Unpopular opinions

[Esserise]

im late but as much as i love alola it runs pretty concise with "gamefreak is dogshit at showcasing indigenous people in good light". you could try to explain that the fact youre from the yamato japanese region educating the ainu on their incorrect religious beliefs is just a side effect of the isekai stuff

I don’t really like the optics of Legends: Arceus, but strangely enough I think the nuances actually get a lot murkier the deeper you look into the details of the game’s lore. Because technically, the Diamond and Pearl Clans are stated to have been settlers themselves, who came to Hisui well after the original Celestica people (who understood the true unity between Arceus and time and space and all that) were scattered by some vague upheaval. So in a way, the game’s actual indigenous Hisuians are all but extinct, and it’s their name and belief system that were coopted by unrelated settlers, who are now seen as the indigenous population by the newest round of settlers, and then there’s you, a kid from the modern day whom the god that the original Celestica people recognized decides to catapult back into the past to bridge all these gaps.

but why the fuck is the alolan protag from kanto. literally 0 narrative importance and its not like pokemon ever gave a shit about making a realistic "newcomer" to a region considering the only other time youre ever from another region is in hoenn

Honestly I think they mostly just did it for the 20th anniversary glitz. “What if we made the player come to the new region from Gen 1 land?”

 

[CPU]

Yeah, I always felt that the MC being from Kanto in Gen 7 was a part of the Gen 1 references they focused on for the 20th anniversary.

 

[Mad Ram]

japan treats hawaii pretty similarly to the us so im not really favorable to it as an explanation tbh

I think you need to sit down for this...


And to make sure this isn't just some shitpost, I will back it up that it is very likely the reason for the protagonist being from Kanto is because of the 20th anniversary mixed in with the large Japanese presence already and maybe the theme of the islands being welcoming that was also brough up here.

 

[Bakugames]

I think you need to sit down for this...

is this about the ryuukyuu kingdom or the ainu people (or korea) u gotta be specific

 

[Mad Ram]

I'll be honest, I wasn't sure what you meant by "treats pretty similarly to the US" and I thought you meant it as "they think Hawaii is just like the US" to which... I mean there is a reason for that. Being in the US would do that.

 

[Hugin]

Here's an unpopular opinion: The pokemon games aren't woke. I appreciate the fandom's efforts to fix that, but I think it's important that we remember what the source material actually is. Because, yeah, there's the imperialism of Alola/Hisui. The female characters are faster to speedrun for various reasons, but a good chunk of those reasons are sexism(female chars talk more so the male rival is faster, etc). The devs actively scrub any potential gay or trans expression out of the games, purely because they can.

Again, I understand and agree with people pushing back and fixing that. But it's important to remember that these games are sexist, transphobic, and racist, so that we remember where to push back.

 

[Esserise]

The devs actively scrub any potential gay or trans expression out of the games, purely because they can.

Maybe this is just a nitpick (because I do agree with your overall point), but I feel like the phrasing of this makes it sound like someone has been attempting to put queer representation into the games, which then got suppressed and removed by the devs. Whereas, unless there’s specific examples of that happening that I don’t know about (which I grant could very well be the case), my expectation would be that it’s more a case of the devs just not bothering to put any queer representation into the games in the first place. Not that that’s any better, of course.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Idk, not really sure how you can encounter a major character like Penny, who's about as androgynous as humanly possible and whose ace tera Pokemon is Sylveon, and not walk away from that thinking that there's at least some kind of subtext going on.

 

[Hugin]

Maybe this is just a nitpick (because I do agree with your overall point), but I feel like the phrasing of this makes it sound like someone has been attempting to put queer representation into the games, which then got suppressed and removed by the devs. Whereas, unless there’s specific examples of that happening that I don’t know about (which I grant could very well be the case), my expectation would be that it’s more a case of the devs just not bothering to put any queer representation into the games in the first place. Not that that’s any better, of course.

