raisedbymoogles (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
raisedbymoogles) wrote2022-11-16 02:33 pm
raisedbymoogles) wrote2022-11-16 02:33 pm
Entry tags:
please i'm suffering just let me beat up an actual bad guy
I feel like I'm counting down to the new Pokemon by continually shitting on Pokemon, which I'm sure isn't the correct way to be a fan of anything - wait what am i saying we're nerds we're eternally complaining lol
Honestly Chairman Rose's arc in SwSh left a horrible taste in my mouth. Pokemon's always been about - ....well okay it's about selling merch let's be honest but there's always been that thread of, like, ecology and environmentalism and "these non-human creatures are Friends not Resources", etc. And it's like someone in Nintendo must have gotten a bug up their ass about that because the whole 'moral' surrounding Rose is, like... 'environmentalism is bad, actually'? 'Activists who shout about climate change and the depletion of fossil fuels are just oversensitive Chicken Littles who are ruining everyone's fun'?
Who the hell greenlit that?
like I will be Pokemon trash until the day I die, but the series as a whole just seems to be either terrified of letting any hard edges into their worldbuilding or trying to write complex villains with sympathetic motivations and being really, really bad at it. Rose's motivation is so inexplicable that the best explanation I can come up with is 'he's suffering some kind of mental breakdown', Lysandre in XY follows the tradition of 'crackpots trying to destroy the world' because he apparently can't handle the absolutely miniscule amount of conflict the Pokemon world contains, and Lusamine... was kind of good actually, at least as a baby's first introduction to abusive family dynamics, but then I guess someone at Nintendo was like 'oh no we can't have that' so she got her edges sanded off for Ultra SM. And then there was Team Skull in the same gen, who were just, like... the dropouts of this world? People who don't fit in with Pokemon's admittedly creepily-sanitized society. (Hi, queer community, we can probably relate.) They're the first real indication we've had in a while that regular people can have conflict or struggle to fit in in this world and of course they're antagonists to our sweet little societally-accepted protagonist. I felt like a bully every time I had to fight them.
The reason I bring this up is a) I've been watching Alpharad's Sword supercut and I'm running on about four hours of sleep so I have a keyboard and no filter and I'm making that y'all's problem, and 2) because it looks like Pokemon SV is going to have another group of "dropouts carving out their own niche" as either main or secondary antagonists and I'm bracing myself for feeling like a bully again.It doesn't help that the truck... thing that Introductory Antagonist Girl rides on in the trailers absolutely looks like Roddy after a queer robot makeover and I want about 100,000 words of crossover fic now.
I just. As much as I'm sick of RBY worship, does anyone else miss Team Rocket? When actual crime was allowed to exist in Pokeworld? Enough of the game showing you a genocidal maniac and going 'he's Like That because people don't always agree on everything :( doesn't that make you feel guilty :('. Enough beating up on teenagers who clearly just need a Drag Mother to take them under her wing. Just let me be a ten-year-old who defeats the mafia, please.
Honestly Chairman Rose's arc in SwSh left a horrible taste in my mouth. Pokemon's always been about - ....well okay it's about selling merch let's be honest but there's always been that thread of, like, ecology and environmentalism and "these non-human creatures are Friends not Resources", etc. And it's like someone in Nintendo must have gotten a bug up their ass about that because the whole 'moral' surrounding Rose is, like... 'environmentalism is bad, actually'? 'Activists who shout about climate change and the depletion of fossil fuels are just oversensitive Chicken Littles who are ruining everyone's fun'?
Who the hell greenlit that?
like I will be Pokemon trash until the day I die, but the series as a whole just seems to be either terrified of letting any hard edges into their worldbuilding or trying to write complex villains with sympathetic motivations and being really, really bad at it. Rose's motivation is so inexplicable that the best explanation I can come up with is 'he's suffering some kind of mental breakdown', Lysandre in XY follows the tradition of 'crackpots trying to destroy the world' because he apparently can't handle the absolutely miniscule amount of conflict the Pokemon world contains, and Lusamine... was kind of good actually, at least as a baby's first introduction to abusive family dynamics, but then I guess someone at Nintendo was like 'oh no we can't have that' so she got her edges sanded off for Ultra SM. And then there was Team Skull in the same gen, who were just, like... the dropouts of this world? People who don't fit in with Pokemon's admittedly creepily-sanitized society. (Hi, queer community, we can probably relate.) They're the first real indication we've had in a while that regular people can have conflict or struggle to fit in in this world and of course they're antagonists to our sweet little societally-accepted protagonist. I felt like a bully every time I had to fight them.
The reason I bring this up is a) I've been watching Alpharad's Sword supercut and I'm running on about four hours of sleep so I have a keyboard and no filter and I'm making that y'all's problem, and 2) because it looks like Pokemon SV is going to have another group of "dropouts carving out their own niche" as either main or secondary antagonists and I'm bracing myself for feeling like a bully again.
I just. As much as I'm sick of RBY worship, does anyone else miss Team Rocket? When actual crime was allowed to exist in Pokeworld? Enough of the game showing you a genocidal maniac and going 'he's Like That because people don't always agree on everything :( doesn't that make you feel guilty :('. Enough beating up on teenagers who clearly just need a Drag Mother to take them under her wing. Just let me be a ten-year-old who defeats the mafia, please.