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POPULAR: Cliches in Pokémon Fanfiction

I personally don't mind if my story is named, shamed and then savagely beaten in the streets.

How did I forget this one? Humans Are The Real Monsters, and Pokémon are implied to be inherently morally higher than other life forms.
I can see why they do this, honestly. It comes from the idea of viewing Pokemon as less than humans, because they aren't humans. As humans, we are burdened with the ability to reason. We have created a system of morals that we must abide by, and we fail spectacularly at it. Pokemon are just smart animals, they're too innocent to do things like cause global conflict, destroy large swathes of pristine environment with weapons of mass destruction and leave ugly scars on history with machines of war.

However, Pokemon would probably be just as capable of achieving those nasty goals if they just had the means to. If a Pikachu had proper opposable thumbs, it'd probably put two and two together and eventually construct a firearm, a tank, a biochemical weapon. Let's not forget that these are creatures that thrive on the thrill of battle to the point that it's their culture.
 
It's formed in part, I think, from some misunderstandings about the nature of "animals" (i.e: animal kingdom species other than humans). Almost any statement along the lines of "Animals are superior to humans because they don't do x" can be countered with examples where "x" absolutely does happen.

Philosophically, I think it's a cop-out to make a species self-aware and intelligent and at the same time just declare it to be morally "better". Apart from anything else, that level of generalisation is just plain childish. People come in a million different shades of grey, whatever scale of morality you choose to measure them against
 
However, Pokemon would probably be just as capable of achieving those nasty goals if they just had the means to. If a Pikachu had proper opposable thumbs, it'd probably put two and two together and eventually construct a firearm, a tank, a biochemical weapon.
The first sentence in this quote makes me think of Nasty Plot, and the second sentence reminds me of that "cats with thumbs" milk advert from several years ago.

I'd like to see a spinoff where the problem is caused by a Pokémon who isn't a Generic Doomsday Villain.

That being said, Pokémon can be malicious in official media.
 
The opposite of the above-mentioned cliche is yet another cliche: Pokemons are the Real Monster.

It happens quite often in the so-called "dark" or "reality" fic where the superpower of Pokemon are exaggerated to the point of treating them as bloodthirsty devilish behemoth like the titans in Attack of Titans which could easily demolish humankind from earth hence Pokemon are feared by humans.

Holding extremely strong power doesn't mean it will utilize that power to hurt someone. But some just don't understand this. This kind of thinking also happens a lot in answering to the question "If Pokemons are real".
 
People say that the Pokémon world in canon is unrealistic, but if you lived in a world inhabited by tamable magical beings, why wouldn't you tame them?
 
I'm now remembering Official Nintendo Magazine's preview for PokéPark 2, where it says something like, "we suppose Pokémon, like Klingons, are naturally inclined towards violence."
Which is fair, except the game also pushes the "people and Pokemon are always working together as friends" side of things, which makes a lot less sense when a) the Pokemon are doing basically all the hard lifting, b) friends don't build a society off of making friends fight each other into comas, no matter how much we say they're "inclined" to do so, and c) the vast majority of shown in-game violence between Pokemon is instigated by humans making Pokemon fight, not a naturally warlike society.
 
I'm now remembering Official Nintendo Magazine's preview for PokéPark 2, where it says something like, "we suppose Pokémon, like Klingons, are naturally inclined towards violence."
I'm imagining a clip of Worf saying "There is no greater honor than to die a warrior's death" dubbed over Pikachu. I need this.
 
Which is fair, except the game also pushes the "people and Pokemon are always working together as friends" side of things, which makes a lot less sense when a) the Pokemon are doing basically all the hard lifting, b) friends don't build a society off of making friends fight each other into comas, no matter how much we say they're "inclined" to do so, and c) the vast majority of shown in-game violence between Pokemon is instigated by humans making Pokemon fight, not a naturally warlike society.

An even better example would be the Malamar in XY019 - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia.

