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A new approach to Pokémon Canon

PlozAlcachaz said:
I only came on the thread because I was mentioned on the thread. This was actually shared on the last thread, but you overlooked it for whatever reason. They directly imply in the official Nintendo Power guide for Red/Blue Rescue Team that the world of trainers (from the games) is the same as the human world, which is a canonically different universe from the Pokemon-only world in the Mystery Dungeon game series (albeit same cosmology obviously).

It's very clearly in reference to the games as well considering the caption beneath the heading literally mentions "previous games" in it. There's no argument about one-sided canonicity either like you tried claiming in the last thread for other details because this is just straight up from a Nintendo publication in general. I see literally no reason for Mystery Dungeon not to be canon given the multiple implications and intentions that seem to intrinsically tie it to the main canon.
Click to expand...
That's just the premise of MD yeah. It's litteraly the same amount of proof as Xeno Goku being an alt timeline Goku.

Proof of canon needs to come either from clear wog or already-confirmedtobecanon works.

Also the fact that most of its lore is contradicting a big part of what's established doesn't help.
 
YuriAkuto said:
That's just the premise of MD yeah.
Click to expand...
You do realize by admitting the validity of this point, you indirectly concede on this argument, right? If the world of trainers (previous games like FireRed and Crystal) is the same as the human world, then it's just an alternate universe to it. I don't mean alternate universe in the sense of "not in the same canon," I mean that it's like just another universe in Pokémon's cosmology.
YuriAkuto said:
It's litteraly the same amount of proof as Xeno Goku being an alt timeline Goku.
Click to expand...
If Xeno Goku has a statement where a company like Toei comes out and confirms they're in the same cosmology as a different universe but it's not accepted, then that sounds more like a DB problem you should fix on a different CRT. This is proof by example nonetheless.
YuriAkuto said:
Proof of canon needs to come either from clear wog or already-confirmedtobecanon works.
Click to expand...
This comes from an official Nintendo publication where a section is describing the relationship between the games and Mystery Dungeon, so it meets the idea here.
YuriAkuto said:
Also the fact that most of its lore is contradicting a big part of what's established doesn't help.
Click to expand...
That's a non-argument. We've established that there are countless if not infinitely present timelines in the franchise before this thread. In a multiverse where worlds are literally born out of the differences between them, seeing one that's different from the norm shouldn't be a shocker at all.
 
PlozAlcachaz said:
You do realize by admitting the validity of this point, you indirectly concede on this argument, right? If the world of trainers (previous games like FireRed and Crystal) is the same as the human world, then it's just an alternate universe to it. I don't mean alternate universe in the sense of "not in the same canon," I mean that it's like just another universe in Pokémon's cosmology.
Click to expand...
It's not what the scan implies at all.

It just says that in MD own personnal lore, the trainers are in another universe.
That's no different from a lot of non canon spin off like Hyrule Warriors.

PlozAlcachaz said:
If Xeno Goku has a statement where a company like Toei comes out and confirms they're in the same cosmology as a different universe but it's not accepted, then that sounds more like a DB problem you should fix on a different CRT. This is proof by example nonetheless.
Click to expand...
The game portrays canon db as a timeline among many. Like a lot of spin offs.
DM doing it is no different.
Also I already explained how saying "it's so unique no verse can compare" is litteraly just asking all inventions to be validated.
PlozAlcachaz said:
This comes from an official Nintendo publication where a section is describing the relationship between the games and Mystery Dungeon, so it meets the idea here.
Click to expand...
That's not what I see in the scans. It's just MD explaining how it works inside of its own lore.
PlozAlcachaz said:
That's a non-argument. We've already established that there are countless if not infinitely present timelines in the franchise before this thread. In a multiverse where worlds are literally born out of the differences between them, seeing one that's far different from the norm shouldn't be a shocker at all.
Click to expand...
Seeing a multiversal constant role being drastically changed is a problem. We should definitely stop excusing our own errors under the idea that "multiverse=all errors are legit"
 