I'm talking about changing dialogue depending on if you're male or female so that a potentially romantic line is only heard if it will be straight. Character customization so limited that bodies designated as male can't have long hair, while those designated as female can't have short hair. When they finally got rid of genderlocking clothes, they also got rid of the ability to wear skirts.

Situations where the default would allow players to be even slightly queer are removed, despite that requiring additional work from the devs. That's a deliberate choice by them and it shouldn't be ignored.

Idk, not really sure how you can encounter a major character like Penny, who's about as androgynous as humanly possible and whose ace tera Pokemon is Sylveon, and not walk away from that thinking that there's at least some kind of subtext going on.

I'm sure they aren't making decisions based on the fact that Trans Flag Sylveon is a meme in the US. And, like, I enjoy Penny, and if people relate to her ABSOLUTELY that's a good thing. But don't let headcanon satisfy you, we should be demanding better from TPC.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I'm sure they aren't making decisions based on the fact that Trans Flag Sylveon is a meme in the US. And, like, I enjoy Penny, and if people relate to her ABSOLUTELY that's a good thing. But don't let headcanon satisfy you, we should be demanding better from TPC.

I guess I don't disagree on that last point, but SV really does not shy away from nonconforming gender presentation or body types.

So much so that one of my takeaways from playing it was "that had a little more gay energy than I expected, going in" (laudatory).

And that's even putting aside the fact that you don't pick "boy or girl" characters anymore. Or that Dendra clearly has some kind of BDSM lesbian kink thing going on with Tulip. (A fighting vs psychic bet where the loser "has to do anything." Please, I wasn't born yesterday. That isn't subtle.)

Spoiler

I'm seriously only like 25% joking.

 

[Esserise]

Idk, not really sure how you can encounter a major character like Penny, who's about as androgynous as humanly possible and whose ace tera Pokemon is Sylveon, and not walk away from that thinking that there's at least some kind of subtext going on.

I mean I personally think, for instance, that Bede from SwSh is pretty blatantly queer-coded, but then that just folds back into Hugin’s point about demanding better, because even if I’m right that it was deliberate, it still means Game Freak weren’t bold enough to just come out and say it.

(Although, my understanding is that Japan is generally more conservative on LGBTQ+ issues, so to some extent this doesn’t really surprise me.)

I'm talking about changing dialogue depending on if you're male or female so that a potentially romantic line is only heard if it will be straight. Character customization so limited that bodies designated as male can't have long hair, while those designated as female can't have short hair. When they finally got rid of genderlocking clothes, they also got rid of the ability to wear skirts.

Situations where the default would allow players to be even slightly queer are removed, despite that requiring additional work from the devs. That's a deliberate choice by them and it shouldn't be ignored.

Ahh, okay, I see what you mean now. I had forgotten about the handful of gender-dependent romantic dialogues, but recalling them now, that one-sidedness always did irk me.

The point about hairstyles is interesting to me, because there are lots of male characters who have long hair or less traditionally masculine styles in the games — in fact that’s one of the things I generally quite like about GF’s character design. It’s more in the personal customization area where you see those forms of expression become significantly more limited (which is absolutely to my own frustration as well, as someone who mostly identifies as male but has very long hair and a preference for feminine fashion).

 

[pokemon4eva]

Here's an unpopular opinion: The pokemon games aren't woke. I appreciate the fandom's efforts to fix that, but I think it's important that we remember what the source material actually is.

Pokemon it's one of the top franchises in the world so it appeals to a mainstream demographic. That's pretty well known and sometimes I don't get why people think it's queer friendly. Heck, this year's game they pulled "the friend/rival character is a girl if you pick the boy MC, and it's a boy if you pick the girl MC" and that flew over many ppl's heads lol.

It's fine for people to find representation in the media they like (in fact I'm glad to see how many different interpretations there are of things I enjoy), whether it was the author's intention or not, but like you said it's important to remember where it's coming from. My main takeaway is that people shouldn't be EXPECTING to see representation from big corpos, it will lead to disappointment if you really think that way or worse, the corpos could be aware of this and manipulate it to its advantage (Voltron fans I pity you...)