What I Learned From Pokémon (with Kyle)

Tito (I'll be red): Last time I wrote one of these blogs, I talked about how playing Legend of Dragoon taught me life lessons. Pokémon, a franchise that I've put a staggering amount of time and money into, was another of these formative things that taught me early lessons.

Between Pokémon cards, Pokémon plush figures, Pokémon movies, Pokémon strategy guides, and, of course, Pokémon video games, I think no single thing other than school and sleep took up more of my time. It was so pervasive in my life that, like the chicken and the egg, I cannot look back and say what came first for me: the video game or the T.V. show. There was Before Pokémon (BP) and After Red and Blue (ARB). As much as I’m sure my parents did not want me to be formed by it, I could not have invested so much time without it paying some dividends, for good or bad.

As obsessed as I was with it, there were parts of Pokémon that I did not love at the beginning. I liked the Pokémon because I thought they were cool….and secretly hoped they were real and just in hiding….but there were aspects of the game I did not too seriously. My friend Kyle was (is) a Pokémon Maniac (Pokémon reference!), so I asked for his help in writing this.

Kyle (Kyle is blue...get it?!?!): And so I, Kyle the Pokémon Maniac, answer back. Yes, I too was as consumed by the adorable and epic nature of teh Pokeymans. They appealed to my every sense (except for taste, though I have always wanted to eat a Jigglypuff) and therefore to my very heart. But unlike my good friend, these monsters evolved into more than simply pets. They became my greatest weapons.

Have you ever watched Pikachu hurtle through the air as he Volt Tackles a Taros? Have you ever heard the blood-curdling war-cry of an enraged Scyther right before it disembowels a cowering Poliwhirl? Teh Pokeymans isn’t a world of fun and games. It is a land of violent clashes where lives, money, and reputations are at stake in every battle. Welcome to the world of glorified dog-fighting. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

1) Competitive spirit

But in all seriousness, the reality of Pokémon lies far outside the realm of peace. Every Gameboy adventure sits firmly on the bones of the Pokémon you methodically destroy to rise to the top. Brother fights brother. Poke-families are torn apart. The bodies of the slain lie thick throughout the tall grass, fall silent in the darkest caves, or bob on the oceans’ surface. And all for what? More levels. More moves. More experience. More EVs (Only  those who are truly obsessed with Pokemon know what these are). More evolutions. More everything so a trainer can fight more often and with more success. To put it succinctly, the entire system of Pokémon is a pursuit of martial excellence. I picked up this sentiment at around 12 and decided to truly become a Pokémon master.

My games were no longer a languid adventure with the goal of filling my Pokedex with Poke-variety. Instead, I marched on toward the Pokémon League to become Champion. Weakness was cut away. Softness was brutalised into hardened, veteran resolve. My Pokémon became warriors, servants of a new bushido way: victory at all cost. Those who died to satiate my blood-lust were just cogs in the mechanical meat-grinder of expediency.

Unfortunately (inevitably), this Poke-mindset sunk deeper into my life than I thought. Although I did learn many skills through the many Pokémon games: chess-like predictions, cohesive team-compositions, mathematical calculations, researching tools, meticulous planning strategies, an iron-will/determination, creative solutions, a desire for success, and the list goes on, I also taught myself how to think competitively far too often. Nothing was a simple experience or artistic expression; it was now a game, but not a game without consequences. Everything mattered because there was always a loser and a winner. Talking to my mom became a delicate dance of wit. Getting straight A’s became a goal that would even include cheating just for the result of victory. I had let teh Pokeymans infect my brain.

I titled this section “Competitive Spirit” because, though I certainly do not advocate my friend’s brutality and blood-lust toward his adversaries, much less his gladiatorial treatment of beloved Pokémon, I cannot deny that the “world of Pokémon” has this side to it. 

When I had turned 12, I became interested in putting together interesting, fun, yet battle-savy teams of Pokémon. However, when I came up with these teams, it was never solely a matter of how powerful or useful these Pokémon were. Of course I wanted a team that could win (and diversity is important for that), but I never bothered to look up strategies and find out what the “pros” were doing. Quite simply, I was loyal to some Pokemon for personal reasons, yet disinterested in others.

I still approach video games with this mindset.

Strategy guides were books of poetry containing the nuances of a Pokémon soul, not a roster full of different dog-fighters meant to dominate over the other teams. A battle was the creativity of my opponent in a dance with my own, not an excuse to brutalize a fellow trainer.

In order to give credit where it is due, it might have been my brothers who saved me from this mentality. Whenever I got too intense, they would punish me by refusing to trade Pokemon. Or they would just go run to mom or dad and tell on me. Or it could have been that, at some point, I learned to love these little critters. 

I still remember crying during the Pokémon TV show when Ash (the protagonist of the show) let his Butterfree return to the wild. The two had been together since the start of his journey!

(Evidently I'm not the only one who felt this way)

Catching and training Pokémon is a responsibility of raising Pokémon while building relationships, and that’s why doing things like breeding Pokémon in order to find the perfect specimen for battle was repulsive to me.

Yet Pokémon is a game that you can have either mentality, the master or the friend, and still need to battle. Competition is necessary for the warriors at heart as well as the poets. The strategists and the dreamers. The fighters and the lovers. And as much as I wish determining the “correct” mentality was as clear as choosing between red and blue version, I must also recognize that I come from a “soft” perspective. The warrior mindset of my friend certainly does champion it’s own kinds of virtue, and competitive spirit sharpens both the lover and the fighter.