YuriAkuto said:
It's not what the scan implies at all.
It just says that in MD own personnal lore, the trainers are in another universe.
That's no different from a lot of non canon spin off like Hyrule Warriors.
Click to expand...
This is once again false. There is an outright reference to Mystery Dungeon's existence from Shauntal in Pokemon Masters, something being proposed to be added in the canon here too. And before you try to use the argument "it's just a book!!!!" (because that's predictable for you to say), you have to remember the way that humans stumbling in the world find themselves in disbelief from the fact there truly is only a world of Pokemon. So no, the connection isn't one-sided like you are trying to mislead others into believing. Also, Hyrule Warriors is accepted as being part of Zelda's canon, but it's just in another dimension, much like Mystery Dungeon. Thank you for proving your standards are just ludicrously high and that by the site's own logic, it should be canon.
YuriAkuto said:
The game portrays canon db as a timeline among many. Like a lot of spin offs.
DM doing it is no different.
Also I already explained how saying "it's so unique no verse can compare" is litteraly just asking all inventions to be validated.
Click to expand...
Okay, that's a one-sided canonicity. That's inherently different from Mystery Dungeon's case. Thank you for explaining why your example is objectively a false equivalence.

Yuri, the problem isn't the fact that MD is unique. It's the fact that you're deriving your arguments largely from examples and that's it. You use examples to bolster your arguments, not make them.
YuriAkuto said:
That's not what I see in the scans. It's just MD explaining how it works inside of its own lore.
Click to expand...
Why would that be the case? Even ignoring what I just shared above, it's not a statement that's made inside of the game. It's just a statement from a Nintendo publication of Mystery Dungeon that explains its relation to the main games. You might want to clean off those tinted glasses.
YuriAkuto said:
Seeing a multiversal constant role being drastically changed is a problem. We should definitely stop excusing our own errors under the idea that "multiverse=all errors are legit"
Click to expand...
Arceus is still the creator of everything in Mystery Dungeon, and the Creation Trio has localized manifestations, much like the other universes. Are you saying the roles of Yveltal and Xerneas changing are proof of this like in the last thread. That has never been confirmed as a multiversal constant, just under universes that are incredibly similar to each other where they have the same role. That's deriving a conclusion from something literally never posited as an idea and seems more like your personal headcanon.

Your original claim was that it can't exist with these "contradictions." Now, you're backing into trying to say people are wrong if they are to accept these "contradictions" when you have no actual argument against what was brought up, lovely.
 
YuriAkuto said:
It's not what the scan implies at all.

It just says that in MD own personnal lore, the trainers are in another universe.
That's no different from a lot of non canon spin off like Hyrule Warriors.


The game portrays canon db as a timeline among many. Like a lot of spin offs.
DM doing it is no different.
Also I already explained how saying "it's so unique no verse can compare" is litteraly just asking all inventions to be validated.

That's not what I see in the scans. It's just MD explaining how it works inside of its own lore.

Seeing a multiversal constant role being drastically changed is a problem. We should definitely stop excusing our own errors under the idea that "multiverse=all errors are legit"
Click to expand...
You do know that this wiki uses stuff from multiple different pokemon universes for canon and scaling right? Different universe isn't non canon, and there aren't as many errors as you think. What are the contradictions for PMD being non canon
 
I'm somewhat concerned about some matters:

1. Is there such a thing or group of things that we should consider as a primary/main canon? If so, what is it defined as?

2. Do we treat all included works as "equally canon"?

3. Does this proposition include any proposed approaches to things like the Anime contradicting Pokedex info?
Because for most Pokemon species, most of the time in the anime, details from their Pokedex entries -as well as, arguably stuff from their physiology- are often ignored or neglected. Heights gotten wrong, weight seemingly not checked, & sometimes stuff happening that contradicts Pokedex entries.

