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WORLDBUILDING: Religion in Pokémon

canisaries

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There appeared to be no full thread for this, only fragments of conversations in the chat or cliche threads, so I decided I may as well make one myself.

So, today I started wondering about the extremely vaguely defined ruling religion of Kanto in my TPP works (no, not Helixism, the fossil religions are pretty underground pun unintended in my interpretation) and how I could actually develop it beyond characters just saying 'oh my Gods' instead of 'oh my God' when I eventually need to tackle it. The original reason I made that change was that a singular god would automatically make people think of the Abrahamic God, which would raise a lot of questions about the implication of Abrahamic religions existing in the Pokémon world.

Now, of course there's no reason the Pokémon world couldn't have its own monotheistic religion (or polytheistic with one deity above all others) that avoided referring to the main deity by their real name (if there even is one), but it is true that monotheistic religions in our world are rather rare while polytheistic, animistic or even atheistic religions have multiple well known examples in the Western readers' consciousness. As a result, "God" gives the reader a certain image while "Gods" doesn't have a single equivalent system to confuse it with. However, if an author wants to go down this path anyway, it's perfectly acceptable - they should just be aware of how their presentation appears.

What about the "canonical God of Pokémon" Arceus, then? As discussed in the threads I mentioned, a quick solution to questions of religion in the Pokémon world that's utilized by a number of fanfic writers is simply to use Arceus as a stand-in for the Christian God while avoiding or handwaving the further questions this raises. I'm only really annoyed by this when the phrase "oh my Arceus" rears its ugly head as I think it simply sounds clunky and fails to bring over the time-tested ease of saying OMG which I imagine is the reason so many people outside the religion still use the phrase.

A point that's also been brought up a lot is that Arceus is near invisible in the official media. No one outside Sinnoh seems to care about this literal god Pokémon, and the situation inside Sinnoh isn't that much different. Due to this, a fanfic can ignore the idea of Arceus completely without losing believability. It might raise some eyebrows to have legendaries proven to work as gods while excluding Arceus, but creative freedom goes a long way anyway.

Back to general religions: it should be noted that, naturally, a religion existing in a story doesn't mean it has to be true in-universe. This means multiple religions can exist and, in a realistic case, probably should exist unless one religion has been spread so successfully for everyone to convert (or all non-believers having been killed). On the other hand, gods or other spiritual beings being real doesn't mean people have to know about them or believe in their powers. In an age where empirical science is blooming, skepticism is inevitable. However, I would find an interpretation where no one believed in anything supernatural highly unlikely - not just because the canon mentions lots of different cultural beliefs regarding Pokémon, but because religion is a very prominent element in the history of human culture and society. Perhaps at some point there could only be skeptics alive in the world, but no religion ever having existed sounds impossible.

With all that out of the way, I'd like to share some ideas I had for that majority religion I mentioned at the start of the post. I don't want to make this all about me, though, so I'll put it in spoilers. Whoever's interested can read it and hopefully give me some feedback or pointers, but that's in no way required to participate in this thread. For all the rest of you, go ahead and share your own thoughts and solutions. As this subject can be controversial for some, let's try to keep it civil and respectful. Thanks!

EDIT: The ideas turned out longer than I expected, so I put them in a separate post instead of fitting them in this one. Click here for the link, or just scroll a bit down.
 
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I can't really think of any actually religion in Pokemon that can work. But I know in the Sinnoh games there was a church or something like that in Hearthome City called the Foreign Building which looks more like a church more then anything.

From our own Bulbapedia:
Foreign Building
The Foreign Building (Japanese: いぶんかのたてもの Foreign Culture Building) is a building located in the western side of Hearthome City. It has six benches and stained glass windows. All the people there talk about the grace of life in the Pokémon world, supernatural powers, and the balance of spirit and nature. It seems to be loosely based on a church or cathedral, and is the first building in all the Pokémon games to be so. Respectfully, no music can be heard in the building. In the morning, one can see a piece of the wall jutting out behind the stone tablets on either side of the inside.

This sounds more like and looks like church, so possibly this is a Pokemonized version censored not to avoid any controversy.
 
Firstly, I'd like to officially repeat: be civil and respectful. I do not want to see snarking at religion here.

Secondly, a resource that may be useful: Religion for Breakfast, a religious studies Youtube channel particularly interesting for discussions of the history of religion. Here's a video on what it means to be religious.

