Now, this is probably the most difficult topic for those that discuss Pokémon when it comes
to fictional fights, but not as in actual battling.
This isn’t focused on competitive battling, so I’m not going about that.
This is on how strong do Pokémon scale in the world of fiction.
Right off that bat, we’re going to see all that could possible help figure this out and
what I wanted to bring up.
That’s going to be feats, stats, levels, and dex entries.
Usually things are only scaled due to feats, but withow odd Pokémon works, the other things
I brought up are feasible.
I just need to go about them first.
To bring up the most reliable factor first, feats.
A feat by definition is “an achievement that requires great courage, skill, or strength.”
Feats have gone past that and have added on speed, durability, or anything that shows
signs of things that contribute to a character.
An issue with Pokémon is that not every single Pokémon is going to have their time to shine
in manga nor anime.
For example, let’s take Alakazam since it was a Pokémon that I personally wanted to
see in the spotlight.
Alakazam is one the strongest special attackers there are.
Well, these days you have to remove all the mega evolutions and ultra beasts, you’ve
also always had to move the legendries out the way too, but then yeah there it is.
While having great special attack and speed that’s almost on par, you would think that
this Pokémon has shining moments when it’s around.
Looking through both the manga and anime, that isn’t really the case.
Even the Pokedex doesn’t saying anything about Alakazam using its psychic powers on
anything aside from unintentionally causing headaches to everyone around it.
Although this does start making me think that Alakazam is Charles Xavier in a way.
Another side note, I realized that Alakazam can most likely predict the whole outcome
of a battle and do everything possible to win, but only loses because it’s trainer
makes it’s decisions for it.
Back to the point, Alakazam is a strong Pokémon, but it doesn’t have the feats to back it
up.
So, let’s go to a Pokémon with the same special attack, and compare.
So, maybe Volcarona?
Or Porygon-Z?
Or maybe, we go with a known legendary Pokémon, Darkrai.
Darkrai is a Pokémon known for being powerful to combat the likes of Palkia and Dialga,
but this same Pokémon has also lost to a Sceptile after being weakened by 3 other Pokémon.
So, one Darkrai can battle against Gods, meanwhile the other probably wouldn’t match up, though
this Darkrai does take a Megahorn from a Heracross which would be a strong move considering how
high Heracross’ attack is.
This is one thing I’m going to bring up as a point later on.
So, Alakazam has the same special attack as Darkrai, meaning that for special moves they
should have generally around the same attack potency due to the actual numbering.
Let’s use another Pokémon with the same special attack, Porygon-Z.
A Pokémon that was modified to enable it to travel through alien dimensions, though
it began acting very strange.
Apparently, it contained a defect that makes it move very glitchy.
So, you have this Pokémon being stated to be able to travel dimensions.
These dimensions could mean digital dimensions to real world dimensions, or it means that
Porygon-Z was meant to travel through parallel dimensions, just like how the ultra beasts
do.
You even have Volcarona who had substituted itself as a sun when the sky was covered in
ash.
So, with the same special attack, shouldn’t they have the same attack power?
You’ll get a both yes and no for something like this.
Bringing back the two Darkrai’s, what was the overlying difference.
Since Darkrai isn’t a Pokémon where there’s only one of it, that means there had to have
be different Darkrai’s obviously, but what makes these two Darkrai’s different.
Levels.
Levels in Pokémon are a factor that show easy differences when it comes to the games.
When it comes to the anime and manga, it exists, but isn’t focused on them that much.
Pikachu’s level alone isn’t something you want bother with, because of how inconsistent
it can be, but that’s what you get with plot.
Though you’ll have more consistency from Pokémon Generations than you will the actual
anime, and that’s where I believe you can let everything be whatever it is since it’s
parallel to the games.
When it comes to thing in the anime where it has Ash, it’s best to consider levels
being a thing.
Since moves and dex entries, it should work for stats.
Although you do get moments on where certain things that don’t make sense like Swords-Dance
boosting Blizzard, because in that case you just want focus purely on Pokémon Generations.
Now, for something that we’ll hold as fact for Pokémon, because it technically is, the
Pokedex.
The entries in the Pokedex are supposed to be factual evidence found in the world of
Pokémon, but then there’s thing that don’t exactly make sense either in the logic of
the game or actual logic.
Since this is fiction, you can let go of the whole actual logic thing.
There are probably things that just work differently in the franchise.
For example, Magcargo, a pokemon that ‘s 2 times as hot as the sun.
That wouldn’t make sense if the Pokémon was real, but in the franchise, it’s probably
a contained heat or something.
