Thank You For Listening
" . . . And that's all for Jigglypuff Gemma's crooning tunes. Now on Station 7, we have a new host for our 4 AM time slot. His name is N and he'll be talking about, uh, the liberation of pokemon and the downfall of the pokemon trainer system. Whew, what a mouthful.
Without further ado, here's N!"
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". . . Hello. I do not know who you are, out there, listening. I hope that you are there. I hope that I will be heard.
"My name is N, and I was once a pokemon trainer.
"That is my greatest shame.
"I was a pokemon trainer because I believed it was the only way I could help. But there is no way to use poison as a remedy.
"A broken system cannot be fixed from within—it must be smashed, fully and utterly, from without. And yet, it is not humans who suffer when such a fight is waged—only and ever, pokemon pay the price.
"Many years ago, I realized that I could not allow my friends to suffer for a moment longer.
"I was a pokemon trainer—but now I am not.
"You can make the same choice."
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"Our first caller is Lisa, from Vermillion city. Lisa, you're on."
"Dude, what are you going on about? Reality-check, pokemon like to battle."
"Hello, Lisa. Thank you for tuning in. Do you mind if I ask you a question?"
"Go for it."
"Do you like to go mountain-climbing?"
"What? Um, no . . ."
"I see. But I have seen many humans go mountain climbing. They seem to enjoy it."
"Yeah, well, some people do. But I hate heights, and anyway, crawling up a giant rock sure doesn't sound like my idea of fun."
"Perhaps, then, a long and protracted battle is not every pokemon's 'idea of fun' either. You say pokemon like to battle, as if pokemon are some monolith, and not a label we carelessly attach to diverse individuals."
"Um. Well."
"Yes?"
"I guess I didn't think about it like that."
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"Professor Sycamore. This is station 7, Kanto Radio Live. I would like to ask you how you can endorse a system built on violence and cruelty against pokemon?"
"Ah—can you please clarify?"
"I refer to the system of organized pokemon battling."
"Well, I—I don't have time for prank calls, you know."
"Professor, this is not a prank. I speak to you in full sincerity."
"I don't really have time for—for whatever this is. Pokemon battles are symbiotic—a chance for trainers and pokemon to grow together."
"Did I mention trainers? I am asking you about pokemon. Why do pokemon need to be forced to fight each other to grow? Do you mean simply that pokemon grow stronger by battling?"
"Well, they do. And if you'll excuse me, I really am quite busy—"
"Professor, are you aware of Professor Rowan's extensive research on evolution?"
"Of course. I am considered a leading expert in evolution as well, by the way."
"Then you are aware that he has found that pokemon, even those that do not frequently battle, evolve on their own in the wild. Evolution is generally a marker of maturity, not battling experience. Rowan has theorized that evolution from battling is a danger response for pokemon in threatening situations. My point is that pokemon grow on their own. Growth by battling is unnecessary and cruel."
"But the bonds between humans and pokemon that battle engenders cannot be discounted so easily! I am researching a new phenomenon, mega-evolution. This process triggers a temporary change in the pokemon and allows it to harness massive energy—but mega evolution cannot occur without a strong bond between trainer and pokemon."
"That only proves how unnatural the bonds of battling are. Mega evolution is an artificial process."
"Perhaps, but one that allows pokemon to reach their greatest potential!"
"If you define potential as strength. Is that how you would speak of the potential of the children you send off on journeys? Do you think they only reach their greatest potential when they are strong in battle?"
"Well, of course, children reach their potential in many different ways. There is no one path to growth—"
"So to you, a pokemon's potential can only be achieved through strength in battle, but a human child's can be achieved in many ways. That is because, Professor, you only consider pokemon as tools of battle. If you understood pokemon as full beings—thought of them as people—you would see that there are many ways for pokemon to realize their potential that do not hinge on strength in battle. Goodbye.
The professor's views are as common as they are wrong-headed. When we treat the potential of pokemon as equivalent to their strength in battle, we have a false equation, one that understand pokemon as weapons or tools, not people. Consider this, before you say that battling achieves a pokemon's 'true potential."
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"I've been shaking my head listening to your program. You're blowing pokemon battling so far out of proportion, it's almost funny. Frankly, you sound hysterical. Maybe a century ago, battling had some blood. But modern battling is nothing like that. My cousin trained as a pokemon judge—they don't just hand out those certificates to anyone. It's a long, intense process, and it makes a difference. Fatalities from pokemon battles have been reduced to a negligible amount. My point is, you're blowing a lot of hot air over nothing. Pokemon battling is safe and recreational."
