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Do Pokemon Truly Enjoy Battling?

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Horizon

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Here's something to think about... I was recently thinking about the nature of Pokemon battles, and how Pokemon seem to enjoy battling under the command of trainers. However, this seems somehow contradictory to how Pokemon are clearly shown to experience some sort of pain while battling. As it was brought up in the thread about animal abuse in the Pokemon world, Pokemon do not HAVE to obey their trainers. But I do wonder, does some degree of brainwashing occur here? Do Pokemon have to obey trainers with a certain number of badges, regardless of whether the Pokemon wants to fight? Do Pokemon regularly battle for fun in the wild? While we can see various examples of Pokemon enjoying battle, how much of this is their trainer's power of suggestion? Any thoughts?
 
Well the only disobedience that occurs is pokemon of high levels when you don't have the right badge. This can be assumed that they don't respect you're skills. When you travel through the games you are attacked by wild pokemon, and you're pokemon usually grow to like you a lot. Let's not forget those that keep them as pets. So I assume that maybe some like battling, and those who aren't battle lovers don't mind it because it's probably in their nature.
 
A good example would probably be Ash's Buizel Vs. Dawn's Aipom. Buizel was seen to be highly competitive, while Aipom preferred contests. So it probably all comes down to the personality of the Pokemon. Perhaps the apparent pain involved in battling is like what wrestlers and other athletes in highly physical sports experience, despite still loving their sport?
 
HorizonGirl said:
A good example would probably be Ash's Buizel Vs. Dawn's Aipom. Buizel was seen to be highly competitive, while Aipom preferred contests. So it probably all comes down to the personality of the Pokemon. Perhaps the apparent pain involved in battling is like what wrestlers and other athletes in highly physical sports experience, despite still loving their sport?
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That's what I was about to type. I think that the injuries are all part of the sport, and any sport can get way out of hand, regardless of how rough or physical it maybe. With that said, I don't think a lot of Pokémon particularly mind battling, but contests were introduced as an alternative to battles, which is where Pokémon like Dawn's Aipom who do not particularly enjoy battling can compete in a different sort of event that is less violent and more about elegance and aesthetics. The same can be said about the Pokémon Musical.

There have also been other Pokémon in the Anime that have shown a distaste for battling... whom I would remember any other time, but at the time where I'm trying to talk about them, I don't remember. In that case, it was a classic example of any video game-based show's money-hungry moral system that seems to say "If you know someone who doesn't enjoy our primary gameplay mechanic, then that just means they're shy and hesitant to get into the whole thing, but with enough work and preaching about how much fun you have battling in Pokéchurch, they'll eventually come out of their shell and end up loving every minute of it!" Sort of like that episode of SpongeBob where he tries to get Squidward to like Krabby Patties... or that episode of Yu-Gi-Oh where generic nay-sayer #1 doesn't enjoy Duel Monsters, but thanks to Yugi and his friends, he understands that having different tastes in card games will make him a social hermit and that only crazy people don't like fighting monsters!
 
In Pokemon Adventures, N made White's Bubu fight his Servine on purpose, and Bubu realized how much fun battling was and decided to stick with N. I think battling is somewhat in every pokemon's nature - and N said something similar to that...
 
Pokemon are entwined with nature and understand every aspect of it. They understand that fighting and conflict are just as much as part of nature as they are.

I just thought that out on the spot. I guess something can be made of this.
 
HorizonGirl said:
But I do wonder, does some degree of brainwashing occur here? Do Pokemon have to obey trainers with a certain number of badges, regardless of whether the Pokemon wants to fight?
Click to expand...

I think this aspect of Pokemon has a lot in common with management in real-life. An employee will generally follow a leader who is knowledgeable, experienced, etc. That is, a person is more likely to follow a person who he respects. Put yourself in a Pokemon's shoes and think, would you like to be trained and battle under someone like Red or youngster Joey? If you were a strong Pokemon like Dragonite, would you like to be trained by some greenhorn trainer who doesn't know how to use your powers or by someone who brings out the strength in you? In real life, would you work with a boss who gives you work which fully utilizes your skills and even increases them or with a boss who gives an expert in programming the job of cleaning dishes?

Remember a human being is not going to follow someone who isn't better than him. Nobody likes being led with a person who is less skilled. Clash of egoes and all that shit.

I donot think it is brainwashing but basically, you earn a Pokemon's respect by winning badges. Badges are a sign of a battler's strength. And Pokemon follow strength.

As far as the games are concerned, they put in such a feature to prevent any trainer from trading in a lvl 100 Pokemon from another game after he gets his 1st badge and then breezing through the game.
 
I don't think Pokémon feel that much pain, whenever you see them not being able to get up, it's probably severe exhaustion because of the battle.
 
I like to think Pokemon understand what badges mean, it's certainly better than the "badges brainwash pokemon!" BS from PokeSupe. There's no reason to assume Pokemon aren't smart enough to know what the badges mean. As an in-game explanation, Pokemon appear before humans because they want to be caught and trained by someone with potential to be very strong, aka the PC. The Pokemon that don't want to fight, you never see, unless you made up your own story where boxed Pokemon don't want to fight and just hang at the lab all day. That's just how I see it, at least...
 
I think they enjoy it, but yeah it inflicts pain. I mean its almost equivilant to us boxing and wrestling, it hurts but its fun. also pokemon (usually) have a huge respect towards there owners, and thats why they do fight.
 
It's like animals IRL, if you see they fight, it's just instinct, they get hurt but they don't "mind".
 
Hmmm, in my opinion Pokemon are born with the instinct to fight and want to gain more powers. They have moves/ability that can be learned and I think they're fully aware of that, so even if they get hurt, or even if they're scared at first, I think most Pokemon enjoy battling, and it becomes a challenge to them. It might get them hurt, and they might not always win, but they don't lose the want to try. Once they get a trainer, they probably also want to impress them, as well.
 
I'm going to compare Pokemon to my dog, in a sense.

My dog is a Border Collie, and are considered a very instinctive and loyal breed. They are mostly used to herd cattle and sheep, but when domesticated have been known to attach other "jobs" to themselves. Mine happens to love playing fetch with the ball. He and I could throw the ball back and forth for hours and he will keep coming back. We literally have to yell at him to get him to stop. Even when he broke his hip, he still tried to play ball even though it physically hurt him. Why would my dog do something that was physically causing him pain?
The answer lies within his animal instinct. He is a breed that was meant to please his master no matter what. How can he please his master when he is a simple house pet? He plays. He gets gratification from playing. He gets exercise when he plays. My family adores him when he plays. He does it because to him, that is his purpose in life. His drive to live is ball.
The same probably goes for Pokemon. Pokemon battle because it is their existence. Their job is to use the powers that come naturally to them. They like using trainers because it allows them to grow in ways that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Pokemon battle because it's in their DNA to battle from Arceus, Mew, to Bidoof. They all want to be stronger, and they use trainers as a means to complete this goal.
 
I guess it depends on the Pokémon.

Some love battling and some hate it.
 
I think they'd enjoy battling just as humans would enjoy sports. Some more than others, some more injury-prone than others.
 
Most Pokémon, if not all, are competitive. After all, I believe it's been stated that they do fight of their own free will in the wild. Even the ones that refuse to do so out of captivity seem to want to impress or help their trainer once they are brought onto a team. As for the pain, it's likely a case of "the end justifies the means". And since they will only disobey their trainer if the trainer is not skilled enough, my guess is that they'll think they can run the battle better but get in trouble because of it.
 
I'd think some would. Like others have said before, I'd say it depends on their personality and how competitive they are.
 
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Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
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