The Pokémon's worth

[Damage]

Hello all, I've been writing a series in the creative writing for a while and took a massive hiatus due to working on films and two jobs but the stories never left my mind. Can't wait to write Corey's episode And one thing I always thought about is how much do trainers value their team. Certain trainers have to raise happiness to a certain level or the Pokémon wont evolve or canonically speaking can't evolve due to lack of trust. Even then certain things can be bypassed and the trainer can remain cold. I'm curious as to how much value you all think trainers in game and in the shows place on their Pokémon versus how much they should. In my opinion they are animals and ones that trust their trainers with their lives. Should more value be explored upon especially since we're going into the next gen with twenty years of community input.

Also episode 4 will be out soon for anyone who still checks it out.

Edited May 16, 2016 by Damage

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

Well, both in the games and show, trust and love towards Pokemon are major themes. People in some occupations (like the worker trainer class) might mainly have Pokemon to help with their job, so I doubt they have the same connection a full-time trainer like the player has with theirs, but they still seem to treat them right.

I think the games have been pretty good for the most part about who they give happiness evolutions to. For example, some of the well-intentioned villain leaders have Crobat, but grunts never go higher than Golbat (Mars and Jupiter didn't even get them at Stark Mountain, which is fitting since they seem pretty shallow). Silver's Golbat also never evolved until he learned the lesson Lance tried to teach him. The only one I don't understand is Xerosic having Crobat, since before the Looker Bureau sidequests he seemed completely amoral and only cared about science. He even wrote in a journal in the labs that his Pokemon seemed happier with Emma than they did with him.

[Ironbound]

Personally, I view Pokémon as a collection of statistics that can be improved and implemented to perform LR generate the desired output. Check the ethics thread I made a while back to see my full opinion, if you wish.

But as for other trainers in the canonic series, I stopped watching the anime some seve. years ago or so, do the last I saw must've been DPPt. I think the idiot Ash had the most respectable team and competence then, having evolved his team at least. Overall, in game, we have the villains who don't usually care for Pokémon, bit then we also have N who is the other extreme. We have rivals who themselves evolve as a person to understand the nature and humanity in Pokémon, etc etc. I don't think that trope will ever change, and Pokémon will continue to be projected as being equal or beyond human levels of intelligence and emotional sentience and subsequently deserving of a high amount of care, resistibility and respect from Trainer's.

[Commander]

If we want to talk about the realisms of Pokemon (oh this brings back that old nuzlocke story I had) it's nothing more than a master and slave relation looking beyond the numbers and RNG. It might sound cruel because it really is until you look a bit deeper. Most RPGs have people fight stuff, usually killing, in order to get stronger and face bigger challenges at hand. Thankfully Pokemon does go to that extreeme only going through "fun" combat in order to get stronger. Pokemon fight because they like to win/survive, which is a greater reward than any pain they feel, because getting hit by a Flare Blitz Blaziken totally doesn't hurt at all, right?

Bonds are a bit tricky. Friendship evolution doesn't necessarily mean the servant and master have to be friends. Think of it this way, a newly caught Pokemon has a significantly weaker bond than that of a heartless criminal lord who used a Pokemon for years. It has a lot more to do with trust. The Pokemon obey the crime master because they don't really hold morals and trust them to give the correct orders and achieve victory. They've done it many times in the past after all. That kind of trust would eventually trigger an evolution of a Golbat into a Crobat. A boy and a Buneary could be best buddies, but if it doesn't listen or trust the boy in battle, do you really think it'll every get strong enough or ready for evolution?

All of that is very important when I explain this next part: Pokemon are more valuable than any weapon on earth. It's a gun with a mind of it's own is a better way to put it. Children may seem them as fun little friends and toys, but adults realize what Pokemon are more than capable of doing. Technology even has limits that Pokemon have way surpassed. Look at the legendaries for pete's sake and why crime groups were revolved and using this mythical creatures. These are highly valuable things (some more than others obviously) so I'd say that about every trainer in every game highly values Pokemon.

[Masquerain]

Well, both in the games and show, trust and love towards Pokemon are major themes. People in some occupations (like the worker trainer class) might mainly have Pokemon to help with their job, so I doubt they have the same connection a full-time trainer like the player has with theirs, but they still seem to treat them right.

