Quitting Pokemon

Along with Harry Potter, I enjoyed Pokemon and Digimon as a child, before I knew God. Like Harry Potter, they have been described as Satanic. Could that be true?

Pokemon is essentially about exploring the land to capture mythical creatures that are sort of like animals, then having those creatures fight each other in battles. Pokemon are classified into elemental “types,” and they use magic techniques that are like a blend of the occult and martial arts. Though the battles might be reminiscent of dog fighting, Pokemon aren’t the same as animals. They are meant to battle, and they enjoy battling. There’s no blood, gore, or death in the games.

However, Johto shall be my last league.

In other words, Soul Silver shall be the last Pokemon game I play. The truth is that way back after Pokemon Crystal, the series started to go downhill…and honestly I started to lose interest, but I still bought subsequent Pokemon games out of loyalty to the series. Yet what Giovanni said in Pokemon Origins struck me:

“Pokemon is a business.”

Red replied that his Pokemon are his friends, to which Giovanni retorted, “Yet you subject your friends to pain again and again.”

Those words made an impression on me. Pokemon is a business. In light of Giovanni’s words, Red seemed terribly naive.

The main theme of Pokemon is friendship – not just using the most powerful Pokemon to win. In theory, the best trainers create a team of favorites, even if they don’t happen to be the strongest specimens. However, these days not many people actually play the game that way, which takes all the fun out of battling.

EV training essentially ruined the game, at least for me. Instead of raising Pokemon naturally, most competitive trainers manipulate the game’s distribution of stats in order to maximize their chance of winning – sort of like steroids for Pokemon. As a result, I find that the childlike innocence and sincerity is gone from the game now, and has been since people discovered EV training around the time of Ruby and Sapphire.

Besides the fun fading away, there are also some disturbing aspects of Pokemon. Pokedex entries can be quite brutal – though nature is often brutal, I suppose – and Pokemon use elemental powers (sorcery), though this isn’t considered occult magic in the games. The series may also promote greed, materialism, and the pursuit of power with “gotta catch ’em all” and the value of legendary Pokemon being that they are more powerful than ordinary ones.

Another troubling thought is that Pokemon trainers are sort of like MKUltra handlers. Granted, as a child I didn’t think about any of this, and the disturbing aspects of Pokemon are quite mild. The themes of friendship and love for animals override the darker themes in my opinion, but I still don’t plan to continue with these games.

Just like Ty should have stopped producing Beanie Babies a long time ago to increase their value, Pokemon probably should have ended after the Johto season. Originally, the series wasn’t supposed to continue past G/S/C. Yet greed took over, and now there are eight generations and nearly 1,000 kinds of Pokemon.

Choose a Grass, Fire, or Water starter: Pokemon has been recycling the same idea for years.

Even as a child, I sensed a shift in Ruby and Sapphire toward commercialization. The Pokemon sprites looked like generic cartoons compared to the unique designs of G/S/C, and the new Pokemon were mostly unappealing. The old characters and regions disappeared; when the main character stepped out of the moving truck at the beginning of the game, perhaps that symbolized a new start for the Pokemon series…and not for the better.

The games became overly polished and complicated, with additions such as contests, Pokeblocks, and personalities…though the same exact plot stayed consistent in each generation, with changes only to superficial aspects of the game. By now the series has become so repetitive and stale that I cannot stand to play the new ones. They’re boring and lack the charm of the older games.

Even with all the legendaries, Diamond was a snooze fest.

Though the scent of greed tainted R/S/E and became even more pungent in D/P, I still held on because of nostalgia. With all my heart I tried to like the new Pokemon games. Yet for me, Digimon ended after season 3, and Pokemon after generation 4 – only because of the remakes of the old games – and really after season 2. Long ago, Silver was my first Pokemon game, and Crystal was my all time favorite…so, ending with Soul Silver seems right. The series may have sold out its soul, but as a remake of the original Silver, I find that Soul Silver still has a sliver of soul left.

Daisy Miller’s False Innocence

My grandfather told me that reading Henry James is slow, boring torture. He (my grandpa) is a very intelligent man who earned perfect SAT scores without studying and was accepted into Harvard, so if he thinks something is difficult to read, I am inclined to avoid it and protect my brain from exploding. However, I must disagree with my grandfather about Henry James.

Daisy Miller isn’t boring, at least. Though I’m not familiar with James’s other work, I really liked Daisy Miller — especially the eloquent humor. The story is simple, straightforward, and rather realistic, without sudden plot twists or dramatic revelations, yet I still found it interesting and wondered what would happen next while reading.

Many people seem to dislike the character Winterbourne, though I liked him for his good manners and gentle soul. He may not be remarkable, but his agreeable personality is pleasant, at least…though I thought he was a bit of a doormat for pretending to be fine with Daisy doting on Giovanelli. Winterbourne seems to have no self-respect; if I were him, I would have given up on Daisy and let her be with Giovanelli if she liked him so much.

Winterbourne’s mediocrity serves a good purpose, however, since he is the narrator. A narrator with a strong personality would be distracting. Winterbourne has the right temperament to observe events and comment on them without expressing his opinions too much. Though he is the main character, Daisy’s personality so overwhelms his that he really seems more like a side character.

Though I liked Daisy at first, I liked her less as the story continued. She seems flaky, immature, and oblivious to the feelings of others; I didn’t understand why Winterbourne liked her so much, other than her beauty and mystery, which are shallow reasons to be in love. Winterbourne wants to characterize Daisy as innocent, though I had the impression that he projected qualities onto her that she didn’t really have; in my opinion, Daisy’s actions portray the opposite of innocence. She feels no loyalty toward Winterbourne though she supposedly loves him, and I agree with Mrs. Walker that Daisy’s flirtations are irresponsible.

Then Daisy says, “That’s all I want — a little fuss!” That statement conveys her true character and reveals her motivations. She enjoys ruffling feathers and causing drama, for no other purpose than childish immaturity and rebellion. So, in a childish sense Daisy might be considered innocent, though not in a moral sense.