I think in regards to this many authors tend to get tunnel-visioned by the idea of pokémon. Pokémon may be fantastical and amazing to us, but to people living in that world, they are normal. As normal as animals are to us. So while it's not impossible that Pokémon!religion might involve pokémon worship, it's not impossible that it wouldn't.

There used to be a real cliché in Pokémon fanfiction where the journeyfic protagonist would be given the plot quest by a legendary pokémon, standing in for a deity. And it always bugged me. You'd have a character never shown to be religious, either before or after this divine quest is handed down, in a world completely devoid of the paraphernalia of religion, but they'd uncritically accept this quest regardless. I've complained about this several times over the years, and picked apart the fanon of Arceus as the Abrahamic God (I may dig up my old blog on this subject at some point)
 
As there have already been some replies (thank you by the way!) and I ended up writing more than I expected, I'll just put the ideas I had here instead as a separate post. Still spoilered, though, so it won't clutter the thread.

For those wondering what "TPP" is or curious for further context, read this paragraph. Others, feel free to skip. TPP stands for Twitch Plays Pokémon, which is kind of a collaborative interpretational work formed around audience-controlled gameplay of a Pokémon game streamed on Twitch. It peaked in 2014 and spread mostly through memes which most people consider outdated by now (myself included), but the original stream is still up and running with a small community continuing to create content and play new games. One of the core ideas in the lore of TPP is the divinity of Fossils, of which the Helix Fossil is the most well known. It's also an important part of the stories I've written, as they're most often centered around my interpretation of Red, whose god this Helix is. Just like my Red is rather unconventional, so is Helix, stylized as HELIX in my works. As a god of chaos, HE gets quite chaotic with no regard for morality, liking to see HIS servants tear apart and eat their fellow humans with great pleasure and no remorse. But this post isn't about Helixism, so I'll shut up about that now.

As I mentioned before, the Kanto religion I have is basically a blank slate with no other set rules that it has multiple gods and, unlike my Helixism, doesn't include horribly inhumane practices like ritualistic murder or cannibalism. I've managed to avoid getting too deeply into it so far by having Kantoans be pretty lax about religion and mostly practice it for cultural reasons. Arceism also exist in this universe, but it's mostly limited to Sinnoh, only existing elsewhere because of missionary work or Arcean immigrants. The most prominent Arcean in my stories is a character named Father Samson, who as well seeks to spread the message of his faith. He is a priest and a licensed exorcist, with exorcism being a real recognized branch that occasionally cooperates with medical professionals to cure patients of being possessed by ghost Pokémon. To give an example of Arceism clashing with others, Samson approaches Red on the street and asks him if he's heard of Arceus, Red tells him to "go back to Sinnoh" as well as calling him a "pony boy". While Red is a Helixian (and so part of an even smaller religion, one that's basically extinct save for him) as well as generally an asshat, this shows at least a little what kind of position Arceism is in Kanto.

However, to get to the Kanto religion: the current idea is that it's somewhat similar to Shintoism, as Kanto’s based on a Japanese region and I’ve had the population be mostly ethnically Japanese. There are also canonical shrines resembling Shinto shrines within the games.

The religion I have would mainly resemble Shintoism through having kami, some of which are like animistic spirits while some are actual distinguished gods. These gods could be associated with legendary Pokémon such as members of the Bird and Beast trios (I have Kanto and Johto share their wildlife rather extensively). I like to interpret a lot of legendary mon as simply very rare mon instead of singular immortal entities, so these wouldn’t really fit being deities themselves, as any occurrence of more than one of them at the same time would completely break the faith. Instead, these legendary mon could be regarded as messengers of the gods due to their formidable and solitary natures. Both ancient Finns and the Ainu (indigenous people of Japan) believed bears to be of divine origin. For Ainu, the bear is a kamuy, which is a concept rather similar to kami (despite the Ainu language having no relation to Japanese, which is odd). From the Finns comes my “divine messenger” idea, which is exactly what they believed of bears. For both cultures, there were rituals to go along the death of a bear to send its spirit back to the spiritual realm, which is interesting considering how far away the peoples were from each other. Either way, back to Pokémon...

As messengers of greater gods watching humanity, humans would naturally want to please them and show that humans are living in a way that the gods consider good and respectful. There could be shrines set up especially in places near which legendary mon have been seen - which is what seems to have happened with the canonical Ilex Forest shrine. It resembles a hokora (a small Shinto shrine) and is referred to as one in Japanese and seems to be dedicated to Celebi, who’s said to live in the forest.

