Arceus obviously created mew...
How exactly is that "obvious"? There's no evidence for that...
Hmm... My pondering circuits are activating. I'm going to think out loud for a second. Or post out loud. Or think out post. Moving on.
Firstly, as Ghastly has pointed out, there's no hard evidence as to the origins of either of these pokemon. So that's very important.
Now Mew is thought to be the ancestor of all pokemon, because it contains their DNA and can use any move. I don't think that Mew would be a pokemon from the future, as the genetic lines would have diverged over time. I would interpret the statement made by the Kanto scientists about Mew's DNA as meaning that Mew has DNA in common with all other pokemon (like a 'most recent common ancestor').
I have been to the Sinjoh ruins and seen Arceus' creative power firsthand. Whether this makes arceus a divine god depends, on other things, one's definition of divinity. I didn't see any evidence of unown, though. And the Giratina in my party is definitely not a hallucination.
I suppose I agree with the OP: it seems likely that Arceus came first and created Mew along with the other legendaries.
And how can the evidence of Unown be overlooked? The Sinjoh Ruins are accessed via the Ruins of Alph: it's frankly a possibility that the Sinjoh Ruins don't exist, and are merely a dream-world created psychically by Unown. Unown clearly possess some mysterious creative power, whereas Arceus is dubious in that regard. Arceus clearly has qualities which would make it an easy target for ancient folklore to gravitate toward (it's very powerful, for example), but divinity and magic and creator-god powers are a bit of a stretch for me.
Arceus, the "God" of Pokemon this, and that.
*Sigh*
Well, you CAN refer to it as a god, since it was the first Pokemon to exist.
It was the first, but how did its egg even exist?
....Did I got a little off-topic?
Arceus looks like a goat to me.
I think the Sinjoh Ruins are real. After you come back from the ruins, the director guy who asked you to enter the Ruins of Alph bumps into and says he's relieved to see you're ok because you vanished or something like that. Which implys that you actually went somewhere...though it could be that the Unown warped you somewhere, then made you hallucinate. But that's a bit much, right? What would be the purpose of doing that?
Not saying it proves/disproves anything, but I just wanted to say that.
Oh, and that's what Arceus is based off of? All I knew is that it was based off of some sort of creation deity. Never knew which one because the Bulbapedia page is all over the places about it, lisitng several deities, and ancient mythology isn't something I know much about. Good to know.
Arceus came first.
Arceus shaped the universe and it is stated he was there before it, after shaping the structure of the universe he then created Dialga, Palkia and Giratina meaning that those 3 legends were there before Mew aswell.
Okay now the universe is created by Gods, what now?
I think Mew acts as a sort of "first self replicating molecule" to populate the Earth with more Pokemon.
And then boom there you go all Pokemo
All I want to know that no one has talked about(unless in skimmed over it), is where did arceus' egg come from? Was it just "there" all of a sudden or what? Reminds of what came first...the chicken or the egg?
Maybe mew "popped" into existence and was bored so he asexually created an egg that was arceus to make more stuff so he wouldn't be bored. Then he transformed into every pokemon to give arceus a template to start by.
Or maybe like others have stated, arceus was first. Created the legendaries and had mew go populate this new "palette" he created.
Either way, the only thing I know for sure is that pokemon religion is sooo much more interesting than anything any church has ever created to attempt to control the masses(I.e. religion).
Yeah, like Lunis said, my question is, "Well where did Arceus's egg come from?" Did Quantum Physics just blip it into existence? Or did someone lay it? Say, Mew, or heck, maybe even Unowns - they're weird and capable of strange stuff, and if we're going to entertain the idea that perhaps Unowns are responsible for making it appear like Arceus is making a legendary's egg, it's worth considering that they could actually be responsible for ANY legendary's appearance. They HAVE been shown to be able to "create" illusory legendary Pokemon in the anime before. Who's to say that they don't make other Pokemon up just for kicks and just do such a good job that no one realizes it?
I know Mew is technically based on a defunct theory of evolution that was disproven by Darwin's version, but I like to think of the whole "Mew contains everyone's DNA" thing as a really badly explained version of mitochondrial DNA. That is to say, of course Mew "has a little of everyone's DNA," because all Pokemon inherited a little bit from Mew. So they all have that common link. It's like how if you go back far enough, just about all humans can be traced back to a "Mitochondrial Eve." In terms of moves, I like to think that as Pokemon specialized, they lost the ability to do moves they didn't specialize in. Kind of like how apes lost their tails and how we no longer use our appendixes. But the remaining Mew population has not lost that ability.
haha I have no doubt that's what they did. I mean, after all, a large percentage of imaginative creation is based off of ideas and things found in the real world.And why couldn't the Sinnohjin religion of Arceusism be just the same as real world religions? Keep in mind that the people at Game Freak are almost entirely atheists and agnostics (and atheistic Buddhists, Shintoists, etc.); wouldn't it be entirely rational for them to design the Pokémon religion to mirror actual religions? Namely, that they're based on ancient superstitious beliefs and dubious claims? Not meaning to offend anybody who's religious here, but considering the views of the creators of Pokémon, I think it's a reasonable extrapolation; at the very least, they've clearly left it all up for debate. Otherwise, I wouldn't be justified in questioning it, haha.
