pokemon lore is Weird (what's up with psychics?)

[ripplefieldz]

ok like this is something that i've noticed for a while now but i only really started thinking harder on it today. why are psychic powers just.. a thing in the pokemon universe. like almost every character is effectively Just Some Guy at their core EXCEPT FOR A BUNCH OF PSYCHIC MONOTYPERS FOR SOME FUCKING REASON. sabrina, avery, there's an entire goddamn trainer class of psychics, and this is just.. a thing. and we hear like nothing about it, which on a level i get of course they're gonna focus more on the pokemon but also like. HELLO???? YOU CAN'T JUST.. DROP THAT WITH NO EXPLANATION. like ok there's also like ghosts being real (and i don't mean ghost Types) and shit but like, i don't know how to explain it but i feel like these are two VERY different levels, especially considering the fact that Ghosts Are Real is something that has actually been touched on instead of just being like "oh yeah that's a thing btw. don't worry about it"

the shadow triad is also kinda weird like those dudes were straight up teleporting around what the hell was their deal? what was that about huh? i am begging tpc for answers WHAT IS UP WITH THIS. actually also WHY WOULD SOMEONE WITH PSYCHIC POWERS.. USE ONLY PSYCHIC TYPES ISN'T THAT KINDA REDUNDANT. whatever it's probably some like kinship thing i don't know. i am so normal about pokemon lore i swear (just kidding i am so insane over this.)

 

[DawningWinds]

My personal headcannon for the question of psychics using psychic types is that it's simply a matter of practicality. Several Pokemon in the anime who communicate with telepathy (especially non-psychic type legandaries) only seem to be able to be able to send telepathic messages with that ability, not receive the responses-- I wouldn't be surprised if human telepathy was similar, or at best, weaker than the average psychic-type Pokemon. This makes communication with your team most effective when they have their own telepathy, and if you have a power that makes it easier to communicate with your team, why wouldn't you want to take advantage of it to the fullest?
The only hole in this is Avery, who's explicitly stated not to have telepathy at all-- but his father I believe is the psychic type gym leader, so this is most likely a case of family tradition and he would probably train psychic mons regardless of what psychic powers he inherited.

The Shadow Triad could well be psychics as well-- it's implied that some human psychics have the ability to teleport so they'd probably fit in the category neatly. Given they all use mainly dark-types I'd assume none of them have any sort of telepathy though; while it might be possible for a human telepath to establish some communication with other non-psychic types, dark-types immunity to psychic suggest they'd block out psy-based telepathy as well.

 

[Eitarou]

The Triad aren't psychics, they're ninja.

 

[Okido]

Correct me if I'm wrong about any of this (I'd fact-check but Bulbapedia is 503 kerflooey right now), but I think Sabrina states at one point that all humans have psychic abilities, they're just simply unaware of them. In the anime, I believe it's implied that while some have innate psychic powers from birth, others have to work hard to attune themselves to using them.

To be totally fair, there are a lot of concepts that are just a thing in the Pokémon universe — like Aura, for instance (which honestly seems even more out-there to me than a little bit of telekinesis/telepathy). Their world is obviously a lot different from our own, and that's just the way their world works: Pokémon have mysterious abilities, and so do some humans. They probably don't think too much of it.

Also, in the games, the Psychic trainer class uses Ghost-type Pokémon as well; not just Psychic-types.

 

[Serverus Snope]

There is one possible named exception to the "psychics only use Psychic-types" rule: Morty. He's a Ghost-type specialist who can see the future. But I say "possible" for a reason. It's not 100% clear whether it's psychic powers or if it's something else entirely.

On the flipside, training Psychic-types doesn't always mean the trainer themselves has those powers. Faba definitely doesn't. Lucian, meanwhile, is an ambiguous case. He just happens to finish a book when you arrive in his room and he has an interest in books about ESP. Good timing and research about his type specialty, or behaviors that reflect hidden powers? We don't know.

I had a non-psychic Psychic-type specialist OC once. He was a cameraman (cinematographer?) who used their telekinesis for unusual shots and their other powers for outlandish special effects.

 

[ripplefieldz]

There is one possible named exception to the "psychics only use Psychic-types" rule: Morty. He's a Ghost-type specialist who can see the future. But I say "possible" for a reason. It's not 100% clear whether it's psychic powers or if it's something else entirely.

On the flipside, training Psychic-types doesn't always mean the trainer themselves has those powers. Faba definitely doesn't. Lucian, meanwhile, is an ambiguous case. He just happens to finish a book when you arrive in his room and he has an interest in books about ESP. Good timing and research about his type specialty, or behaviors that reflect hidden powers? We don't know.

yeah, yeah, i didn't mean like. All psychic users are psychics (dexio comes to mind, i remember seeing a post joking about how a lot of psychic monotypers are super fucked up and then there's just This Guy), i def didn't know about morty though, neat!

Correct me if I'm wrong about any of this (I'd fact-check but Bulbapedia is 503 kerflooey right now), but I think Sabrina states at one point that all humans have psychic abilities, they're just simply unaware of them.

also, now that bulbapedia's back up, this is infact true, the exact quote being "Psychic power isn't something that only a few people have. Everyone has psychic power. People just don't realize it."