What are the actual gods, then? Well, there could at least be three gods relating to the Birds and Beasts, and then two more to fit their trio masters. To give each their roles according to their mon messengers/vessels:
  • Entei and Moltres belong the the god of fire and volcanoes. This god could be destructive, but also useful, as fire is a vital tool for many things. The Pokédex mentions Moltres as being viewed as a sign of coming spring, so perhaps this god could also be of warmth and the sun - although it then intrudes on the area of the Ho-Oh god, which I’ll get into a bit later...
  • Raikou and Zapdos belong to the god of thunder. Thunder and electricity might not be as relevant as fire or water to everyday pre-industrial life, but they’re certainly thought of as being intimidating and powerful, which is why Zeus and Thor are so well known compared to the other members of their pantheons. In the Finnish pantheon, the god of thunder Ukko is known as the supreme god and the word for thunder, “ukkonen”, is actually the diminutive of his name (“little Ukko”). Thunder is easily tied to storms and consequently winds and rains, possibly giving this thunder god power over weather, though that in turn could step on the toes of the next god...
  • Suicune and Articuno belong to the goddess of… well, I’m having trouble deciding. These two mon don’t share their type unlike the other trio members, but do have a common point in cold wind. Suicune is closely associated with the north wind, and Articuno brings blizzards with it. However, Suicune’s big schtick is running on and purifying dirty water, not to mention it’s Water type itself. Maybe the purity of water ties in with the pure white of snow and the translucency of ice…? I don’t know, I’m kind of at a loss here. Then to add to the mess, Suicune is said to represent downpour that put out the fire in the Brass Tower legend, so that would make it associated with rain as well…
  • Ho-Oh, in my opinion, makes for a great representative for a sun goddess. It’s fire type and themed with a rainbow, which is brought by the sun. The sun has been a very powerful and important figure for humanity and for good reason - without sun, there is no life. And that, too, ties in perfectly with Ho-Oh - it’s a phoenix, the symbol of rebirth, which is what the sun basically does each morning after falling each evening. Ho-Oh is also said to be the “guardian of the skies”, and what better way to watch over the skies than from from the sun so far above?
  • Lugia’s god could either simply be the god of the sea or also the god of the moon to contrast Ho-Oh’s sun. If the Suicune or Raikou gods don’t take care of the rain, Lugia’s god is a good contender for it. However, being the god of the sea already has a lot of importance for any people that fishes a good lot, as a god can make the difference between a great catch and nothing at all. If tsunamis happen, this would be the god to blame and/or direct fearful pleas for mercy towards. Hurricanes and the lot also tend to come from the sea, and Lugia’s signature is Aeroblast… not sure how to make sense of the Psychic typing, though. Probably won’t, because I’m pretty sure it was only put there to make the mon seem more powerful anyway. Anyway, with all this on the Lugia god’s plate, I don’t know so much about making him responsible for the moon and the night on top of all that. Maybe I’ll have someone else take care of it.
If you’re wondering what’s made me decide which gods are female and which male, it’s largely due to just how I’ve perceived the associated mon. However, Ho-Oh’s sun deity being female works as a nice tie-in to the sun goddess Amaterasu of Shintoism, and Lugia being male makes them better opposites. It also makes my kid self’s silly idea of the legendary Birds being the children of Lugia and Ho-Oh actually a possibility between the gods.

You may have noticed that I brought up the Brass Tower legend a bit ago, and you may be asking if that messes with the Beast lore. Well, it shouldn’t. Not all Beasts have to be messengers of the gods they’re represented by, it’s enough that the Beasts are forms the gods like to use for them.

Alright, so we have five gods right now. We can go ahead and make it six, actually, since Celebi's basically done all the work for me as a worshipped spirit of the forest and time. However, there remains a bunch of unfilled niches in the pantheon that usually have gods for them in other polytheistic systems. The most obvious one would be a god of death and/or ruler of the afterlife. Sadly, our list of legendaries has pretty much run out, meaning I'll have to get more creative from this point on when picking the motifs and representatives for the other gods.

Strong contenders for the mon of the death god are Gengar, Houndoom, Mismagius and Honchcrow. You can notice two of these are later-gen evolutions to Johto mon. This could be a way to have the mon be rare yet still occurring in the regions, something in common with the legendaries. They don't necessarily even have to be powerful, only being messengers or temporary forms for the gods. And, in the end, a lot of mon are pretty terrifying for a mere human. If they don't visibly clash with stronger mon and lose, a human can't reasonably call them weak.

