It's very telling that the first panel I knew I absolutely had to see at Quinni-Con 2013 was called The Philosophy of Pokemon. If you've read my work for any period of time, you've realized by now that I like a deep analysis of pop culture. I think going that route really opens up the text of the entertainment artifact for a wider audience. It also allows me to make the case for the merits of lesser known or previously dismissed works. Pokemon clearly doesn't need any defending at this point. The manga and anime franchise so strange and popular that South Park jokingly accused it of being a political indoctrination program by the Japanese government is more popular than ever. There are spin-off video games, tabletop games, clothes, accessories, films, and even magazines devoted to the franchise. Yet all the popularity and game-based analysis in the world doesn't do much to open up a deeper meaning.
Enter Quinni-Con 2013. The room for The Philosophy of Pokemon filled quickly. Pokemon panels always draw a crowd at conventions. This one was different. These people were here to dig deep into the world of Pokemon.
The hour long panel covered three major areas: the age of the trainers, the mythology of Pokemon within the world of Pokemon, and the ethics of battling Pokemon.
The host of the panel laid out a strong case for Pokemon having parallels to Plato's city in The Republic. In Plato's work, the children are raised by the city. Everyone is invested in rearing the children to make the best society possible. Everyone aims to be the best people they can and working together on the next generation helps guarantee more of the best people.
In Pokemon, children as young as 10 years old travel throughout the country to become the best trainer they can be. Along the way, they are offered lodging, food, and advice from adults in every city, town, forest, countryside, etc. they pass through. The ethos of teaching young children to succeed at Pokemon training is ingrained in the core of world philosophy. You learn to best you can be in the world. Then you shape the world to be what you want it to be.
This world elevates the champion of the Pokemon League to celebrity status. They're also a de facto leader. Since the only way to become champion, whether in a city gym or the whole world, is to beat the current champion, that champion gets to set the rules. If they believe rock Pokemon are the best, they will force you to fight and train against rock Pokemon until you prove your worth against them.
Not every child who sets out to become a Pokemon master succeeds. Yet everyone who goes on this fantastic journey benefits from the collective wisdom of a society that takes responsible for raising the next generation the right way.
From there, the conversation shifted to Pokemon mythology inside the Pokemon universe. The Pokedex is our introduction to most of the creatures Ash/Red encounter on their journeys. It provide quantifiable statistics--height, weight, gender--and more abstract knowledge--origin stories, myths, and fables.
Though the subject wasn't debated, The Philosophy of Pokemon panel hinged on the assumption that the people in the series accept these stories as myth. These are the tales told to children to get them excited about the Pokemon in the wild and all the adventures they'll have when they leave home at 10.
It's an interesting angle on the story that doesn't necessarily hold up. For every encounter with a wild Pokemon that doesn't demonstrate the myth, there's another encounter in the manga or anime that confirms it. Jigglypuffs do sing at the moon. Muks do drop down from cave walls and sewers. Magnemites do evolve by connecting to another Magnemite's charge. Klinx do become injured if they stop spinning.
Here it would be important to note that there is a semantic distinction with these myths. Some of them talk about actual traits. Farfetch'd has his leek in the Pokedex entry because he's known to have a leek in the wild. However, there's no way to prove that you can wish upon a Ho-oh. Pokemon sometimes teeters on the line between myth and fairy tale but usually has a realistic basis for these Pokedex myths and facts.
The big argument for these stories just being fairy tales was the ghost Pokemon. These are creatures sometimes rumored to be spiritual forms of other Pokemon or even people. There is nothing to suggest that the ghost Pokemon ever lived, let alone died to become ghost Pokemon.
What they do show is the separation between the physical and spiritual worlds of Pokemon. A lot of the religious figures in Pokemon are given more benign designations in the English translation. Suffice to say that if a character is in traditional Japanese robes, particularly purple robes, and wearing or carrying large wooden beads, they're religious figures and they're usually battling with ghosts or monk-like psychic/fighting Pokemon. The belief in another plane of existence is ingrained in Pokemon even before you look at the function of the ghost Pokemon.
The ghost Pokemon aren't fully physical beings. They are immune to purely physical attacks in a battle. They pass through walls and disappear at will in the anime and manga. They reside in temples, cemeteries, graveyards, and abandoned buildings. Their lack of a physical body is tangible proof that every character in Pokemon has a spiritual side.
Take a look at pokeballs. Somehow, a small metal/plastic container the size of a fist opens up, sucks the physical Pokemon inside, and imprisons it. There is a flash of light and then the Pokemon is in or out of the ball. The actual physical being of the Pokemon can be regenerated at will with technology.
Further, the trainer bonds with the Pokemon even as it is carried around in the ball on their journey. A psychic link, for lack of a better term, is established with the trainer even if the Pokemon in the pokeball never battles.
Even further, some Pokemon are able to escape their pokeballs when their trainers need them. Pikachu refuses to stay in a pokeball at all and constantly saves Ash. Misty's Psyduck is an even better example. Throughout Misty's run in the manga and anime, her temperamental and confused Psyduck would jump out of the pokeball when Misty was stressed out or in danger. He gave her a tangible subject for her frustration and even helped foil Team Rocket on occasion.
From here, The Philosophy of Pokemon panel hit its final major talking point: ethics. The panel host asked everyone to close their eyes so he could take an anonymous poll. He asked who believed it was ethical to battle and train wild Pokemon. Apparently I was in the minority. The panel host was shocked that so few people said it was not ethical. He even name-dropped that surprisingly good PETA parody game from a few months ago.
He then went and argued for a good fifteen minutes why it was ethical to train and battle wild Pokemon.
His theory is that Pokemon are the technology of the Pokemon universe. The people have developed ways to harness this technology and make it better. He announced himself as an experienced EV trainer at the start of the panel, so the technology argument didn't surprise me. He trains Pokemon in the games by defeating certain wild species again and again to get a boost on traits like speed and stamina.
For me, a Pokemon trainer who levels up by battling higher or equal level Pokemon, the argument doesn't hold up. I feel bad for the wild Pokemon who get hurt just so I can have a stronger team. Think of it this way: you have to take your Pokemon to the hospital or pump them full of medicine to fix their injuries and fatigue in the wild. The wild Pokemon you don't control don't have that luxury.
The ethics of the series are a definite grey area. At least in the manga and anime, you are directly rewarded for being an empathetic trainer. Ash will always beat a trainer who abuses his Pokemon because Ash focuses on the bond between trainer and Pokemon. The game references this bond, but only offers superficial benefits in side quests for better developing it.
The panel host did explore, briefly, why the ethics are such a big issue. The Pokemon have individual personalities. They're gauged in a pretty superficial way in the games and are much better developed in the anime and manga. These are creatures with free will and individual lives that are then shoved into an unpredictable life of servitude.
The get-around for this arguably abusive relationship is the bond between humans and Pokemon. They mostly exist in a pretty peaceful way. There's the all too convenient flavor text in the games to force you to pick up you starter Pokemon first, but you never see anyone attacked or injured by a wild Pokemon. There is a mutually beneficial relationship going on that causes both humans and Pokemon to stay at peace with each other. It doesn't negate the capture and battling aspect, but it does establish a sort of societal belief that this is acceptable behavior.
With that, the hour long panel on The Philosophy of Pokemon ended. The crowd was eager for more but time was not on our side. Battles broke out in the hallways between DS/3DS toting players and I began my journey home. It was the perfect cap to a really well-run convention with something for every fan.
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