Actually the idea that the Pokemon world is entirely shaped around the kid's perspective also explains why everyone in that world is obsessed with Pokemon, and why other topics are brought up so little; a child obsessed with Pokemon may see a world also obsessed with Pokemon.
+Simalacrum That's a great point. I always wonder a professional football player/coach perceives the importance of football in his life and in society compared to how the general public does. Surely a child would have a hard time seeing through it's own bias.
+Emerson Fant It's not just your bias. I never got into pokemon, but I still noticed that it's all kids would talk about when I was younger. I guess it depends on who you hang out with, but that's not bias.
+Urinstein Speaking as a musician, I know that's true for us. ("What do you mean you've never heard of Godspeed You Black Emperor? They're best post-rock band ever! .....What do you mean, 'what's post-rock'?") It also speaks to the general conflict between the creatively-minded and scientifically-minded in college/university where everyone perceives their own field as more important and deserving of more time, funding, respect, etc.
+Simalacrum Well the pokemon world relays on pokemon for almost every single thing that isn't handled by their advanced technology, Electric types supporting power grids, Pokemon members of the police force, medical centers, mail delivery, construction crews, competitive battles acting as a huge part of the economy, the list just keeps going on... So it makes sense that when encountering a wandering trainer that the average person would start talking about the subject not only of common interest, but one that everyone has at least some experience with.
+Simalacrum To be fair though, I think in pokémon it's different, since especially in the first generation pokémon ARE also technology and a spread danger. Sure they are like animals in our world and so pretty common, but they 1) always attack anyone in sight, probably being the main source of incidents and... deaths maybe? It's not too different from some sort of post-apocalyptic zombie narrative: if you get out of towns you *will* get attacked by the monsters outside. 2) provide transportation, build most if not all constructions, work as main weaponry (especially in first generation there doesn't seem to be any other type of non-melee weaponry, the whole "why doesn't team rocket just shoot the kid" doesn't stand because in pokémon the equivalent to guns, is all pokémon), heck electric pokémon even provide electricity in the power plant, I'm guessing fire pokémon are probably used to provide fire for cooking and heating, etc. In short, it's like dinosaurs in The Flinstones. Or a biopunk of sorts. Pretty much the only technology that is not managed mainly using pokémon is communication. Yet I feel like pokémon are kind of equivalent to computers/phones in our world, they are used to do most of the things and people talk about it a lot. In our world you'll end up having *a lot* of conversations about mobile phones, internet, computers, digital media of any kind, etc. It's not like everyone is obsessed with it randomly, it's just that they are literally everywhere and used for all everyday activities, even if you are talking about something else, computers/internet/phones will creep in.
If there was a Kanto War, what does that make Team Rocket? A criminal organization that took advantage of a war torn civilization to gain power? I'd like to think so.
+Angelus89 I was just about to say this! Also has frightening implications. Since Mussolini all but wiped out the mafia during WWII, but the Americans encouraged their renewal following Italy's postwar meltdown. Was Team Rocket propped up by some vague but menacing government agency following the Kanto War? (Who can say...)
+MostLikelyMortal I feel that the "Teams" of each region are the ones who lost in the power struggle against the Pokemon League that runs the world and were unable to beat them on fair terms, so they turn to dirty tactics in an attempt to seize power, often attempting to harness the powers of Legendary Pokemon to do it.
I like to think that the awkwardness of the youngster who talks about shorts kind of implies that everyone in the world of Pokemon forcefully tries to keep the subject off of the war and on literally anything else instead. Most people are really good at going along with this, but then you get really nervous individuals who panic and yell out crazy things like "I like shorts! They're comfy and easy to wear!" like some lunatic.
that could equally explain the look of the Hex maniac in the sixth generation. She is craze there's no denying that. But maybe that's from keeping a secret, and it driving here nuts!
One other factor that might add credence to this theory is Mewtwo. Think about it. He was created specifically to be the most powerful Pokemon in the world. He was born on Cinnabar Island before the events of the first game. Perhaps to be used as a weapon in this Pokemon war? It's established by Lieutenant Surge that the Pokemon themselves fought alongside humans in the war. Not surprising, taking into consideration their superpower-like abilities.
+Gavin Wadsworth What if Mewtwo wasn't the weapon in the war but the other side of the conflict. It was a pokemon war not in the sense that they were using pokemon to fight another group of humans but fighting a powerful psychic pokemon that gained control of an army of powerful pokemon it used to fight the humans that created it. After the loss of many lives Mewtwo realized it was stretched its power too thin and was losing control of its army. In a last ditch effort it wiped the memory of the war from most of the population destroyed any place that had information on the war that was fought destroying much of the data on pokemon (thus creating the need to catalog pokemon of the area again). Some people may have been too strong willed to have their memory wiped or my theory about Lt. Surge he was hospitalized and in a coma rendering him unreadable so he was not wiped. The others who weren't mind wiped don't talk about it fearing angering Mewtwo again. This also explains why children are encouraged to train pokemon to fight other pokemon in an effort to stop Mewtwo if it attacks again. This would explain why the only example of a new gym taking over a position in the league is the new psychic gym. This also could explain why only the champion could enter the cave containing Mewtwo and the need of creating a pokeball designed to capture any pokemon no matter how powerful.
I think it's important here to think about Japan's relationship with war and the after effects of war in it's depiction of war (and the after effects of war). From what I, a Brit, have gathered from my limited exposure to Japanese media, Japan has a unique view compared to other nations and the heart of this comes from Hiroshima and Nagasaki as no other population has experienced atomic warfare, which is capable of literally wiping out entire populations, no survivors. This is something that has possibly happened in Kanto in the Pokemon world. An anime I recently finished watching, Terror In Resonance (which is amazing, I recommend it, 10/10) which is about Japan's relationship with terrorism and warfare, had in a character called Kanjiro Shibazaki who is middle aged. In it he recalls his youth in Hiroshima, where he lived with his grandparents because his parents, who had moved away before his birth, had been killed by the side-effects of radiation in the 60s (cancers etc.). He remembers a town populated almost exclusively by the elderly (who I presume escaped initial exposure to the blast/radiation and later were the only ones with enough strong memories of the place to desire to return), which seems not unlike the depiction of Kanto in Pokemon Gen I. Perhaps these people are the first to attempt to repopulate an area an unknown amount of time following nuclear destruction? Or something metaphorically close to that. This would explain the obsession with legendary Pokemon or artificial Pokemon with hugely advanced power. The classic Japanese metaphor for nuclear fallout has always been Godzilla. I don't see a huge amount of difference between Godzilla and, say, Lugia or Groudon. Both have a world-altering amount of destructive power that the crime syndicates/terror organisations of the world like Team Rocket and Team Magma wish to utilize for their own ends. I often find with Japanese media that addresses any level of national or international catastrophe, terrorism, war or other sequence of event that endangers the whole population, there is a narrative and thematic silence to the world. I see it in things like Neon Genesis Evangelion, the aforementioned Terror In Resonance, Akira etc. There is an emptiness that comes over the world in landscape, often in the melancholy of the protagonists and in the mindset or affectation of the youth. I suppose Pokemon just puts a slightly different spin on those themes if you impress upon it the narrative of the post-war. Instead of teenagers trying to reconcile themselves with a terrible world they did nothing to create, you end up with pre-teens living in a state of ignorant bliss that comes before that. That was mildly depressing, but I hope made some sense.
I do think there was insufficient discussion of the game's Japanese roots and the cultural and historic impact, especially of the war, this must have had on the design.
Yes. Whether or not there was a "Pokemon war," I think Pokemon intentionally uses war as a motif into its games because of the role war has played in Japanese culture. There's a fan theory here in Japan regarding Ruby/Sapphire... Hoenn is modeled after the Kyushu region of Japan. The places where the gen's legendaries Regice, Registeel, and Regirock can be found line up with where Nagasaki, Miyazaki, and Oita would be. These three Kyushu prefectures were most affected by the atomic bomb dropped by the US. And if you use a Heart Scale on any of the Regi's w/o having trained them, they can "re-learn" the move Explosion, which the theory suggests as meaning that they remember an explosion of long ago. So yeah... War motifs.
CanadianWolverine I meant in the initial blast zone. Obviously there were survivors further out in the radiation area, and people that lived there but were away at the time.
+NerdSync A lot of folks have, it's sort of cliche among the Pokemon fan theory circle. MatPat usually tries to make up his own (although they are not often as well-supported as this one).
Hmm... alternatively, it's also possible that many people who are aware a war happened don't want to talk about such a sensitive subject with a perceived child. That, and there's not many kids I know of that fully grasp what a war even is at that age.
+Ryan Jones The US has been at war for 15 years. I've never even considered it to be an overly sensitive topic for children, as it's simply reality. I mean sure, I'm not telling children the tale of how innocent men, women, doctors, and children, burned alive in a recent bombing by the US on an Afghanistan hospital, but I wouldn't shy away from telling children of any age that the bombing did happen, and people did die, including children like them. Reality has a way of desensitising people. If the war were past tense, maybe that would make a difference. I actually couldn't say... I've never experienced that.
Seth9809 It was definitely an intentional assault if the US apologizing is any indication. theintercept.com/2015/10/06/why-bombing-kunduz-hospital-was-probably-a-war-crime/
What if it was less of a war and more of a warring period, in which the cities were fighting against each other and the Pokemon League is merely an organization that unites all the cities in the region and appoints a Gym Leader to each city to help maintain the peace?
+Robert Trone That would make it a lot more of a metaphor for the transition out of the warring states period, and a lot less about, well, America. Which I kinda like, its not too hard for westerners to read WWII into everything Japanese ever, but its probably not very accurate.
Well, actually, in the pokemon movie with lucario, they talk about a pokemon war. In a flashback you can see the armies rushing each other. In that movie they discuss conflicts and various other things. Not sure if you count that as canon, or even relevant to the conversation, but thought it would be nice to bring it up.
+Hana_No_Shima It's not relevant since that war happened a long time ago whereas the Kanto War has it happen within 10 years ago (since Red is only 10 years old)
+PIKMINROCK1 on top of that, the Anime is not considered a canon source until the game does it as well. There have been pokemon in the anime but not in the game and vice versa until years later it is seen there.
+Hana_No_Shima I don't think they count the movies as canon, since you see in the second movie where Ash and Co. meet Lugia, but later in the Gold and Silver-era anime, they meet two Lugia and are totally surprised as if they've never seen one before.
+Hana_No_Shima Yes, and I have a theory where this war split the pokemon time line between one side winning leaving to extinction to certain species leading to the certain versions (red, gold, ruby), the other team wins where different species become extinct and the other version (blue/green, silver, sapphire) and the one sir Aaron stopped leading up to the events in the anime.
While I don't necessarily think there was a war just before Gen 1 (we know there have been wars, including one in Unova that caused Cobalion, Terrakion, and Virizion to get rather pissed off, and two in Kalos taking place 3000 and 300 years ago), there is something that could feed into this theory that I want to address. The Generation 3 games (Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald) are confirmed to take place at the same time as Generation 1. In them, the player character (Brendan or May) has just moved to Hoenn from Johto. Both their parents are alive (something we never have confirmation of in any other main series game), with their father being Norman; a Gym Leader. It is possible, were this theory true, that Norman's family where essentially refugees seeking to escape war-torn Johto, with Norman only surviving because, as per the theory, Gym Leaders were exempt from combat. Perhaps, in their haste to flee, they had to throw their fragile, little 10-year old child in the back of a moving truck, because that would still be safer then staying in a land ravaged by battle ;P
We want that to be the case because we are playing Pokemon games not as kids as we used to. The Pokemon Universe is just so incoherently tidy and childish that we as adults players need to fill the plotholes with wars, sad truths and creepypastas in order to perceive it as "real". Come on, it's been like twenty years and it's still unclear what the hell do they even eat in that world. The simple truth is that the games were supposed to be for six years old kids, who shouldn't care about the nonsense of what they're playing, as it's fair for them to do. (I like the games anyway)
I agree. I like the as the backstory because it makes Kanto seem more complex in addition to Team Rocket. You don't get that duality between peaceful imagery and a harsh origin. Pokemon more so today pushes into a lot more general shounen friendship power tropes and fantasy that doesn't really appeal to me.
