Pokemon, Animals, and Darwinism!

T

Typhlosion In Repose

That creepy feeling...
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I just thought of something. For a while, people have been wondering about the existance or lack there of of animals in the pokemon world. For me, the answer was simple: of course not. Regular animals would have been wiped out in like pre-kabuto times. Think about it. There's two one-celled microorganisms in the primordial sea. One is the ancestor of pokemon, one is the ancestor of animals. They both need to eat, and they find eachother. One swims over, only to be hit by, I don't know, absorb, and dies. Just as in Darwinism, the fittest would survive. And i would think that pokemon would be more fit than regular animals.
 
That theory also doesn’t hold up because people are animals too. We evolved from primates if our ancestors would have bit the big one back in prehistory there would be no trainers to catch them all now.
 
Unless, maybe something in the past happened to all animals, but humans were able to survive for some reason....
 
Humans are Pokémon too!

(When I was younger I thought there was a chance they'd bring that up eventually, not matter how stupid it sounded, but I guess not...I've heard stupider things come out of that show.)

We've seen fish on a number of occasions in the anime.

The Pokédex is always mentioning animals. This applies to the games and the anime, and possibly other aspect of the franchise.

Pidgeotto had a worm in its mouth on Episode 3: Ash Catches a Pokémon!
 
Not to mention Ash dressing up in a cow suit and the fact that roosters have crowed in the morning in a few episodes.
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It was shown to be a Dodrio.
 
I thought that something caused a mass extinction killing nearly all the animals. One of the animals that survived would later evolve into Mew, the anscestor of all pokemon, and over the years, the newer, more versitle species that sprang up from Mew would take over, and being the superior creatures they are, will end up driving lesser species to extinction. There would still be remnants of them, but the world will be mostly dominated by Pokemon.
 
I guess it's because you really arent supposed to think about these things. My theory would hold true for the games, I guess.
 
of course in the games, it'd be easy to say a lot of stuff exists in that world but is just never focused on in the canon considering, like almost any video game, the areas appear to be very simplified representations of what they actually should be. When you think about it, Pokemon, even the extremely common birds and rodents, seem like something you'd encounter a lot less than you would a real animal (especially small animals). In the games, you encounter Pokemon after so many steps of wandering tall grass, which as I explained earlier with the video game simplification, could actually be hundreds of meters. Likewise in the anime, often times they'll encounter some Pokemon that seems to be the only living organism besides themselves within a large radius (meanwhile, in real life... I guess I could understand such rare occurances with something like a deer, but rodents, small birds, and especially insects seem to be everywhere). That said, regular animals and Pokemon can easily co-exist (the regular animals simply aren't ever focused on), but if Pokemon really are the only wildlife, then organisms as a whole have gotta be pretty fucking rare (which is probably a good thing.... could you imagine creatures with such destructive powers collaborating in a group as big as your average ant colony? Perhaps this balance between power and rarity would also help the ecosystem, like the greenthumb power of certain grass Pokemon counteract the supposed lack of insects and other things that otherwise help decompose, spread, and nurture plant life).

By the way, regular animals do appear in some of the manga, and there was also TCG art of a bird with Utsudon. In the anime, several people are quick to point out that worm that Pigeon was eating in episode 3, along with a couple instances of fish, among other things. However, they all seemed to have phased out since the earlier episodes (not that the anime's ever been big on consistency... though it is worth noting that as the anime progresses, we see more and more of Pokemon replacing animals, as well as technology, in roles influenced by real life, and eating meat tends to be side-stepped nowadays in favor of the characters eating commonly meat-free food such as onigiri, stew, salad, curry rice, etc. Though, oddly enough, I think hamburgers may've appeared at least once not too long ago, probably mid-AG).
 
I always thought that animal-like and plant-like Pokemon developed from other preexisting species of Pokemon via a process that rivaled Darwinian evolution. However, this kind of is cancelled out by how creatures such as Dialga and Palkia are supposedly the ones that created the universe, after Arceus created them, thus really rivalling some religious ideas of how the world, universe, organisms, etc. came to be. But, your idea holds some weight I think, Typhlosion In Repose.
 
Well all I can say for my enthusiasm for this thread in one word:YAY!!!
When the games started out, I first thought, "It's some evolving thing, I mean they actually EVOLVE," but then when I caught (traded, I think, since I started out with Squirtle) a Bulbasaur and read it's Pokedex entry I flipped.

