Morality and Pokemon
Poke-mania
I’m an original pokemon junkie.
I grew up with Red and Blue, felt dissatisfied with Gold and Silver, and didn’t even bother with Sapphire and Ruby after a cursory glance through the new pokedex left me feeling glum.
It wasn’t until I started watching the cartoon series that I started to question the Pokemon universe. Even so, it wasn’t until I began writing my own Pokemon fanfic that I actually applied critical thinking to the problem.
What I realized is this : Pokemon is horrifying.
The Universe
Pokemon are “pocket monsters” – critters (large or small, cute or scary) which can be captured using the technology of a palm-sized pokeball. Once captured, the creature is kept in the ball except to be released so that it can be forced to fight against another creature (using elemental or physical attacks until such time as one or the other creature “faints”).
The creatures level up and will periodically evolve into a larger, more powerful creature – sometimes forced to do so by their “trainer” (in quotes because I’ve yet to see any real training in-game) using elemental stones.
The Cartoon
In the game, everything’s just pixels and cute little sprites – but once I saw the cartoon, I watched pokemon who didn’t want to fight, pokemon who hated being in pokeballs, pokemon who refused to listen to their masters, and pokemon BADLY injured by battles. Trainers capturing GOD pokemon and sending them into battle as easily as they might a caterpie or a weedle!
I saw trainers with the same uncaring attitude that I’d felt when playing the game – who used their pokemon for tools and thought nothing of storing unwanted pokemon in computers, or letting pokemon faint because they could just be revived again at the next town.
I also saw the relationship between pokemon and trainers who loved them. I saw true friendships and the way that pokemon and humans could build a better life for each other.
The Fanfic
I set out to write fanfic and immediately hit upon a problem – I couldn’t sympathize with a main character who would deliberately send her pokemon into meaningless battles for glory’s sake.
I thought about this problem for a long time before coming up with a solution …
… I sent her back in time.
Back to a time when there was such a thing as a wild raichu. Back to a time when towns were small and roads between them fraught with danger. A time without pokeballs and pokemon centers. A time when getting too close to a litter of nidoran would set off a bellowing, enraged nidoqueen.
And most importantly, to a time when roving gangs of outlaws with trained pokemon would raid these townships, and the only way the townsfolk could fight back was by having more powerful pokemon with their own trainers.
A time when pokemon battles meant the difference between civilization and anarchy.
That history could easily lead to the current Pokemon universe. Battles became less bloody and more of a contest. Contests for territory became contests of skill. Contests of skill became a spectator sport. Advances in technology allowed pokemon to be viewed as equipment rather than teammates.
The Games Keep On A’Comin
Formulating that history allowed me to enjoy Pokemon again, even though the newest games have some truly gag-worthy pokedexes and they STILL haven’t made the awesome Pokemon RPG that I JUST KNOW IS OUT THERE SOMEWHERE.
If they build that RPG, part of me really hopes they build it in the history that I constructed. I think I’d have a lot more fun being a pokemon HERO than being a pokemon MASTER.
Anyone Else?
Has anyone else run into any moral opposition to the Pokemon games? Felt twinges of conscience, or wondered who was gone the day some decisions were made?
Have you come up with any reasonings or justifications that work for you?
Anyone else who HAS had a crisis of conscience yet still gets a little giggly every time you see a Pikachu in a window or on a website? (Because I totally do. Guilt or no, the original pokemon had some of the cutest critters ever devised.)
Alternately, what’s your favorite pokemon? (Vulpix/Ninetails, I love you!)
14 Comments
You know, I hadn’t thought of it that way. If they actually made a show set pre poke tech I would totally watch it.
I love how you took a problem and deconstructed it to find out what led (or what possibly led) to the world’s condition. Now I want to run off and try that with a few series (book and TV) that I’ve had a hard time understanding.
Lost Girl (on Canadian Television) for instance is the one that comes to the top of my head.
<3 Thanks!
I don't even know what Lost Girl is (I don't even watch most US Television)
What other books or shows would you be interested in doing it with?
I still think a pre poke-tech (nice term!) game would be AWESOME.
If you’re really interested in a Pokemon RPG you could always write it yourself… I’m sure you just NEED another project on your plate ;-)
*laughs* Indeed. More projects. I’ll get RIGHT on that.
I did start writing a fanfic in this world, but I never finished it.
Pokemon gave me siezures.