Lt. Surge could be referring to a war outside of Kanto. He is considered the Lightening American, and could have moved to Kanto after fighting in a war America was in.
4:30 Adding to this: Maybe you should also look at how the Japanese view children. For example, it's very discouraged by other adults to take the claims of a child seriously. By that respect, there's no expectation for children to be wise to the economic-political atmosphere surrounding them and thus no reason to discuss politics with them. This might be why the war isn't mentioned nearly anywhere in the story, save Lt. Surge. This is because you're a child and adults in Japan won't mention or discuss the prior war with you.
Quotes from *Lieutenant* Surge, in-game alias "The Lightning American", Leader of Vermillion Gym I'll zap you just like I did *my enemies in war*! - Gold, Silver, and Crystal Versions. I tell you what kid, electric Pokèmon *saved me during the war*! - Red and Blue, FireRed and LeafGreen Versions His quotes don't _explicitly_ reference war (only imply it) in Yellow or HeartGold and Soul Silver, but that still leaves the war that Surge fought in as definitively canon through Generations 1, 2 and 3. The first 9 years of Pokemon's existence. For reference, it's only been around for 20 years. And if this war was big enough to involve American soldiers like Surge (who ranks as a *commissioned officer*, not just any old grunt) and putting electricity wielding beasts in an active warzone, then YES, I think we can safely infer it was massive.
+countcapricorn here's my thoughts: I think this war is the SAME war that Sir Aaron stopped in the anime which in turn split the pokemon time line between one side winning leaving to extinction to certain species leading to the certain versions (red, gold, ruby), the other team wins where different species become extinct and the other version (blue/green, silver, sapphire) and the one sir Aaron stopped leading up to the events in the anime.
+countcapricorn That depends, do you consider the Gulf War to be "massive"? Because if we take Lt. Surge's quotes as being a reference to a real-world war, the Gulf War looks to me to be the best fit timewise (ended in 91, first Pokemon games released in Japan in 96).
A3Kitsune I always assumed _if_ it was any war analogous to any real-world war (and I don't actually think it is), it's probably WWII due to that being the only one involving Japan AND America. The Kanto region is heavily based on the real one in Japan, and Lt. Surge was probably a holdover from a military occupation who decided he liked Kanto enough to stay.
+countcapricorn Interesting that he addresses Red, like a vet might address a Youth from his own nation, but he addresses Gold like he would someone from an enemy nation. Heh!
Why is it desirable? Because when we grow up, and a deeper, more meaningful interpretation of something that we loved as childs serves to compell as a adults. There are lots of pokemon theories, and some of them are so solid that most of the players accept them as fact. And some of them are canon. Cubone wears the skull of his deceased mother, which many consider to be Kanghaskan [although there's a marowak ghost in the tower]. Ditto are failed Mew clones in the previous attemps of Mewtwo's creation, basically the morphless discarded childs of a mad scientist who wanted to play god. When you find Blue in lavander town and he tells you that he went there to visit a friend many especulate that it is his raticate he went to visit, and that you, the player, killed it in your previous encounter (he does not use it again). Are all of those true? Is pokemon less tidy and clean that what we believe? Or is it just the imagination of kids who loved the games and continued to love them when they grew up, conecting dots that were never meant to be conected to form a more mature picture of that world? Or were those dots meant to be part of that picture, concealed from the children but put in plain sight for adults by the developpers of the game?
+UnknownFlyingPancake I think I'd like to call it "disillusion" rather than "corruption of innocence". Just like things that seem innocent when growing up, such as gender roles, social class, and the very black and white concept children generally have about war, will show themselves to stem from deep-rooted issues that are historically complicated and full of gray areas. Growing up, we learn this, and in things that seemed innocent when we were children (and were obviously intended to be innocent by their creators) we tend to pick up loose logic ends and see what conclusions might be drawn if we investigate them. I'd say it's all part of growing up and coming to terms with reality. Doesn't mean you can't enjoy some good childish entertainment every once in a while. It just means that you might get a deeper experience out of it.
I know this specific theory is only about the Kanto region, but it feels like a huge oversight to not mention that the Kalos region from X and Y has a deep history built on war. You can see how this great war (from thousands of years ago!) still resonates and affects the society. You can go through a route full of ancient stones at one point to later realize they're graves. They talk about the politics of Kings and rightful heirs, the use of weapons of mass destruction to end the war, and all sorts of incredibly deep (especially for pokemon) topics. It's fantastic!!
The kanto war, I think might tie with the Kalos war. Yes, they're two different wars, but could they be between the same people, or the same countries? I think this might be the case, though there isn't any evidence, but they're the only two places that reference a war at all. If it's not true, then perhaps then it's because we want to think the Pokemon world different from our own. Something that mirrors our only in landscapes and geography. So having a war where we didn't have one would distance it from our own, because otherwise,... pokemon is a little too real.
+Murphio I'm pretty sure they talk about a war in 5th gen between the two kings of Unova. Either way both the Unovan war and Kalosian war took place way before the Kanto war was speculated to.
+Murphio It can't be the Kalos War/Kanto War as in the Delta Episode of ORAS explains why that can't be. I'm tentative to put the actual reason here for the sake of spoilers, but I'm sure someone else will or has in another thread.
+Murphio It probably has nothing to do with the Kalos war, considering the Kalos war took place roughly three thousand years before the main series games. But I guess Israel and Palestine are still going at it IRL, so... you never know. Old grudges last a while.
I dont think much of the theory itself having much validity but rather more for the reason why people conceived of it. AS an adult who played Pokemon extensively in the past I find myself looking back on it with fondness. But now with the new generations of Pokemon I find myself looking longingly at them but refusing to play them, not withstanding the increasingly odd designs of the new Pokemon. I think to myself that I would be more inclined to play again if the games were deeper in plot and world than my previous experiences. If you will more adult versions of Pokemon that I can find engaging as an adult with much more knowledge and experience than I had as a kid. Even in my teens when I still played Pokemon I dreamt up darker more complex versions of Pokemon involving post-apocalyptic scenarios or even simply being able to say "yes" to the Team Rocket recruiter at the end of the bridge in Cerulean city. Even starting out as a delinquent orphan that steals their first Pokemon and is literally on the run from that law for a good chunk of the game until being caught and asked to turn on your accomplices who stole Pokemon with you. I could go on and on but the point is that these theories spring form more mature adult minds that can percive supposed things like this and which that they were real so as to keep validity in their love for Pokemon by making it more adult.
+Orion Kaelin In that case, Gen VI, especially OR/AS, is exactly what you're looking for. I'm not going to spoil the new stuff, but when you start the game, it feels just as simple and innocent as before, with the familiar rising tension of Team Aqua/Magma's activity, but even after that, the atmosphere of the game changes, at least to anyone who reads pretty deep into these things. The conflict is solved, but the underlying tension is still there, and never really goes away - the Delta Episode is more about dealing with that tension (and more obvious conflicts, of course) than solving it. Gamefreak has heard complaints like yours and they're trying to welcome old fans back into the fold while still making a kids' game - and it seems to be working.
Is it really that different? I thought it was all about remastering and what not like with FR/LG. Interesting. One problem; I dont own a DS anymore and its not really a priority. But thanks for the info!
They're technically not main games, but if you still have a GameCube or Wii, there's a game that came out during Gen 3 called Pokémon Colosseum, which maintains the same battle system of regular games, but also forcing you to adapt to the double battle system, and also has an extremely gritty, more adult atmosphere, especially for a Pokémon game. I personally think the sequel, Gale of Darkness, is way more streamlined, but if it's a more adult vibe you're going for, Colosseum would probably be a better pick. Still look into the sequel, though; it's not nearly as mature, but it still has a pretty decent plot.
+Orion Kaelin If you're looking for a darker pokemon game, I heavily recommend Pokemon Reborn. It's not an official game and is still in the making but the setting, music, and storyline are all phenomenal. The post-apocalyptic feel is inescapable and gives a whole new level of difficulty to the games by limiting which pokemon you can find in the wild.
After Kanto took such heavy losses in regards to population, it might have become illegal to mention the war, especially to kids with missing parents. They had to quickly bury the posters and the statues of war heroes. Also no TV would talk about it.
My opinion of the War Theory aside (I really dislike most "gritty" interpretations of kids' media,) I think part of the theory's desirability is that it satisfies the wish that a lot of folks who grew up with the game have that the series would grow up with them. While other media, Harry Potter is a prime example, DID become more mature as its original target audience did, Pokemon did not. Pokemon remains primarily a kids' game as it always has been. Adults like myself still enjoy it, but it's not directly FOR us. The War Theory adds a maturity to the game that makes the experienced seem more complicated to match the world around us becoming more complicated as we age.
On reasons of entire population going to war - you forgot the third option, which is the people stand up to protect their motherland like in Britain and Soviet Union during the WWII - thus giving you pretty much the entire population mobilized either as soldiers or as workers, suppliers, etc.
I think the fact that there was a recent war is indisputable (depending on how you define recent) as Lt. Surge mentions he survived a war, but who was involved? Whats interesting is that if you use the fame checker on Surge in Fire Red it labels him as the "Lightning American". This would suggest that the Unova region which is believed to represent America was at war. Possibly it was a war between Unova and Johto with Kanto playing the roll of Switzerland? Surge survives the war by escaping to Kanto. Many from Johto also fled to Kanto which would explain the crossover in pokemon species.
Your point about: 'if there was a war, then wouldn't people talk about it?'; reminded myself of my recent viewing of Ken Burns' The Civil War. In the last episode it talks about how immediately after the end of the American civil war, no one wanted to talk or read about the war anymore (some former soldiers struggled to believe it was real). One effect of this was that many glass plate negatives of war photographs became so worthless that they were used in building greenhouses after the war.
I like to think that the Red we meet in Pokemon Gold is a older version. One that has seen some of the travesty of war and did not care for it. He has seen the hurt and experienced the pain of seeing your pokemons faint (and die if we look at the manga) . It might be a reason he is by him self in a cave in the mountains. He grew up and trained his pokemon to be some of the strongest ones. If there was ever a war to break out again him and his pokemon would be one of the prime targets for a draft and being sent out again. Not wanting this he stays away from most people to live a safe life with his best friends.
This theory seems to in line with Japanese creative people's experiences with living in the aftermath of WWII, and can be seen in anime where there aren't a lot of notable anime dads or couples.
There was definitely at least one recent war. Lt. Surge and his pokemon unambiguously served in a war that ended sometime in the last 20 years. Also, consider X and Y where a canonical war takes place (albeit much much earlier and in an alternate dimension). I don't think that any modern wars shape the pokemon world as much as the Pokemon war theory, but military effort and fighting clearly makes up a lot of the cultural zeitgeist. I don't think it's wrong to assume that this has a lot to do with the weird emphasis this culture has on children leaving home to go fight and make a heroic name for themselves.
To answer that second part; I feel like fans have this tendency to fill any... 'emotional gaps' in their media of choice. What I mean by this is that the general emotional tone of pokemon is overall positive, happy and heroic. The 'emotional gap' would be what the war theory fulfills. War suggests tragedy and loss, which there is little of in canon. On the flip side you see media which the emotional tone is usually sad and tragic, and you'll find that the most common tag for fan fiction will be 'no one is dead and everyone is happy AU'. The sadder the canon, the happier the fanon and vice versa.
It adds more warrant for the happier and heroic themes of Pkemon if its in result of something horrible or a conspiracy around it, because removes the base story of just being a cliche friendship power story where bonds and friendship are only enforced just for the sake of it because genre, rather than explanation. Huge loss would justify pushed themes for friendship, especially between humans and monsters.
Has anyone thought out how this theory works out in relation to the parallel dimensions of Pokemon, which have been acknowledged in canon several times now? All the versions of the war theory I've heard have assumed that all of Pokemon takes place in one world.
When I was a kid, I spend most of my time with friends, games and sports, even though they were news about of going wars, I was oblivious, even we talked about it in school as part as a history class, I always saw it like a story that happened long ago and it never happened again, but war was present on those times. So, yes I see this happening if Pokemon is seen through the eyes of some kid.