In come cases, these "contradictions" can simple be the anime depicting those Pokemon without ever depicting such abilities, typically for reasons that the Pokemon that has it isn't important to the story, or the ability wouldn't further the story.
& in such cases, these absences of evidence could be seen as the anime contradicting the games' Pokedex.

So how does the content of this blog & proposition handle such matters?
Sorry for any bother, & sorry if any of my questions are problematic.
 
StrymULTRA said:
Not really, since Pokémon up to now is composite in anything except if there are extremely notable differences like the Low 2-C PMD mons.
Click to expand...
We don't do that for the humans tho. Unless you don't see Red has different profiles his different versions. After all, the reason we cross scale the different Pokémon across different universes is because the species are supposed to do the same things even across different universes (based on Masuda's statement), but we don't have such thing for the humans.
 
Ionliosite said:
We don't do that for the humans tho. Unless you don't see Red has different profiles his different versions. After all, the reason we cross scale the different Pokémon across different universes is because the species are supposed to do the same things even across different universes (based on Masuda's statement), but we don't have such thing for the humans.
Click to expand...
Tell that to Brock, Cynthia etc.

Red is an exception due of the whole differences between their mons, manga one has literally Mewtwo, Origins one a 5-B Charizard and Game one is "normal".
 
Imaginym said:
1. Is there such a thing or group of things that we should consider as a primary/main canon? If so, what is it defined as?
Click to expand...
Depends on what you mean as "primary/main canon". Officially, there's no such thing.

First because Pokémon isn't a series about continuity or anything like that, as Masuda said, is a series that you need to approach from a "region/worldview" point of view, with each entry showing a different side of the Pokémon world that you need to look into to see how rich it's.

So, it's a franchise that from the PoV that I'm trying to explain here, is about setting first than anything else. Of course continuity and the characters themselves are good in order to make a good story and experience for the one that is playing the game, but if there's a point when the continuity and setting enter in conflict, and for the world itself, you could just go with the setting and its consequences than continuity.

After understanding that the characters themselves, their story arcs or the story/continuity as a whole really don't matter for this thread, then all that we need to discuss is setting and how the different media can explore that world. We need to understand that sometimes there's something different because it's a thing of the medium, and other media can't show the same thing, and other times that something different is simply a mistake and shouldn't matter.

The best that we have is the interview with Jinnai, he refers to the mainline "Pocket Monsters" series as the "original world" and going by his explanation of the Pokémon World being "Multi-layered", we can assume that the mainline "Pocket Monsters" series is the first layer that is the basis for all the other layers, that are going to complement the original one in order to make the larger "Pokémon world" more rich.

So the mainline games could be seen as the "main canon" in relation to setting (Since, again, continuity isn't important), yet it isn't absolute and is in fact incomplete due to the very medium of the mainline games being limited, so even the mainline games aren't the "one true thing" for Pokémon.

Having the Canon Tier System, such as the one that I gave as an example at the start of the thread, helps us since we need to be sure of what to put in the profiles. So having the mainline games as the main canon, and using the others in levels depending on how much they are closer of away from those mainline games, seems to be a good option, since I know that nobody wants a full case-by-case way that needs every single addition to be analyzed in that way (Even if it's still the best one IMO).

Imaginym said:
2. Do we treat all included works as "equally canon"?
Click to expand...
Again, depends on what you mean as "canon". Since my thread isn't about continuity, then we can already say that this wouldn't treat all the works as happening in the same timeline (Even taking version differences in consideration).

Also each work from different media can also be different due to the very nature of the media, and is also something that shouldn't affect the setting itself, even if it presents in a different way due to the media.

So, each work is full of unique things that definitely don't "affect" each other (Mainly about continuity), things that are there due to uniqueness of the media itself and shouldn't "scale", and even among things that could be scaled, that can also be ones that couldn't due to contradictions and would fall in the "unique things".

