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A new approach to Pokémon Canon

SamanPatou said:
There were several threads about it which apparently never came to a conclusion despite some discussions and disagreement going on but it seems that Sean just went over and made the page anyway. I also lost track of them overtime, but I see on the page some of the things against which I argued the most and I still disagree with, such as mid regeneration, resistance to acid and some more.
Click to expand...
Did you seriously delete a page because you, and only you, disagree with SOME of the things on it? You say a CRT should have been done, and I agree, but one to call into question the things you disagree with.

Executor_N0 said:
The biggest problem that I could find was the use of old magazines and English books that are the most likely to not be used (Just like old English dub). Most of them would fit as at least "outdated information" or simply "was never usable to being with". Maybe I should add why such things shouldn't be used in the blog as well.
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Is there literally any evidence that they shouldn't be used or are outdated, other than the sheer fact that you just didn't want the sources there?
 
Super_Ascended_Sean_Pazdera said:
Is there literally any evidence that they shouldn't be used or are outdated, other than the sheer fact that you just didn't want the sources there?
Click to expand...
A number of reasons in fact. The whole point of this thread, and that of the blog that I made, was about the levels in which different works are supposed to work under the same rules and each be a different layer of the "Pokémon World". But the more you move away from the source material the more you start seeing some "freedom" that simply destroys the original setting with works that had little to no research, made by people who have little to no idea of what Pokémon is and completely changes what was really there.

And in relation to that, the first years of Pokémon English adaptation, other than the games, was basically of things that were changed over the original script that completely destroys what the movies are really trying to say. So from that point, the very nature of much of the English anime-related works of Pokémon are petty much "lots of things that aren't in the source material and with little to no consideration over the original world".

The reason for why I made a note on the blog about how Pokémon translations are supposed to be "faithful or with changed accepted by the original material" is more of a recent thing, at least since Pokémon Company decided to finish their deal with 4Kids so they could do the licensing and management of the franchise directly in 2006. So before that, you already have a company that doesn't have that much of a contact with the original staff and clearly didn't care about the consistency and world built originally, and they were the ones who would oversee over the merchandising around here.

The reason for why the blog tries to say that most of Pokémon stuff can be considered canon, is due to the idea of rules being respected and a big rules made by the brand management about the very structure of the world. Rules that weren't always there, so you already have some Japanese works that clearly wouldn't fit with the larger Pokémon World nowadays and would be considered for the purposes of the blog as non-canon because it took sometime for the Japanese side of Pokémon to start using the whole "Same Pokémon world with same rules" thing.

And then you have the entire years of Pokémon tie-in media in the U.S as being not overseen by the original staff, or company to be more clear, but outsourced to a different company that really did lots of changes to the original work that simply doesn't fit with the franchise as a whole.

The more you go to the past, the more the idea of "Multiple media share the same overall world" starts to lose meaning, and when you move away from Japan as well, then this becomes even more of a problem.

Some recent Pokémon media is much more overseen by Pokémon Company and we could in fact use some decisions made here to give a different insight of the Pokémon world, in fact Detective Pikachu whole profile in the Pokémon Company website was exactly about how they did everything that they could to make the movie fit in the Pokémon world.

But the more you go back into the time that Pokémon was overseen by 4Kids Entertainment, then the validity of the "complementary information" found there, just isn't reliable.

Something that is know to exist in the core series and is explored more in a Japanese manga that was very overseen by the original creators so that they could still fit in the Pokémon world is an example of something that could be accepted.

Something that appeared out of nowhere made by a company that didn't care about the original material and was just trying to americanize everything even if they contradicted the original setting is already a very direct example of something that shouldn't be accepted as valid for the "original source". And then if this second source already isn't that valid, then what do you think of the second source of the second source that isn't valid ? This already makes the English tie-in books more unusable.

Not everything in your blog is wrong, but shouldn't be using material made from a time before the notes on the blog stated them to be. Of course, considering that this blog gets approved and the canon of Pokémon is expanded here. If it's not and we remain with the current canon rules, then it's even worse for this case (With makes the fact that the page was made even worse because it directly uses content that isn't accepted as valid in the wiki until this new blog is accepted.