Another thing that can be explained by this theory are the criminal teams like team rocket. If many of the returning veterans of the war didn't get a lot of retraining support then they would have had to fallen back on the skills and resources they did have, knowing how to fight, having Pokemon to do so with and knowing other people with similar skills. Also these people would be used to being inside an organization and might desire a certain amount of organization to their actions so either being recruited or forming their own organization for their new profession becomes likely for them.
Wait, isn't Kalos supposed to play a huge part of the war? After all, they do mention a war in X and Y in a pretty explicit albeit clean way. That's the entire reason AZ is in the game, isn't it?
+As De Espadas But that was 3000 years ago. Red wouldn't be the first of the generations born in peace time. Unless R/B happened almost 3000 years ago in relation to XY.
Throughout the video game series, but also hinted in the TV show, there have been wars amongst Pokemon. However, they occurred long before the start of Red and Blue.
here's my thoughts: I think this war is the SAME war that Sir Aaron stopped in the anime which in turn split the pokemon time line between one side winning leaving to extinction to certain species leading to the certain versions (red, gold, ruby), the other team wins where different species become extinct and the other version (blue/green, silver, sapphire) and the one sir Aaron stopped leading up to the events in the anime.
The gym leader confirms that there was some kind of war in the games cannon. Weather Kanto was involved or not is speculation but, It would tie everything you said in a bow. I personally like the theory because, imagining of loads of Pokemon in massive battles seems really cool.
The thing that always got me about this theory when I first heard it. That the reason why health care is universal and free across the whole game is because there was a war. Initially I was annoyed by this because I thought "jeez America, why do you have to be ragging on free healthcare, it doesn't take a ruinous war to push forward progressive social reform...". Oh no wait, that other thing. Then the more I thought about it, the more credence it gave the theory. Why would it be taken for granted that everywhere you go in Kanto, there will always be a Nurse Joy there to patch your pokemon up (and in the shows - give you a place to sleep), just because you travel with pokemon and have a pokedex. In the show, we see the gang literally starving because of how broke they are - but they will always have a pokemon centre to go to. Just as after WWII, Britain was crying out for some sort of unified health system, Kanto had to do something to keep pokemon and travellers safe. ...I'm not 100% where I am going with this thought. But it was interesting to me when I first heard this theory.
As far as war in the Pokemon world goes, it is a thing. The war that took place in Kalos long ago is proof of that. It was people and their Pokemon versus other people with their own Pokemon. But in regards to the war Lt. Surge mentions, things are much more obscure. In fact, Lt. Surge's dialogue is the ONLY explicit mention of any other war. So did a war happen recently in the Pokemon world? Yes. Do we know anything about it? The fact of the matter is, we don't and everything beyond Surge's dialogue is speculation.
No, there was no war. Lt. Surge is a military archetype and that's the extent of his character. The same applies to any Trainer who speaks about being part of a war (usually elderly and retired) where that too is just a trait that defines their character. There are mostly kids because that's fun and reparable for a kid playing the game. The few old people who are there hold senior positions, again playing to an archetype, and the adolescent characters where again examples of what a successful future might hold. Pokemon, in its origin and arguably to this day, is a very simply lighthearted and child friendly game. Now from here I am referring to Pokemon as Pokemon Red and Blue/Green, not Gold/Silver and on, not the anime or manga, not even Yellow. Pokemon's plot was thin, its world (building) was thin, and its mechanics were thin. Each character had one to three lines of dialog, six to eight if they were a Gym Leader, and they had to use that to make each character seem remotely unique from the other copies of same looking characters, and then the Gym Leaders even more so than the trainers. There is no more depth to it than that. Your a kid, in a world where friendly super powered animals roam, you can catch em, collect and battle em, then stop a crime syndicate will becoming the best at Pokémon. Makes sense? No? Oh well, it was fun and for that time that's great! There was a lack of infrastructure because that was the limit of the game. There was a lack of story and action/choice mechanics because that was the limit of the game. And while these have developed and improved with each iteration of the game it can still be underdeveloped. And this leads me into why people created the Pokemon War theory. The Pokémon generation has grown up. We were starry eyed children, holding a portable console for the first time, for some of us it was the first video game console we've ever held period, and we got to travel around multicolored worlds with cool monsters that we can catch and fight. That was amazing! But as we grew up our sense of world depth and standards for fiction changed, developed, and grew. Pokemon as is, doesn't satisfy us anymore and so we starting looking for depth where there isn't any. We want grit. We want contrasting and dark story elements. We want complexity in plot and interesting world aspects. And so we imagine there was a war and try to add our own mature tones to simple friendly happy Pokémon. The series tried to do that with each iteration starting with Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald and especially recently with Black/White, but it still feels over simplified and unsatisfying. (Like often is the case with children's cartoons/games) I myself want a Pokémon game that is more realistic and reflecting of what a world where small villages of people existed and separated in a world filled with super powered animals and beasts, with social and political elements expressed in things like human military, survival against Pokémon, scientific experimentations, corporate conspiracies, etc. That's not Pokémon is though, and if Nintendo and Game Freak were to make such a game in would be a whole rewrite or a new series in of itself. Just to sum up what turned into a long winded comment: There was no war. All the things that are used to argue the theory are just the expression of people's frustrations with and desires for more out of a game they grew up with and love.
+James O'Keeffe Thank you. There are more elements to it if you want to dive deeper. For example, the counter counter argument in defense of the theory; signs of the war aren't blatantly present because Red is a child and the games is from a child's perspective. Its a good retort and logically sound but I still think its not the actual reality but rather the rationalization of the theory against contrasting evidence. In fact I'd go further and say that this is a perfect example of what I was talking about in my OP; it shows the skism and dual reality that comes from Pokemon being a children's game and us wanting to impose mature elements and aspects onto it. We want more from it but realize there isn't much more there so we rationalize it being a kids game by rationalising that it is a kids game.
+dkdrock456 I think we all get that, from the perspective of Nintendo/GameFreak, Pokemon is just a kids game. And we're all just grasping for the depth and complexity we wish was there. But at the same time, the "Death of the Author" concept holds true here as well (so weird to be arguing pro-"Death of the Author"..) We fill in the blanks, make connections, and rationalize collectively to ourselves an alternate conception of the Pokemon world. One that fits all the criteria of canon as we arbitrarily agreed upon (which I understand is usually based on the games and skips a few of the anime?) My point is, this interpretation has almost as much value and significance as what the creator of Pokemon had. The closer it is to being completely believable and the less amount of dodgy rationalizations and logical loopholes employed, the more real it is, up to and including as 'real' as the Pokemon creator's conception of it. Regardless of exactly why we're doing it.
I like how you touched upon the fact that Red is a "unitor of worlds" because in one of the newer games (B2/W2) there is a tournament you can participate in where you can battle champions, old and new. I could see this as symbolizing a sort of "treaty" between all of the regions.
Something important to not forget is that a war of some sort still had to take place in this universe because we have canon dialogue from Lt. Serge confirming it. While the scale of the war, or maybe even where it took place, is up for debate we do know for a fact it was active enough to at least put lives in danger.
During X/Y it seems that they more or less adopted *some* elements by referencing a Pokémon war far more heavily and directly than it's ever been done ingame before, and with the whole story surrounding the super-weapon and so on, it makes sense to think that a war involving Pokémon, particularly the legendary Pokémon, could be a truly cataclysmic event. Besides, armies of Pokémon are inevitably more devastating than armies of humans, as many are outright resistant to common human weaponry - Hitting a Pokémon with a sword would really be nothing out of the ordinary, and many would be able to withstand bullets or even missiles and large explosions, or counter them. I personally love the theory of Pokémon being sort of semi post-apocalyptic if only because it lends some otherwise much needed lore and credibility to the world. It's an interesting thought, and as all of us original fans grow older we often start to question our games more. Much like how Red doesn't question the fact that there might have been a massive war a decade earlier, we as children didn't question the brutal an excessively violent nature of society in Pokémon - Many of us do *now* though, meaning that we also search for a reason. I like it because it adds some more depth to the game, and it helps explain some of the odd things going on. Like, why are all of these gangs operating with almost completely free reigns? Why is society so corrupt in places? Well, a war-ravaged world is ripe for gang-conflicts as separate groups with either political or near-religious beliefs try to gain control.
+Paradox Acres I doubt that, considering there are numerous hints that humans and pokémon fought against other humans and pokémon. Most obvious one is Lt Surge with his Raichu.
+Joseph Stassup which is also the other point he says, about how we as adults try to find a meaningful interpretation of something that we loved as childs
I generally like this theory, and I'd like to read more about it, but one thing I noticed he did not address and would like to know if someone has is the one group of adults that are running around: Team Rocket and their ilk in other regions. They could easily be seen as a group of veterans of this war, a group that could not assimilate into the new Pokémon League order, or perhaps are not happy with the peace that organization formed. They all talk about taking over and remaking the world into a new, better image, and the newest two generations talk about wars in the ancient past as important parts of their philosophy; maybe they want a system like in the past instead of what they have, or they take some lesson from how things were done then that aren't done now. It would explain a lot.
Despite all of the actual evidence against it I think this theory just infected my head cannon. It just fits so well. Also now I cant help but think that the Pokemon Tower is a giant memorial/grave site for the pokemon who died in battle.
The world inside the pokemon games has always been intentionally vague. Thats part of why it's so easy to create the super violent depiction of the pokemon world in the comics AND to create the super child-friendly version of the world in the anime and have them both seem plausible based off of our understanding of the game. Personally I think that kind of vague description probably points to the world of pokemon having a dark past since most of the time when I see stories with vague hints about a darker past, it usually means the dark past is true. However, that might just be because i'm used to watching steven universe and adventure time now :P
I think the reason that someone ppl want this to be the case (like myself) is that it adds a lot more depth to the game, it's no longer a kiddy action adventure, but becomes something more serious just like happened to us over the years.
This is one of my favorite theories concerning the games. I am also a big fan of Cubone being the child of Kangaskhan in a separate evolutionary line. I think the reason why we like these theories and is because they add depth to a story we already appreciate, and it invites replay-ability. Much in the same way the indoctrination theory changes the way a player perceives the Mass Effect series (especially 3). Adding to the story and giving reason to look out for more clues to add to or take away from the theories. I think that's why we can be curious if we can see the twist when we watch movies or read books after knowing the ending.
You're missing a pretty major part of the "evidence" for the Pokemon War theory, Lt. Surge. One of the gym leaders in those first games directly mentions Pokemon saving him in the war and has military garb and a military title. There are still no other canon mentions but it is still more than the complete lack you imply in the video. The war theory also makes other parts of the lore potentially more interesting as well. Large crime syndicates such as Team Rocket are some of the only groups with adults and have impressive power, besides just being alive because they were criminals and not soldiers it is possible they are also some kind of third part or rebellion group from the war. The experiments in creating Mewtwo become even more sinister if they were an attempt at building an "ultimate weapon" (especially given the Japanese origin of these games). Other seemingly man made or accidental Pokemon also can have interesting views under this theory, things like living piles of mysterious toxic chemicals (Muk/Grimer) and the components of factories gaining sentience (Magneton/Magnemite) could result from the uptick in weapons factories, or even chemical warfare. I think a lot of people gravitate to this theory because is can add depth to something from their past, the first couple games had very little as far as backstory which shifted a lot as the series continued, finding clues to a bigger story behind the original less dense game expands on a world that many people grew up loving and simultaneously makes it somewhat more "mature" and "dramatic" elements common to the gritty reboot era we are shoving a lot of our nostalgic good through currently.
there was obviously a war, but I don't think it was between regions. I think there was an organization that used legendary Pokemon to destroy and control the world at their whim (as new groups keep trying to do, generation after generation), so the many regions came together to fight their presence. There's a lot of lore in each game about legendary Pokemon that clashed in ancient times and almost destroyed the world. In ORAS, there is a race of people that are directly related to the dragon-talking people that witnessed and survived that time. In Pokemon XY, the game goes into detail about the war, saying that the only way to end it was to use the legendary's power to make an energy beam...and it destroyed a lot of life. This was 300 years ago (in XY's timeline), if I'm not mistaken...that giant dude, AZ was cursed with eternal life after the blast that ended the war. This puts Red's timeline in Kanto 300 years in the past before the events of XY, but directly after the war. So, yes...it's canon. There was a great war, but I don't think it was between regions.