A few more mon-god suggestions while we're on the subject:
  • Ursaring or Stantler for a god of the hunt
  • Steelix or Onix for a god of the earth, metal and/or smithing
  • Blissey, Kangaskhan or Togekiss for a god of fertility and/or love
  • Clefairy line for a lunar god, perhaps for the night as well in the same vein
  • Xatu could be a symbol of some seer-god the other gods consult to make decisions
Lastly, there may not be need for explicit gods for certain things as lower kami can work on them as a collaborative effort.

I've written quite a lot for now, but the religion is far from complete. Questions of things such as the afterlife, the philosophy, the traditions and holidays and even the name of the religion still remain unanswered and ambiguous. However, I'd like to get some thoughts on what I've presented here before moving on, as I want to have a solid base before I start building on top of it.

Thanks for reading! This was mostly only about the Kanto religion, but if you want to know more about the other two religions primarily shown in my stories as well, let me know - though Helixism doesn't take much advantage of the Pokémon world. Arceism, though, would fit well for this thread.
 
Nice thread, Canis. I also really enjoyed reading your notes on the Kanto pantheon and similar.

"oh my Arceus"
This is like saying "oh my Jehovah" or "oh my Yaweh". Doesn't make a lick of sense, it's just lazy pokécisation. People would still say OMG, I'm quite sure. Also, pet hate: "arse-eeus" is a terrible pronunciation, and it should be said as "Ark-eyus".

Arceus is near invisible in the official media.
This is true. Arceus did get a movie and that weird Tohjo Ruins event, but I think perhaps that giving it much prominence as an overt deity might bring the ire of religious American parents, shall we say? So this isn't too surprising.

a religion existing in a story doesn't mean it has to be true in-universe.
It's odd how strong the trend is for fictional religions in fantasy works to be "genuine". Even if the target of their devotion was a real being, without direct, clear and regular communication from the worshipped entity, I expect most religions to fall subject to reinterpretation and suchlike. I'm not a believer in any religious ideas myself, so to me, it feels odd for fictional religions to be "true". Certainly for them to be verifiable.

Pokémon may be fantastical and amazing to us, but to people living in that world, they are normal.
An important point to note. Not to mention that the implication from various media is that there are multiple instances of (most) legendary pokémon, and even that they can breed. I prefer this to the idea that legendaries are unique entities, immortal and deific. I simply have them be extremely rare, absurdly powerful pokémon.

There used to be a real cliché in Pokémon fanfiction where the journeyfic protagonist would be given the plot quest by a legendary pokémon, standing in for a deity.
Can't get my head around this one. I'd lose my mind if a giant talking bird with magic powers told me destiny was real. Absolutely invert my worldview. Can't help but think that the authors of such things haven't thought it through, or at least have very odd ideas about faith and divinity.

That building in Hearthome didn't really feel like a church that is dedicated to any sort of religion.
I'm quite certain that that building is straight-up a European-style church. It has pews, stained glass windows, and the NPCs talk about the grace of life, supernatural powers, and the balance of spirit and nature. Sounds like a church to me. What else would that building be?

Something else to note is that religion can look pretty different to what we're used to in the Anglosphere. I've spent most of my life exposed to monotheistic faiths in which one God is omnipotent and benevolent, and which are evangelistic, seeking to convert the entire world's population if possible. Japan... doesn't really have this. At all. It makes sense that the most we see of local religion (I'm sure the Hearthome church is intended to be a foreign mission) is Johto shrines and traditions dedicated to minor local deities (celebii, ho-oh) and the Snowpoint Temple.

As for myself, religion isn't a major theme in Different Eyes, but it would be remiss of me not to have it come up. However, we're almost in the 2020's, and genetic engineering is becoming practically mundane. It's been a while since the automatic rebuff to any cloning or whathaveyou was "but souls, but god!". Besides, "religious elements oppose scientific enterprise" is played out. I'm totally gonna have a religious researcher, now.

Anyway, yes, there does exist some religion in the setting. As I'm trying to mirror our world more closely than canon media, many of the religions in the setting are very similar to real ones. Pokémon worship is actually fairly uncommon, and tends not to be organised or to have doctrines. Most serious worshippers of pokémon are either general animists who care about the spiritual essence in all things, or they're carrying on quaint local customs that have never been evangelised.
 