One entry I had problem with was Vikavolts.
“It zips around, on sharp lookout for an opening.”
This doesn’t make much sense to me since Vikavolt only has a base speed of 45, and
it doesn’t have any moves that point at priority or blitzing speed.
It could be that it meant that the Pokémon visually zips around, but you have to be going
at a decent speed, but that was before I noticed that Vikavolt does learn agility as it’s
last level up move.
So, that alone explained the issue I had with it.
I believe that a lot of odd dex entries out there can be fixed with an actual look around
with the Pokémon, and the only issue I have Pokémon is no feats Vs. feats.
“Pokémon with credentials, but no feats” is an issue that I ran into.
There are so many Pokémon that have either stats, but no dex entry or vice versa.
For example, you have the Lake Guardians.
These beings existing had created emotion, knowledge, and willpower.
The only guardian with a threatening dex entry, since it can wipe the memories of those that
had seen it’s eyes.
These lake guardians are the basically the endless of Pokémon except, they’re not
as strong as what they should be.
Or they’re not, I’m confused on how to take how they work into what it means.
If you birth emotion, are you “emotion”?
Because if emotion didn’t exist until you, then that means you should be emotion, but
since you created it, you’re not it.
Well, I guess it’s not an embodiment, but more of a parent of some sorts for creating
it.
Aside from how that works, you have these lake guardians being able to supress at least
either Palkia or Dialga, not being able to do that to both at the same time.
So, with these Lake Guardians being able to control a god of time or space, they should
be strong Pokémon.
Which they are, if they combine they’re power, it gives them a base special attack,
attack, special defense, and defense of 305, which is way much bigger than any other Pokémon,
but considering levels, it wouldn’t be as powerful as you think.
Along with that, the legendaries have no ev’s either, so that would mean that the all of
the stats would be around 325 if we just make the IVS all 31 just because.
Which means that their power at that level would make them as strong as a level 100 Mega-Sceptile,
Chandelure, or Mega Camerupt in the special attack category.
In other attributes you can compare using the same stats.
Now, I know I’m not going to have everyone easily convinced because feats matter a lot
when wanting to scale character, but Pokémon is not an everyday case.
The legendary Pokémon aren’t untouchable gods to the rest of the Pokémon, unless you
get to Mega-Rayquaza because he’s just busted, but it’s never going to be a case where
there will never be a Pokémon where it’s just unable to be affected by anything.
Darkrai, a Pokémon that is considered to be a universal being, can struck down by a
Pokémon like Mega Blaziken, and Mega Blaziken can get wiped out by a Pokémon like Alakazam,
and the continuous comparing goes on and on.
We even have Mewtwo who had been taken on by a Mega Charizard X, and was beaten.
Well, it was caught, but you get the idea.
Since a lot of Pokémon feats you find can be in the manga or anime, remember that this
is still coming off of the game by a large amount, and the game shows you what’s possible.
All I’m saying is that if you have a Pokémon doing something, there are a lot of Pokémon
that are exactly on the same levels of stats on certain attributes, and these are real
numbers that you can consistently refer to in the world of Pokémon.
Which is as consistent as it gets in the world of Pokémon.
So, if you can’t find anything for a Pokémon like legendary, you can try to take your shot
at comparing it to Magmar, which is a Pokémon that creates heat waves that causes trees
and grass to ignite, or Diancie that can create diamonds just by compressing the carbon in
the air with it’s hands.
That’s just my take on it.
Pokémon is one of the few franchises that gives you numbers and facts on the characters
without you having to go out of your way to create calcs for feats.
It gets difficult when it comes to legendary Pokémon, but you don’t have to fully give
Pokémon the same care for it.
There’s a gap between regular Pokémon and legendary Pokémon when it comes to both power
and levels.
That’s why a level 70 Palkia can wipe a team of level 30 to 40 mons, because you wouldn’t
even have Pokémon that strike faster than the legendary unless they have a high base
stat in speed, even then you have to have the attack or special attack to leave good
damage on the legendary Pokémon.
Why do you think you have to grind up for your Pokémon’s levels or have a lot of
revives when you want to battle a legendary Pokémon?
Maybe you understood what I was getting at, maybe some of this made sense to you, maybe
you got lose somewhere in the middle, or maybe you didn’t get any of this.
Leave your thoughts on how strong you see pokemon in the comments, I’d like to know
your thoughts on this if you’re an avid Pokemon fan or you do fictional fights a lot.
I’ll see you guys in the next one.
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I’ll see you guys in the next one, until then, peace out and God Speed.