What is the purpose of filling the Pokedex?

Out of every single Pokemon Region, you are given the ULTIMATE task by the professor to fill the pokemon pokedex. What he tells you is that the purpose to do so is to catalog every single last pokemon, so that the information will serve to better their study or something like that.

But here is the thing, the pokedex already has all the information about every single pokemon in existence. So, adding a new pokemon to your pokedex does in no way further the research of the pokemon world, since everything that ever could be known about that pokemon, and all pokemon is already known. So, there is no point in sending a child out into the world in order to capture a number of pokemon that they are financially incapable, and physically incapable of taking care of.

There are several reasons I think this.

1. When you capture a new pokemon, you already know the opposing pokemons name already, which means its not a new species.

2. When you capture the pokemon, you do not get to choose what the pokemon is called. For instence, if you capture a Pikachu, you don't get to call it Pikachu the Iron Stallion Pokemon. It's pokemon type, Information about the history of the pokemon which would be impossible through any kind of scanning or dna testing is already unlocked in your pokedex. As well as its average height and weight, type etc. This means that everything that your pokedex tells you about it is already known.

3. The information is given to you only AFTER you capture it, and immediately afterwards. Which means the info on all pokemon is already in the pokedex system. Its just DLC at the time. ( Disk Locked Content).

4. Other people own pokemon that you have not captured, and the information on them is not already automatically available to you in the pokemon dex. This means information about pokemon is out right restricted from you INTENTIONALLY.

So this leaves a few things debunked about WHY we have to fill our pokedex.

1. It does nothing for the research of the pokemon professor since all the information you "gather" is already known to that pokemon professor.

2. It does nothing for being on an adventure, since catching them all does not make you understand any pokemon better, it just means you have more of them.

3. It cannot be a friendship lesson since the more friends a person has the less friends a person has. You cannot grow intimate friendships when you converse with 700 people a day that you consider a friend.

4. It is irresponsible to have that many pets. Therefor, the purpose of the adventure cannot be about teaching responsibility of any kind. Nor can it be about setting goals as this is an unrealistically irresponsible goal to have.


So, what is the purpose of filling the pokemon dex?

Uhm.... maybe because some people find it fun to do these things?

I'm guessing that the pokedex is the first time where all the information about the pokemon is in one place to quickly identify them - there's an app for that!

Originally the achivement of filling the Pokédex was help the Professor to research about different or new species and types of Pokémon. It WAS the purpose.

Now I don't really know for what we have to do that. It's for this same reason the players don't complete it, because it's not a priority, it's a waste of time. So, in this point they should give a really big benefit for complete it or, at least, reformulate the functions of the Pokédex with the systems inside in like they did in S&M with a new design, a much more colorful interface and a active plataform (Rotom).

To me, since I begin to play Pokémon, the 'Pokédex thing' it doesn't matter to me.

To help the old man who's too lazy to do it himself complete his research. And stuff.

Perhaps sending a child to complete the National dex will help him or her grow as an individual. In some cultures, it's believe Wanderers have magical properties and are thought to be very wise (I think old time Japan?). It's also a common myth in literature where the protagonist must set out an a journey for truth. Etc

I always sort of had a science fiction point of view about the Pokédex, when technology is advanced enough, it is nigh discernable from magic.

With this point of view I always believed that I the Pokédex, PC, and Pokeball are all interconnected into one advanced data analyzing system that is capable of breaking down and interpreting data collected from organic life forms, in this case Pokemon.

The moment you catch a Pokemon in a Pokeball, the pokemon's data is collected by the PC and analyzed and then transcribed into useful commentary which is then explained and further expanded on by the Pokédex. Obviously all of this can occur instantaneous because it's science fiction magic. The hard data of the Pokemon including its species, name, anatomical qualities, habitat, etc., Is all revealed when its genetic structure has been broken down into data for research.

That's my overall look at it.

