this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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[–] RION@hexbear.net 72 points 9 months ago (5 children)

The difference is Pokemon makes it clear that the Pokemon enjoy battling and do it voluntarily

Are these the same people who accept JK Rowling's "the house elves are slaves but they like it so it's cool and even the idea of emancipation is a joke" with no further introspection?

[–] ashinadash@hexbear.net 49 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Literally a pro slavery argument...

[–] Findom_DeLuise@hexbear.net 37 points 9 months ago

"The slaves got free housing and learned important job skills!"

JB-shining-aggro

[–] FourteenEyes@hexbear.net 32 points 9 months ago

Taking my Charmander down to the Pokemon center to get electroshock treatment for her drapetomania and then trauma-bonding afterwards with pokemon treats that are basically like heroin

[–] SpiderFarmer@hexbear.net 19 points 9 months ago

You would think, but in the lore Pokemon do just casually form fight clubs and have small wars. In addition, something about teaming up with humans allows them to unlock power boosts or just having access to a coach. Granted, the levels of intelligence and similarity to human psychology can vary from Mon to Mon. One example is that Basculin in the lore is basically just a violent trout, making it less of a moral concern to many in-universe gourmands. Meanwhile other Pokemon like Alakazam or Orangaru is effectively a human with magic powers.

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[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 59 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm sure the godly and legendary creatures I keep in a capsule in a bank are feeling good about it. Oh you're the god of space? Enjoy the luxury ball it's the only thing you'll ever see again

[–] Blep@hexbear.net 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Why shell out for the luxury ball?

[–] Acute_Engles@hexbear.net 19 points 9 months ago

Last one before i ran out completely

[–] KittyBobo@hexbear.net 52 points 9 months ago (3 children)

That always bugged me with the Pokémon defense. "Oh, but they like that im the master and tell them to do things. We're all friends, just a big family!" Is the exact argument you would use if you were subjugating others but didn't want to feel bad about it.

[–] FnordPrefect@hexbear.net 25 points 9 months ago

porky-point "Hey, you better shut up! You're giving away our entire anti-unionization playbook!"

[–] UmbraVivi@hexbear.net 21 points 9 months ago (10 children)

Are we gonna start a struggle session on keeping pets?

[–] WithoutFurtherBelay@hexbear.net 17 points 9 months ago (23 children)

Most people don't have pets fight each other...

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[–] bazingabrain@hexbear.net 44 points 9 months ago (7 children)

I IMPLORE you all to read this https://hexbear.net/post/763625, diegetic essentialism is a waste of time and infantilizes you. Please, stop it.

[–] showmustgo@hexbear.net 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ok that was great. I love when someone puts an inexplicable feeling into concrete terms. Once with this DE stuff and twice with the the banger within a banger when op calls to stop calling everything fascism. Thanks 🙏

[–] Raebxeh@hexbear.net 19 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Without reading (I am a staunch antiintellectual, yuck), is diegetic essentialism the boiling down of a text into strictly what happens within the text and ignoring the fact that it’s humans who consume the text and that that process can create meaning beyond that of the literal text?

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[–] jaeme@hexbear.net 39 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (10 children)

The main series pokemon games have a move called Frustration which increases damage the less friendship the user has with their pokemon.

Why does this move exist in a game about friendship and loving the creatures you capture against their will? soviet-hmm

This problem could just be solved by making pokemon not real creatures in the world but just spirits. Unfortunately, it seems that pokemon society is not vegan so it's also canon that people just eat pokemon.

[–] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 37 points 9 months ago (1 children)

One game's villain has a pokemon that uses a maximum-damage Frustration. Friendship's default value isn't zero, meaning gamefreak has gone out of their way to say "this guy canonically abuses his pokemon"

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[–] abc@hexbear.net 38 points 9 months ago

I'm gonna brutalize one Pokemon for every dumbass comment in this thread. Sorry comrades but I've already stomped a Maushold to death and that's basically 4 pokemon in 1

[–] EdelethIsBae@hexbear.net 37 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

also the whole debate over this shit is basically a veiled form of the vegan struggle session so lets just stop pretending we're concerned for the rights of pixels in the shape of an orange dragon

chill out, people want to have fake monsters fight each other

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[–] Zezzy@hexbear.net 35 points 9 months ago (3 children)

SMT negotiations are by far my favorite monster-collecting methods. Just equal parts philosophy, flirtation, and gibberish as they vibe check you.