I'm quite certain that that building is straight-up a European-style church. It has pews, stained glass windows, and the NPCs talk about the grace of life, supernatural powers, and the balance of spirit and nature. Sounds like a church to me. What else would that building be?

I think it's intended to be reminiscent of an American-style church - reminiscent in much the same way the Ilex Forest Shrine looks very much like a hokora, or the way the monks of Sprout Tower sound like Buddhists. The outside looks kinda eastern Orthodox with its big dome and kinda Gothic towers. The inside looks more or less like a small neighbourhood church. Critically, it's missing an altar of any kind, which is one of those few aspects of church design you can say are universal.
 
I've always held a broad strokes approach to religions in the Pokemon World. Real life doesn't have one consistent religion. Pokemon doesn't need to either. Sure, these beings are real to them, but the interpretations can differ. For Kanto-Johto, I portrayed Ho-oh as a sun god since light is often associated with life and warmth as well as being a phoenix vs. Lugia who is revered as the goddess of death since storms are associated with the cold which in turn is associated with death.

And unlike real life, the problem with religion in the Pokemon World is that these are very real beings as mentioned, but it also brings the question of capturing a god in a pokeball, especially if these beings can control time, space, and antimatter. Would capturing one break people's pre-conceived notions about these gods? Would humans grow arrogant and end up bringing their own downfall?

One interesting fanfic I read which I regret not saving is how the various gods of the Pokemon World are less gods and more like abstract entities, each trio or individual having domain of a pre-established aspect like duality, space, the cycle of life and death, etc. They also existed as an avatar in the physical world and an abstract entity in the abstract world which would clear away any of the aforementioned perception of weakness.
 
A big issue with the legendaries=gods thing is that legendaries are, from pretty much all of what we've seen in canon, likely to be actual physical creatures. That is, they exist in the same metaphysical way as we do, and aren't some kind of being from a higher plane as our gods usually are. This fundamentally alters the relationship we have with them, because it's possible to know they exist, and it's possible to actually understand their existence because they are essentially very strong, ultra-rare, normal Pokemon. Note the difference between that and the conventional Abrahamic God, who could exist outside of time, outside of a physical reality, possess powers which allow it to cheat the confines of logic, and may or may not exist.

The biggest change from conventional Abrahamic God, IMO is that they aren't omnipotent except Mega Rayquaza, that is. I'll skip "does the idea of omnipotence actually make sense" debate, assume it does, and assume that a legendary that exists in the same metaphysical way as a human, or common Pokemon, cannot be omnipotent. This means that there are some things we simply wouldn't expect legendaries to do in the same way we would of the conventional Abrahamic god. Humans might be more forgiving of such powerful beings making mistakes, because we wouldn't hold them to such an impossibly high standard.

See: problem of evil, "how could a benevolent, omnipotent God allow such cruelty to exist?". We might not expect Thundurus to be benevolent and help us out by summoning rain during a drought, or for Arceus to be able to create a stone it can't lift and yet, still be omnipotent. We wouldn't sit down to wonder why Mew, flying about a thousand miles away from us and unable to see what was happening in our town, didn't prevent a thief from murdering an old lady last week. We already know that's outside of the scope of its powers - Mew isn't omniscient or omnipresent, even if it can teleport and is benevolent.

That's why I think comparing a legendary to an actual god, in our sense, doesn't work at all. They can be characters in myths, revered, and even worshipped (they're "legendaries" for a reason, ya know :p) but giving them properties such as omniscience and omnipotence completely changes the way that humans would interact with them when compared to canon.
 
Animistic religions can give a real insight into how beliefs are altered by power. Cultures that revere and/or worship the natural world seem to accept that whatever power humans have is ultimately temporary - hunt the deer, but fail to respect the spirit of the deer, and next time you'll go hungry. Environmentalism is a theme explored in a rather trite way in Pokémon generally - presume to control a pokémon and watch the world drown in an everlasting storm, for example.

There's also the point that God and god aren't necessarily the same thing, but the associations of the monothestic capital-G-God stick. The Greeks didn't consider Zeus to be in any way omnipotent or omnibenevolent. As far as they were concerned, they knew their gods were flawed and fallible. The Celts, from what we can tell, thought their gods were capricious and dangerous.

The point is, the idea of the divine has a lot to unpick, which is why as an author it's really worth looking at what people believe, and why.
 