I enjoy the idea of it as a child's view. There may be an interesting connection to the older video about sports and warfare. Fun video. I love fan theories. We could view Idea Channel as a series of fan theory videos. We apply asynchronous theories appearing often beyond the realm of the creators.
I don't think Pokemon is sent after a major war in Kanto. However, I think that the creators of Pokemon in developing their world might have created a reflection of what it looked like and felt like to grow up in Japan after a major and catastrophic war.
I could totally see why a war would make Pokemon more interesting. Mike's right, the Pokemon world is far too tidy and idealistic. From the perspective of the player, you're naive and don't know many things, you're a kid. Nothing seems to matter to you except battling Pokemon. Maybe that's why Pokemon are such a uniting thing in Kanto. Many remember the war and what it did to them, so by collecting and studying Pokemon, they're trying to leave more than war in the history books. By creating a world surrounding Pokemon, those who remember the war stop focusing on the past, and shift focus to the future and its children.
This reminds me of the feeling you get from reading "Waiting for Godot" its an absurd comedy where very little make sense but trough oust you get the spooky feeling that something really catastrophic has happened to create such damaged characters and there is a lot of dialogue to support the idea of a major catastrophe or a war and also the circumstance of the play's creation in the very late 40's and Beckett's background. Yet there is no confirmation and very little information over all ultimately it remains ambivalent which is for the better good, the power to evoke that kind ambivalence is to me a mark of truly good art, which is why I really like this theory.
Well, in the second most recent games, X & Y, confirms at one time there was a Pokemon war a long time ago. So it is confirmed that there was a war at some time where people and pokemon lost their lives. Whether this was one started by people and used pokemon as weapons or true to what the myth legends in the game say that it was just pokemon in that war is up for debate though.
Pikachu at the VA hospital with dark circles under his eyes and 5 o clock shadow, holding a cigarette like “it was hell out there…Voltorb explosions everywhere.”
If Pokemon was drawn from nostalgic feelings (e.g. collecting bugs), wouldn't it make sense that a post-war environment similar to post-WW2 Japan would also be part of that nostalgia?
Better theory: Pokemon Red takes place after several generations of colonizing a new planet. It would explain the comfort people have with what are basically alien entities, the basic infrastructure and construction, but fairly advanced technology. The world has grown around the symbiotic relationship between humans and Pokemon, advanced a certain type of law system(meritocracy through battle), and various factions that disagree with how this government is ran. Essentially why Team Rocket, and the like, are willing to concede defeat is this symbiotic relationship pokemon have with their trainer, and that even being terrorists they aren't willing to kill or bully too much to further their ideological goals. I don't doubt this theory is pretty flimsy, but it seems more plausible than a war.
"If the people of kanto were into going to war." Hold on a minute into going, into go, indigo. The indigo plateau... I think weve found something here 🤣🤣
I love that I see "Boards of Canada" on your wall! Great ambient music. Anyway, Kanto War Theory is one of my favorites. Been replaying Leaf Green recently. Even the dialogue in the games indicates a post war atmosphere. Team Rocket is such a formiddable opponent. They are literally mob. They murder the Marowak from Lavendar Town and threaten actual violence often, which is not something villains tend to do in later generations of these games. Gen 3 was my favorite, but even the villains in that one feel so soft compared to Team Rocket. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this theory! :)
I think this all indicates a general collapse of civilization rather than the effects of any particular war. To be sure, there was definitely some kind of war in the past, probably lots of wars happening simultaneously for a while, but the general situation seems more like the fall of the Roman Empire than the end of World War One or something. The 'cities' of Kanto are at most a couple dozen buildings clustered together, surrounded by seemingly impenetrable wilderness interrupted only by faint, overgrown footpaths that may be the last remnants of a long-neglected highway system. The Routes are all haunted by dozens of people who jump out at travelers and force them to fight, taking the loser's money if they win. These trainers abide by the unforgiving code of honor of a warrior culture, and so much as making eye contact with them is enough to provoke an immediate attack. Almost all of the towns are centered around gyms where powerful trainers hold court, as if the region had been carved up into the domains of feudal warlords with the military strength (i.e. Pokemon) to keep them, the only exceptions being a pilgrimage site venerating the dead (Lavender town) and a collection of three buildings where an elderly monk works in solitude collecting and recording knowledge (Pallet town). The political situation is still very unstable and rough, to the extent that the leader of a band of thieves and mercenaries has claimed one of the Lordships (Giovanni) and ambitious trainers strike out for adventure and glory at unthinkably young ages, but it seems like some aspects of the warrior culture are undergoing a process of formalization into the rituals of an established aristocracy; Pokemon battles end before participants are severely injured, there are arbitrary limitations on how many Pokemon a Trainer can use and how many moves they can legally use, more like a joust than an actual battle. The only institutions that exist throughout Kanto are a series of hospitals run by a mendicant order (Pokemon centers), a trading guild powerful enough to maintain a stranglehold on all regional trade while enforcing the same prices on goods regardless of where or to whom they are being sold (Pokemarts), and a nebulous, distant authority claiming military hegemony over all the minor Lords (the Pokemon League), whose mountaintop fortress is defended by a series of moats and narrow passages through a mountain (Victory Road). The dearest ambition of all the upstart warlords is to one day amass the strength to seize control of this institution and become King (Champion) of all Kanto. The first Pokemon games are a mythic tale of an unstoppable warrior-prince, subjugating lesser powers and receiving marks of their fealty (badges), until the day he duels his childhood-friend turned rival and wins a bittersweet final victory, hailed by all as the most powerful fighter in the region. The only really weird thing about this is the standard of living the people of Kanto have maintained after the collapse of centralized political authority, but then again things were never that bad even in the Dark Ages (there were less people recording it, but trade and travel still continued even after the fall of the Empire), and electric Pokemon are common enough to keep the creature comforts of a developed economy running after the collapse of the infrastructure (the abandoned power plant). Or perhaps the small surviving population of what was once Tokyo (which is in the real life Kanto region of Japan) has stockpiled the wonders of their ancestors, so everyone has a TV and refrigeration even though warlords vie for control over the small collections of surviving buildings, like a toned-down Mad Max. With Pokemon.
I like this theory, I feel it has depth and evidence to back up the claims. However I really like this theory cause if it does turn out to be true, it could lead to a more mature Pokemon game. Like the antagonist team could be attempting to start another war between regions, etc.
I love dissecting my favorite childhood video games at the risk of ruining them for my present self!! (But actually) The Kanto War is something so fascinating because apart from all the evidence and circumstances you explained in this video, Pokemon X and Y presents another hard-hitting piece of evidence. There was a war a long time ago that was incredibly devastating. AZ and his Floette are the main characters in this tale, but the lore is all there. Could that have been the Kanto/Pokemon War that you talk about here? Could the Kanto Region and every game after that be a progressive timeline branching off from that exact war, which obliterated virtually all but a few rare Pokemon, which Professor Oak managed to save to give to dedicated trainers to document all the kinds of Pokemon that exist in the world again? I feel a collab with GameTheory (Matthew Patrick - GameTheorists on UA-cam) coming on! :)
The biggest counterargument to your counterarguments is that "fan theories" aren't meant to be taken literally. Nobody's saying that the designers of the game *meant* for it to have taken place after a war... it's just that the idea of a preceding war is interesting, and not outright disproven by the in-game lore. It's just a fun way of looking at things.
If this ends up being completely canon I hope they'll dive more into it. It gives the story more depth. If not...I'll keep it in my head anyway. It's a good story, weither its *true* or not
I had a German Lecturer at university who taught post-ww2 German Political history, and he often told stories and anecdotes about his childhood and adolescence in Post war Germany. You'd be surprised to know just how little his parents generation talked about the war and especially their roles within it. His view was that one contributing angle (among many others) of the 60's student protests in West Germany was the collective realization and understanding among his generation of Germany's role, and by extension his parents generation's role in the second world war. Unlike the victorious Allies, a losing side of a catastrophic conflict is less likely to include it in their day to day culture and his view was that it was simply too horrific to discuss due to the culpability issues
From what I understand Lt Surge was the starting point of this fan theory. He mentions a war using Pokemon but hes not depicted as very old, which raised questions about time period and your role as a trainer. I think what made it so compelling was just how real the idea of Pokemon warfare was and what that meant for you, right now, as the player in this world.
gym leader says "...saved me during the war..." end of story, there was a war and Surge was of an age to serve in it. that pretty much seals the deal.
Actually the idea that the Pokemon world is entirely shaped around the kid's perspective also explains why everyone in that world is obsessed with Pokemon, and why other topics are brought up so little; a child obsessed with Pokemon may see a world also obsessed with Pokemon.
+Simalacrum That's a great point. I always wonder a professional football player/coach perceives the importance of football in his life and in society compared to how the general public does. Surely a child would have a hard time seeing through it's own bias.
+Emerson Fant It's not just your bias. I never got into pokemon, but I still noticed that it's all kids would talk about when I was younger. I guess it depends on who you hang out with, but that's not bias.
+Urinstein Speaking as a musician, I know that's true for us. ("What do you mean you've never heard of Godspeed You Black Emperor? They're best post-rock band ever! .....What do you mean, 'what's post-rock'?") It also speaks to the general conflict between the creatively-minded and scientifically-minded in college/university where everyone perceives their own field as more important and deserving of more time, funding, respect, etc.
+Simalacrum Well the pokemon world relays on pokemon for almost every single thing that isn't handled by their advanced technology, Electric types supporting power grids, Pokemon members of the police force, medical centers, mail delivery, construction crews, competitive battles acting as a huge part of the economy, the list just keeps going on...
So it makes sense that when encountering a wandering trainer that the average person would start talking about the subject not only of common interest, but one that everyone has at least some experience with.
+Simalacrum To be fair though, I think in pokémon it's different, since especially in the first generation pokémon ARE also technology and a spread danger. Sure they are like animals in our world and so pretty common, but they
1) always attack anyone in sight, probably being the main source of incidents and... deaths maybe? It's not too different from some sort of post-apocalyptic zombie narrative: if you get out of towns you *will* get attacked by the monsters outside.
2) provide transportation, build most if not all constructions, work as main weaponry (especially in first generation there doesn't seem to be any other type of non-melee weaponry, the whole "why doesn't team rocket just shoot the kid" doesn't stand because in pokémon the equivalent to guns, is all pokémon), heck electric pokémon even provide electricity in the power plant, I'm guessing fire pokémon are probably used to provide fire for cooking and heating, etc. In short, it's like dinosaurs in The Flinstones. Or a biopunk of sorts.
Pretty much the only technology that is not managed mainly using pokémon is communication. Yet I feel like pokémon are kind of equivalent to computers/phones in our world, they are used to do most of the things and people talk about it a lot. In our world you'll end up having *a lot* of conversations about mobile phones, internet, computers, digital media of any kind, etc. It's not like everyone is obsessed with it randomly, it's just that they are literally everywhere and used for all everyday activities, even if you are talking about something else, computers/internet/phones will creep in.
If there was a Kanto War, what does that make Team Rocket? A criminal organization that took advantage of a war torn civilization to gain power? I'd like to think so.
Or... Team Rocket is a resistance cell of people outraged of the results of the pokemon war and are trying to take over the kanto region.
It may not have been a regional war, but a civil war of which Team Rocket is the remnants of the revolutionaries now turned to crime.
+MostLikelyMortal Mirroring the Italian Mob during wartime
+Angelus89 I was just about to say this! Also has frightening implications. Since Mussolini all but wiped out the mafia during WWII, but the Americans encouraged their renewal following Italy's postwar meltdown. Was Team Rocket propped up by some vague but menacing government agency following the Kanto War? (Who can say...)
+MostLikelyMortal I feel that the "Teams" of each region are the ones who lost in the power struggle against the Pokemon League that runs the world and were unable to beat them on fair terms, so they turn to dirty tactics in an attempt to seize power, often attempting to harness the powers of Legendary Pokemon to do it.
