pokémon headcanon

[kuruk22]

Just to get it all down for future reference... a work in progress (will add on as it develops).

Not definitive (I might break my headcanon to go in another direction for some fics), but this is what I believe... most of the time.

Comments

[kuruk22]

I've noticed that this is a bit fallacious. The way I justify it to myself and anyone who asks is that Red has a bond with his pokémon that transcends the need for commands. While he does make movements to communicate with them, it's more of an echo of something already in motion. I believe that Red and his pokémon have a bond that puts them on the same wavelength - he doesn't so much as "command" as give his pokémon free reign because they're doing what he'd order them to do anyway. The only caveat I put on this is that when he wants them to change strategies (i.e "attack," "defend," "speed," etc.) he makes noise with his movements to cue them in through auditory perception or grab their attention so they can see what kind of signal he's giving them. Most of the intense training he puts them through is to teach them these paradigms so that, when they fight in an actual battle, they know what to do without being asked. This is a bit tricky in some cases, especially when I write him as a young kid battling with Pikachu for the first time and never having to give verbal commands, but I honestly think that Red has a connection with his pokémon that's more like N's than not in that he doesn't try to control them. I think it transcends words and having to "see" him give those cues. It's "felt," if that makes any sense... I hope that clarified things, even if it is rather illogical.

[solarpillar]

So... When he can communicate with his Pokemon without the training or the verbal/visual commands... It's bit like minor control of the force aura flow? Can we have Darth Red, the Arch Sith Lord? *ahem* No, it sort of makes sense as in PokeSpe the trainers have to tap their life force into the Pokemon in order to "control" them, AKA guiding subtle parameters like accuracy, strength and others. Some characters died in the Hoenn arc from using legendary because it requires much more life force than usual. Green seriously tired himself in the FRLG arc from tapping energy into Red's venusaur to make its power intensity the same as the other two. He looked like if he was dying. And in RGBY arc Green once made his scyther's normal attack able to cut ghost via similar technique. Silver was able to read the life force of Pokemon without a pokedex (as in the lugia case) and know where to throw a PokeBall (the point where most life force is concentrated) to make it the most effective (this concept is now called critical catch, but it was back in GSC arc that it appeared in PokeSpe). I assume the "special connection" Red has is a mix of "knowing the feelings of Pokemon" and "tapping in life force?" So this "force control" combined with real-life plausible techniques should be able to create the level of non-verbal control an ideal Pokemon trainer should have with his or her or its pokemon.

Really, if "life force tapping" is not used, Red has to teach these paradigms but I'm not sure how much of that teaching happened with the conditions in your big bang fic's universe. In other fics it's assumed that it happened, but there...

I know that in the games we are giving the controls, but from the Anime and manga I don't think most of the trainers are actually controlling the Pokemon, just letting them do what they already know and interfere only when they are losing. In the anime it's more like a bragging right and in PokeSpe it's that and to economise life force usage. This means, Red won't be that special if something like the half of the trainers are doing this. Consider how a place in Battle Frontier is about making the Pokemon fight without giving commands, this kind of training mustn't be rare. In HGSS gameverse, if you fight Falkner, he defeated speech is "Alright... I understand, I will land now." in some languages, implying that he was up there flying with his bird Pokemon like Silver in PokeSpe does. So the new question is, what makes Red so special now? I have few mutually inclusive theories: 1) his thinking-pattern is similar to Pokemon, making the communication easier during the training part and the communicating part, giving him the ability to train his pokemon much faster than others within the same time lapse and less possibility of having his pokemon misunderstand him both during training and in actual combat, 2) because he thinks differently from usual humans, his battle tactics are less predictable by other humans and if the opponent is a pokemon, it makes Red's job easier by knowing what the other is likely to be thinking since their minds are similar as stated in 1), and 3) he has human level intelligence, and an above average one at that, on top of having non-human thinking patterns, effectively giving him the advantage of both kinds.

If these theories are true, they you'd wonder why don't they (Giovanni and co.) just hire Alakazams as trainers as they have high intelligence and are Pokemon. Bind them with a PokeBall and treat them with respect and you won't have to worry a thing. You don't even have to pay them, just feed and lodge them is enough. I mean, if you're the original trainer and the owner of an Earth Badge, the badge that allows you to control all pokemon caught and in your possession, even those that are traded, it's very, very, unlikely that this army of Alakazam will betray you. Mewtwo was able to screw Giovanni over only because 1) he wasn't in a Poke Ball, just in a power armour, and 2) Giovanni was treating him like shit.

[kuruk22]

In my Big Bang fic, I'm going off of what you outlined here - Red taps into their life force and directs them that way, though it's purely instinctual.

I subscribe to all of your numbered theories about Red (and pokémon training in general), hence my mention of Red having Aspergers syndrome. Some individuals - Wikipedia has a pretty good article on historical figures who were speculated to have autism and another on confirmed individuals here - with Aspergers and autism are extremely brilliant because their condition has wired their mind in a certain way. The HBO movie on Temple Grandin comes to mind, which articulated what I'm attempting to here very well... There's a scene where the actress playing Temple Grandin describes how she came up with the idea for sweeping curved corrals and more humane methods of cow slaughter because she thinks the way they do. It was this unique connection, in addition to her intelligence, that allowed her to conceptualize and implement these ideas. I believe that situation parallels Red's. Red's condition renders him unable to connect to other people as easily as say, Gold or Leaf would, and this is due to the fact that his thought patterns are nearly identical to his pokémon's, thus making him a nearly unparalleled pokémon trainer.

[solarpillar]

But Asperger's is in the autism spectrum isn't? And the signature symptom of autism is lack of interest in other humans because they are not attuned this way. But Red here is obsessed with Green, even if he cannot truly communicate with him, so what does this mean? Did Red classify Green as something other than human? Why didn't Red see Green as an "incomprehensible other kind" AKA human and avoid/ignore him like he would with other humans? Why all the attempts of communication?

[kuruk22]

It is, and while it does put him in a position where it's incredibly difficult to communicate with other humans, he still wants to relate to them. Not all of them, mind you. But in regards to people who he's grown up with and have shown him love and acceptance at some point - Green, Leaf, his mother, Professor Oak - he very much values their presence in his life and wants to keep them there. I don't think all autistic people don't want to relate to others, I just believe that the way their brain is wired makes it extremely difficult to.

[solarpillar]

Sorry, that was a lack of research from my part. It appears that only non-Asperger autists are not interested in humans and Aspergers are interested, just not good at it.

I thought they weren't because there was this experiment at one point that showed where normal people and autistic people tend to focus in a movie. The normal audience focused primarily on human faces. The autists tend to focus on other things and avoid the faces (things like, there is a human body here, there's a table there, there's a painting on the wall, etc. rather than this is a female person who is sad and next to her is a man who is laughing, etc.) the conclusion of the experiment (according to the person writing the paper, anyway) was that autists weren't interested on humans. Instead of seeing [humans, maybe in X context] they see [object W, object Y, object Z etc. in X]. There was a lack of focus on humans and just treat them as neutral information. I guess that was why they didn't feel the need of interacting humans, because it didn't mean more than interacting with a table or a tree. (That's on a purely social level; if you ask them which to save between a kitten and a painting they'd probably still pick kitten.) Maybe that's what makes them "see everything" because what normal people tend to ignore/rule as not important they take it in without discrimination. I cannot remember the name of the experiment, only that I saw it while doing research for a film analysis homework or something. Over 3 years ago.

The autism spectrum is rather huge, so I guess that test doesn't mean much anymore or it was more precise (limited to one type of autism) but I don't remember.