I think the games have been pretty good for the most part about who they give happiness evolutions to. For example, some of the well-intentioned villain leaders have Crobat, but grunts never go higher than Golbat (Mars and Jupiter didn't even get them at Stark Mountain, which is fitting since they seem pretty shallow). Silver's Golbat also never evolved until he learned the lesson Lance tried to teach him. The only one I don't understand is Xerosic having Crobat, since before the Looker Bureau sidequests he seemed completely amoral and only cared about science. He even wrote in a journal in the labs that his Pokemon seemed happier with Emma than they did with him.

Maybe Xerosic's pokemon were never his own from the start thus the crobat was already there but "stolen" ... But then again, if they were his own, he is evidently shown to have a soft side and to care for pokemon during the sidequests so maybe he did develop a bond with his golbat enough for it to evolve into a crobat. It's just that apparently Emma has this special aura about her that somehow makes pokemon instinctively feel that she's pure and has no place in the world of battling. I suppose just because pokemon were happier with Emma than with him, doesn't have to mean they weren't happy at all with him.. At least that's how I view it for it to make sense, who knows.. I mean, it was even shown that the genocide maniac Lysandre cared for pokemon enough to shed a tear that he "has" to annihilate them

Either way, on the subject

As already stated, Pokemon are indeed of great value to anyone who uses them. That value doesn't have to come from a bond of friendship or love, it can be merely beneficial value for power-hungry doods. In the end, value is value. I've always said that I wish to see the connection of humans and pokemon be more emphasized in pokemon games, like to see how they interact and coexist in a way that's more elaborate than randomly passing by npcs with pet pokemon or the occasional machoke helping you move stuff. I believe that kind of thing would be best portrayed via side quests or so..tbh I was quite happy to see that mini scene in XY with a npc that asks you if you have any pokemon that can fly or have psychic powers so you can help them get an item from a high place. With little things like this as side-quests, it would be way better.

As for the anime, well it's overly emphasized there that you apparently can only bullshitbringout the superstamina potential of your pokemon with nakama powa and trust and the like. I mean, they go out of their way to show just -how- characters catch every single pokemon they own..and it's never merely throwing a ball at it because you saw it and liked it (maybe it used to be like that during the first seasons but yea). There's always an entire ep (or it gradually happens over many eps) that shows how the pokemon made its own choice to let Ash capture it.

Going on that note, we arrive at the point where it's implied at least in the games that to capture a pokemon in a pokeball MIGHT mean that it's somehow being controlled (Xerosic and his pokeball virus indicate that you can put a bug in whatever pokeballs are and control the pokemon in them). That implication raises a bit of controversy in regards to trainers and pokemon and this is one reason why I really wish for Emma to be a recurring char. I found it interesting that she is able to form natural genuine bonds with pokemon without the need to capture them in pokeballs. So then, are we really enslaving a pokemon by capturing it? I mean, obviously, since some pokemon disobey you in battle, they still have some form of free will and they don't automatically like you, but they're captured by you, so in a sense, aren't they "forced" to gradually make a bond with you? I feel like these things could be expanded upon somewhere and would be nice to see but yeah, that's straying a bit off-topic I guess. Back on the value, in all technicality, if you can force-feed your pokemon proteins and all that jazz to raise their happiness, I suppose you don't really need to have a real bond of friendship with them, you can just "fool" them into it by stuffing them with treats (maybe villains do that, who knows?)

[Damage]

Loving the thoughts. I just wish (in games mainly since I haven't seen the show in over a decade) that they showed more Pokemon that have no desire to fight and cannot be swayed. Not just regular mons but what if the signature legendary straight out refused to be captured. Maybe they help with the final villain but then decide humans are not their thing and just disappear with the wind. I'd be okay with just working with legendaries for side quests since they shouldn't all be blood thirsty which all but like Suicune, Lugia and Mew are. I just hope that Sun and Moon continue what Black and White 1 started. Make the more rational members of Peta proud lol.

[Honchy]

In my opinion, I value the belief that capturing Pokemon and training them is beneficial for them considering you help them gain skills for survival.

Also, the rival getting a crobat after learning about friendship is a nice quirk.

[Ironbound]

Reminds me of a joke a friend of mine once made about Unova's plot:

BW Plasma: "Hi! We're PokéPETA! Consider your Pokemon's freedom!"

BW2 Plasma: "F*** it, we're terrorists now. Give."

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

I once heard Neo Team Plasma described as "pirate gangster terrorists".

[Ironbound]

Quite accurate, actually. If you notice their costumes, they resembled knights or crusaders in BW, with their white hoods and robe-like tunics. In BW2, they seem like a cross between a ninja and a pirate, with their black garb and masks/veils. We even get actual ninjas in the Shadow Triad.