POPULAR: Cliches in Pokémon Fanfiction

[Ereshkigal]

As much as this is one of the worst clichés in fanfics, it is really hard matter of stuff to put in. If a trainer and their Pokémon get in touch immediately, it makes the whole thing boring in the beginning. Other than putting oneself in such danger, what is there else to do with trainer and their first Pokémon, really?

This is pretty much why I went the "genetically-engineered refuge from the military" route for Zekintha. In this case, they don't bond over battle, but over this very-unprepared Ralts being fed and taken care of after starving in an outside world she was very much not prepared for.

I also think that @Beth Pavell had a good solution for it in The Long Walk.

 

[BackSet]

I'm working on a chapter in which my main character has a complete panic attack after he realizes that he's been lying to himself the whole time and has no friends.

That's probably cliche.

But I'm writing from experience here so it's not unrealistic.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Makes more sense to have an ADULT do the research and stuff for the Pokedex.

I like to believe that professors don't actually expect kids to do any research, and the pokédex is an excuse to get them catching pokémon to facilitate their adventure.

if we're meandering off-topic can we have the discussion carry on in a different thread? The Weapons and Violence thread is a good place to talk in-depth about pokémon and weapons

For the sake of conversational continuity, I am linking to my response in that thread.

I was originally going to give him a Carvhana like in the games but then I relaized that Carvhana is a fish and therefor not realistically viable on land.

I've always hated the anime convention of having fish levitate on land. It really bothers me! I feel like choosing to train a fish should be a really big deal, honestly.

Could just have it be able to swim over the land, just it cannot not move up and down.

I have no idea what you mean.

"You're a Torchic, lets name you Blaze!" "Bulbasaur, your new name's Leaf!". I once skimmed through a story where a girl named her Charmander 'Fire'.

Oof. I used to be guilty of this. I named a charmeleon "Ember." You know, like the move? Ouch. I feel like trainers who actually did this sort of thing would soon realise the problem and rename their pokémon. Same goes for pokémon whose nicknames are derived from their species, I guess.

How's this for a cliche: Protagonist gets theri starter. Then they come under attack and when they survive, become forever friends.

It's somewhat a cliche, I suppose, seeing as it's very common and somewhat tiresome. However, it can be done a number of different ways, many of which can maintain my interest. The act of establishing trust rapidly through a trial by fire is a very robust trope.

'Every life is important and this one is more important than mine!' or something of that nature. If you want your Trainer and their Starter to be forever friends, why not just have the two know each other since they were both young? You know, a Pokemon that was born from his/her parent's own Pokemon.

Please! I think I may have said something earlier about different ways of obtaining starters, and I reiterate: it is so valid and so much more interesting to have the protagonist source their pokémon some other goddamn way besides getting them as a gift from the local boffin. The starter could be a hand-me-down, a trade, caught in the back yard, anything at all!

So how about the subject of Pokemon abuse? Its something that shows up in a lot of fics and its always so goddamn cringy and melodramatic. The people doing the abusing are absolute assholes with no redeeming qualities and almost never have a clean reason as to WHY they're kicking a downed Pokemon. They're just there for the Generic Lead to complain about how 'abuse is wrong!' and to show that their a good trainer who'd never do it. 99% of the time the Pokemon rare or probably shiny, maybe even both. It could probably be sold for a crap ton of money..but naaaah, lets just kicked the hell out of instead for no reason. The Pokemon ALWAYS wants to go with the trainer who rescued it, instead of..you know..going back into the wild where no human could possibly find or hurt it anymore. The Pokemon's probably be abused for weeks, maybe even months, but will never once question or doubt this random person who showed up one day and could probably be just as bad as the last person they were with.

Cartoonish abuse shows up regularly. People think it's smart and edgy to have fics in which PETA's worst nightmares are all realised. "Oh, pokémon battles are like cock fighting, they're slaves, we're the real monsters" yeah that's bollocks and we all know it. How many times does the anime have to show Ash voluntarily releasing his pokémon for their slightest personal reasons before the fandom internalises that he's not a slave driver?

Anyway, abuse is way more fucked up and insidious than people tend to portray it. Never mind dystopian hellscapes where people torture their pokémon. I find it much more disturbing to read about trainers pushing their pokémon to the limit, not paying sufficient attention to grooming and dietary requirements, habitual overuse of pokéball containment, kids capturing pokémon that have their own lives and priorities and not so much as asking them if they'd like to stick around until they're already far from home, etc etc etc.

