7 Issues We'd Have to Deal With If Pokemon Were Real

Will Weldon

Good fictional entertainment manages to entertain us by keeping the logical questions we might normally have at bay. That’s why we always talk about the plot holes in bad movies: If the movie hadn’t been so generally awful, we wouldn’t have had gone “Well, why did they build up all this tension with her husband returning on the train and then not pay it off?” (I’m not crazy about Doctor Zhivago). And I guess since you kids all love Pokemon without ever asking questions about it, it must qualify as good fiction. But I have questions! Real life questions! In fact, here are Issues That Would Come Up If Pokemon Were Real:

 

Regulations

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I don’t know if you guys remember the whole “Michael Vick thing” (not referring to his awful season with the Eagles, fyi) but people are not super into small animals fighting each other for fun and profit. So assuming Pokemon battles would even be allowed to continue, there’s the whole question of what regulations would be required. I’m pretty sure the whole “children battling in open fields with no adults” would be the first thing to go.

 

Shady Fight Promoters

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And here’s a good example of WHY we would need all kinds of regulations! Anyone familiar with Don King knows this: the people who tend to promote fights are only as above board as they are required to be so they don’t go to jail.

 

Tolerating Bad Behavior

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The flip side of the Don King example: part of the reason he was such a bad guy was that he allowed fighters to be so pampered and not face consequences for their actions that it warped them into thinking they could do anything they wanted (and they faced real, serious consequences for their behavior). Now, imagine a small rodent who can generate electricity and lightning bolts at will behaving the way Lindsay Lohan does. It would probably be the end of the world.

 

Roaming, Feral Pokemon

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I live in Los Angeles, and many parts of the city have serious dog problems. Just packs of pit bulls, wandering around at night, because at one point somebody thought they could take care of a dog, when in fact they just ended up letting it go in the streets two or three months later. Why would Pokemon be any different? Somebody decides they want a Squirtle on a whim, then things go bad with their finances, and they end up dumping him in a public swimming pool in the dead of night so they don’t have to deal with the burden financially. Not good.

 

Killed For Medicine/Trophies

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Now, I haven’t seen every episode of the show, but I’m pretty sure Pokemon weren’t constantly living in fear of people shooting shotguns at them because they a)wanted a stuffed Zapdos on their mantle, or b)thought they would get some terminal illness cured by grinding up and snorting the foot of a Hitmonlee. But guess what? That’s a reality for most exotic animals on earth. Also, what if one type of Pokemon tasted particularly good and was easy to breed and feed. Don’t tell me we wouldn’t factory farm, and eat,. them.

Hunted To Extinction

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If people are hunting Pokemon, they’re almost certainly not hunting them responsibly. “Hunting” and “responsibly” rarely go to together (also not going with the word “Responsibly”; almost all human behavior). In particular, legendary Pokemon don’t really have a chance of lasting one or two months of existence before, best case scenario, a group in Southern California sets up a preserve to try to restore their numbers.

 

People Would Try To Be “Intimate” With Them

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Just because Pokemon would be real, doesn’t mean creeps wouldn’t!

 

What other preposterous problems could arise? Let us know in the comments!

 

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