That said, I'm inclined to see pokémon as a warrior species with great honor much like Klingons or Mandalorians. After all, it seems their goal is to get stronger and in the anime, we see a lot of this "Test your might" mentality among wild pokémon like with Ash's Hawlucha.

Well, in response to the "warlike" tropes mentioned, there is a ton of writing and history in official media that imply that large-scale conflict was very commonplace, as late as the war Surge fought in. As for the "people and Pokemon are always working together as friends" aspect pushed by the games, I'd posit that it may be a fairly recent trend in setting, as a response to previous conflict. Societies that were horribly affected by war and conflict will often become adverse to large scale war, and will pursue cooperation and friendship instead. Especially pertaining to Pokemon and its game developers, this was a huge part of Japanese society following WWII, where they turned their focus to rebuilding and cooperation. Ultimately, I feel like this culminated to the massive modernization and reconstruction efforts during the lead-up to the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, which is seen in Japanese society as a major turning point in their modern history. I can't help but think that the 1964 Olympic Games had some significant influence in how the Pokemon games developed, and how the Pokemon League ended up being designed.
 
I'm not sure if that's the best example. Japan was reacting to the effects of two of the deadliest weapons ever used in anger, so to speak. I can't really think of a similar example that would properly fit. Perhaps the anti-war feeling in certain parts of Europe after the First World War, that's the closest I can think of.

The games aren't clear on just how bright pokémon are, though there's no evidence that pokémon mind fighting in and of itself. The anime seems to follow this line insofar as pokémon seem to care more about what sort of trainer they have rather than how hard they'll have to fight. That being said, the franchise tends to put pokémon on a pedestal. EP031, for example, is hardly Princess Mononoke - the question of who might benefit from the dam and who stands to lose out from the sudden halted construction is never raised. In EP057 Charizard couldn't give less of a damn about anyone else getting incinerated by magma, but when he finally decides to do something about it, what we're supposed to take away from it is CHARIZARD IS SO AWESOME

The deck is already distinctly stacked when the canon very rarely admits the possibility of a pokémon with the capacity for just plain being a jerk
 
I'm not sure if PMD games are completely considered to be canon, but if you do follow PMD-specific canon, then pokemon as a whole are sapient enough to create their own civilization in a way that is fairly similar to human civilization. In the anime, pokemon argue and reason with each other all the time - you can't understand what they're saying (or you can, in Meowth's case) but with the context you can get the gist of the conversation and the context implies that pokemon can reason. I assume that, like humans, how intelligent a pokemon is varies, and for fanfiction purposes, how intelligent a pokemon can be is up to the discretion of the author.
 
Well, in response to the "warlike" tropes mentioned, there is a ton of writing and history in official media that imply that large-scale conflict was very commonplace, as late as the war Surge fought in. As for the "people and Pokemon are always working together as friends" aspect pushed by the games, I'd posit that it may be a fairly recent trend in setting, as a response to previous conflict. Societies that were horribly affected by war and conflict will often become adverse to large scale war, and will pursue cooperation and friendship instead. Especially pertaining to Pokemon and its game developers, this was a huge part of Japanese society following WWII, where they turned their focus to rebuilding and cooperation. Ultimately, I feel like this culminated to the massive modernization and reconstruction efforts during the lead-up to the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, which is seen in Japanese society as a major turning point in their modern history. I can't help but think that the 1964 Olympic Games had some significant influence in how the Pokemon games developed, and how the Pokemon League ended up being designed.
I honestly never thought the war Surge mentioned was a Pokemon vs Human war and that's a pretty cool interpretation -- I always imagined it was a Pokemon + Humans vs Pokemon + Humans thing, such as the 3000-years-before-XY conflict. Surge even mentions that electric-pokemon saved him and zapped his enemies into submission, so at least some Pokemon were on the same side as some Humans. capitalization rules what are those

I actually think that the more "peaceful" aspects got toned up as the series progressed and the original games were some of the most conflict-heavy incarnations of the series -- FR/LG replaced Red/Blue because green and red are less opposing colors and the leaf is a symbol of peace, for example.

