player>, and follow me! Enough feasting for the eyes… It’s time we take care of our stomachs!”
It can talk, but people address only address it in the same way you’d address a cat, then start talking to you about it like it can’t understand a word they say. And that’s a quote from Hau, Mr. I-love-my-poke-friends. He has several lines where he talks to you about Rotomdex, exactly the same as his several lines where he compliments the starter pokemon to you rather than giving them the compliment directly.
Oh, I get it.
Darn, it really says something when a pokemon could literally talk to a person and will just dismiss it as some kind of funny quirk.
“Hey, Hau! Lately I’ve been feeling weird”
“Hi, Rotomdex!”
“I’ve been thinking about the meaning of life”
“Hahaha, you looney machine! Let’s go grab some snacks”
“Why pokemon don’t live in cities like humans? Can pokemon be trainers too? I feel like pokemon are some second class citizens”
“Oh, Rotomdex, don’t be silly! Look there are some masaladas there!”
“Hi, Rotomdex!”
“I’ve been thinking about the meaning of life”
To be fair, I think I’d get about the same response if that’s how I responded to a greeting.
Another thing I’ve noted about the independence of pokemon in the anime is that intelligence and independence correlate with evolutionary stage. Fully evolved pokemon seem more capable of making decisions without their humans.
Ekans and Koffing actually make an interesting contrast – in Island of the Giant Pokemon they disavow morality beyond their masters’, but as evolved Arbok and Weezing in A Poached Ego their attitudes are markedly different. Arbok is reluctant to follow an order that he thinks might harm ekans, and at the end of the episode Arbok and Weezing take on the responsibility of leading away the poached ekans and koffing on their own, leaving their masters behind.
All this suggests that evolution in the anime is more than a power upgrade, it’s also growth in a mental and moral sense. First stage pokemon may be closer in mental state to children or teenagers, making them more dependent on their trainers. In light of that, it’s suggestive that the anime tries to keep Ash’s pokemon first stage for the most part.
The Charizard arc also demonstrates the increased independence that comes with evolution (for the non-anime watchers, Charizard begins to ignore Ash’s commands after he evolves). Charizard only begins to listen to Ash after Ash demonstrates how much he cares for Charizard as a person (Charizard Chills).
The anime also frequently shows structures among wild pokemon wherein the first-stage pokemon defer to a final-stage pokemon as leader. Again, this seems to be out of not so much a respect for power, but a recognition of that pokemon’s ability to lead, as in the attitude of the bulbasaur to the venosaur in Bulbasaur’s Mysterious Garden. In that episode, Bulbasaur refuses to evolve. Interestingly, the other bulbasaur and the venosaur treat him like a willful child for that refusal, suggesting a refusal to evolve is tantamount to a refusal to grow up. Arguably, Bulbasaur earns their respect not simply because he displays his power by taking down Team Rocket, but because he displays his ability to act independently and functionally even as a bulbasaur. This does suggest a possibility of increased growth of independent thought under a trainer, rather than increased infantilization.
Pikachu, who is the most exposed to Ash, often acts as a leader in pokemon-only situations, even when the pokemon are not from Ash’s group, again suggesting that despite only being a first-stage pokemon, Pikachu has developed increased independence from contact with humans. But of course, as the anime often points out, Ash is the exception, not the rule.
but as evolved Arbok and Weezing in A Poached Ego their attitudes are markedly different. Arbok is reluctant to follow an order that he thinks might harm ekans, and at the end of the episode Arbok and Weezing take on the responsibility of leading away the poached ekans and koffing on their own, leaving their masters behind.
Hm. While you’re right that overall, evolved pokemon seem to corrolate with more mature/independent pokemon, it seems like it being their own species made them less able to rationalize as well, which suggests they might’ve still been bothered as Ekans and Koffing (it’s a shame we don’t see that, because it’d be really interesting to see how unevolved pokemon behave in such a situation – do they obey but act weird, do they disobey but feel wracked with doubt over if it was right?). They’re still quite willing to attack Pikachu and obey lots of other Team Rocket plans that’ll harm pokemon, so I’d guess their official stance is still that they’re only obeying orders so what those orders are doesn’t have any reflection on their own character.
I find their denials too pointed – they don’t seem baffled by the idea of good and evil, they don’t take issue with Meowth characterizing their masters’ orders as bad, and they don’t seem to care when Meowth says he’s bad. So evolution probably isn’t exactly a moral sense, but a confidence in yourself vs a willingness to go with the flow. I only know maybe a tenth of anime canon at this point, but aren’t the pokemon who get mad at/stop obeying/need to be convinced to stay generally or always evolved ones?