For anyone else, I'll add one more section in the blog explaining when it could be considered that the Pokémon multimedia world started being more "consistent" and why some past works can't be used, at leas that much, and even more why the past English adaptation can't be used as it was the same thing as the original material.

Of course is just a complementation of what is already in the blog, so this new section shouldn't affect the current discussion over the blog being accepted or not.
 
So you're assuming all the facts are outdated, assuming the people don't know what Pokémon are, and assuming I used guidebooks, much less unusable guidebooks, from that early in the first place. Ignoring how I use multiple redundant sources on nearly all of my claims anyways.
 
Dragonmasterxyz said:
How about you actually argue his points instead of trying to get an attitude. He's not being rude to you, so no need for you to start getting an attitude. Ya'll can easily settle this with a simple discussion.
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Again, this^

This thread was going smoothly (for the most part), getting an attitude (and at this point in the thread) is completely unwarranted. Just put forth an argument and move on.
 
Jusr to say that I deleted it because the 2-3 threads you made never came to a conclusion, and they still got little attention from anyone, including other staff members and general supporters that should have given their approval to it.

I admit that I lost track of the thread and the I forgot about it, but it was far from being finished and a page that affects most of the profiles of one of the biggest verses out there requires a lot of scrutiny and approvals.

Just make a CRT to discuss this once and for all, and call people that would be important and useful, I can also directly tag them in there, so you don't have to ask each of them.

Also, I remember to not being the only one who disagreed with something in that thread, but there was still no input from other supporters or staff members.

Physiology pages, just like any verse-specific page, always require a certain level of scrutiny, attention and approval.
 
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Also, something I'm too curious to ignore. Your sandboxes seem to be an intricate hodgepodge of both certain deleted and certain existing profiles. What do they mean, and are they there due to some sort of duty as a mod, or rather a personal interest?
 
That specific one is for deleted stuff I've been requested to keep somewhere, the others are for my personal work, either completed or ongoing. (for example, the second one is where I work on profiles before publishing them, Regidrago was the last one I've worked on)

But please don't derail this thread any more, discussing about the physiology page was already a derailment.
 
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Gohanblanco217 said:
Forgive me if I'm wrong but wasn't it stated that events of the Movies takes place on the same multiverse as the games?
Click to expand...
As explained int the blog, it was stated that "it's the same Pokémon world, although you can consider some select spots as parallel wolds as being more accurate".

But, as shown in the various interviews, everything is a part of the multilayered Pokémon world that follows the same general rules and each work shows an valid side of it. So for the general rules, and general "lore", the information between the multiple works might be close enough for using most of the media as source to understand the Pokémon world.

It has nothing to do with universes or multiverses, or anything like that. It's just concepts and ideas that are used between the works. Nothing more, nothing less.
 
I've saw some people in this thread who disagree with Manga, games, movies being Canon because many other verses follow the logic and yet they are not treated as Canon (like DBH) tho wouldn't this count as an Association fallacy? If yes I agree with OP then
 
Gohanblanco217 said:
I've saw some people in this thread who disagree with Manga, games, movies being Canon because many other verses follow the logic and yet they are not treated as Canon (like DBH) tho wouldn't this count as an Association fallacy? If yes I agree with OP then
Click to expand...
That depends on the franchise and what is the intent with the multiple products. Even in the same franchise you'll have staff members that have different opinions on how that would work. Digimon for example has Staff members that clearly aren't fans of cross-scaling and would prefer if every work would be its own thing, yet lots of other staff members did products that shows exactly the opposite.

With such contradictory nature it would be just we having to headcanon a solution such as rules of what can be accepted or not. At that point is just us theorizing something to make sense of a contradictory work.

However the Pokémon staff is very clear about the nature of the Pokémon works and Pokémon Company is very infamous about being very clear with its canon and rules and be sure that every work (Nowadays at least), fits with that.

So after this is just us trying to find solutions for the time when that wasn't the case or for the moment where the contradictions appear, or the elements that shouldn't be scaled at all (Such as characters' individual stories). But at that point it has nothing to do with canon (In fact, I made an entire blog just to show how the "concept of canon" doesn't fit with some franchises).

Anyway that is the reason for why I added examples in the blog for things that clearly shouldn't be used across multiple meda, as well as the ones that could be used. But, always a case-by-case thing and that is why it's important for everyone to know the context.
 