There definitely is some Pokémon worship by some people in some regions at some points in the timeline. However I’ve always thought of the games (at least the games loosely based on Japan) to just be plain old Shinto/Buddhist mix like in Japan.

There are clear everyday items you see the games and in the anime that would only make sense if they just lifted the default religion of Japan and placed it in the world. If anything else to provide a sense of familiarity and everydayness to the series. Just as it would likely have Christian tones knowingly or not if it was a Western animation. It’s part of the cultural lexicon in both societies so it would be hard to to have it slip into your work at some point.

The gang in the anime for example still eat mostly Japanese food no matter the region. This serves the same purpose to build immersion for the viewers in Japan and why it’s changed in the dub,
 
Animistic religions can give a real insight into how beliefs are altered by power. Cultures that revere and/or worship the natural world seem to accept that whatever power humans have is ultimately temporary - hunt the deer, but fail to respect the spirit of the deer, and next time you'll go hungry. Environmentalism is a theme explored in a rather trite way in Pokémon generally - presume to control a pokémon and watch the world drown in an everlasting storm, for example.

There's also the point that God and god aren't necessarily the same thing, but the associations of the monothestic capital-G-God stick. The Greeks didn't consider Zeus to be in any way omnipotent or omnibenevolent. As far as they were concerned, they knew their gods were flawed and fallible. The Celts, from what we can tell, thought their gods were capricious and dangerous.

The point is, the idea of the divine has a lot to unpick, which is why as an author it's really worth looking at what people believe, and why.

This is every true of Japan it’s why Kaiju films remain popular there. Japanese have a very respectful view of natural power due to the geographical location on the fault line. Floods, Earthquakes, Tsunami and Typhoon all common it is known nature cannot be stopped.

It is also why bugs are a popular pet in Japan. Japanese are more acceptable of death we had a Praying Mantis (named ストライク/Sutoraiku) when I was a child it died eventually got another it died rinse repeat.

I think there is a good point to be made that it is why Pokémon are not feared. If you think about it anyone with Pokémon would have been deemed a witch and killed if they were from Europe/Africa/Middle East most likely.
 
This is like saying "oh my Jehovah" or "oh my Yaweh". Doesn't make a lick of sense, it's just lazy pokécisation. People would still say OMG, I'm quite sure. Also, pet hate: "arse-eeus" is a terrible pronunciation, and it should be said as "Ark-eyus".

Not only that, but logically it's hard to square with the actual evidence we're given in the games, which is that Arceus's name isn't known to most people (the anime might be different; I confess that I wouldn't know). Its name seems to survive only in obscure scraps of mythology - perhaps even just oral stories known only to a few. Cynthia, who actually studies mythology, didn't think there might even be a role in Sinnoh mythology such as that which is ascribed to Arceus until after the existence of Giratina was discovered, which caused her to reevaluate her interpretation of the Celestic cave painting:
Cynthia: "This cave painting...It's always been described this way. The light in the center represents either Dialga or Palkia appearing at the Spear Pillar. The three lights around it were thought to be Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf. May I continue? But, then, I realized that there may be another way of interpreting this. Could this triangle of lights actually represent a different trio? Could they be Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina instead? And the large light at their center. Does it represent something else? Could it be what created this world of ours? May I continue for a little bit longer? Thank you for listening to my theory. Do you know of the ancient Plates they find all over Sinnoh? One of them had this engraved on it. Two beings of time and space set free from the Original One.' I think this quote, too, points to the presence of another Pokémon. A Pokémon even more powerful than Dialga or Palkia. Does that sound plausible to you?"

Even the Plates don't give a name for Arceus, referring to it only as "the Original One." Similarly, the hiking philosopher who appears in Platinum once you've received an event Arceus also does not seem to know it's name when you first meet him:
Hiker: "I'm told that that Plate was created at the same time as Sinnoh. That Plate I found bears this inscription. "The rightful bearer of a Plate draws from the Plate it holds." The rightful bearer, I think, may point to the shaper of this world."

He only know its name when you meet him at the Canalave Library, after he's visited the four cities at the foot of Mt. Coronet and learned more about the subject. And Cynthia never speaks Arceus's name until she appears alongside that hiker in HeartGold and SoulSilver's Sinjoh Ruins event, so it's possible that she learned it by comparing her notes with his. Since Giratina was also said to have been forgotten over time, most people are probably only aware of Dialga and Palkia at best - naturally, they are the only ones that we see have statues built in their honor.
 
Please note: The thread is from 5 years 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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