Another factor re: “evil” pokemon could be pokemon expressing the ugly underside of the elaborate social grouping: bullying, ostracism, in-group/out-group conflict, etc. Maybe it’s not that easy to cross the line and command your pokemon to kill someone, but they’re happy to inflict casual violence on outsiders to their group.
Your average Zubat/Poochyena-type might not have the worldview or theory of mind to understand why Team Rocket the organization is bad; all they know is that they and their trainer are The Group that needs to be protected, and they’ll fight if pointed at an interloper.
All this suggests that evolution in the anime is more than a power upgrade, it’s also growth in a mental and moral sense
As someone who watched the bulk of the XY anime, I can definitely say this seems to be the case. Ash’s quilava, goomy, and noibat are particularly good examples of this. In fact, I was intentionally going to use this when I was planning out that Pokemon fic, and having my own trainer’s cyndaquil slowly lose its more unsure nature as it evolved.
Certainly a story for October.
Gosh, I wonder if that guy comes into contact with non-humanoid aliens with human intellect he will just trap it into a cage just because that alien isn’t from Earth and doesn’t look human enough. Also, there are a lot of bipedal tailless pokemon, many of them humanoid, what’s the excuse for them? That they can be trapped into pokeballs? Well, items can be found inside pokeballs too.
I’m amazed about how he just says: “if I want to make a story that’s racist just for racism’s sake, then I will do it, and damn you for making me think about the human condition.” Really creepy.
This topic actually made me think in broader sense ,what actually a pokemon is? more recently the Ultra Beasts made their ambiguos definition even more vague. In fic setting in which pokemon has human intelligence, do digimon counts as pokemon?
Yep, always wondered that. Some pokemon are just aliens, some are literally ghosts. I did always think that cannonically it was whatever could be jammed inside a ball, but as you said, so can items. So god knows, basically.
I still disagree with the idea that we should take item balls as anything more than a gameplay abstraction.
And, please don’t mention the rice ball/jelly doughnut. Y’all know that was just a joke.
Given regular pokeballs can catch non-pokemon, so there isn’t any real distinction between pokeballs and itemballs, the answer appears to be pokeballs were deliberately made to exclude humans as a capturable object.
Which is to say: yeah, it’s humans and everything else in the world. Digimon go in, Vulcans go in…
Wow, that’s… really creepy actually. If the humans of that world stumbled across another intelligent, sapient species, either from another planet or hidden somewhere on their own, would they just jam them in balls and call them pokemon too? Because that’s fucked up.
If the ultra beasts are anything to go off of, yes!
Well, to be precise, we don’t know exactly what the classification is, since it may be something they found about the ultra beasts that tipped them into “pokemon” territory. Regular plants that do nothing interesting are non-pokemon, ones that can be ordered to blow paralyzing dust are pokemon. Assuming the definition is not straight up “anything sapient that is not a human is a pokemon”, it may be that while digimon go right in, Vulcans are safe unless they have telepathic abilities/nerve pinch training, in which case they know “attacks” and are “monsters”, making stuffing them in your pocket okay.
Which actually suggests some really weird possibilities for alien contact – if the aliens don’t demonstrate “attacks”, they might be met as “people”. If so, the existence of the psychic trainer class and about 50% of the fighters means that it’s acceptable for humans to have things that are like pokemon attacks, so you aren’t guaranteed to lose personhood over that, but then, the ones making the rules her are humans, so we don’t know if anybody else is allowed exceptions.
Possibly if they’re met first as people, the abilities are exceptions. Any alien that keeps its abilities secret during initial contact is a person.
Possibly it comes down to if it’s a universal trait. If all Vulcans have the same power set, they’re pokemon, if it’s a trait only a portion have and they can’t be told apart from the regular Vulcans at a glance, they’re not pokemon. (Bonus implication – if psychic abilities are easily identified and the lines breed true , people could end up branding psychics enough to easily tell them apart from other humans and then declaring them pokemon.)
Or finally, perhaps the most entertaining possibility, you get a massive split in opinion because they’ve never been in extended contact with a species prior to finding out it has “attacks” and you get some people running around catching Vulcans and others horrified at the idea that it’s suddenly okay to treat people like, like they’re just pokemon or something!
Oh wait, no, I missed an obvious factor.
Like I said originally, the pokeballs must use a blacklist system. Anything met initially goes in, but if they’re capable of seeing nonhumans as “people”, they could add Vulcans to the same blacklist. It’s not about visual identification at all! It’s about the fact no one knows how to tune the pokeballs to only catch human psychics and not all other psychics, therefore humans accidentally created a group of attack-using uncatchable people in the process of trainers not accidentally catching themselves left and right.