I like to think that the awkwardness of the youngster who talks about shorts kind of implies that everyone in the world of Pokemon forcefully tries to keep the subject off of the war and on literally anything else instead. Most people are really good at going along with this, but then you get really nervous individuals who panic and yell out crazy things like "I like shorts! They're comfy and easy to wear!" like some lunatic.
that could equally explain the look of the Hex maniac in the sixth generation. She is craze there's no denying that. But maybe that's from keeping a secret, and it driving here nuts!
+NerdSync And here I was thinking you only knew about cool comic facts. You always come up with the coolest theories.
WiiMachinE13 I am inspired by the great Mike Rugnetta!
Nice to see you here.
Don't Mention the War: ua-cam.com/video/yfl6Lu3xQW0/v-deo.html
One other factor that might add credence to this theory is Mewtwo.
Think about it. He was created specifically to be the most powerful Pokemon in the world. He was born on Cinnabar Island before the events of the first game. Perhaps to be used as a weapon in this Pokemon war? It's established by Lieutenant Surge that the Pokemon themselves fought alongside humans in the war. Not surprising, taking into consideration their superpower-like abilities.
I like the theory that Mewtwo was made as a weapon of war
Gavin Wadsworth So... Nuke?
+Gavin Wadsworth He's a pretty bad superpower then considering he can get beat by common pokemon
+Gavin Wadsworth so Mewtwo is the Manhattan Project of Pokemon?
+Gavin Wadsworth What if Mewtwo wasn't the weapon in the war but the other side of the conflict. It was a pokemon war not in the sense that they were using pokemon to fight another group of humans but fighting a powerful psychic pokemon that gained control of an army of powerful pokemon it used to fight the humans that created it. After the loss of many lives Mewtwo realized it was stretched its power too thin and was losing control of its army. In a last ditch effort it wiped the memory of the war from most of the population destroyed any place that had information on the war that was fought destroying much of the data on pokemon (thus creating the need to catalog pokemon of the area again). Some people may have been too strong willed to have their memory wiped or my theory about Lt. Surge he was hospitalized and in a coma rendering him unreadable so he was not wiped. The others who weren't mind wiped don't talk about it fearing angering Mewtwo again. This also explains why children are encouraged to train pokemon to fight other pokemon in an effort to stop Mewtwo if it attacks again. This would explain why the only example of a new gym taking over a position in the league is the new psychic gym. This also could explain why only the champion could enter the cave containing Mewtwo and the need of creating a pokeball designed to capture any pokemon no matter how powerful.
I think it's important here to think about Japan's relationship with war and the after effects of war in it's depiction of war (and the after effects of war). From what I, a Brit, have gathered from my limited exposure to Japanese media, Japan has a unique view compared to other nations and the heart of this comes from Hiroshima and Nagasaki as no other population has experienced atomic warfare, which is capable of literally wiping out entire populations, no survivors.
This is something that has possibly happened in Kanto in the Pokemon world. An anime I recently finished watching, Terror In Resonance (which is amazing, I recommend it, 10/10) which is about Japan's relationship with terrorism and warfare, had in a character called Kanjiro Shibazaki who is middle aged. In it he recalls his youth in Hiroshima, where he lived with his grandparents because his parents, who had moved away before his birth, had been killed by the side-effects of radiation in the 60s (cancers etc.). He remembers a town populated almost exclusively by the elderly (who I presume escaped initial exposure to the blast/radiation and later were the only ones with enough strong memories of the place to desire to return), which seems not unlike the depiction of Kanto in Pokemon Gen I.
Perhaps these people are the first to attempt to repopulate an area an unknown amount of time following nuclear destruction? Or something metaphorically close to that. This would explain the obsession with legendary Pokemon or artificial Pokemon with hugely advanced power. The classic Japanese metaphor for nuclear fallout has always been Godzilla. I don't see a huge amount of difference between Godzilla and, say, Lugia or Groudon. Both have a world-altering amount of destructive power that the crime syndicates/terror organisations of the world like Team Rocket and Team Magma wish to utilize for their own ends.
I often find with Japanese media that addresses any level of national or international catastrophe, terrorism, war or other sequence of event that endangers the whole population, there is a narrative and thematic silence to the world. I see it in things like Neon Genesis Evangelion, the aforementioned Terror In Resonance, Akira etc. There is an emptiness that comes over the world in landscape, often in the melancholy of the protagonists and in the mindset or affectation of the youth. I suppose Pokemon just puts a slightly different spin on those themes if you impress upon it the narrative of the post-war. Instead of teenagers trying to reconcile themselves with a terrible world they did nothing to create, you end up with pre-teens living in a state of ignorant bliss that comes before that.
That was mildly depressing, but I hope made some sense.
I do think there was insufficient discussion of the game's Japanese roots and the cultural and historic impact, especially of the war, this must have had on the design.
+Amy Kinsman But Hiroshima and Nagasaki did have survivors?
Yes. Whether or not there was a "Pokemon war," I think Pokemon intentionally uses war as a motif into its games because of the role war has played in Japanese culture. There's a fan theory here in Japan regarding Ruby/Sapphire... Hoenn is modeled after the Kyushu region of Japan. The places where the gen's legendaries Regice, Registeel, and Regirock can be found line up with where Nagasaki, Miyazaki, and Oita would be. These three Kyushu prefectures were most affected by the atomic bomb dropped by the US. And if you use a Heart Scale on any of the Regi's w/o having trained them, they can "re-learn" the move Explosion, which the theory suggests as meaning that they remember an explosion of long ago. So yeah... War motifs.
+loveshiichan sorry I meant to say "some of the most effected" and not "most effected." Obviously there was Hiroshima.
CanadianWolverine I meant in the initial blast zone. Obviously there were survivors further out in the radiation area, and people that lived there but were away at the time.
But that's just a theory... A GA-
Wait, this isn't Game Theory?
If MatPat hasn't done this already, I feel like he really should have. Haha
+NerdSync A lot of folks have, it's sort of cliche among the Pokemon fan theory circle. MatPat usually tries to make up his own (although they are not often as well-supported as this one).
+MeiaLua I feel like he could probably do his own spin on this. I'm sure it'd be pretty interesting.
+Poole no its a fan theory cuz pokemon isnt just a game but absolutley everything else as well
+Emil Rokstad Though, all the evidence comes from the game and Mike even said he was limiting himself to the games >_> Here's an idea....
Hmm... alternatively, it's also possible that many people who are aware a war happened don't want to talk about such a sensitive subject with a perceived child. That, and there's not many kids I know of that fully grasp what a war even is at that age.
That's a good point.
+Ryan Jones The US has been at war for 15 years. I've never even considered it to be an overly sensitive topic for children, as it's simply reality. I mean sure, I'm not telling children the tale of how innocent men, women, doctors, and children, burned alive in a recent bombing by the US on an Afghanistan hospital, but I wouldn't shy away from telling children of any age that the bombing did happen, and people did die, including children like them. Reality has a way of desensitising people.
If the war were past tense, maybe that would make a difference. I actually couldn't say... I've never experienced that.
+David Evans
Source?
The last three times someone said something like this, it was an IED that killed the people.
Seth9809
It was definitely an intentional assault if the US apologizing is any indication.
theintercept.com/2015/10/06/why-bombing-kunduz-hospital-was-probably-a-war-crime/
David Evans
And you can be certain it wasn't an accident?
What if it was less of a war and more of a warring period, in which the cities were fighting against each other and the Pokemon League is merely an organization that unites all the cities in the region and appoints a Gym Leader to each city to help maintain the peace?
+Robert Trone That would make it a lot more of a metaphor for the transition out of the warring states period, and a lot less about, well, America. Which I kinda like, its not too hard for westerners to read WWII into everything Japanese ever, but its probably not very accurate.
+GelidGanef To be fair, Japan did write WWII into everything for a while there.
Well, actually, in the pokemon movie with lucario, they talk about a pokemon war. In a flashback you can see the armies rushing each other. In that movie they discuss conflicts and various other things. Not sure if you count that as canon, or even relevant to the conversation, but thought it would be nice to bring it up.
+Hana_No_Shima It's not relevant since that war happened a long time ago whereas the Kanto War has it happen within 10 years ago (since Red is only 10 years old)
+PIKMINROCK1 on top of that, the Anime is not considered a canon source until the game does it as well.
There have been pokemon in the anime but not in the game and vice versa until years later it is seen there.
+Hana_No_Shima I don't think they count the movies as canon, since you see in the second movie where Ash and Co. meet Lugia, but later in the Gold and Silver-era anime, they meet two Lugia and are totally surprised as if they've never seen one before.
And on top of that Arc, let's not forget the weird size proportions as well as "baby tiny pokemon" which are the evolved form.
+Hana_No_Shima
Yes, and I have a theory where this war split the pokemon time line between one side winning leaving to extinction to certain species leading to the certain versions (red, gold, ruby), the other team wins where different species become extinct and the other version (blue/green, silver, sapphire) and the one sir Aaron stopped leading up to the events in the anime.
While I don't necessarily think there was a war just before Gen 1 (we know there have been wars, including one in Unova that caused Cobalion, Terrakion, and Virizion to get rather pissed off, and two in Kalos taking place 3000 and 300 years ago), there is something that could feed into this theory that I want to address.
The Generation 3 games (Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald) are confirmed to take place at the same time as Generation 1. In them, the player character (Brendan or May) has just moved to Hoenn from Johto. Both their parents are alive (something we never have confirmation of in any other main series game), with their father being Norman; a Gym Leader. It is possible, were this theory true, that Norman's family where essentially refugees seeking to escape war-torn Johto, with Norman only surviving because, as per the theory, Gym Leaders were exempt from combat. Perhaps, in their haste to flee, they had to throw their fragile, little 10-year old child in the back of a moving truck, because that would still be safer then staying in a land ravaged by battle ;P
The Pokemon world is so nice and fun, once you get past the cults and gangs.
+Idunnoyouguessit Don't forget the genocide beams in x and y :D
Or the extortion in Colosseum. Or the very heavily implied abuse in Colosseum. Or the slums in Colosseum. Or Orre.
+Idunnoyouguessit Or the fact that most of the pokemon can kill you if they miss-fire.
Or in Colosseum when said abused pokemon attack you.
+Murphio Or the fact that Team Rocket killed Cubone's mother
We want that to be the case because we are playing Pokemon games not as kids as we used to. The Pokemon Universe is just so incoherently tidy and childish that we as adults players need to fill the plotholes with wars, sad truths and creepypastas in order to perceive it as "real". Come on, it's been like twenty years and it's still unclear what the hell do they even eat in that world. The simple truth is that the games were supposed to be for six years old kids, who shouldn't care about the nonsense of what they're playing, as it's fair for them to do. (I like the games anyway)
I agree. I like the as the backstory because it makes Kanto seem more complex in addition to Team Rocket. You don't get that duality between peaceful imagery and a harsh origin. Pokemon more so today pushes into a lot more general shounen friendship power tropes and fantasy that doesn't really appeal to me.
You're taking away my fun
Most of the gym leaders/elite 4 are american. They are helping rebuild a war torn Kanto. The war was between America and Japan.
Lt. Surge could be referring to a war outside of Kanto. He is considered the Lightening American, and could have moved to Kanto after fighting in a war America was in.
4:30 Adding to this: Maybe you should also look at how the Japanese view children. For example, it's very discouraged by other adults to take the claims of a child seriously. By that respect, there's no expectation for children to be wise to the economic-political atmosphere surrounding them and thus no reason to discuss politics with them. This might be why the war isn't mentioned nearly anywhere in the story, save Lt. Surge. This is because you're a child and adults in Japan won't mention or discuss the prior war with you.
Quotes from *Lieutenant* Surge, in-game alias "The Lightning American", Leader of Vermillion Gym
I'll zap you just like I did *my enemies in war*! - Gold, Silver, and Crystal Versions.