Trainers in the anime, as a rule, tend to ask new pokémon if they'd like to travel with them. Pokémon often seem to be naturally well-disposed towards combat sports, so this is rarely a problem. This is a magical, wondrous setting where you can fantasise about adventuring with magical animal friends, why the fuck would you destroy that to make a disingenuous point that's been made a hundred thousand times before by other grimdark authors?

In the case of the given example, it's to lionise the protagonist. No need to bother with proper characterisation if they start their journey as someone who saved an abused pokémon. What a saint! Never mind that doing so is in fact highly incentivised and in no way comparable to acts of charity towards strays in our world. Saving an abused rare pokémon takes very little effort and earns you a frikkin magical animal companion of enormous value. Jeez.

I'm working on a chapter in which my main character has a complete panic attack after he realizes that he's been lying to himself the whole time and has no friends. That's probably cliche. But I'm writing from experience here so it's not unrealistic.

I don't think it's that cliche. You just gotta write it well. Best way to write that is to have the narration convince the reader the same way the protag convinces himself, and then have the narration reveal the fragility of his connections to people in the same way that he realises the problem.

 

[FluffleFi]

Cartoonish abuse shows up regularly. People think it's smart and edgy to have fics in which PETA's worst nightmares are all realised. "Oh, pokémon battles are like cock fighting, they're slaves, we're the real monsters" yeah that's bollocks and we all know it. How many times does the anime have to show Ash voluntarily releasing his pokémon for their slightest personal reasons before the fandom internalises that he's not a slave driver?

Hate these kinds of stories, its why I avoid Nuzlocke stories and 'realistic' ones. They forget that Pokemon Battling is meant to be a sport. A popular one that anyone can enjoy, it shouldn't be a life-or-death situation between two trainers. Seriously, in our world killing an animal is seen as the greatest sin you could commit in by many, so Its just pretty stupid to think/assume people would be A-OK with killing one-another Pokemon. Can you imagine having six Pokemon you've been raising for years, they're your closest friends and have been with you for every step of way? And then they die because someone stronger/more skilled came along and slaughtered them. And lets not forget the fact the Main Character(s) is usually the only one who doesn't want to kill but ends up doing it anyway at some point, even the Professors don't speak up. Its jarring considering in these worlds trainers have been murdering eachothers pokemon for years, so the MCs really hsouldn't be so devastated.

 

[Ereshkigal]

Hate these kinds of stories, its why I avoid Nuzlocke stories and 'realistic' ones. They forget that Pokemon Battling is meant to be a sport. A popular one that anyone can enjoy, it shouldn't be a life-or-death situation between two trainers. Seriously, in our world killing an animal is seen as the greatest sin you could commit in by many, so Its just pretty stupid to think/assume people would be A-OK with killing one-another Pokemon. Can you imagine having six Pokemon you've been raising for years, they're your closest friends and have been with you for every step of way? And then they die because someone stronger/more skilled came along and slaughtered them. And lets not forget the fact the Main Character(s) is usually the only one who doesn't want to kill but ends up doing it anyway at some point, even the Professors don't speak up. Its jarring considering in these worlds trainers have been murdering eachothers pokemon for years, so the MCs really hsouldn't be so devastated.

Something I frown on is the idea a realistic story must necessitate Pokemon being used as target practice all of the time. This doesn't happen in real life with pets, so why would it happen with Pokemon?

A lot of the changes in how Trainers are taught in-story related to an increasingly-dangerous world and the efforts they undergo to make certain the sport remains safe. So you go from the unguided exploration of Red and Blue to the guided exploration of Sun and Moon as reforms are implemented. You go from ten-year-olds who have no education, to eighteen-year-olds with years of training in survival, first aid, enough combat tactics to get to safety unharmed, self-defense training, and a few other necessary skills.

That's how I think it would be realistically handled, anyway.

Oh, and people like the player characters, who head out to stop the world-ending threats? Very famous exceptions. But still exceptions.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I've always hated the anime convention of having fish levitate on land. It really bothers me! I feel like choosing to train a fish should be a really big deal, honestly.

Nitpick: that's actually a game convention.

Anyway, there's a certain fanfic 'verse which tries to have a darker version of the Pokémon world, but it isn't willing to go the whole way. Pokémon are people, but the morality is still "Pokémon only bad if master bad", which just gives me iffy vibes that they're morally higher than all other sentient beings.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

@FluffleFi, absolutely. I'm only really interested in Nuzlocke stories which make the deaths somewhat explicable, by commuting them to "leaving the party" or having them involve some grievous mistake by the trainer. I liked one I saw recently where a herdier dies after falling from a great height, having clung to a flying-type as it climbed altitude. The death was 'caused' by the trainer never having kept the herdier in her pokéball and being unable to recall her safely before she landed. the ordinary grimdark stuff just feels contrived, superficial and unnecessary to me.