[–] let_me_tank_her@hexbear.net 18 points 9 months ago

Jack Frost has joined your party without your consent!

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[–] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 32 points 9 months ago (10 children)

Pokemon is cockfighting, Mario massacres Goombas and turns by the hundreds in any given game and we know from Paper Mario they're fully sentient and about equal to human intelligence, the star fox team are a PMC, Samus has blown up 3 planets, maybe more ans wiped out 2 species, sorta 3 if you count Evil Beak or whatever from Dread, he was likely the last Chozo. None of this shit really makes any sense and it's pretty senseless to go thst deep into it. Especially if you're being serious.

[–] GeorgeZBush@hexbear.net 38 points 9 months ago

Meanwhile the chad no-copyright saves animals and the environment from the capitalist, imperialist Eggman by destroying polluting robots

[–] bazingabrain@hexbear.net 28 points 9 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

Diegetic essentialism 101, it leads people to ask deeply unserious and frankly stupid questions like: "is superman actually a socialist?". Like, no , unless superman is written as such, he's not. These fantasy worlds you escape into? Theyre written a certain way by its authors, and no amount of nerd slapfighting online will change that, please stop wasting your time.

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[–] comrade_pibb@hexbear.net 19 points 9 months ago

deeply unserious vibeo game lore

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[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 30 points 9 months ago (2 children)

What a weird game, the more I see of it the more baffled I am.

[–] zifnab25@hexbear.net 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's a power fantasy for babies, that's all.

[–] Comp4@hexbear.net 25 points 9 months ago

Its me. Im babies

[–] DefinitelyNotAPhone@hexbear.net 19 points 9 months ago

It's Pokemon mixed with Rimworld. That's it.

[–] GnastyGnuts@hexbear.net 28 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

And this is why Digimon was always the proletarian choice!

...

I'm sorry, I'll see myself out ...

[–] EdelethIsBae@hexbear.net 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

fool the correct choice has been and always will be BEYBLADE

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[–] ElChapoDeChapo@hexbear.net 28 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hot take: game is fun, not great but it's early acess so it could get better

Honestly feels more like the Pokémon anime than the games in many ways but in a good way, little things like letting out my fire pal as a light source while mining at night feels better than anything gamefreak has done in the last 20 years

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[–] BodyBySisyphus@hexbear.net 24 points 9 months ago
[–] Sinistar@hexbear.net 23 points 9 months ago (19 children)

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@hexbear.net 42 points 9 months ago (12 children)

"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

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[–] NephewAlphaBravo@hexbear.net 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

back in my day we just made a 3 panel sprite webcomic about johto's labor laws, not a whole shit game with I'm assuming nfts two years after anyone cares about those

[–] RION@hexbear.net 32 points 9 months ago

No NFTs afaik and first impressions are surprisingly positive from what I see online. Apparently there's a lot of factorio-lite automation gameplay???

[–] iridaniotter@hexbear.net 21 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Pokemon makes it clear that the Pokemon enjoy battling

Mewtwo simply has drapetomania then?

[–] Tunnelvision@hexbear.net 21 points 9 months ago (7 children)

I’m pretty sure the Pokémon died in the comics but that also may have been a meme idk

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[–] Llituro@hexbear.net 19 points 9 months ago

pokemon is basically a shonen

[–] autismdragon@hexbear.net 18 points 9 months ago

This is less true for me than others because I spent 80% of my time in Pokemon X in Pokemon Aimie playing games with, petting, and feeding my Pokemon rather than battling with them

But yeah.

[–] HumanBehaviorByBjork@hexbear.net 17 points 9 months ago

i think the difference is that palworld is a bad game

[–] AOCapitulator@hexbear.net 17 points 9 months ago

amazing that the first comment is "you see, these races simply enjoy being slaves, its their natural condition!"

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