I tell you what kid, electric Pokèmon *saved me during the war*! - Red and Blue, FireRed and LeafGreen Versions
His quotes don't _explicitly_ reference war (only imply it) in Yellow or HeartGold and Soul Silver, but that still leaves the war that Surge fought in as definitively canon through Generations 1, 2 and 3. The first 9 years of Pokemon's existence. For reference, it's only been around for 20 years. And if this war was big enough to involve American soldiers like Surge (who ranks as a *commissioned officer*, not just any old grunt) and putting electricity wielding beasts in an active warzone, then YES, I think we can safely infer it was massive.
+countcapricorn I swear LT. Surge was supposed to be a Vietnam vet joke for a Japanese audience.
+countcapricorn
here's my thoughts:
I think this war is the SAME war that Sir Aaron stopped in the anime which in turn split the pokemon time line between one side winning leaving to extinction to certain species leading to the certain versions (red, gold, ruby), the other team wins where different species become extinct and the other version (blue/green, silver, sapphire) and the one sir Aaron stopped leading up to the events in the anime.
+countcapricorn That depends, do you consider the Gulf War to be "massive"? Because if we take Lt. Surge's quotes as being a reference to a real-world war, the Gulf War looks to me to be the best fit timewise (ended in 91, first Pokemon games released in Japan in 96).
A3Kitsune I always assumed _if_ it was any war analogous to any real-world war (and I don't actually think it is), it's probably WWII due to that being the only one involving Japan AND America.
The Kanto region is heavily based on the real one in Japan, and Lt. Surge was probably a holdover from a military occupation who decided he liked Kanto enough to stay.
+countcapricorn Interesting that he addresses Red, like a vet might address a Youth from his own nation, but he addresses Gold like he would someone from an enemy nation. Heh!
Why is it desirable? Because when we grow up, and a deeper, more meaningful interpretation of something that we loved as childs serves to compell as a adults. There are lots of pokemon theories, and some of them are so solid that most of the players accept them as fact. And some of them are canon. Cubone wears the skull of his deceased mother, which many consider to be Kanghaskan [although there's a marowak ghost in the tower]. Ditto are failed Mew clones in the previous attemps of Mewtwo's creation, basically the morphless discarded childs of a mad scientist who wanted to play god. When you find Blue in lavander town and he tells you that he went there to visit a friend many especulate that it is his raticate he went to visit, and that you, the player, killed it in your previous encounter (he does not use it again). Are all of those true? Is pokemon less tidy and clean that what we believe? Or is it just the imagination of kids who loved the games and continued to love them when they grew up, conecting dots that were never meant to be conected to form a more mature picture of that world? Or were those dots meant to be part of that picture, concealed from the children but put in plain sight for adults by the developpers of the game?
+David Del Pozo Filíu It's not about "deepness", people as a whole seem to have this weird obsession with corruption of innocence.
+UnknownFlyingPancake I think I'd like to call it "disillusion" rather than "corruption of innocence". Just like things that seem innocent when growing up, such as gender roles, social class, and the very black and white concept children generally have about war, will show themselves to stem from deep-rooted issues that are historically complicated and full of gray areas. Growing up, we learn this, and in things that seemed innocent when we were children (and were obviously intended to be innocent by their creators) we tend to pick up loose logic ends and see what conclusions might be drawn if we investigate them. I'd say it's all part of growing up and coming to terms with reality.
Doesn't mean you can't enjoy some good childish entertainment every once in a while. It just means that you might get a deeper experience out of it.
+David Del Pozo Filíu Exactly what I thought. Thanks for your intervention, it prevents me from trying to write something this long in English ^^"
GeekInBelgium Thank you!
The fact that Sgt Surge talks about the War means 2 things.... either there WAS a War. or he is just totally balls to the walls bonkers nuts crazy.
Your hometown has no road , just a path across wild forrest with dangerous monster
I know this specific theory is only about the Kanto region, but it feels like a huge oversight to not mention that the Kalos region from X and Y has a deep history built on war.
You can see how this great war (from thousands of years ago!) still resonates and affects the society. You can go through a route full of ancient stones at one point to later realize they're graves. They talk about the politics of Kings and rightful heirs, the use of weapons of mass destruction to end the war, and all sorts of incredibly deep (especially for pokemon) topics. It's fantastic!!
The kanto war, I think might tie with the Kalos war. Yes, they're two different wars, but could they be between the same people, or the same countries? I think this might be the case, though there isn't any evidence, but they're the only two places that reference a war at all.
If it's not true, then perhaps then it's because we want to think the Pokemon world different from our own. Something that mirrors our only in landscapes and geography. So having a war where we didn't have one would distance it from our own, because otherwise,... pokemon is a little too real.
+Murphio I'm pretty sure they talk about a war in 5th gen between the two kings of Unova. Either way both the Unovan war and Kalosian war took place way before the Kanto war was speculated to.
King of Karp And?
+Murphio It can't be the Kalos War/Kanto War as in the Delta Episode of ORAS explains why that can't be. I'm tentative to put the actual reason here for the sake of spoilers, but I'm sure someone else will or has in another thread.
+Murphio It probably has nothing to do with the Kalos war, considering the Kalos war took place roughly three thousand years before the main series games. But I guess Israel and Palestine are still going at it IRL, so... you never know. Old grudges last a while.
9Bains I've played ORAS including the Delta Episode, and I don't remember them telling me something about the war other than things I already knew.
I’m sure no one will see this but the new hisui evolutions and forms being extinct just adds even more to this theory I think
I dont think much of the theory itself having much validity but rather more for the reason why people conceived of it.
AS an adult who played Pokemon extensively in the past I find myself looking back on it with fondness. But now with the new generations of Pokemon I find myself looking longingly at them but refusing to play them, not withstanding the increasingly odd designs of the new Pokemon. I think to myself that I would be more inclined to play again if the games were deeper in plot and world than my previous experiences. If you will more adult versions of Pokemon that I can find engaging as an adult with much more knowledge and experience than I had as a kid. Even in my teens when I still played Pokemon I dreamt up darker more complex versions of Pokemon involving post-apocalyptic scenarios or even simply being able to say "yes" to the Team Rocket recruiter at the end of the bridge in Cerulean city. Even starting out as a delinquent orphan that steals their first Pokemon and is literally on the run from that law for a good chunk of the game until being caught and asked to turn on your accomplices who stole Pokemon with you.
I could go on and on but the point is that these theories spring form more mature adult minds that can percive supposed things like this and which that they were real so as to keep validity in their love for Pokemon by making it more adult.
+Orion Kaelin In that case, Gen VI, especially OR/AS, is exactly what you're looking for. I'm not going to spoil the new stuff, but when you start the game, it feels just as simple and innocent as before, with the familiar rising tension of Team Aqua/Magma's activity, but even after that, the atmosphere of the game changes, at least to anyone who reads pretty deep into these things. The conflict is solved, but the underlying tension is still there, and never really goes away - the Delta Episode is more about dealing with that tension (and more obvious conflicts, of course) than solving it. Gamefreak has heard complaints like yours and they're trying to welcome old fans back into the fold while still making a kids' game - and it seems to be working.
Is it really that different? I thought it was all about remastering and what not like with FR/LG.
Interesting. One problem; I dont own a DS anymore and its not really a priority.
But thanks for the info!
They're technically not main games, but if you still have a GameCube or Wii, there's a game that came out during Gen 3 called Pokémon Colosseum, which maintains the same battle system of regular games, but also forcing you to adapt to the double battle system, and also has an extremely gritty, more adult atmosphere, especially for a Pokémon game. I personally think the sequel, Gale of Darkness, is way more streamlined, but if it's a more adult vibe you're going for, Colosseum would probably be a better pick. Still look into the sequel, though; it's not nearly as mature, but it still has a pretty decent plot.
+Orion Kaelin If you're looking for a darker pokemon game, I heavily recommend Pokemon Reborn. It's not an official game and is still in the making but the setting, music, and storyline are all phenomenal. The post-apocalyptic feel is inescapable and gives a whole new level of difficulty to the games by limiting which pokemon you can find in the wild.
J.P. Gahwyler I have seen Colosseum played by friends and it certainly interested me then. Dont have a gamecube though :P
After Kanto took such heavy losses in regards to population, it might have become illegal to mention the war, especially to kids with missing parents.
They had to quickly bury the posters and the statues of war heroes. Also no TV would talk about it.
My opinion of the War Theory aside (I really dislike most "gritty" interpretations of kids' media,) I think part of the theory's desirability is that it satisfies the wish that a lot of folks who grew up with the game have that the series would grow up with them. While other media, Harry Potter is a prime example, DID become more mature as its original target audience did, Pokemon did not. Pokemon remains primarily a kids' game as it always has been. Adults like myself still enjoy it, but it's not directly FOR us. The War Theory adds a maturity to the game that makes the experienced seem more complicated to match the world around us becoming more complicated as we age.
On reasons of entire population going to war - you forgot the third option, which is the people stand up to protect their motherland like in Britain and Soviet Union during the WWII - thus giving you pretty much the entire population mobilized either as soldiers or as workers, suppliers, etc.
I think the fact that there was a recent war is indisputable (depending on how you define recent) as Lt. Surge mentions he survived a war, but who was involved? Whats interesting is that if you use the fame checker on Surge in Fire Red it labels him as the "Lightning American". This would suggest that the Unova region which is believed to represent America was at war. Possibly it was a war between Unova and Johto with Kanto playing the roll of Switzerland? Surge survives the war by escaping to Kanto. Many from Johto also fled to Kanto which would explain the crossover in pokemon species.
In Pokemon X & Y the backstory details a catastrophic war taking place, but the war in that story took place 3,000 years prior to the game I believe.
holy crap. I drew that GWAR shirt. as a huge fan of the show its super cool to see it on there.
Your point about: 'if there was a war, then wouldn't people talk about it?'; reminded myself of my recent viewing of Ken Burns' The Civil War. In the last episode it talks about how immediately after the end of the American civil war, no one wanted to talk or read about the war anymore (some former soldiers struggled to believe it was real). One effect of this was that many glass plate negatives of war photographs became so worthless that they were used in building greenhouses after the war.
I like to think that the Red we meet in Pokemon Gold is a older version. One that has seen some of the travesty of war and did not care for it. He has seen the hurt and experienced the pain of seeing your pokemons faint (and die if we look at the manga) . It might be a reason he is by him self in a cave in the mountains. He grew up and trained his pokemon to be some of the strongest ones. If there was ever a war to break out again him and his pokemon would be one of the prime targets for a draft and being sent out again. Not wanting this he stays away from most people to live a safe life with his best friends.
This theory seems to in line with Japanese creative people's experiences with living in the aftermath of WWII, and can be seen in anime where there aren't a lot of notable anime dads or couples.
Mike must go so deep into weird rabbit holes each week researching/writing these. Probably had Poke-War nightmares last week... poor guy...
I really liked that you took both sides of the argument. This should be something that is done in more of your videos.
Had to rewatch this a few times. Kept getting lost in GWAR nostalgia.
There was definitely at least one recent war. Lt. Surge and his pokemon unambiguously served in a war that ended sometime in the last 20 years. Also, consider X and Y where a canonical war takes place (albeit much much earlier and in an alternate dimension). I don't think that any modern wars shape the pokemon world as much as the Pokemon war theory, but military effort and fighting clearly makes up a lot of the cultural zeitgeist. I don't think it's wrong to assume that this has a lot to do with the weird emphasis this culture has on children leaving home to go fight and make a heroic name for themselves.
To answer that second part; I feel like fans have this tendency to fill any... 'emotional gaps' in their media of choice. What I mean by this is that the general emotional tone of pokemon is overall positive, happy and heroic. The 'emotional gap' would be what the war theory fulfills. War suggests tragedy and loss, which there is little of in canon.
On the flip side you see media which the emotional tone is usually sad and tragic, and you'll find that the most common tag for fan fiction will be 'no one is dead and everyone is happy AU'.
The sadder the canon, the happier the fanon and vice versa.
It adds more warrant for the happier and heroic themes of Pkemon if its in result of something horrible or a conspiracy around it, because removes the base story of just being a cliche friendship power story where bonds and friendship are only enforced just for the sake of it because genre, rather than explanation. Huge loss would justify pushed themes for friendship, especially between humans and monsters.
