A strangely real-life view of the Pokémon world

[Eevee2662]

As someone who has loved Pokémon since near infancy, of course I love to apply realism to the universe. I want to elaborate more on the childishness of the games and give it a more legitimate feel; for example, gym leaders are town officials and like mayors, the elite four being the governing body. Where the regions are situated in relation to one another. Concrete professions and education provided to people living in different regions. If anyone has any ideas that they feel fit in the Pokémon universe but also make it seem more real, it'd be cool to share them here.

 

[icomeanon6]

If you're interested in where the regions are situated relative to one another, there's actually a lot of fascinating fan-theory and research that's been done on this: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_world_in_relation_to_the_real_world

Gym leaders and Elite Four as holding public office is an interesting idea, but it's one that could be handled realistically or unrealistically depending on how you decide to make it work. For example, is the Pokemon League itself the government, and how would such a government come to power? Are they democratic, meritocratic, autocratic? (Meritocratic would open up some interesting story avenues!)

I guess my question would be what do you think specifically is unrealistic about gym leaders as they're depicted in the games, and how would interpreting them as being in public office address this? For me anyway, the most immediate real-world analogues that come to mind for gym leaders are sporting officials or top-tier athletes rather than office-holders.

Btw, welcome to the forum! :D

 

[Eevee2662]

Thank you :D

It's not that I find them particularly unrealistic, but it seems there aren't any other town officials. Logically, I think, that duty would fall upon the gym leader (but maybe that's just me :p). It interests me to imagine them kind of fighting for the position but maybe also being nominated in the first place? Like an election for the best candidates, that ends in a tournament to determine the strongest of them all.

As for the elite four, I imagine them also as a sort of council, with the most influential being the champion. They would create laws and attempt to govern their region (or regions, if it's Johto/Kanto).

 

[Vragon]

Real life in Pokémon?
Maniacal laughter!


Yeah, I try to have realism in PMD series (I know it isn't the normal Pokémon universe, but it is in the context of the Pokémon concept). For some example: academies, mayors, leaders, each continent has it's culture, travel, currency and a few other stuff.

 

[Eevee2662]

Currency is another thing I wonder about a lot, would they all use 'poké' or whatever it's called? Would there be trades between regions and different currency values? And, on the topic of economies, how many people make their living as strictly a pokemon trainer? That seems like a gambling game to me, you risk losing a lot of cash after a lost battle.

 

[Sonata]

Pretty sure the world of Pokemon functions mostly on the singular currency of Pokedollars, Pokemon Dollars, Pokecash, or whatever else you want to call it. If the 'leaders' of the regions are the Elite Four, then I think that they would have a lot of rules, regulations and guidelines about Pokemon Battling and how much you should win/lose based on various different factors so that you can never just run up to some new trainer and steal all of their money with your ultimate Pokemon team. And the number of trainers or people in general who make their livings solely on Pokemon battling probably is relatively low, given how many other occupations there are.

 

[Eevee2662]

When it comes to professions, you have to wonder if school is mandatory... if kids are running around on life journeys starting at 10 years old, have they already gone to school for a few years? Because trainer school doesn't seem very all-encompassing.

 

[Venia Silente]

It's very likely that if it is true that children in general are sent out with their Pok?mon to roam about, then it actually forms part of the school curricula. As in, there's like an entire semester of the Elementary school in the least whose one class is "go be Outside?".

If anything, it helps teach people about how varied the world is at a young age, where they can easily take all that in and develop both deeper bonds and more intrinsic relationships, and at a young enough age that they are not capable or powerful enough to get themselves into too deep a trouble. Geography and science you can teach well up until a very old age, depending on how much capable workforce you need from a purely utilitarian, capitalistic perspective; how to be a good person, on the other hand, is an opportunity that can easily be lost early and is never truly fixed once you have acquired some of the chauvinistic biases that IRL societies teach, such as racism, sexism and other such -isms.

 

[Sonata]

I think part of it has to do with how you want to perceive the gym leaders as well. If you want to see them as an actual challenge for people of all ages and a means to eventually reach the elite four, then you could say that actually being a trainer is optional and simply is a career path that you could choose. If schools do have a sort of semester where they just send everyone outside, I would look at the entire region as just a giant field trip. As you travel throughout the land you come into contact with all sorts of different people with various jobs. In the games at least, when you come across some of these people they tell you about how, what and sometimes even why they do what they do. I'd imagine that if it were more realistic and these people knew that it was the time of year where all these kids set out to find their goals in life, then they might even let the kids study under them for a few days and figure out if that's something that they would want to do or not. Which brings us back to gym leaders. The gym leaders would be like their own classes. Teaching kids who want to become trainers all about the different types and tactics as they train up their party to be able to come into the elite four and overcome them as a sort of 'final' for the trainer school before they come fully into being a trainer themselves.