I don't really agree with the fundamental reasoning that every spin-off should be considered canon, because it attempts to preserve some ideas of pokemon.
In the same vein, every superhero movie tries to grasp the fundamentals of the comic versions they cover, but those are obviously completely different canons and in no way related power-wise. I'm also sure they likewise have to follow certain franchise standards.
The Pokémon makers try to conserve some general Pokémon world aspects in all their works for sure, otherwise they would not be producing Pokémon, but those fundamental aspects aren't power and abilities (except for some of the most basic ones).

Anyway, in my opinion, Pokémon as a whole should in principle receive the same treatment as Marvel and DC. They are all multimedia franchises with countless writers and multiverses featuring different versions of characters, some more canonical to each other than others, and will sacrifice consistent power mechanics for plot. In interest to being consistent, it appears right to evaluate those by the same standards.
 
DontTalkDT said:
I don't really agree with the fundamental reasoning that every spin-off should be considered canon, because it attempts to preserve some ideas of pokemon.
In the same vein, every superhero movie tries to grasp the fundamentals of the comic versions they cover, but those are obviously completely different canons and in no way related power-wise. I'm also sure they likewise have to follow certain franchise standards.
The Pokémon makers try to conserve some general Pokémon world aspects in all their works for sure, otherwise they would not be producing Pokémon, but those fundamental aspects aren't power and abilities (except for some of the most basic ones).
Click to expand...
Except that they are. It's in all of the interviews about how they preserve the settings and worldview for all of the works and how the multilayered Pokémon World works and how what is needed to truly understand what is that world.

It's less like superhero movies or just any series that tries to maintain certain core elements to the franchise for branding, and more about making the very world itself consistent and the same in the various media, only changing the characters or a few elements (With enough reason for that), in that aspect Pokémon is more like a franchise like Digimon, that follows the idea of Settings and Worldview being shared between the works, even with all of them having their own twist on the thing. They are not necessarily the same worlds and certainly don't have the same characters, but the general rules and things that can happen in the world is meant to be consistent across all the works.

Franchises that works on setting, worldview and their general rules can simply be followed by that and having such thing cross-scaled. The very characters and even events certainly are not going to be the same, but the things that really matter there, are there to be used to understand the franchise as a whole. Of course my best example of a franchise that works in the same way is Digimon, because both of them works basically in the same way (While Pokémon is more consistent because of how the Pokémon Company deals with the rules of the franchise).

If anything, I mention the interview where Masuda explains the relation between the anime and games to show what is their intent, and then all the interviews with the other staff members mentioning how that works and how other than the rules being there, the reason for the spin-offs and adaptations are all to show different aspects of the same Pokémon world that the "Pocket Monster series" can't show.

As I said before, the current reason for why certain spin-offs and some adaptations of the series are accepted as canon is because of that. We don't consider, for example, the Pokémon anime or the Pokémon Adventures as taking place in the same world as the games. We know that they are in different worlds, but they share the same generals rules and certain events that build up from each other. What a work might show of the Pokémon world isn't the same that another one would show. But they are created all as ways of exploring the world and the way that one is supposed to see how the Pokémon world works is by seeing every single one of the works and how they complement each other.

Adventures and the anime are accepted as "canon" due to that. Then you have the other interviews that basically implies that the same happens with all the works. At first it just some other interviews about "But they make sure everything is consistent, don't they" and that is answered with "They check the content an awful lot and often tell me to make changes". But then you get to the interviews where it's said that "it's basically what is expected" and then the "Game Freak has historically been quite protective of the world it's built" and how the rules of the world needs to be always followed and that they can't make changes to it without explanation of how that would work in the world. In literally the same context as the one where Adventures and the anime are accepted.

It's really the same thing as the previous ones, but just with a "it's just what always happens" to show that isn't something exclusive to a few selected works, but it's just how the multilayered Pokémon worldview works. If this isn't accepted, then I see no reason for why Adventures and the anime should be. At best the only thing that the anime has is that Masuda used the anime as an example for something of the games. Yet we still have the statement from Hiroyuki Jinnai, who worked in Pokémon as much as Masuda, and whose main function there was to write the script, produce games and supervise the Pokémon works to be sure they are doing the right thing, saying how you need to see the Pokémon world in this multilayered way and how they always make sure everything follows the rules.

