My ecology professor and I just had a nice chat on Pokemon while on a night walk.
First we simply discussed how in the Pokemon world there should be more convergent evolution, because there's no evolutionary reason to compete (that is, they don't need it to reproduce). Until we realized that Pokemon are only known to reproduce in daycare centers. Thus, only Pokemon who are caught are able to pass their genes down. So they evolve for human selection, and those in the wild are presumably those that have been released.
Where it gets interesting however, is where you combine that with the idea that, outside of whatever is in the Pokemon Tower's graves, Pokemon don't die. Thus, the population of Pokemon is higher when you begin your journey than it ever was before (because it is always increasing). Now, because the law says that you can only battle another trainer once (at least in Johto), that explains why gym leaders are so weak. They can't level up very quickly anymore, because there isn't anyone left to battle (grinding on wild Pokemon is slow, after all). Plus, there were less Pokemon in the world when they were up-and-coming.
You (Ash), however, have the benefit of fighting every trainer at their peak (whereas younger trainers would have gotten less experience from weaker competition). And so you grow faster than anyone before you could have. Which means there isn't nearly as much spectacular about YOUR ability in your championship run - you just happened to be born later.
The games have mentioned several times that pokemon breed in the wild AND die... so yeah, pointless and wrong discussion wee.
EDIT: Heck just off the top of my head, aside from the Pokemon graves in Lavender town (which are very specifically mentioned to be Pokemon) there's a guy in FR/LG that is mourning his dead Onix at a memorial in the Sevii islands.
And I'm pretty sure something has been said at some point about eating pokemon too.
mmmmm but clearly pokemon only die in extreme scenarios (I mentioned the pokemon tower), unless you want to tell me that the pokemon in my party are immortal i think you can safely assume that the breed rate is higher than the rate of those extreme scenarios, in which case the later part of the discussion (why a ten year old can become champion) still holds
and the world doesn't make ecological sense if pokemon breed in the wild, so clearly that's impossible
special_sauce posted... Where it gets interesting however, is where you combine that with the idea that, outside of whatever is in the Pokemon Tower's graves, Pokemon don't die.
Tell that to Charmander!
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special_sauce posted... and the world doesn't make ecological sense if pokemon breed in the wild, so clearly that's impossible
Say it with me:
It's a video game, it doesn't have to make logical sense.
And Pokemon don't fight to the death and your trainer takes good care of them, that's why the Pokemon in your party don't die. Pokemon die naturally and violently, both are mentioned in the games.
mmmmm but clearly pokemon only die in extreme scenarios (I mentioned the pokemon tower), unless you want to tell me that the pokemon in my party are immortal
The pokemon faint due to massive exposure to stimuli. The stimuli however don't cause death and most trainers aren't heartless enough to leave their pokemon out in battle for them to die.
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tcaz2 posted... special_sauce posted... and the world doesn't make ecological sense if pokemon breed in the wild, so clearly that's impossible
Say it with me:
It's a video game, it doesn't have to make logical sense.
i mean clearly im not super serious with this and like publishing a dissertation... like, i'm aware that it's a video game, i just thought that this was funny...
i mean if you wanna poke holes, here's an obvious one: everything living being needs energy. So obviously there's a population cap, based on available food. True, this doesn't change that trainers are at their peak when you're up-and-coming, so this logic still says that a ten-year-old has an advantage, but it does toss out that one idea