A negligible amount. I see. I'm curious what number of deaths—other than zero—you consider acceptable to ignore.
"Don't twist my words. Accidents happen, that's inevitable. Soon it will be zero, though. Silph's working on a collar pokemon can wear for high intensity battles that'll monitor all their vital information. With technology like that, battling will be more risk-free than ever. If you care so much, try educating yourself on practical solutions, instead of all this unhinged ranting."
"In your ideal world, then, we have perfected the art of judging the threshold that divides hurt from permanent injury. We have in this way so refined the art of pain. Permissible pain. As if that pain is only made valid by death. The goldeen shocked by a lightning bolt, or the graveller who knuckles under a blow—is their suffering negligible? Is their pain yours to erase?
"Actually, studies have shown that pokemon's pain receptors are temporarily dulled during the adrenaline surge of battle, and in general, pokemon's pain is a concept that's really not applicable—"
"Is their pain yours to erase?"
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"What you don't get is that pokemon are much better off with humans. In the wild they starve to death, they're prey, and if they get injured they die because no one is going to heal them. But with trainers pokemon get all the food they want, and battles are safe, and they get healed. You think pokemon trainers are cruel, but nature's crueler."
"Your image of the wild is far from reality. Battles in the wild take place over territory or to assert dominance. In neither case are they to the death. Often such battles are of intimidation, not physical hurt. This battling until utter exhaustion, until the point of collapse—do not give nature credit for this human invention.
"You suggest that the life of the gladiator, caged and fed, and forced to battle, is better than the life of the free person, who may starve. That is your perspective, but do not deny there are others who would answer differently. And this whole hypothetical exercise is robbed of its power when in reality no such choice is ever given to pokemon themselves.
"You speak as if such a trade-off is the only way of the world. This false "better" humans hold up high to congratulate themselves with—what does it mean? Only a refusal to confront best. I do not care for this cowardly "better". Pokemon that live in human society are entitled to the same rights as humans themselves—food, shelter, freedom of determination. We give these things freely to the young and the old, and do not ask them to bloody themselves in earning them."
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"There is a story a sage once told me that I'd like to share with you today.
"An apprentice was told by his master to find a stone equal to the stone she showed him. This stone was beautiful—it blazed with inner light, and he could hardly bear to look at it. Diligently, the apprentice scoured caverns of crystal, until he had found a stone of equal shape, and what he thought to be equal radiance. He polished that stone until it gleamed so brightly with light that his eyes could hardly stand it.
"Finally, he returned to his master and gave her the stone. She placed it next to her stone, and the apprentice was amazed. Next to the Master's stone, his stone was a cheap copy. Its glow was that of the moon, when the sun shines high in the sky. He fell to his knees and said, 'Oh, Master, I searched the caves of the land until I found the most radiant of stones – I polished that stone until it shone—how did I fail this task so greatly?'
"His master lifted his head and bade him rise. 'The fault is not yours,' she said, and gestured to her stone, 'for this is the stone of truth, and no other stone may match it.'
"Then the apprentice understood his task and why there was no alternative but that he should fail. For no lie, however polished, can stand against the truth.'
"That, friends, is the story I will leave you with. Many lies are told about the relationship between pokemon and humans. These lies have been polished for centuries, so that their gleam and dazzle can stun the unwary. But remember, against the light of the truth, these lies will be revealed as pale and pitiful in contrast."
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"I've tuned in to you a few times, and this stuff you're spouting makes me sick. You get off on acting like you care about pokemon, when you don't know anything! If you cared about pokemon, you'd care about what pokemon want. And pokemon want to battle, okay?"
"I see. And you know this how, exactly?"
"How? It's not exactly rocket science, is it?
"When you were younger, perhaps you attended school?"
"Don't try to get smart with me here. Yeah I attended school."
"And you were taught things . . . math, perhaps."
"Fucking pluses and minuses."
"You did not enjoy it."
"Nah man, I was out of there the second I could get my training license."
"How lucky for you. And what if there was not an out of there to get?
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you accept without thought a world that gives you a choice and gives pokemon none. Your destiny belongs to yourself, their destiny is whatever you tell them. Pokemon want to battle, you say, but what conversation have you had to determine this? Shall I tell the world about how you want to spend the rest of your life in school, studying the perfect symmetry of numbers? And I know this because you are human, and humans are creatures of rationality, and like all beings seek perfection, which can only be found in mathematics and its perfect logical harmony?