The intent here is clearly to have the works sharing the same Worldview and then develop it in their own way. If we accept Adventures and the anime as canon, so should the other works be because they are really the same thing. If they are not, then we should just separate all the Pokémon works with profiles for each iteration of the Pokémon world, even when that goes in total opposition with the constantly mentioned intent of the works.
 
I think that I should have already made this...

But the list of those who agree, disagree and are neutral about the changes.

Agree: ProfessorKukui4Life, Hasty12345, SamanPatou, Starter_Pack, Dragonmasterxyz, Bobsican, SomebodyData, LephyrTheRevanchist, ZoroNotZolo, StrymULTRA, Waka1979.

Disagree: QuasiYuri, Ionliosite, DontTalkDT

Not answered the thread/Neutral: DarkDragonMedeus, The_real_cal_howard, NeoZex6399, Garchomp777, Crimson_Shadow101, Everything12, The_Axiom_of_Virgo

Also, I would like to comment a certain misconception that I think is still there. The changes that I'm proposing isn't about shared continuity or characters, but of elements and how valid they are supposed to be about the nature of the Pokémon world. Each wok still exists in their own world, some with their continuities and so on (I saw one person saying that due to the blog the Pokémon profiles wouldn't be considered composite anymore, but of course they would. It's still different continuities, it's only that they share certain elements that we can cross-scale).

And of course, clearly the power level of most of the Pokémon and their feats isn't something that is going to be of the care of the Pokémon Company most of the time (Maybe only of Pokémon whose power is everything remarkable about them), yet this isn't just a problem for "non accepted as canon spin-offs", but of the franchise as a whole. And that s why we would need to be very critical about any feats in Pokémon anyway.

At best what I'm saying is about generic events in the world and characteristics of the Pokémon, with some explanations or examples of things only stated in the core series being used as supportive evidence. We never saw, for example, Haunter eating souls in the game. However there's a scene in a manga where wee see Haunter doing that. It was implied to happen in the games, and now a manga uses it and since the works of Pokémon should follow the same rules and just explore them in a different way, we can use that event in that manga as an example of how that would happen.

Nothing very different from the standard is going to be added, at best only thing as support evidence. Outliers are still gong to be outliers after all (And that is why rules are needed).
 
Executor_N0 said:
Disagree: QuasiYuri, Ionliosite, DontTalkDT
Click to expand...
These are all very reliable and analytical members. To an extreme degree in DontTalk's case. So I would prefer if you can reach some kind of agreement.
 
With all due respect Ant, members being highly qualified to give opinions and feedback in some areas doesn’t mean it’s a “one size fits all” situation where they’re qualified to speak on, generally speaking, everything.

Out of those 3, only 2 are known to be qualified in speaking about the nature and workings of how Pokemon works and Ex already addressed all of their concerns, both with his blog and his responses to them here in this thread (which makes me wonder why any disagreement is being counted here when it’s been debunked and nothing new for it has come up since).
 
Well, at the very least, I would much prefer to get a go-ahead from @DontTalkDT first.
 
Executor_N0 said:
Except that they are. It's in all of the interviews about how they preserve the settings and worldview for all of the works and how the multilayered Pokémon World works and how what is needed to truly understand what is that world.

It's less like superhero movies or just any series that tries to maintain certain core elements to the franchise for branding, and more about making the very world itself consistent and the same in the various media, only changing the characters or a few elements (With enough reason for that), in that aspect Pokémon is more like a franchise like Digimon, that follows the idea of Settings and Worldview being shared between the works, even with all of them having their own twist on the thing. They are not necessarily the same worlds and certainly don't have the same characters, but the general rules and things that can happen in the world is meant to be consistent across all the works.

Franchises that works on setting, worldview and their general rules can simply be followed by that and having such thing cross-scaled. The very characters and even events certainly are not going to be the same, but the things that really matter there, are there to be used to understand the franchise as a whole. Of course my best example of a franchise that works in the same way is Digimon, because both of them works basically in the same way (While Pokémon is more consistent because of how the Pokémon Company deals with the rules of the franchise).

