grapecape | 009; ANONYMOUS text

009; ANONYMOUS text

What makes Pokemon different from humans?

When a human has a desire, they collect Pokemon and go to fulfill it. That is how this world works.

When a Pokemon has a desire, what do they do?

Why must the free lives of Pokemon be the cost of a human's wish to act?

Who decided that Pokemon were possessions to be bought and sold and bartered with?

All beings think and feel and wish.

Please consider this.

[[ooc: Replies will often be short because he's trying to obscure his typing style and avoid any clues as to his identity. Threadjacking is fine!]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm sorry. I want to understand.

Then perhaps you should rethink who you are asking. The ones you get responses from with a message like this will be those not of this world, most of whom understand as little as you do. How will you gain meaningful responses from them?

When my trainer, Twilight Sparkle, first evolved me into a Kadabra and began to speak with me, there was a question she asked me very early on. "Why?" She asked. "Why do you serve humans when you're the ones who have such amazing powers?" She asked this not as though she was judging, or offended, or thought us taken advantage of. No, she asked simply because of a desire to understand. To know.

I will tell you what I told her, but first, answer me this. Have you ever asked your own Pokemon that question?

I have.

I see. Then compare my answer to theirs, and let us see if together they can explain us better to you.

The life of a wild Pokemon is not one of freedom. It is one of fear. I spent every day I lived as an Abra either asleep, or desperately trying to hone my psychic skills so as to be able to survive during my long sleeps. Nearly all wild Pokemon have predators. Most of those that do not are the predators, and they struggle every day to find food. Imagine this life, for a moment. Imagine living every day not knowing if it will be your last. And remember that in order to grow in strength, so that you might fight off or escape our predators, our only option is to battle other Pokemon and win. What if we lose? Or what if we win, but are left too weak to fight again?

Think on this. Why is it that you find the weakest Pokemon clustered around the towns where the trainers start? Why do low-level Pidgey, Rattata, and their ilk flock there? It is because those places house their only hope for a better life. You say the trainers use their Pokemon to fulfill their wishes? Then surely to us, the trainers must be wish-granters themselves.

It is as I've heard.

What ensures that a trainer will hold to this arrangement? Surely not all Pokemon have the disposition to lash out at those who cannot better them.

You miss one very important thing in asking that question. Let me be very clear here. Even if the trainer is weak. Even if the trainer is cruel. Even if the trainer is the worst one you could ever imagine... It is still the better option to be bonded to such a trainer than to be without one.

There exists only one sort of Pokemon that do not wish a trainer. And that is those who are so powerful, so unchallengeable, that they can already do as they wish. The Legendaries are among this number, of course, but they are not the only ones. Have you ever heard of a wild Dragonite being captured? Or another Pokemon at the pinnacle of its strength showing itself before a trainer? I doubt it. For they are the rare few who do not need one.

Yet... even for some of those, gaining a trainer might be a better option, not for them, but for those around them. Many of the ones who become that strong also become dangerous, and their rampages may be the source of nightmares in all the Pokemon around them. Trainers are sometimes the only things holding back what could be a threat to humans and Pokemon alike for miles around.

[long, long delay before the next reply. something like twenty minutes.]

Thank you.

You are welcome. Just remember. What you see when you look at a Pokemon and trainer is not an exploitation. It is not slavery. It is symbiosis. We need humans.

And have no doubt on this. Humans need us.

I apologize for the brevity of my responses. I don't want to attract attention from people who might recognize my style of speech.

Pokemon training itself does not distress me at all. That kind of symbiosis is something which should exist in my world but does not, for many petty reasons, and I am glad that both humans and Pokemon here have the chance to intermingle and depend on each other.

But it terrifies me to think that I could vanish at any moment, and my Pokemon, who are young and unique and who I care about very much, could end up in the hands of someone who could easily leave them in the PC once they no longer need their skills.

Or, they could be abducted by Team Rocket for no reason but a show of power, and be made to attack others like in the assault on Goldenrod.

The way this world is allows those things to happen. Even otherwise innocuous people, with no direct intentions of wrongdoing, can deny their Pokemon the future they desire if they forget that they are any more than tools.

It's irrational of me to air these worries the way I did, and cowardly of me to hide behind an anonymous face, but I need to know firsthand what the rest of Johto thinks, so that I can make some kind of plan. If I promise them that I will be the trainer that they need, I will be lying. If I act without knowing what I'm doing, I'm putting them in danger.

I'm sorry. That outburst was entirely inappropriate.

[There's a long pause before Starswirl's next reply.]

It would seem I have misjudged you, and I should apologize for that. I took you to be some sort of activist against the practice of training, blind to the reality of things and the nature of this world. Clearly, this is not the case.

However, as you yourself have noted, your true problems seem to stem from a disagreement with the natural order of our world. Yes, abusive trainers and groups like Team Rocket exist... but that cannot be altered through some global movement. It can only be responded to on an individual basis.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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