 

[Cresselia92]

Anyway, there's a certain fanfic 'verse which tries to have a darker version of the Pokémon world, but it isn't willing to go the whole way. Pokémon are people, but the morality is still "Pokémon only bad if master bad", which just gives me iffy vibes that they're morally higher than all other sentient beings.

It goes beyond that. Even in PMD there is this whole concept that Pokémon aren’t totally bad, but rather in the misunderstood gray area – which is further shown in Wigglytuff’s special episode in Explorers of Sky – despite the fact that there is Darkrai itself who wanted to plunge the world in eternal darkness and despair.

Like, what would be Wigglytuff’s explanation in that case? “Maybe Darkrai wanted to share its passion for the darkness with the rest of the world?” or whatever weird explanation? I don’t see why there can’t be Pokémon that are purely evil, and instead they like to pull the overused “misunderstood” cliche to make them appear as faux baddies which are more morally appropriate.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole “Pokémon can’t be bad” cliche was the reason behind the introduction of stuff like Bittercold and Dark Matter.

Anyway, I don’t think there should be a reason why a Pokémon can’t be turned evil due to various circumstances. I mean, it is theorized that humans as well aren’t born bad but become bad because of experiences, traumas or other reasons, so I don’t see why the same thing can’t apply to Pokémon as well – especially if they are treated as sentient beings.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Like, what would be Wigglytuff’s explanation in that case? “Maybe Darkrai wanted to share its passion for the darkness with the rest of the world?” or whatever weird explanation? I don’t see why there can’t be Pokémon that are purely evil, and instead they like to pull the overused “misunderstood” cliche to make them appear as faux baddies which are more morally appropriate.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole “Pokémon can’t be bad” cliche was the reason behind the introduction of stuff like Bittercold and Dark Matter.

I think that was because no-one knew about Darkrai at the time.

As for the latter, one of my many gripes with Super's story is that (unlike Gates) it absolves all Pokémon of responsibility for their actions. It feels like it's trying to be epic and inoffensive at the same time.

 

[Ambyssin]

It goes beyond that. Even in PMD there is this whole concept that Pokémon aren’t totally bad, but rather in the misunderstood gray area – which is further shown in Wigglytuff’s special episode in Explorers of Sky – despite the fact that there is Darkrai itself who wanted to plunge the world in eternal darkness and despair.

And yet, this ends up coming full circle because Darkrai is hit with a hard dose of Palkia-induced amnesia at the end of the last epilogue and any evil ambitions felt abruptly disappeared. You can even recruit him in Explorers and Super and he's perfectly cooperative.

Like, what would be Wigglytuff’s explanation in that case? “Maybe Darkrai wanted to share its passion for the darkness with the rest of the world?” or whatever weird explanation?

I've seen some posts that have made some pretty out there theories that Darkrai was, initially, a good-intentioned Mythical who was trying to take steps to stop the future reemergence of Dark Matter... but a combination of constantly being ignored due to his natural abilities and overworking himself researching the Time Gears led him to conclude that if the planet was paralyzed there'd be no way for Dark Matter to come back.

I don’t see why there can’t be Pokémon that are purely evil, and instead they like to pull the overused “misunderstood” cliche to make them appear as faux baddies which are more morally appropriate.

That's true. Though, as of USUM, it seems that TPCi and Game Freak may be walking back on that slightly thanks to Necrozma. I believe there's an interview out there where the devs state it's up to the player to decide Necrozma's morality. If only the actual game's story lived up to that.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole “Pokémon can’t be bad” cliche was the reason behind the introduction of stuff like Bittercold and Dark Matter.

It wouldn't surprise me, to be honest, if Spike Chunsoft got a lot of flak for Primal Dialga and Darkrai in Explorers.

Anyway, I don’t think there should be a reason why a Pokémon can’t be turned evil due to various circumstances. I mean, it is theorized that humans as well aren’t born bad but become bad because of experiences, traumas or other reasons, so I don’t see why the same thing can’t apply to Pokémon as well – especially if they are treated as sentient beings.

Not to shamelessly self-promote or anything, but part of the reason I chose to write the story I did was to both confront the "Truly evil Pokémon don't really exist," issue as well as the idea that ridding the world of Dark Matter turned it into a wonderful place full of love and not a single bit of sadness or suffering.

 

[KrspaceT]

Realism can come in more flavors than rampant blood and death: frankly realism can just be suggesting that if you write an older Ash, that he needs to shave.