So, no "equally canon". Most works still have their own continuities that are separated from each other, and this is more about the setting and things that are somewhat consistent and each work is just showing "a different side of a whole". If things are vastly contradicted between then, then it doesn't scale.

Imaginym said:
3. Does this proposition include any proposed approaches to things like the Anime contradicting Pokedex info?
Because for most Pokemon species, most of the time in the anime, details from their Pokedex entries -as well as, arguably stuff from their physiology- are often ignored or neglected. Heights gotten wrong, weight seemingly not checked, & sometimes stuff happening that contradicts Pokedex entries.

In come cases, these "contradictions" can simple be the anime depicting those Pokemon without ever depicting such abilities, typically for reasons that the Pokemon that has it isn't important to the story, or the ability wouldn't further the story.
& in such cases, these absences of evidence could be seen as the anime contradicting the games' Pokedex.
Click to expand...
It's all about being consistent or not, and the reasons for that. Different heights, weight, why does that matter ? Pokémon are a species, and height and weight should be by far one of the most common things to not be 1:1 between all the members of the species. If something has no reason to be the same among all of them... Then it's just a different thing that can be not very normal in-universe, but that is being chosen by the staff because said heights/weights are better for the story/animation/etc. This is about the whole "different media are better with different things" and people should stop thinking that any difference from the "standard" is a reason for a work to be unable to be used.

In relation to the entries, again, think of them as the "standard", there's nothing wrong with the anime or any other work to explore the "non-standard version" even more than the "standard one", due to a number of reasons.

Anyway, if we can establish what is the "standard", then we should simply not use the "non-standard" in the "standard profile". At best create a different key for the various "unique Pokémon" that are outside of the standard from the Pokédex. What you used as an example, isn't a contradiction in any level. Not doing what should be possible, isn't a contradiction, it's simply a work not using its material in its fullest. It can hurt the quality of the work for some people, but isn't a contradiction. The same is valid to the opposite.
Imaginym said:
So how does the content of this blog & proposition handle such matters?
Sorry for any bother, & sorry if any of my questions are problematic.
Click to expand...
As a TL;DR, for the blog, none of that is "important". The blog is for the setting and the common rules of the multilayered "Pokémon World". Similar things that complement each other can be considered exactly that, complements, while the totally different things are "unique elements" that don't necessarily can be considered valid across the whole "Pokémon World".

So, this isn't about continuity, isn't about individual characters, is at best about how some Pokémon works in a general way (That is their moves, abilities and more) along with the general cosmology, nothing more than that. Everything else, can be considered unique due to how different each work deals with their human characters and story. So, other than "lore/setting", nothing else matters for the blog.

Contradictory information is just that. It can be contradictory due to being a mistake, and at that point it simply does not matter (It's a mistake, everyone should move on from that), or due to being a unique element. If it's a unique element, if it's important, maybe a key for that version of the character with that unique element (Such as the Riolu that can learn Aura Sphere), or even a whole profile with that information.

In the end, lots of case by case stuff. What I'm saying isn't something like "In the Novel Ash's dad is a bad trainer that nobody knows, so that is also the case for the anime", things like characters and plotlines needs more information to know how the fit together. What I'm saying is more like "This move that never had a very good explanation in the games has an explanation in this manga/anime/spin-off, so this might be what they consider that the move can do", and this due to the interviews that talks about the worldview/setting. In a way is no different from how I deal with Digimon, that works is nearly same way.
 
If I understand this correctly (in practical terms), the idea is that other products/medias can be used as supporting evidence for the main profiles. The exception being details that are contradictory, or if it's not entirely supported by the main canon (Like if one media shows the double team as phasing intangibility, we don't just treat it as such for the rest), right?

If that's the case, I don't really mind. Although it brings some issues to debate over (Like some feats being portrayed vastly different among multiple products, or how most sources align to the 4 moves limit).

Although, I don't quite understand how PMD or Conquest, in particular, will be treated here. Also wouldn't this remove the TCG and Detective Pikachu movie from being canon? (Although honestly they probably shouldn't have from the beginning). And wouldn't we have to remove composite profiles, then?
 