Why? Because I thought some nutter like Westwood - Nothing against him, but he's weird - literally planted a bulb on it's back when it was an impressionable mouse and they transfigured it's DNA so much it started to run in the family. Then there was that whole "Professor Oak wears a mask!" thing ( The lines on the back of his head creeped me out!) so, to me, it didn't seem out of the question.

Now that I know better, I think they mutated and bred a little TOO long ( The Anime never says if it's 2000 to 1844) until we've got our little half-plushie-half-pet friends.

The powers? Maybe they ate some magic fruit (One Piece referal)?
 
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Emeray said:
Well all I can say for my enthusiasm for this thread in one word:YAY!!!
When the games started out, I first thought, "It's some evolving thing, I mean they actually EVOLVE," but then when I caught (traded, I think, since I started out with Squirtle) a Bulbasaur and read it's Pokedex entry I flipped.

Why? Because I thought some nutter like Westwood - Nothing against him, but he's weird - literally planted a bulb on it's back when it was an impressionable mouse and they transfigured it's DNA so much it started to run in the family. Then there was that whole "Professor Oak wears a mask!" thing ( The lines on the back of his head creeped me out!) so, to me, it didn't seem out of the question.

Now that I know better, I think they mutated and bred a little TOO long ( The Anime never says if it's 2000 to 1844) until we've got our little half-plushie-half-pet friends.

The powers? Maybe they ate some magic fruit (One Piece referal)?
Click to expand...

Umm... sorry, but what?
 
Oh, sorry. Sometimes I forget that I need to use real grammer to write. Ok here I go:

When the games were still selling (Red and Blue) I caught a Bulbasaur and read it's pokedex info. It said something about the bulb being planted on it's back at birth. So, I guessed, that some scientist took a little rat or something and literally planted a bulb on it's back.

Later, I thought that some dinos from way back then started to breed with plants, or something like that (I don't remember, and the dinos breeding with plants are in the POKEMON world, not ours), and soon - TA - DAH!!! - our little Bulbasaur babies were born.

Still not sure what I meant? Me too.....It was a long time ago....

I thought they ate some weird mutated fruit that gave them powers.
 
Emeray said:
Oh, sorry. Sometimes I forget that I need to use real grammer to write. Ok here I go:

When the games were still selling (Red and Blue) I caught a Bulbasaur and read it's pokedex info. It said something about the bulb being planted on it's back at birth. So, I guessed, that some scientist took a little rat or something and literally planted a bulb on it's back.

Later, I thought that some dinos from way back then started to breed with plants, or something like that (I don't remember, and the dinos breeding with plants are in the POKEMON world, not ours), and soon - TA - DAH!!! - our little Bulbasaur babies were born.

Still not sure what I meant? Me too.....It was a long time ago....

I thought they ate some weird mutated fruit that gave them powers.
Click to expand...
Ok, I get it now. You didn't mention Masked Oak, though! I always thought he had scars on his face.
 
On the Weepinbell trading card, there's a bird on his head.

weepinbell.jpg


Just thought I'd throw that in there...
 
Here's what I don't get: Darwinism does explain why, say, Omastar is extinct, but why have Kabuto/ps, Aerodactyl, Lileep/Cradily, Anorith/Armaldo, Cranidos/Rampardos and Shieldon/Bastiodon died out? Are we supposed to assume that a comet hit the Pokemon world and wiped all of them out as well? Because Kabutops, especially, seems quite formidable and not like the kind of thing that would just "die out" from natural selection or anything.
 
Better preditors competing for the same food, rapid change in climate, inability to adapt to the changing world are all reasons why those Pokemon have died out.

Before anyone mentions Relicanth, I will just like to say that Relicanth's environment may not have changed enough for it to go extinct eventhough it remains unchanged sicne the age of Aerodactyl.
 
"L" said:
Better preditors competing for the same food, rapid change in climate, inability to adapt to the changing world are all reasons why those Pokemon have died out.

Before anyone mentions Relicanth, I will just like to say that Relicanth's environment may not have changed enough for it to go extinct eventhough it remains unchanged sicne the age of Aerodactyl.
Click to expand...

Which is because of the fact that the coleocanth, upon which relicanth is based, hasn't changed from the time of the dinosaurs. It looks the same as its fossils.
 
Please note: The thread is from 19 years ago.
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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