If anything, I mention the interview where Masuda explains the relation between the anime and games to show what is their intent, and then all the interviews with the other staff members mentioning how that works and how other than the rules being there, the reason for the spin-offs and adaptations are all to show different aspects of the same Pokémon world that the "Pocket Monster series" can't show.

As I said before, the current reason for why certain spin-offs and some adaptations of the series are accepted as canon is because of that. We don't consider, for example, the Pokémon anime or the Pokémon Adventures as taking place in the same world as the games. We know that they are in different worlds, but they share the same generals rules and certain events that build up from each other. What a work might show of the Pokémon world isn't the same that another one would show. But they are created all as ways of exploring the world and the way that one is supposed to see how the Pokémon world works is by seeing every single one of the works and how they complement each other.

Adventures and the anime are accepted as "canon" due to that. Then you have the other interviews that basically implies that the same happens with all the works. At first it just some other interviews about "But they make sure everything is consistent, don't they" and that is answered with "They check the content an awful lot and often tell me to make changes". But then you get to the interviews where it's said that "it's basically what is expected" and then the "Game Freak has historically been quite protective of the world it's built" and how the rules of the world needs to be always followed and that they can't make changes to it without explanation of how that would work in the world. In literally the same context as the one where Adventures and the anime are accepted.

It's really the same thing as the previous ones, but just with a "it's just what always happens" to show that isn't something exclusive to a few selected works, but it's just how the multilayered Pokémon worldview works. If this isn't accepted, then I see no reason for why Adventures and the anime should be. At best the only thing that the anime has is that Masuda used the anime as an example for something of the games. Yet we still have the statement from Hiroyuki Jinnai, who worked in Pokémon as much as Masuda, and whose main function there was to write the script, produce games and supervise the Pokémon works to be sure they are doing the right thing, saying how you need to see the Pokémon world in this multilayered way and how they always make sure everything follows the rules.

The intent here is clearly to have the works sharing the same Worldview and then develop it in their own way. If we accept Adventures and the anime as canon, so should the other works be because they are really the same thing. If they are not, then we should just separate all the Pokémon works with profiles for each iteration of the Pokémon world, even when that goes in total opposition with the constantly mentioned intent of the works.
Click to expand...
I think what you interpret as having the same worldview isn't as significant in terms of powers and scaling as what you think it is. We are talking marketing stuff for maintaining the brand here.
Things like keeping it kids friendly, not making pokemon too human, keeping fire types as fire types etc. That's what is meant.
It doesn't mean that if a Pokémon in some distant canon has some showing it never has in the main canon, that this was actually part of the main canon all along if it just doesn't directly contradict things.
Take Arceus as practical example. What the company cares about is it being portrayed as the god of pokemon, which is a key to its fundamental nature. What it clearly doesn't care about, as its not main canon portrayals showed, is Arceus being portrayed as a nigh-omnipotent multiversal reality warper.

In general, I don't read many interviews so I can't come up with examples, but I bet one can find similar interviews about capturing the spirit and worldview of the originals in regards to anime adaptations, which we also wouldn't accept as canon for scaling.

Anyway, if all you want to use the lesser related series for is supportive evidence of things shown in the main canon that's fine. Heck, I do the same with some other works that have semi-canonical crossovers.
However, if you want to use stuff never shown in main canon just as long as there are no contradictions I'm still against that.
 
I don’t see any reason why things that aren’t contradicting the main canon cannot be used. You can’t disqualify something without an actual basis or reason to disqualify it.
 
ProfessorKukui4Life said:
I don’t see any reason why things that aren’t contradicting the main canon cannot be used. You can’t disqualify something without an actual basis or reason to disqualify it.
Click to expand...
Except that it is the opposite. You have to prove that they qualify, just like everything else.

Needless to say, I agree with DontalkDT.
 
DontTalk makes very good points in my view.
 
That is not how we do things at all for other fictions though.

I just don't think that it seems realistic to try to separate the massive amount of Pokemon profile pages as an alternative.
 
Antvasima said:
That is not how we do things at all for other fictions though.

I just don't think that it seems realistic to try to separate the massive amount of Pokemon profile pages as an alternative.
Click to expand...
Pokémon is mostly a multi-media verse, we are forced to be the composite profiles of the canon sources, as said cross scaling is even supported. No one is making a version for each media ofc lol
 
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