... Or am I the only one who writes that in?

 

[BackSet]

Cartoonish abuse shows up regularly. People think it's smart and edgy to have fics in which PETA's worst nightmares are all realised. "Oh, pokémon battles are like cock fighting, they're slaves, we're the real monsters" yeah that's bollocks and we all know it. How many times does the anime have to show Ash voluntarily releasing his pokémon for their slightest personal reasons before the fandom internalises that he's not a slave driver?

Whenever someone does that (usually poorly) I always just quote this

"Consider what a battle would look like from the point of view of a Pokémon who grew up in a wild, predatory environment where he could be chomped in half by a Fearow or broiled to order by a hungry Arcanine at any moment — that's if you don't piss off your own pack and get viciously crippled and left to the previous fate. A carefully regulated low-risk battle, often under quite friendly circumstances, would seem positively tame by comparison when the Fearow and Arcanine you're staring down aren't trying to reduce you to chewy paste anymore and the worst thing to worry about is waking up in a comfy bed the next morning to the sight of a hot Chansey."
-Pykrete of the TVTropes Extended Fanon Pokèdex

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Truly evil Pokémon don't really exist,"

The only way I'm okay with this is if "nobody is truly evil" and the speaker believes absolutely everyone has the potential to be redeemed. Why should sapient pokémon get a free immunity to 'true' evil?

rampant blood and death

Rampant blood and death is what's truly unrealistic.

 

[KrspaceT]

Yet 'blood and death' is the first thing that comes up in realistic.

I mean realism can mean so many things it basically means nothing, and you need to go into it with an idea of what you want to explore in 'real'.

 

[WanderingKalosan]

Oh, pokémon battles are like cock fighting, they're slaves, we're the real monsters" yeah that's bollocks and we all know it.

Hm. Not necessarily. If people use this kind of plot where they make trainers appear rude and overly demanding or outright abusive, I get what you mean... this will get old quick. But this could be done subtly and realistically - in a way that young trainers are irresponsible, unexperienced people who shouldn't be entrusted with life and welfare of another sapient being. You could even use that as a plot for one of the main character arc, showing them maturing by stoppin fun from pokemon battles being main priority and caring for their Pokemon like for loyal friends (yeah, again not very original, but it works and feels realistic).

The only way I'm okay with this is if "nobody is truly evil" and the speaker believes absolutely everyone has the potential to be redeemed. Why should sapient pokémon get a free immunity to 'true' evil?

Agreed, if Pokémon in one's universe are sapient, they should be capable of being good, evil or anything between - just like humans.

Rampant blood and death is what's truly unrealistic.

Again I believe this one depends on the author's approach and skill. If we are talking oh-so-cool supervillain killing nameless one off "characters" then that does sound silly, like a parody of action movies, just with Pokemon in it. However a death of an important character that changes the tone of the story or influences the rest of the main cast for the remainder of the plot can be pretty powerful and realistic. Death is after all, the only absolute certainty in a life. (And if executed really well, the villain will become that much more intimidating.)

 

[Nitro Indigo]

There's a reason that the version of Fullmetal Alchemist that has less gore and aired in the evening in Japan is considered the darkest, and that's because it has dark themes as well as imagery, instead of just being shocking for the sake of it.

 

[Ereshkigal]

Again I believe this one depends on the author's approach and skill. If we are talking oh-so-cool supervillain killing nameless one off "characters" then that does sound silly, like a parody of action movies, just with Pokemon in it. However a death of an important character that changes the tone of the story or influences the rest of the main cast for the remainder of the plot can be pretty powerful and realistic. Death is after all, the only absolute certainty in a life. (And if executed really well, the villain will become that much more intimidating.)

This brings up a trope that annoys me; why must it always be the villain who does the killing? Why can't it be the hero? A kill they make, one they do where they just don't know better or think it's the only option, and it's that death which affects the major characters?

 

[BackSet]

This brings up a trope that annoys me; why must it always be the villain who does the killing? Why can't it be the hero? A kill they make, one they do where they just don't know better or think it's the only option, and it's that death which affects the major characters?

Mercy Kill.

 

[Drakon]

Pokémon aren’t totally bad

This one gets to be me because of the usually rampant moralizing that soon follows. And it's been shown in the anime and games that they can indeed be evil just like the Human characters.

 

[Twilight-Kun]

I like diving into the mind of pokémon and seeing how they think, such as pokémon probably not hesitating to go medieval on someone who harms their trainer whereas a human would probably hesitate because it's hard to attack something that looks similar to you