There's still the uncomfortable elephant in the room that, no matter how assholish members of a species can be, if we accept that they're sentient we can't really justify enslaving them and forcing them to fight for our viewing pleasure/societal balance.
 
I do not think deeming a species sentient or not have anything to do with the decision of enslaving them or not.

Look at the Real-Life human history of slavery, there was no evidence proving the slaveholders doesn't acknowledged the human slaves are anything less sapient than themselves. Rather, they seems like fully acknowledging such fact. Yet, many human becomes slaves. Such tragic decisions of deeming certain human to be slaves has more to do with the social hierarchy and industrial needs of that era, also other believes and discrimination such as racism, extreme patriotism, religious extremism, etc. But less to do with just equalism of merely being sentient like the slaveholder.

And just a side note. It was only starting from 18th century, slavery was globally abolished and deemed as international crime. Before that, it was still a somehow common sight in Europe.

And in nowadays, that European slavery in history is completely banned, yet, that doesn't mean slavery is completely gone, because it changed its face and become an intrinsic part of the modern world, where we relabeled it as "labour".
 
I've never liked the Marxist approach to wages - as usual it's based on flawed history and a deliberate devaluing of what slavery actually means.

What this boils down to is a variation on the thought experiment of "the pig that want to be eaten", or to put a slightly more modern spin on it, "the house elf that wants to be a slave". If we presume for the sake of argument that pokémon generally don't mind being property and generally don't mind fighting in and of itself, then is it still immoral to own and battle pokémon? The house elf analogy seems to be a pretty good one, since in that scenario you have an intelligent species that are usually absolutely miserable if they experience the sorts of rights and freedoms that their human masters come to expect. In this case the imposition of human values is actually harmful, which doesn't apply to pokémon, but it serves to illustrate the point.

In other words, do human values apply to species that are unconcerned by them? And if they do, on what grounds to they apply?
 
I've never liked the Marxist approach to wages - as usual it's based on flawed history and a deliberate devaluing of what slavery actually means.

What this boils down to is a variation on the thought experiment of "the pig that want to be eaten", or to put a slightly more modern spin on it, "the house elf that wants to be a slave". If we presume for the sake of argument that pokémon generally don't mind being property and generally don't mind fighting in and of itself, then is it still immoral to own and battle pokémon? The house elf analogy seems to be a pretty good one, since in that scenario you have an intelligent species that are usually absolutely miserable if they experience the sorts of rights and freedoms that their human masters come to expect. In this case the imposition of human values is actually harmful, which doesn't apply to pokémon, but it serves to illustrate the point.

In other words, do human values apply to species that are unconcerned by them? And if they do, on what grounds to they apply?

when you're telling someone that they actually want it while ar the same time saying they're a lower caste and shouldn't think at all, you should probably rethink your life choices

"hello, Dobby, you've been raised/brainwashed since birth (in a community that has mind control spells) to say that you actually want to do all of our shit work for free while we physically and emotionally abuse you!"

The house elf situation in Harry Potter is meant to make you uncomfortable -- they're clearly brainwashed, the entire thing exists as social commentary, the people who actually own house elves/adhere to that mindset are typically horrible people (the Blacks, the Malfoys, Bellatrix). I admit that it's hella weird that Rowling wrote them as working at Hogwarts, given how Dumbledore is supposed to have the moral high ground on almost everything, but overall, the plight of house elves/goblins/other magical creatures is typically summed up in the books as "wizards are actually total dicks to these species for no real reason".
 
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I think this discussion goes beyond the confines of this thread and the debate around cliches, so let's move on, shall we?

Does anyone ever feel like they as authors have their own cliches? I am writing a new 8ES chapter and the ending of it feels very typically me and I am not really sure how I feel about it, if I should go for something different or just suck it up and move on.
 
Please note: The thread is from 1 year ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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