Alternative interpretations of Pokemon Gyms

[Karpi]

It's always seemed weird to me that a "gym" is more or less a "dungeon" (i.e. tunnel full of monsters with loot at the end). So why were they not just called that in the original games? It's possible that pokemon gyms were meant to be like a fitness gym. I'm not saying this is correct, but you can extend the idea and get something interesting out of it.

Why would Brock use only rock pokemon? Because it's a fitness gym where rock pokemon train to become stronger. You are their personal trainer. Brock is the leader/owner of the gym, and the gym trainers all have memberships because they are taking their rock pokemon there to learn from him and become stronger.

In other words, you aren't being clever in the eyes of the gym trainers when you bring in your water type and start challenging people to fight you. They will just assume that the message is lost on you, since you traveled across the whole country to visit a specialized rock type training center and you didn't take advantage of it.

A badge, in this world, might signify that you have mastered all the rock pokemon techniques that are taught in the gym. When you get all 8 badges, it signifies that you have mastered the battle strategies of a wide variety of pokemon, and this is used to match you up with trainers that are demonstrably of similar skill.

The best part of this is that it's a self-regulating system. It all depends on how much effort the individual puts into it. If you get all 8 badges through the system of "My water type beat all these rocks types" etc etc, you are going to be matched up with someone eventually who took the gym challenge seriously and whose water pokemon mastered all of the advanced water techniques from the Cerulean Gym. That pokemon is going to quickly demolish the other trainer's water pokemon who was used to fight rock pokemon but sat out in Cerulean in favor of an electric type, and so on.

So some instant gratification type people will just type advantage their way up to the point of the pokemon league tournament, but they'll get quickly demolished by the people who didn't do that, so they'll have to end up back in Cerulean with an embarrassed look the next year trying to get some actual training for their water pokemon.

So, what do you guys think? A lot of this is just stating obvious things, and a lot of it is similar, but the underlying foundation of the system is different, and it provides an explanation as to why gym leaders have monotype teams rather than diverse ones.

 

[Pokémon Spectrum]

This theory is all well and good, but unfortunately, every single form of Pokémon media I've seen says, in one way or another, that Gyms are just where Trainers go to hone their battling skills in general. Gym Leaders are only to hand out Badges to trainers that defeat them (with the obvious exception of Ash in the first season), without any mention of the challenger having actually learned anything. You aren't actually joining the Gym, you're just trying to see how you match up against the strongest Trainer there.

I mean, I'm sorry to poke holes in something that you obviously gave a lot of thought to, but you have to remember that Pokémon was, and always will be, a video game first and foremost. You can't have the player get all the way to the end and then penalize them and force them to go back to the beginning just because they decided to use whatever advantage they had leading up to that point. Nobody would want to play it. And the reason that they use a single type in the games is so that first-time players can learn about the different types and how they match up against other types. The in-game explanation for it is usually that it's their favorite Pokémon type, nothing more (heck, after Blue takes over the Viridian Gym, it stops specializing altogether). The anime and manga just follow suit so the characters are somewhat consistent. In case you haven't noticed, they Gym Leaders in the anime usually have countermeasures to deal with whatever types that their Pokémon are weak to. It's usually one of the main points of the episode where Ash challenges them.
The line of thinking you're using would only work outside of the games, but since every other form of media in the franchise is essentially just another way of advertising said games, it wouldn't really be practical.

Might make for an interesting fanfic, though.

 

[Karpi]

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Might make for an interesting fanfic, though.

Right, that was mostly the point. Lots of my threads in this subforum are just throwing ideas out there that people are more than welcome to use. I know this doesn't follow canon.

Thanks for the response though! I thought nobody liked my idea

 

[Karpi]

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Might make for an interesting fanfic, though.

Right, that was mostly the point. Lots of my threads in this subforum are just throwing ideas out there that people are more than welcome to use. I know this doesn't follow canon.

Thanks for the response though! I thought nobody liked my idea

 

[aliveatnight]

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Might make for an interesting fanfic, though.

Right, that was mostly the point. Lots of my threads in this subforum are just throwing ideas out there that people are more than welcome to use. I know this doesn't follow canon.

Thanks for the response though! I thought nobody liked my idea

I actually find the idea interesting. Although Spectrum debunked why it couldn't be the case, I still find that it could definitely serve as a really good fanfiction.

 

[Pokémon Spectrum]

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Might make for an interesting fanfic, though.

Right, that was mostly the point. Lots of my threads in this subforum are just throwing ideas out there that people are more than welcome to use. I know this doesn't follow canon.

Thanks for the response though! I thought nobody liked my idea

You're welcome! I like the idea, it's just the way you worded the first section of your post made it sound more like you were trying to re-analyze the purpose of the Gyms as opposed to just throwing an idea you had out there.