Has anyone thought out how this theory works out in relation to the parallel dimensions of Pokemon, which have been acknowledged in canon several times now?
All the versions of the war theory I've heard have assumed that all of Pokemon takes place in one world.
When I was a kid, I spend most of my time with friends, games and sports, even though they were news about of going wars, I was oblivious, even we talked about it in school as part as a history class, I always saw it like a story that happened long ago and it never happened again, but war was present on those times.
So, yes I see this happening if Pokemon is seen through the eyes of some kid.
Another thing that can be explained by this theory are the criminal teams like team rocket. If many of the returning veterans of the war didn't get a lot of retraining support then they would have had to fallen back on the skills and resources they did have, knowing how to fight, having Pokemon to do so with and knowing other people with similar skills. Also these people would be used to being inside an organization and might desire a certain amount of organization to their actions so either being recruited or forming their own organization for their new profession becomes likely for them.
Wait, isn't Kalos supposed to play a huge part of the war? After all, they do mention a war in X and Y in a pretty explicit albeit clean way. That's the entire reason AZ is in the game, isn't it?
+As De Espadas But that was 3000 years ago. Red wouldn't be the first of the generations born in peace time. Unless R/B happened almost 3000 years ago in relation to XY.
+Hatchy XY is a different timeline, so the concept of time, can't really be compared between the two games.
Scoldpedia But Oras only confirms that the only difference is the if "kalos weapon" was used 3000 years ago and mega evolution.
+As De Espadas 1. AZ's war happened a millennium earlier.
2. XY/ORAS are set in an alternate universe as confirmed by Episode Delta.
Throughout the video game series, but also hinted in the TV show, there have been wars amongst Pokemon. However, they occurred long before the start of Red and Blue.
You said it's unheard of to not talk about a recent war, but I would say that it seems to be that way in Asia.
here's my thoughts:
I think this war is the SAME war that Sir Aaron stopped in the anime which in turn split the pokemon time line between one side winning leaving to extinction to certain species leading to the certain versions (red, gold, ruby), the other team wins where different species become extinct and the other version (blue/green, silver, sapphire) and the one sir Aaron stopped leading up to the events in the anime.
I wonder where you got this idea from?
The gym leader confirms that there was some kind of war in the games cannon. Weather Kanto was involved or not is speculation but, It would tie everything you said in a bow.
I personally like the theory because, imagining of loads of Pokemon in massive battles seems really cool.
The thing that always got me about this theory when I first heard it. That the reason why health care is universal and free across the whole game is because there was a war. Initially I was annoyed by this because I thought "jeez America, why do you have to be ragging on free healthcare, it doesn't take a ruinous war to push forward progressive social reform...". Oh no wait, that other thing. Then the more I thought about it, the more credence it gave the theory. Why would it be taken for granted that everywhere you go in Kanto, there will always be a Nurse Joy there to patch your pokemon up (and in the shows - give you a place to sleep), just because you travel with pokemon and have a pokedex.
In the show, we see the gang literally starving because of how broke they are - but they will always have a pokemon centre to go to. Just as after WWII, Britain was crying out for some sort of unified health system, Kanto had to do something to keep pokemon and travellers safe.
...I'm not 100% where I am going with this thought. But it was interesting to me when I first heard this theory.
As far as war in the Pokemon world goes, it is a thing. The war that took place in Kalos long ago is proof of that. It was people and their Pokemon versus other people with their own Pokemon.
But in regards to the war Lt. Surge mentions, things are much more obscure. In fact, Lt. Surge's dialogue is the ONLY explicit mention of any other war.
So did a war happen recently in the Pokemon world? Yes. Do we know anything about it? The fact of the matter is, we don't and everything beyond Surge's dialogue is speculation.
No, there was no war. Lt. Surge is a military archetype and that's the extent of his character. The same applies to any Trainer who speaks about being part of a war (usually elderly and retired) where that too is just a trait that defines their character. There are mostly kids because that's fun and reparable for a kid playing the game. The few old people who are there hold senior positions, again playing to an archetype, and the adolescent characters where again examples of what a successful future might hold. Pokemon, in its origin and arguably to this day, is a very simply lighthearted and child friendly game.
Now from here I am referring to Pokemon as Pokemon Red and Blue/Green, not Gold/Silver and on, not the anime or manga, not even Yellow. Pokemon's plot was thin, its world (building) was thin, and its mechanics were thin. Each character had one to three lines of dialog, six to eight if they were a Gym Leader, and they had to use that to make each character seem remotely unique from the other copies of same looking characters, and then the Gym Leaders even more so than the trainers. There is no more depth to it than that. Your a kid, in a world where friendly super powered animals roam, you can catch em, collect and battle em, then stop a crime syndicate will becoming the best at Pokémon. Makes sense? No? Oh well, it was fun and for that time that's great! There was a lack of infrastructure because that was the limit of the game. There was a lack of story and action/choice mechanics because that was the limit of the game. And while these have developed and improved with each iteration of the game it can still be underdeveloped.
And this leads me into why people created the Pokemon War theory. The Pokémon generation has grown up. We were starry eyed children, holding a portable console for the first time, for some of us it was the first video game console we've ever held period, and we got to travel around multicolored worlds with cool monsters that we can catch and fight. That was amazing! But as we grew up our sense of world depth and standards for fiction changed, developed, and grew. Pokemon as is, doesn't satisfy us anymore and so we starting looking for depth where there isn't any. We want grit. We want contrasting and dark story elements. We want complexity in plot and interesting world aspects. And so we imagine there was a war and try to add our own mature tones to simple friendly happy Pokémon. The series tried to do that with each iteration starting with Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald and especially recently with Black/White, but it still feels over simplified and unsatisfying. (Like often is the case with children's cartoons/games)
I myself want a Pokémon game that is more realistic and reflecting of what a world where small villages of people existed and separated in a world filled with super powered animals and beasts, with social and political elements expressed in things like human military, survival against Pokémon, scientific experimentations, corporate conspiracies, etc. That's not Pokémon is though, and if Nintendo and Game Freak were to make such a game in would be a whole rewrite or a new series in of itself.
Just to sum up what turned into a long winded comment:
There was no war. All the things that are used to argue the theory are just the expression of people's frustrations with and desires for more out of a game they grew up with and love.
forgot to sign off the comment. - Dennis Danelia
+James O'Keeffe Thank you. There are more elements to it if you want to dive deeper. For example, the counter counter argument in defense of the theory; signs of the war aren't blatantly present because Red is a child and the games is from a child's perspective. Its a good retort and logically sound but I still think its not the actual reality but rather the rationalization of the theory against contrasting evidence. In fact I'd go further and say that this is a perfect example of what I was talking about in my OP; it shows the skism and dual reality that comes from Pokemon being a children's game and us wanting to impose mature elements and aspects onto it. We want more from it but realize there isn't much more there so we rationalize it being a kids game by rationalising that it is a kids game.
+dkdrock456 I think we all get that, from the perspective of Nintendo/GameFreak, Pokemon is just a kids game. And we're all just grasping for the depth and complexity we wish was there.
But at the same time, the "Death of the Author" concept holds true here as well (so weird to be arguing pro-"Death of the Author"..) We fill in the blanks, make connections, and rationalize collectively to ourselves an alternate conception of the Pokemon world. One that fits all the criteria of canon as we arbitrarily agreed upon (which I understand is usually based on the games and skips a few of the anime?)
My point is, this interpretation has almost as much value and significance as what the creator of Pokemon had. The closer it is to being completely believable and the less amount of dodgy rationalizations and logical loopholes employed, the more real it is, up to and including as 'real' as the Pokemon creator's conception of it. Regardless of exactly why we're doing it.
I like how you touched upon the fact that Red is a "unitor of worlds" because in one of the newer games (B2/W2) there is a tournament you can participate in where you can battle champions, old and new. I could see this as symbolizing a sort of "treaty" between all of the regions.
That shirt tho.
Something important to not forget is that a war of some sort still had to take place in this universe because we have canon dialogue from Lt. Serge confirming it. While the scale of the war, or maybe even where it took place, is up for debate we do know for a fact it was active enough to at least put lives in danger.
Alright, who is here because of MatPats recent theory? Nobody? Okay.....
GameBlast NL I am
I am
GameBlast NL MEEE!
I am.
During X/Y it seems that they more or less adopted *some* elements by referencing a Pokémon war far more heavily and directly than it's ever been done ingame before, and with the whole story surrounding the super-weapon and so on, it makes sense to think that a war involving Pokémon, particularly the legendary Pokémon, could be a truly cataclysmic event. Besides, armies of Pokémon are inevitably more devastating than armies of humans, as many are outright resistant to common human weaponry - Hitting a Pokémon with a sword would really be nothing out of the ordinary, and many would be able to withstand bullets or even missiles and large explosions, or counter them.
I personally love the theory of Pokémon being sort of semi post-apocalyptic if only because it lends some otherwise much needed lore and credibility to the world. It's an interesting thought, and as all of us original fans grow older we often start to question our games more. Much like how Red doesn't question the fact that there might have been a massive war a decade earlier, we as children didn't question the brutal an excessively violent nature of society in Pokémon - Many of us do *now* though, meaning that we also search for a reason.
I like it because it adds some more depth to the game, and it helps explain some of the odd things going on. Like, why are all of these gangs operating with almost completely free reigns? Why is society so corrupt in places? Well, a war-ravaged world is ripe for gang-conflicts as separate groups with either political or near-religious beliefs try to gain control.
Yes. A War between Humans and Pokemon.
The Pokemon lost, obviously.
+Paradox Acres Guns are the best superpower.
+Paradox Acres I doubt that, considering there are numerous hints that humans and pokémon fought against other humans and pokémon. Most obvious one is Lt Surge with his Raichu.
Rayram AureanBlue Eh, that Raichu was obviously a traitor to his own kind ;)
best episode in a long while.
Personally I like the "Geovani is actually the good guy" theory better
I'd just like to take a moment to appreciate that you pronounced Pokemon correctly and not like PO-KEE-MON as some do.
TheAwesomeMed yeah but his murder of the word Kanto is killing me
are we not going to acknownledge the pokemon war from x and y?
I think the war theory is a way of masculinizing a favoured past-time that is presented as and understood as being for children.
Nice idea but mostly clutching at some very very dubious straws.
+Lucas Williams Welcome to fan theories.
+Lucas Williams Dude said pokeman saved him during "the war" no disputing
+Lucas Williams True, but I think the reason this works to an extent is because of Lt Surge. His existence is a curve ball in the Pokemon universe
+rodbrown42 Lt Surge might have imagined the war happening, instead of Red imagining that he has to re-unite the world through his heroics.
+LegendLeaguer And the entire gym full of people dressed like soldiers are just playing along?
That TPP gif around 5:02 was so funny.. You probably know what I mean if you were there during the end.
Pretty sure it's a game made to appeal to kids.
+Joseph Stassup which is also the other point he says, about how we as adults try to find a meaningful interpretation of something that we loved as childs
+Joseph Stassup NOBODY is saying it isn't just a game made for kids. People look for deeper meanings in things just for the fun of it.
I generally like this theory, and I'd like to read more about it, but one thing I noticed he did not address and would like to know if someone has is the one group of adults that are running around: Team Rocket and their ilk in other regions. They could easily be seen as a group of veterans of this war, a group that could not assimilate into the new Pokémon League order, or perhaps are not happy with the peace that organization formed. They all talk about taking over and remaking the world into a new, better image, and the newest two generations talk about wars in the ancient past as important parts of their philosophy; maybe they want a system like in the past instead of what they have, or they take some lesson from how things were done then that aren't done now. It would explain a lot.
This makes so much sense now. I want to have a game/book/show on this.
Despite all of the actual evidence against it I think this theory just infected my head cannon. It just fits so well. Also now I cant help but think that the Pokemon Tower is a giant memorial/grave site for the pokemon who died in battle.
The world inside the pokemon games has always been intentionally vague. Thats part of why it's so easy to create the super violent depiction of the pokemon world in the comics AND to create the super child-friendly version of the world in the anime and have them both seem plausible based off of our understanding of the game.