Seriously, the only part of Pokemon that I enjoyed were Jessi and James. James flamboyance was great!
Some kid gave Jacob a Pokemon tape for his fifth birthday that we had to listen to all the time in the car. It gave me seizures, which largely explains my driving.
The show was okay, but it was the games that I really fell in love with. <3
Once upon a time all three of my kids were into Pokemon. To some extent they still are, but it’s actually one of the shows I won’t allow on my television.
When they asked me why, after watching but one episode, I would drop the ban hammer like that I explained my outlook.
Pokemon, as written by the creators, is no different than dogfighting, something I vehemently oppose.
If they would have come up with your solution, where the pokemon were working together with their trainers, fighting not for the glory of the trainer but in defense of their homes and families, I would have had no problem with it.
Hell, I likely would have watched it with them.
Thats the difference between a dog trained to fight going off to war with his partner, and one thrown in a pit in a dank basement and made to fight for his life.
Simply put, well done, I like your past history universe much better than the original.
<3 Thank you!
I'm not sure they've released an official history on it yet, but I stopped following it shortly after the second generation of games came out.
Great comparison with the fighting dogs to the war dogs. Very apt.
Honestly, this was why I kind of fell out of writing pokemon fanfic– I couldn’t deal with the cognitive dissonance of having intelligent monsters that were essentially slaves and still have main characters I could call heroes. The more I tried to make it work or find a way to make it work, the further I got from pokemon, and finally decided to just turn it into an original concept.
And do you happen to remember which artist drew that first image??? Yowza.
I do, as it happens! Artist named “vashlion” on deviantart.
> http://vashlion.deviantart.com/art/Scary-Pokemon-Art-188936362
Hey, I am actually vashlion, and THAT IS NOT MY WORK. xD Sorry for the confusion, I actually posted it with the description saying it wasn’t and I was curious who drew it. And yeah I understand this could be from a long time ago, I just don’t want any misinterpretations here, or me to stain my name and make it look like I steal people’s work and all.
Thank you for the clarification! Apologies for theconfusion there.
Even when I was a kid and I got into the Pokemon show with all my friends I saw the show for what it really was. The games came out before anything. Then it was the show, and the trading card game. The show started out like Transformers or My Little Pony, it’s just a 20-minute-long advertisement for the game. As such I totally understood that the way people acted in the show was -supposed- to make me feel sorry for the Pokemon. The game tells you that you should be a loving, caring Pokemon master from the very beginning. The entire purpose of your rivalry with “Gary” is to show the logical conclusion of your caring philosophy vs. his “Spare the rod” philosophy. In the end you beat his well-trained but still-not-good-enough Pokemon as a stepping stone to taking on The Elite Four, a group which focuses on a particular theme for their Pokemon. The themed Elite Four vs. Gary who just had your anti-starter, a giant Raticate and some poison stuff, is an important foil in the game. It implies that The Elite Four found something kindred in the particular types of Pokemon they chose, further implying that they -love- those Pokemon.
In the show portraying Ash as the lone sympathetic trainer amidst a world of people who treat their Pokemon badly is a marketing tactic. They know kids (Especially girls, who are most likely to buy into the love-and-peace training paradigm) will sympathize with the poorly treated Pokemon. Little Suzy will decide that she -must- play the game, or collect the cards, so that she can become a loving, caring trainer even better than Ash. Every time you watch a Pokemon being treated badly by Team Rocket you’re supposed to shed a tiny tear and make a solemn promise to your game boy that you will do better for your tiny team.
It is especially evident that the designers are interested in currying empathy as much as ambition as you can decorate your Pokemon’s Pokeballs with decorations you can collect in game, and take purikura style pictures of your Pokemon in the games after Red and Blue.
Finally I’d like to add that I am an original 150-ist myself, however I would like to say that the recent re-releases of Gold and Silver as Heart Gold and Soul Silver are really awesome and remind me of the good old days even if there are a few hundreds extra in the Pokedex. What truly sold me on it was that once you finish your battles against The Elite Four in that game and have your celebratory Pocky and Ramune drink in the weaboo store at your local mall, the game wakes you up and tells you “Oh hey yeah here’s some tickets for a boat that’ll take you to Kanto. (The continent where Red and Blue take place.)”
I hadn’t looked at it that way, as a deliberate marketing ploy. I love your take on the Elite Four, as well.
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that if you keep playing through Kanto, there’s something awesome at the end.