I may have come across as a murderous, slave-driving manbearpig (Just a bit...), but I can assure the public that I am no such thing. Yes, teh Pokeymans may have inspired and encouraged a violent streak in my psyche, but that is only because these games were inherently violent. But that isn’t all they were. As my colleague so delicately and expertly described, Pokemon is a game built on relationships. While some, *ahem* me, may have wanted those relationships to revolve around the defeat of others, most of my friends and fellow trainers sought after an adventure of a lifetime. What is better than to rise to the very pinnacle of Poke-achievement with your team of best friends? Not much.

2) Cooperation

Upon further reflection, I think one of the major reasons I trained so hard was because I didn’t want my Pokemon to fail. If they failed, I failed them. They couldn’t train themselves. And I couldn’t walk through tall grass without them. Our symbiotic relationship thrived in a harsh environment. Without anything to lose, we wouldn’t need each other. Interestingly, these games do reflect pieces of reality between its pixels. When you make friends, it is rarely the result of happenstance (wild encounter vs trade). And if you want that friendship to strengthen and mature, there must be effort (training) and sacrifice (trips to the Pokecenter) constantly pumped into it. Without work, a friendship will stagnate or drift away, much like a Chansey left in the PC for too long.

As a 23-year old married fellow, I can say that Pokemon is not among my top priorities any more. It hasn’t been for years, but the excitement for battle and new Pokemon is still there. Memories of epic catches or perfect teams may flit to the forefront of my mind unexpectedly. But if anything, that doesn’t steal away my other priorities. I believe the same could be said for my friendships. Now that I have a woman to attend to (possible metaphor for owning a Gym? Love Gym?), I know my relationships outside of my spouse will take the backseat for a bit (or maybe forever...I’m still new to this whole marriage thing). But I do have the memories, experiences, and adventures locked away in my mind (She’ll never understand the Pokémon side of you as well as I do). And just like picking up a Gameboy and hitting the Continue button, rekindling a long-neglected friendship can be as easy as pulling old Pokefriends out of the PC and taking them for a spin, but only if you had put the time into them.

I guess what I’m starting to realize is how every bigger and better thing requires a small foundation to rest on. Rich friendships that last for a lifetime often occur only after you’ve had dozens of friends since your childhood. Being able to deeply love and respect a woman in marriage isn’t an easy thing. You need to love and respect your mother, sisters, lady friends, and even girlfriends before that can happen. And, since this is a Pokemon blog, you can’t beat Gary and transform into the League Champ without working your way through caves, surfing over seas, conquering gyms, and buying 1,000 too many potions. Pokemon trained me to care about my friends, even if they were digital monsters. They meant something to me and the fact that I spent literally hundreds of hours invested in their training proved it. As silly as it may sound, I not only grew up inundated in Pokemon, I grew up because of Pokemon.

3) There are No Shortcuts to Relationships

I think this might be a good time for me to clarify a few things. Kyle's character matured because of his devotion to the game, found in any good Pokemon player, and clearly, he has always had a deep love for the team that he’s worked with. Me, I started down a different path, and it was a path that almost cost me my love for the game. I was seduced down the wrong path at a young age, and had to claw my way out of it. 

I walked a forbidden road: the wide-road known as “cheat codes”.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Pokémon, but, at some point, I learned the cheat code for Red and Blue versions: The Missing No. All who've ever played these versions know what this is, because it was the path to an easy Pokemon game. It was the shortcut to getting all your Pokémon to level 100 and catching any Pokémon you want. It was a glitch that made you a god.

I've learned though. What good is it if you catch all 150 Pokémon, defeat Gary in record time, yet have not love?

There was a time, when the Gold and Silver versions came out, that I contemplated avoiding Pokémon. The game designers discovered the glitch and fixed it, and raising Pokémon became difficult. No longer could I just strut around mowing down my competition after only putting a few minutes into the game. Now, I had to walk around like the other plebeians and struggle to survive. 

For my 8 year-old mind, this might as well have been a crisis of faith.

Because one thing I realized in my later years is that the games with the glitch stopped being fun. They became that hollow fight club that my friend found himself caught in, but worse in a way. At least Kyle had the virtue to work hard for his victory, whereas I lost interest if my win could not be obtained easily.

Honor and integrity are difficult things to describe to a person who lazily wants to win, because they do not help with winning. If I told my 8 year-old self that it was more fun to play Pokémon without cheat codes, I would have thought my 23 year-old self had gone crazy. It was fun to walk around as the master of Pokémon. But it was empty. It meant nothing to me, because my Pokémon meant nothing to me. They were fodder. I didn't love them.

But I’ve grown to realize that rules are there for a reason: they keep games fun. A game without rules may be easy to win, but it lacks purpose, creativity, fairness, vision, and love. It does so while inspiring slothfulness, greed, anger, and pride. 

I thought that, by breaking the rules, I would grow to love Pokémon more, and I did initially. I loved to win at Pokémon. But it almost cost me my love of the game. Cheat codes have a cost: a cost the relationship pays.

Incidentally, I'm posting this blog on my friend's birthday. It's significant to me because we no longer live close to each other and writing is one of the ways we chose to keep close. Sure, I could just call him or post on his Facebook timeline (both of which I've already done), but that seems like the easy way out. They're the cheat code, but my best friend is too important to me for me to take the easy way out. I think this blog would be a better testament to him.

Any final thoughts Kyle?

Everything is better in moderation and tempered with self-control. I have had to do this many times in my life and in my relationships and my gaming habits. Nothing ruins a game more than playing without rules or with the wrong attitude.

Well said. Happy Birthday buddy!