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Patreon Bonus Video: Pokemon Black & White (Patreon)

Published:
2024-09-10 03:04:25
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

From 8:32 - 31:00 is a recap of the dialogue in the game, you can skip this if you don't want/need a refresher!

https://youtu.be/Ey3-Ry5Vtgc - My old essay about Pokemon Black and White

Files

Patreon Bonus Video: Pokemon Black & White

Comments

nic

I agree with your points, particularly that the game handles the issue poorly--completely unresolving the conflict they raise unnecessarily. I think the logic is something maybe akin to Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland (for lack of a better reference). By this I mean--and you reference this in passing--that the rules of a fictional universe do not follow the logic of the nonfictional one despite indeed following an internal logic, a logic which is quite simple to perceive but is extremely convoluted and contradictory when you try to explain it in terms of syllogisms and whatnot. Here's my take on this internal logic: like Alice, Pokemon is for children, and thus the internal logic is childlike. Children's perpetual state of obedience is (at least from an adult's retrospection as I experience it) loosely akin to the logic of the Pokemon's. Forcing a Pokemon to compete in a Pokemon match may be the game's fictional equivalent to forcing a child to play a sport--but in the fictional world of Pokemon, all Pokemon are interested in playing along, and to wear a Pokemon down into a place of submission isn't akin to child abuse but is rather a metaphorical/fantastical battle of a kind of will. This is how I choose to look at the game, if any of this made any sense.

Leon Garnet [Skullboss]

I feel like Unova wasn't the right setting for this whole debate to have been presented in. Not to be the guy who always ropes it back to sun and moon, but the story and setting within and of Alola would have been a much better fit for the pokemon ethics debate. Setting aside the fact it would make sun and moon about 800x slower and more of a thumb workout to get through all the text (LOL), Alola has a lot of the theming surrounding pokemon in nature and nature co-existing with humanity in a much more intertwined state than in Unova. There are the story themes of traditionalism vs modernity with Kukui's beliefs VS Guzma's beliefs which could be grounds to set this all up. The non-traditional (in a pokemon game series context) island challenge system while being _essentially_ the same keystone game mechanic of "big pokemon boss battle that you get a funky little trinkety thing for beating", also has more roots within the world, which allows the player to if not empathise with, at least be somewhat immersed in the natural state of pokemon in their habitat and/or where people and pokemon's lives intersect in a co-habitation type of way rather than what older games before XY were limited to with showing pokemon either battling, in the grass or just sat in someones house. The themes and story in (especially) base Sun and Moon lean a lot more into the interpersonal and the grounded lives and world that everyone lives in. The main crux of the games' story is Lillie (And Gladion to an extent also) stealing pokemon from Lusamine's labs so they can have lives free of exploitation and/or experimentation which are pokemon ethical concerns in and of themselves even without looking at it though a lens like Black and White's. Sun and Moon also show many tiny details that give a glimpse into people's differing levels of care for pokemon like how almost all of the Skull grunts' pokemon are unevolved or NFE and how only one of them throughout the entire generation has three pokemon in their possession, where all the others have (mostly) one, or sometimes two. To avoid getting into super long speculation and making this comment even more ridiculously and needlessly long, it's very obvious from the setting Team Skull is in alone that it's for cost reasons and not being able to afford food and stuff for such an abundance of pokemon let alone all the people in the gang. There's more to support this but that's not important to my point. Another relevant yet relatively minor detail that shows how the theme could fit better within the existing substance of Alola is everything surrounding Lusamine and the Aether Foundation, but most specifically, Lusamine claiming to "love" all the pokemon, yet she has almost a dozen pokemon cryogenically frozen yet displayed sadistically in her ""trophy room"" in large, picturesque blocks of ice. They're not focused on too much in SM but the whole Aether Foundation thing is rife with food for this theory that they just fail to properly justify in BW that could be used one way or another. It feels a little bit like they wanted to try it again with SM but it all stayed in the background since the story's focus was cemented on the characters. The only pokemon perspective you get in SM _maybe_ is that of Nebby, and Nebby is an Ultra Beast - UBs being in a grey area as to whether or not they're considered as actual pokemon despite the Alola regional pokedex registering them as such. I don't hate BW by any stretch, they were my favourites for so many years - however your brain gets pulled in so many directions because, like you said, the battling is so fun, there's so much of it to do, it's ingrained into a narrative where the guy you keep battling doesn't like it but the game doesn't really offer any alternatives (because god forbid we make the players do a pokemon musical with N instead of dress-up with Bianca for no reason). Because you're pulled in so many directions, the story wanting you to believe one thing, the gameplay not supporting it, the world offering so many battle opportunities and new battle types etc, that the words lose their meaning if you think about it too much. It relies a lot on the player having that suspension of disbelief in a way. Typical Gamefreak, though. Presenting a big point and then not fully following it through. Sorry for the novel, I need to stop having Thoughts™ all the time

Haldon Lindstrom

I remember that early video essay. It was, in my opinion, one of the better explorations of the 'is Pokemon dogfighting' examinations, and I generally agree with you that the more you examine the dichotomy of Pokemon battling, the less it makes sense. I think that we should think critically about games, even silly ones - I always wondered how the little animals got out of the robots in Sonic 2, for instance. If they introduce a concept in the game, even just for aethetic or fun reasons, you should be allowed, even encouraged, to think about it - that's what being a kid is, learning new things and thinking about them critically.

Shawn Heatherly

I can listen to talk about Best Gen all day long.

Kay Sutcliff-Michaelis

I think that you have good points, but I would like to bring up the concept of Pokémon growth and evolution. Trainers get money from battles, but Pokémon get XP. While there's still a problem with the concept of Pokéballs and I don't have an answer for that, we could see this as some Pokémon preferring to train and grow on their own vs other Pokémon believing in their trainer's guidance and thinking it's the best way to grow (hence the term trainer, like getting a trainer at the gym vs going solo). Maybe we could compare them to horses, as far as I know they benefit from exercise and enrichment, so perhaps some of them enjoy training with humans and their obstacles vs just running around without the element of challenge.

Jack Sizer

Loved the video and look forward to a future discussion about Generation 5. I agree with the sentiments you put forth in this video!