Last edited:
SomebodyData said:
And wouldn't we have to remove composite profiles, then?
Click to expand...
Considering the entire point of this thread to set Pokémon as having a shared setting across all these media, the answer to this would be no, since the profiles wouldn't count as composite anymore.
 
Everything12 said:
Considering the state of some of the Pokémon profiles we already have I'd much rather we focused on improving them instead of just adding new ones for the sake of it.
Click to expand...
Ahem the Gen 6/7 starters, yes I'm beating a dead Ponyta at this point but I just can't get over how barebones those profiles are.

Regardless of how we interpret Pokémon "canon" I just want our profiles to be as professional and accurate as possible instead of varying in quality depending on which mons are god tiers and/or fan-favourites on this site.
 
Same. The most important thing about our indexing efforts is maintaining higher standards for both accuracy and professionalism when keeping track of these characters. And establishing how we treat the canon of the verse is one of the best ways we can assure this level of quality is sustained.

Quality over quantity is the name of the game here. Keep that in mind.
 
SomebodyData said:
If I understand this correctly (in practical terms), the idea is that other products/medias can be used as supporting evidence for the main profiles. The exception being details that are contradictory, or if it's not entirely supported by the main canon (Like if one media shows the double team as phasing intangibility, we don't just treat it as such for the rest), right?
Click to expand...
In theory ? Yes, if something isn't clear in the original material, or even just an addition that does not contradict the source material, could be used among the various "Pokémon World" products due to they sharing the same overall setting (In a way, no different to how Digimon works).

Yet, when it comes to "what is a contradiction", that will be hard to know. Things like storylines and characters matter nothing to things like how moves works or the world itself, yet even moves not being the "same" isn't something easy to judge.

Lots of moves have different portrayals not only between different media, but also among the same work, be it different games, different episodes of the same anime, or even how the move looks and what the description of the move says.

Don't know anything about Double Team, but the well known "Protect" move has different portrayals between the description, the animation in the game, the anime, the manga. Some descriptions says that the it allows the user to evade attacks, other that says it negates all damage, the animations (Be it the original anime or game trailers or specials) shows some type of barrier that sometimes is a sphere around the Pokémon, other times is a flat circle, other times it isn't even visible at all, and the manga varies from the same things from the anime (That are already very different from each other) to the Pokémon simply blocking the attack using its arms.

And this is just one example, lots of moves have the same problem. How can one be sure which one is the "right way", if not even the same media is consistent to how it works ? Of course if we have something like "This move that was always like this in all the manga, anime and even gameplay, isn't the same thing in this small official ad that appeared in twitter", then for sure this is one of the things that wouldn't scale.

But, if is something like "this move that had different uses in manga, anime and even the game, is already not looking the same in the manga, anime and game again". In this case... We have a much more complex issue that maybe could be about the very nature of Pokémon having lots of problem of using game mechanics over lore, or they don't care about some things being consistent, or even they simply don't want to give an answer to something that for them, isn't a problem. After all, it's only a problem for us due to how most of our standards are built with consistency and clear canon to deal with those things, none of them are things that matter for Pokémon, so it's our problem. But, still none of that matters for the "is it canon or not?" in relation to how Pokémon is intended to be analyzed as a franchise by Pokémon Company own standards.

SomebodyData said:
If that's the case, I don't really mind. Although it brings some issues to debate over (Like some feats being portrayed vastly different among multiple products, or how most sources align to the 4 moves limit).
Click to expand...
Basically what I said in the previous reply. There are things that will need to be discussed to how they are going to be applied here, but at first I would like to to least have the acceptance of the "official word on the Pokémon staff", that is how the series is intended with this multilayered setting with each work/world existing to make the larger "Pokémon Worldview" more rich and complex.