So, even if it’s easy to tell psychic Vulcans from non-psychic Vulcans, you probably can’t set pokeballs to only catch one. That means it’s pokeball refinement advances that’ll threaten “people” who have useful attack-like skills.
Then, that arises the possibility that some human might be actual pokemon that just look a lot like humans thus by-passing the blacklist pokeball program.
Well, you can catch things in dark caves without flash, so it doesn’t care what you look like.
Impersonating a person will make it less likely you get pokeballs thrown at you, but the lati movie makes it clear that you’re still completely fair game if anyone finds out. If a “person” starts using “attacks”, I think the pokeballs come out. If it doesn’t work, you apologize profusely to the psychic trainer for being an idiot. If it does, cool, new addition to your pokemon team!
(This also makes me realize that any pokemon pretending to be a trainer will have to be really careful around unused pokeballs.)
Wait, is there actual canon confirmation that pokeballs can’t catch humans?
There’s been scenes where humans have been hit by pokeballs and nothing happened. And they can press the button to open an empty pokeball and look inside at the mechanism, while Psyduck showed that a pokemon repeatedly pressing the button on an empty pokeball is sucked inside.
This might be just me misunderstanding how Pokemon work, but would pokemons that can transform into humans (instead of using illusions to look human) not have to worry about that?
What I mean is, the lati can pretend to be humans by bending light, but they’re not human underneath, it’s just an illusion. But pokemon who could transform into humans (Ditto is the only example I can think of) would be fully human. Would that mean the Pokeball wouldn’t work?
Yes, I think ditto would be safe. They physically transform into another thing, and furthermore the mechanics say they copy catch rate, so they should have a human’s catchability. Unfortunately, of pokemon that turn into humans, ditto is the exception. Everyone who doesn’t use transform is using an illusion. The latis, zorua/zoroarak, and mimikyu should all be catchable.
The summary is meant to feed just enough information to pique a reader’s interest without spilling important details right from the start.
I mean, he’s right in theory, but… his summary doesn’t do that. How do you tell someone that they’re right and wrong at the same time?
From what I’ve only heard recently, the capitalization of Pokemon and the individual species is a gray area that fanfic authors can choose to go with or not
It’s amazing how many people respond to you telling them this is wrong with “other people told me it’s right” as if that settles the matter.
Given that the average Trainer keeps six Pokemon in balls on hand, having six Pokemon constantly hovering around each person would be very confusing in every aspect.
Again, he’s right in theory here, but… most trainers don’t have six pokemon, either in the games or anime, and the full pokemon compliment are regularly out of their pokeballs in the anime without too much mess. It’s weird how he can identify this as a problem, but the solution of reducing the amount of pokemon on hand doesn’t occur to him. I’d ask if he’s that shackled to the canon but… pokemon whisperer story.
Originally my summary was even more vague
… How?
That implies that he’s going to discover he possesses powers *beyond* the talking to Pokemon thing.
Yeah, I mean, obviously. He’s already discovered that extraordinary power, and it’s not as if he can just discover it again. Pay attention, man. It’s clearly spelled out right in front of your face.
That’s why I said Pokemon intelligence is up to you and what you make of it.
… Again again… yes, this is true… and that’s the problem.
In my opinion that’s because those types of characters are humanlike.
Yep. That’s exactly it. It’s like this guy is hitting everything directly on the head… but he’s putting his story together with screws rather than nails so it’s still wrong.
typically act more like animals, with the same kind of instincts to go along with it — particularly their fighting instincts
Yep, which is why if I wrote Pokemon fanfic, I’d portray them as being far more animalistic than personlike, and not including things like the ability to carry on sapient conversations with them.
the difference here with this new argument you’re making is that Africans are, in fact, people
Duh. Only people are people. Obviously.
As I’ve stated multiple times in my previous replies, people are people. Pokemon are not people.
Oh my god he actually said it. I was just making a joke. Goddamn it, Pokemon fanfic.
In my view, at their core, Pokemon are animals — like real-world animals and not ‘animals’ as in a disparaging remark — that happen to have incredible, magical powers
I totally agree with this! … Which is, again, why I wouldn’t portray most Pokemon as having human-level intelligence.
could potentially be an enjoyable experience for them
Just like those Africans in chains who loved being civilized by their white masters, right? You’d think that, by this point, he would’ve started thinking “hm, could he twist this into being about African slaves?” before saying things.