Personally I think that kind of vague description probably points to the world of pokemon having a dark past since most of the time when I see stories with vague hints about a darker past, it usually means the dark past is true. However, that might just be because i'm used to watching steven universe and adventure time now :P
Nobody talks about AZ’s tale
I think the reason that someone ppl want this to be the case (like myself) is that it adds a lot more depth to the game, it's no longer a kiddy action adventure, but becomes something more serious just like happened to us over the years.
This is one of my favorite theories concerning the games. I am also a big fan of Cubone being the child of Kangaskhan in a separate evolutionary line. I think the reason why we like these theories and is because they add depth to a story we already appreciate, and it invites replay-ability. Much in the same way the indoctrination theory changes the way a player perceives the Mass Effect series (especially 3). Adding to the story and giving reason to look out for more clues to add to or take away from the theories. I think that's why we can be curious if we can see the twist when we watch movies or read books after knowing the ending.
Does this mean Peanuts is in a post-war setting?
...
Oh, wait, I guess it is.
You're missing a pretty major part of the "evidence" for the Pokemon War theory, Lt. Surge. One of the gym leaders in those first games directly mentions Pokemon saving him in the war and has military garb and a military title. There are still no other canon mentions but it is still more than the complete lack you imply in the video. The war theory also makes other parts of the lore potentially more interesting as well. Large crime syndicates such as Team Rocket are some of the only groups with adults and have impressive power, besides just being alive because they were criminals and not soldiers it is possible they are also some kind of third part or rebellion group from the war. The experiments in creating Mewtwo become even more sinister if they were an attempt at building an "ultimate weapon" (especially given the Japanese origin of these games). Other seemingly man made or accidental Pokemon also can have interesting views under this theory, things like living piles of mysterious toxic chemicals (Muk/Grimer) and the components of factories gaining sentience (Magneton/Magnemite) could result from the uptick in weapons factories, or even chemical warfare. I think a lot of people gravitate to this theory because is can add depth to something from their past, the first couple games had very little as far as backstory which shifted a lot as the series continued, finding clues to a bigger story behind the original less dense game expands on a world that many people grew up loving and simultaneously makes it somewhat more "mature" and "dramatic" elements common to the gritty reboot era we are shoving a lot of our nostalgic good through currently.
there was obviously a war, but I don't think it was between regions. I think there was an organization that used legendary Pokemon to destroy and control the world at their whim (as new groups keep trying to do, generation after generation), so the many regions came together to fight their presence. There's a lot of lore in each game about legendary Pokemon that clashed in ancient times and almost destroyed the world. In ORAS, there is a race of people that are directly related to the dragon-talking people that witnessed and survived that time. In Pokemon XY, the game goes into detail about the war, saying that the only way to end it was to use the legendary's power to make an energy beam...and it destroyed a lot of life. This was 300 years ago (in XY's timeline), if I'm not mistaken...that giant dude, AZ was cursed with eternal life after the blast that ended the war. This puts Red's timeline in Kanto 300 years in the past before the events of XY, but directly after the war. So, yes...it's canon. There was a great war, but I don't think it was between regions.
I enjoy the idea of it as a child's view. There may be an interesting connection to the older video about sports and warfare. Fun video. I love fan theories. We could view Idea Channel as a series of fan theory videos. We apply asynchronous theories appearing often beyond the realm of the creators.
4:29 YO... I still, to this day, use that scene from FG to argue back. "They worst they have is... drive by arguments" lol
Funny thing, the Lucario movie was about a war.
...The movie is also non-canon, but that's just an observence.
I don't think Pokemon is sent after a major war in Kanto. However, I think that the creators of Pokemon in developing their world might have created a reflection of what it looked like and felt like to grow up in Japan after a major and catastrophic war.
I could totally see why a war would make Pokemon more interesting. Mike's right, the Pokemon world is far too tidy and idealistic. From the perspective of the player, you're naive and don't know many things, you're a kid.
Nothing seems to matter to you except battling Pokemon. Maybe that's why Pokemon are such a uniting thing in Kanto. Many remember the war and what it did to them, so by collecting and studying Pokemon, they're trying to leave more than war in the history books. By creating a world surrounding Pokemon, those who remember the war stop focusing on the past, and shift focus to the future and its children.
Usually content to ignore fan theories and stick with the official cannon, but I really like this one! Makes a lot of sense to me.
This reminds me of the feeling you get from reading "Waiting for Godot" its an absurd comedy where very little make sense but trough oust you get the spooky feeling that something really catastrophic has happened to create such damaged characters and there is a lot of dialogue to support the idea of a major catastrophe or a war and also the circumstance of the play's creation in the very late 40's and Beckett's background. Yet there is no confirmation and very little information over all ultimately it remains ambivalent which is for the better good, the power to evoke that kind ambivalence is to me a mark of truly good art, which is why I really like this theory.
Well, in the second most recent games, X & Y, confirms at one time there was a Pokemon war a long time ago. So it is confirmed that there was a war at some time where people and pokemon lost their lives. Whether this was one started by people and used pokemon as weapons or true to what the myth legends in the game say that it was just pokemon in that war is up for debate though.
Pikachu at the VA hospital with dark circles under his eyes and 5 o clock shadow, holding a cigarette like “it was hell out there…Voltorb explosions everywhere.”
If Pokemon was drawn from nostalgic feelings (e.g. collecting bugs), wouldn't it make sense that a post-war environment similar to post-WW2 Japan would also be part of that nostalgia?
A war is explicitly referenced with hoho in the anime.
Better theory: Pokemon Red takes place after several generations of colonizing a new planet. It would explain the comfort people have with what are basically alien entities, the basic infrastructure and construction, but fairly advanced technology. The world has grown around the symbiotic relationship between humans and Pokemon, advanced a certain type of law system(meritocracy through battle), and various factions that disagree with how this government is ran. Essentially why Team Rocket, and the like, are willing to concede defeat is this symbiotic relationship pokemon have with their trainer, and that even being terrorists they aren't willing to kill or bully too much to further their ideological goals. I don't doubt this theory is pretty flimsy, but it seems more plausible than a war.
If there was a war,I wonder if pokemon were allowed to use guns?
"If the people of kanto were into going to war." Hold on a minute into going, into go, indigo. The indigo plateau... I think weve found something here 🤣🤣
I love these fan theory episodes! keep it up
I love that I see "Boards of Canada" on your wall! Great ambient music.
Anyway, Kanto War Theory is one of my favorites. Been replaying Leaf Green recently. Even the dialogue in the games indicates a post war atmosphere. Team Rocket is such a formiddable opponent. They are literally mob. They murder the Marowak from Lavendar Town and threaten actual violence often, which is not something villains tend to do in later generations of these games. Gen 3 was my favorite, but even the villains in that one feel so soft compared to Team Rocket.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this theory! :)
I think this all indicates a general collapse of civilization rather than the effects of any particular war. To be sure, there was definitely some kind of war in the past, probably lots of wars happening simultaneously for a while, but the general situation seems more like the fall of the Roman Empire than the end of World War One or something.
The 'cities' of Kanto are at most a couple dozen buildings clustered together, surrounded by seemingly impenetrable wilderness interrupted only by faint, overgrown footpaths that may be the last remnants of a long-neglected highway system. The Routes are all haunted by dozens of people who jump out at travelers and force them to fight, taking the loser's money if they win. These trainers abide by the unforgiving code of honor of a warrior culture, and so much as making eye contact with them is enough to provoke an immediate attack.
Almost all of the towns are centered around gyms where powerful trainers hold court, as if the region had been carved up into the domains of feudal warlords with the military strength (i.e. Pokemon) to keep them, the only exceptions being a pilgrimage site venerating the dead (Lavender town) and a collection of three buildings where an elderly monk works in solitude collecting and recording knowledge (Pallet town). The political situation is still very unstable and rough, to the extent that the leader of a band of thieves and mercenaries has claimed one of the Lordships (Giovanni) and ambitious trainers strike out for adventure and glory at unthinkably young ages, but it seems like some aspects of the warrior culture are undergoing a process of formalization into the rituals of an established aristocracy; Pokemon battles end before participants are severely injured, there are arbitrary limitations on how many Pokemon a Trainer can use and how many moves they can legally use, more like a joust than an actual battle.
The only institutions that exist throughout Kanto are a series of hospitals run by a mendicant order (Pokemon centers), a trading guild powerful enough to maintain a stranglehold on all regional trade while enforcing the same prices on goods regardless of where or to whom they are being sold (Pokemarts), and a nebulous, distant authority claiming military hegemony over all the minor Lords (the Pokemon League), whose mountaintop fortress is defended by a series of moats and narrow passages through a mountain (Victory Road). The dearest ambition of all the upstart warlords is to one day amass the strength to seize control of this institution and become King (Champion) of all Kanto.
The first Pokemon games are a mythic tale of an unstoppable warrior-prince, subjugating lesser powers and receiving marks of their fealty (badges), until the day he duels his childhood-friend turned rival and wins a bittersweet final victory, hailed by all as the most powerful fighter in the region.
The only really weird thing about this is the standard of living the people of Kanto have maintained after the collapse of centralized political authority, but then again things were never that bad even in the Dark Ages (there were less people recording it, but trade and travel still continued even after the fall of the Empire), and electric Pokemon are common enough to keep the creature comforts of a developed economy running after the collapse of the infrastructure (the abandoned power plant). Or perhaps the small surviving population of what was once Tokyo (which is in the real life Kanto region of Japan) has stockpiled the wonders of their ancestors, so everyone has a TV and refrigeration even though warlords vie for control over the small collections of surviving buildings, like a toned-down Mad Max. With Pokemon.
In the original games, you actually run into and fight a handful of "hippies".
What if the Pokemon were genetically engineered living weapons, which is there the training and fighting in the game comes from.
I like this theory, I feel it has depth and evidence to back up the claims. However I really like this theory cause if it does turn out to be true, it could lead to a more mature Pokemon game. Like the antagonist team could be attempting to start another war between regions, etc.
I enjoy the indepth analysis here, looking at arguments from both sides. Well done.
I love dissecting my favorite childhood video games at the risk of ruining them for my present self!! (But actually)
The Kanto War is something so fascinating because apart from all the evidence and circumstances you explained in this video, Pokemon X and Y presents another hard-hitting piece of evidence.
There was a war a long time ago that was incredibly devastating. AZ and his Floette are the main characters in this tale, but the lore is all there. Could that have been the Kanto/Pokemon War that you talk about here?
Could the Kanto Region and every game after that be a progressive timeline branching off from that exact war, which obliterated virtually all but a few rare Pokemon, which Professor Oak managed to save to give to dedicated trainers to document all the kinds of Pokemon that exist in the world again? I feel a collab with GameTheory (Matthew Patrick - GameTheorists on UA-cam) coming on! :)
The biggest counterargument to your counterarguments is that "fan theories" aren't meant to be taken literally. Nobody's saying that the designers of the game *meant* for it to have taken place after a war... it's just that the idea of a preceding war is interesting, and not outright disproven by the in-game lore. It's just a fun way of looking at things.
If this ends up being completely canon I hope they'll dive more into it. It gives the story more depth.
If not...I'll keep it in my head anyway. It's a good story, weither its *true* or not
I had a German Lecturer at university who taught post-ww2 German Political history, and he often told stories and anecdotes about his childhood and adolescence in Post war Germany. You'd be surprised to know just how little his parents generation talked about the war and especially their roles within it. His view was that one contributing angle (among many others) of the 60's student protests in West Germany was the collective realization and understanding among his generation of Germany's role, and by extension his parents generation's role in the second world war. Unlike the victorious Allies, a losing side of a catastrophic conflict is less likely to include it in their day to day culture and his view was that it was simply too horrific to discuss due to the culpability issues
I'm 24 years old, I got a job in the morning and I'm sitting here watching a 9 minute video on some pokemon speculation. You got me again youtube.
From what I understand Lt Surge was the starting point of this fan theory. He mentions a war using Pokemon but hes not depicted as very old, which raised questions about time period and your role as a trainer. I think what made it so compelling was just how real the idea of Pokemon warfare was and what that meant for you, right now, as the player in this world.
Brilliant episode! I would love to see more fan theories!