What's particularly "likely" about Arceus coming first and Mew being created afterward? Mew possesses the DNA of all Pokémon: that is a stated fact. Arceus being born out of an egg and creating the world and all that is very clearly stated to be legend and mythology.
And how can the evidence of Unown be overlooked? The Sinjoh Ruins are accessed via the Ruins of Alph: it's frankly a possibility that the Sinjoh Ruins don't exist, and are merely a dream-world created psychically by Unown. Unown clearly possess some mysterious creative power, whereas Arceus is dubious in that regard. Arceus clearly has qualities which would make it an easy target for ancient folklore to gravitate toward (it's very powerful, for example), but divinity and magic and creator-god powers are a bit of a stretch for me.
"Seeing first-hand" Arceus' alleged creative power doesn't impress me, frankly; there are too many red flags: Unown, Pokédex entries, movesets, Mew... It just doesn't add up. There are a number of adequate explanations other than taking the myths at face-value. All that the Sinjoh Ruins prove to me is that there appear to be circumstances which could lead ancient, superstitious Sinnohjin to label Arceus as a deity; whether they were correct is highly debatable. As I may have mentioned before, I'm not certain that the link of Sinnoh to Hokkaido is coincidental: the native Ainu people of Hokkaido worship bears as their ancestral god-animal, and have a plethora of legends and myths about various animals in the region (though of course none of them are known to possess the mystical powers they are given in the stories). Arceus also has many parallels with the Chinese creation myth of Pangu (especially considering that Pangu means literally "plate ancient" in Chinese), and the legend of Bai Ze (hakutaku in Japanese).
Pangu was said to be a monstrous horned giant, who emerged from a cosmic egg, and created the world; in some versions, he is aided in the creation by the Turtle, the Qilin, the Phoenix, and the Dragon. The Bai Ze was a mystical white beast, possessing nine eyes and six horns (incidentally, Arceus can be interpreted as bearing similar features, namely, his "halo"), and a body variously described as similar to a lion, an ox, or a qilin: the Bai Ze was found by the Yellow Emperor of China, and it dictated to him a book describing the 11,520 varieties of monsters and legendary creatures in the world. I think the parallels here are obvious.
In short, however, I reiterate my extreme reluctance to accept Arceus as a deity of any kind; there just isn't enough evidence, and there are too many alternate explanations, parallels to mythology, etc.
It just doesn't work for me, haha :pink_laugh:
(And yes, for those who noticed, Absol is also based on the Bai Ze; albeit a particular Japanese version, in which the creature predicts a terrible disaster, rather than giving knowledge about legendary monsters.)
P.S. ~ Why can't Mew be a Pokémon from the future? :pink_tongue: Why would the genetic lines diverge over time? I mean, obviously that's ordinarily the case, but Ditto makes it entirely possible (and likely) that the lines would actually converge instead. I wrote a longer article discussing all that on my blog though, haha :pink_giggle: You can take a look if you want: the "Pokémonography" link in my signature will take you there.
I did overlook the fact that you have to go to the Ruins of Alph before going to the Sinjoh Ruins, making the possibility of an Unown-induced hallucination plausible. Of course there is also circumstantial evidence indicating that the people of Sinnoh were in contact with those of Johto, so the existence of a place like the Sinjoh Ruins is also not beyond possibility.
I don't want be combative, but I do take offense at the accusation that I have taken the Arceus mythology at face value. I went to the Ruins, saw what was there, looked at other relevant data, and then drew a conclusion. That said, I find this sort of back and forth discussion to be very helpful and entertaining.
There is also a glaringly obvious question that needs answering: how is it even possible for an egg containing a legendary pokemon to exist, and where did it come from? Clearly there is some phenomena that appears to defy the fact that legendaries don't hatch from eggs, and Arceus is connected to the event. You can't go to the ruins and get the egg unless you have Arceus with you.
*snerk*I will say, though, that Arceus is a pretty lousy god, considering it can be taken down by a well-trained Caterpie.