After that we can start making the rules to deal with the profiles, determinate how to deal with contradictory information, what is valid to scale between works and so on. I initially assumed that the setting thing would be accepted soon, so we could start discussing how the Canon Tier system should work. I gave an example there, but I also want to know what other people have to say about the system. Since I write mostly from an "outside indexing" PoV, what I write is more about how an average Pokémon fan would like to explore the franchise, so it's going to be adapted into something that better fits the site's standard.

SomebodyData said:
Although, I don't quite understand how PMD or Conquest, in particular, will be treated here. Also wouldn't this remove the TCG and Detective Pikachu movie from being canon? (Although honestly they probably shouldn't have from the beginning). And wouldn't we have to remove composite profiles, then?
Click to expand...
This isn't really about individual works, but about Pokémon as a whole. Anything that is approved by Pokémon Company should follow the settings rules and could be assumed to be part of the multilayered Pokémon world, with the contradictions being considered "uniqueness" for some worlds and non-contradictions being used as complementary information. There are some other things to be considered, but shouldn't be different for PMD, Conquest or any other Pokémon product.

And this is mostly the case for Detective Pikachu.

In fact I wonder why you said Detective Pikachu, when this is literally the game whose interviews explained the most about how the setting/worldview of Pokémon works, with consistent interviews for both the games and even the movie (From both the Movie Staff and also from Pokémon Company's own website) about that. I mean, it's literally the one with interviews that says "The Pokémon world is multilayered, with the anime and Detective Pikachu making it more rich complementing the core games", "Pokémon Company is always making sure that nothing that contradicts the setting of Pokémon happens with any product", "it's intended to be different from the Pokémon world that most people knows from the games, but there are lots of references to show the player that the two worlds are connected" and much more.

Really, other than spin-off games that have a direct connection with the Core Series, Detective Pikachu is the one that has the most amount of interviews to explain that it's "canon" (Or at least that it follows the setting of Pokémon). But it got a reference in Sword/Shield, so it' already there anyway.

Starter_Pack said:
Same. The most important thing about our indexing efforts is maintaining higher standards for both accuracy and professionalism when keeping track of these characters. And establishing how we treat the canon of the verse is one of the best ways we can assure this level of quality is sustained.

Quality over quantity is the name of the game here. Keep that in mind.
Click to expand...
And that is the point of why I wanted help to do the rules. As I explained before, the blog was not made with "Profile indexing" in mind. It was a blog about the Pokémon world as a whole first, that just happens to also help to understand it for indexing proposes (In fact, most of my blogs are made with that in mind). So, everything so far was just to show "this is how the Pokémon 'canon' is officially handled", but as everyone might know, things like "consistent power levels" are things that matters the least for such things, and that is why we need our own canon to help the profile indexing.

Yet, I do think that having the official word as the basis for our rules is the best way to start, and that is one of the reasons for why I made the blog.
 
@Ions from what I'm getting, I think it might. The composite profiles were a mismatch of contradictory and different interpretations, the news rules have would make it so the most consistent of showings would be used instead from what I understand. It would be similar to a composite profile, but I don't think that's the best way to describe it any more.

@Exec

I see, well that works with me.

I'm asking about PMD and Conquest in particular since they are the more 'unique' versions. Going back to how you describe the new canon as a 'how a regular fan would see it, most fans tend to put these in a different caliber than say XD or any of the main series games.

I think you might have missed where I said the Detective Pikachu movie, not the game. Assuming you do mean the movie: "When we're doing this movie that's set in such a different world of Pokemon, we didn't want it to feel like a disconnected universe that is just an alternate history that uses the same creatures" - The same interview used to argue its canonicity also claims to be a very different world, even when they tried to make it similar.
 
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"Very different world" can also just simply refer to parallel world in the same setting, which fits under the multi-layered view Ex's trying to convey here.
 
I know, but by the standards given it would still make it 'unique' in comparison to the rest of the verse. In practical terms, feats found there wouldn't be used in, say the Pikachu profile.
 
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