I haven't played the games since Red/Blue but I saw some cartoons when I was a kid and those motherfuckers get straight up battered, burnt, and electrocuted. If it were live action instead of a cartoon it would look like fucking Django Unchained.
In other words, Pokemon keeps setting themselves up for questions their setting and gameplay demands they not answer.
I don't really expect a massively popular flagship children's game to answer the darker questions directly, but considering how the NPCs all have some surprisingly dark statements even about everyday things and quite a few of the pokedex entries paint an incredibly bleak picture... I can't help but feel there's a certain intent about showing this world as trying to stop the momentum it has gotten up
heading toward a repeat of the war 3,000 years ago
and the populace mostly dismissing the core concept because of a group of extremists being the most well-known proponents. Team Flare ends up looking sorta like PETA, in that way.
I mean, even if Game Freak isn't that intelligent, they certainly do seem to try in some cases. I don't think there's any harm at least trying to read into some of it, considering how pop cartoonists and animators would do the same thing from time to time even at places like Disney. Why would they even bring up these questions and only be able to knock them down with incredibly terrible answers, unless they were trying to underscore the absolute absurdity of those answers?
Actually he did, even back in Gen 1. It was a normal attack back then so it might be confusing to remember. Now that it's a Dark (aka Evil, in the Japanese version) attack, it might make sense that there's all that screaming...
What I'm getting at is that basically, Pokemon could tell a better story by knowing their limitations and not focusing on a story that is about stuff they can't deal with. Chickening out at the last second with half assed cop outs, as with Black and White, is more unfulfilling ultimately than a more black and white (har har) save the world plot.
I think they should double down and focus on their strengths, namely ADVENTURE TIIIIIME
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What the god damned fuck?
If I had watched that as a kid it would have haunted me in my dreams. That's a really unsettling foley they made.
What I'm getting at is that basically, Pokemon could tell a better story by knowing their limitations and not focusing on a story that is about stuff they can't deal with. Chickening out at the last second with half assed cop outs, as with Black and White, is more unfulfilling ultimately than a more black and white (har har) save the world plot.
I think they should double down and focus on their strengths, namely ADVENTURE TIIIIIME
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