You are basically doing the professors' work for them while they sit on their rumps making paper airplanes and thinking about what they are gonna have for dinner. If it was me I would grab the starter I wanted and then when they try to peddle the dex to me I tell them "HAHA....no." and walk on. :D

Because the Professors are evil sadists XD

To earn a little certificate that does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!

They could at least have offered a nice reward for it, like unlocking a place where all the pokemon have a much higher shiny rate or something. But as far as I can remember, there has never been a time in the show where someone whipped out a pokedex and it couldn't at least tell the name of the pokemon they saw, right? It's all a scam, I reiterate my previous crossed out statement: Because the Professors are evil sadists! >:/

I still like the theory that it's actually the trainers themselves writing the Pokedex entries, which is why all of the descriptions are different, and why things like height and weight don't always make sense (for example, given Wailord's stated height and weight, it would have a lower density than styrofoam).

Sure, the progression of technology and the growing availability of the Pokedex to the common trainer means that the entries are probably more standardized, but I still think the original purpose of the Pokedex was just to find and research all Pokemon on the professors' behalf.

Like many others have mentioned before, a sense of achievement. Story-wise: To discover all species.

In real life, the main incentive is to get the Shiny Charm.

In game, I see it as more of a tool to help the trainer on their journey. 20 years ago it actually made sense that it was collecting new data. But in US/UM I see it as a tool to help youngsters on their Island trial. When a Pokémon is registered as encountered/caught it takes note of the moves of that Pokémon you have encountered. This data is used to recommend the most effective moves to use against it in the future. It registers its location, to help you find more in the future.

The Island Challenge is meant to be a... challenge, so it makes sense that the trainer has to unlock this information through exploration and self discovery, rather than being given it outright.

It only really made sense in the first game or two, and for Ash Ketchum in Kanto and Johto possibly. But catching every pokemon is one way of becoming a Pokemon Master, because it is quite an accomplishment (:

I think Platinum actually doesn't care much about how many you have caught though, but rather how many you have seen?

To feel like you didn't waste your time

Well, you have to keep in mind that most people don't care about the Pokédex. They just collect Pokémon they want and play for battles

If we're going to use actual science and not Handwavium, I would say the purpose behind being requested to get high capture rates are for population pools and data comparison. Realistically, there would be way more species variation than just the Alolan forms and more Mega evolutions than we have data coded for. There would be subspecies, breeds within those subspecies, and various adaptions depending on the circumstance.

A good researcher would want to be able to quantify and qualify all of those data points.

I don't know about the following generations, but, in Gen1, it was very dishonest
of the creators to just give you a pat on the back for doing so. There should
have been some extra sub plot unlocked as a reward, like, dunno, catching Mew
or fighting Oak.

I always thought it obvious that the reason you specifically were sent away on such task was that you would spend enough time looking for every single Pokémon that in the meanwhile the Prof would have unrestricted access to your mom.

But hey, if we gotta justify things via science...

Information on Mew and Mewtwo is added automatically as soon as you get them despite them being literally undiscovered or unregistered species. Even more with potentially literal deities like Dialga and Palkia. Castform is an experimental Pokémon yet all data is ready for it in the same format that the official Pokédex accepts.

Moreover, in different versions of each game you get different text flavour in the 'dex entries for each Pokémon, but all the other data - the "scientific" data - remains the same.


I can guess all this supports the idea that the Pokédex we see in the games is closer to a Wikipedia, an encyclopedia that "anyone can edit", and that part of the idea of the Prof sending you out to fetch even more data is to find more verifiable information, plus the experience of meeting many Pokémon in the wild, and some of them in unexplored situations.

Well, all the information you know about pokemon must come from somewhere, am I right?

Giving a trainer a pokedex makes the trainer a useful element to the society (cause a random guy/gale roaming around assaulting people to battle them isn't what I call useful). But as trainers are travelling all the time, giving them a tool that records biodiversity and analyses live makes blood thirsty trainers into improvised geologists/zoologists

A bad for a good, right?