• Sinistar
    ·
    6 months ago

    PoKeMoN iS aBoUt CoCk FiGhTiNg is baby's first edgy media interpretation. There are multiple storylines over the decades of the franchises existence that deal with Pokemon not wanting to fight and they all conclude with the message that you shouldn't force them to fight - and in the games it's stated that when they "attack" you, it's because they want to test you to see if you're good enough to be their trainer.

    • RION [she/her]
      ·
      6 months ago

      "The author wrote the text so the victims are happy with their lot, so criticism of their treatment is invalid" is also an immature media interpretation, and worth about as much as "All characters depicted in this work are 18 or older even if stated otherwise".

      As I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the house elves in Harry Potter are explicitly written as content with enslavement, but everybody sees that as transparently problematic. What's the difference?

      It's fine to like pokemon (I liked/still kinda like it) but that doesn't mean I'm blind to the iffy nature of the premise

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        6 months ago

        Criticizing the game for eight year olds where your giant bee monster fights someone's rock-dragon-snake like it has any bearing on actual animal abuse is silly to the point of absurdity. We"re straying in denouncing chess as classist because you're expected to sacrifice the pawns territory.

        • yoink [she/her]
          ·
          6 months ago

          We"re straying in denouncing chess as classist because you're expected to sacrifice the pawns territory.

          dont speak that evil into this forum

      • Sinistar
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        The house elves are born into it, in the Pokemon canon some Pokemon explicitly choose to fight while many others choose to remain in nature, or choose to do any one of the countless other things Pokemon have been shown to do besides battling. That's a pretty significant difference.

      • AFineWayToDie [he/him]
        ·
        6 months ago

        I like Mass Effect even though I have moral objections to fucking aliens.

          • AFineWayToDie [he/him]
            ·
            6 months ago

            No real objection. It was meant to be sarcasm but upon re-reading the post I've realized it actually sounds pretty bad and not so different from a reactionary take. I am sorry about that.

          • WithoutFurtherBelay
            ·
            6 months ago

            Yeah, maybe if there was a communication barrier I could get it but Mass Effect (presumably) has bullshit scifi communication tech

          • keepcarrot [she/her]
            ·
            6 months ago

            Maybe they just have a moral objection to aliens, and the word "fucking" was an emphatic marker thonk

      • Sinistar
        ·
        6 months ago

        Look, if it were actual dogs or roosters fighting then you would be right, but we're talking about magical sprites that breathe fire and create snowstorms here. It's far enough removed from reality that I think the argument that it's fucked up is just incorrect on its face.

        • silent_water [she/her]
          ·
          6 months ago

          man, if you want to play the games, just play them. no one is stopping you. just don't defend cockfighting with "but the author said it's fine and the animals love it"

          • Sinistar
            ·
            edit-2
            6 months ago

            There are no cocks in pokemon.

            • RION [she/her]
              ·
              6 months ago

              Bro never fought the cloyster onix double battle

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      6 months ago

      Technically pokemon is about Japense kids catching goliath beetles and making them fight, which afaik mostly involves them flipping each other over.

      Like this is what inspired pokemon. Japanese kids catch beetles and make them fight. There's no "the curtains are blue" here. It's a pastime to catch beetles, carry them around in little containers, and have them fight each other.

    • BovineUniversity
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      The small bugs, birds, and mammals that I obliterate with my god-dragons after I stomp through their homes are just testing me and are actually having a really good time!

      • keepcarrot [she/her]
        ·
        6 months ago

        They just faint! It says so in the text at the bottom.

        I do agree that it is babby's first edgy media interpretation, but it's not wrong either.

        • BovineUniversity
          ·
          6 months ago

          What happens to mons who faint in the wild? Aren't exactly any Pokemon Centers out in the tall grass.

          • keepcarrot [she/her]
            ·
            6 months ago

            idk, you're just some kid how the fuck are you going to diagnose whether caterpie is still breathing

    • iridaniotter [she/her, they/them]
      ·
      6 months ago

      Actually, Pokémon is about cock fighting. The original sprites even had whips. The problem is, it became so popular that they started writing actual storylines, so they had to come up with bullshit to cover for this completely unserious world they've built.

      • yoink [she/her]
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        source for this? as far as I can tell, they changed it in Beta so that it was more of a pet and pet owner dynamic, but this was before anything was actually released and the only sprites left with whips were a handful of NPC trainers, who also got phased out eventually