It's funny to me how pokemon trainers assume to know what their pokemon want. I am fortunate enough to be able to understand pokemon's words, but I have found no one else who claims that honor. To speak of the wants of pokemon in such a way claims more authority than their pokemon—implies that humans understand the wants and desires of pokemon better than pokemon themselves do. What casual arrogance. What violent ignorance."
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"I have a simple question for you today, about a simple question. When you captured your pokemon, did you ask them whether they wanted to come with you? Did you ask them whether they wished to fight, or did you tell them that fighting is all they are?
These are questions that do not end. If you never asked—if you assumed, and drew your own conclusions from words you refuse to let into your heart, ask now.
Ask—what is in your heart? Do you wish to stay, or do you wish to go? But if you do ask, you must be prepared for an answer.
Please understand this: a choice is not a choice, if you cannot say no."
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"You talk like pokemon are forced into doing something here. But that's off-base. That's not it at all."
"May I ask you a question, Jose?"
"Shoot."
"Do you use pokeballs?"
"Well, yeah. Me and every trainer ever."
"If your pokemon are with you by choice, why do you need pokeballs?"
"Convenience, man! How else are people supposed to travel with a full team? If pokemon were out all the time they could wander off and get lost, or get in a fight, or all sorts of things."
"I have seen many trainers who travel in groups. They share meals and laughter, share dangers and joys. It seems a beautiful and enjoyable thing. But maybe not very convenient. I have known some humans with absolutely no sense of direction at all. If I didn't watch them, they could wander off and get very lost. Perhap they would be safer in a pokeball."
"Heh. You think you're some kind of comic now?"
"Not at all. My suggestion is a serious one. Do you find it funny?"
"Funny? Of course it's funny! Come on, Man. People don't go in pokeballs!
" . . . That is precisely my point."
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"You keep saying it's wrong to train pokemon. But that's so upsetting! My pokemon are my friends. I don't know what I would do without them!"
"What kind of friends are these, when all I hear you speak of is yourself, your own wants and needs, and nothing of their own? What part of that is friendship?"
"My pokemon, they—they're always there for me. My support. Whenever things get rough, I know I can count on them."
"For you. For your support. For your needs. What about theirs? A friendship that goes one way is no friendship at all. When was the last time you asked their pokemon what they needed? When you were there for them? This is not friendship, it's cowardice. When you acknowledge that your pokemon have just as much claim to personhood to you, they are no longer your props. You owe as much to them as they to you.
"Can you tell me a single desire any of your pokemon has, a desire that is in no way yours, that does not hinge on you, is not an extension of you? Can you?
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"I'll wait."
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"This weekend I visited the Pokeathlon in Johto. Under the mid-noon sun, humans and pokemon sweated it out on the track. I was particularly struck by one pokeathlete and her partner.
"The word partner is not one I used lightly. It is a word altogether abused in our society, which perceives servitude as partnership. But here I felt re-acquainted with the essense of that word. These pokeathletes moved in sync, facing down the same challenges. One did not command the other. This partnership operated on silent understanding, the intimacy of physical cooperation.
"Pokemon battles, I am often informed, are the height of closeness, with trainer and pokemon acting as one. At the pokeathlon I saw this rumored closeness, and it did not require injury to achieve. It did not require the subordination of one's body to the other.
"When they had finished, this feraligatur turned and sprayed her trainer with water. In the wild, that is how feraligatur show their affection, offering cooling water in times of heat. It is a gesture only acceptable between two who have shared the same hardships, who have both pushed their bodies to their limits. It is a gesture of the kind I have never witnessed between trainers and the pokemon they command on the battlefield.
"The pokeathlete grinned. And opening the water bottle strapped to her side, she doused her partner in water. Recognition. Reciprocation. Partnership.
"When I see moments like this I am filled with hope for the future of humans and pokemon. I am reminded that understanding is not a distant specter, vague and shadowy, impossible to grasp. This goal we must all strive for is close enough to touch.
"But friends, that is also why I am forced to rage. When I realize how little bars humans and pokemon from partnership but humans' stubborn refusal to recognize the throne they sit astride and cede it.
"Hope must make us angry, friends. That glorious dawn we strive towards should touch us every day with its fire.
"Take hope from my words, yes. But then take action."
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"Hey N, I've been tuning into your show a lot lately. Some of the stuff you've said, it's thought-provoking. I mean, it's made me really look around and take notice. But what do you expect anyone to do about it? I'm not a trainer. I don't have any pokemon to release. If everything's as bad and wrong as you say, well, I hate to say it, but I don't see things improving anytime soon. Everyone thinks it's okay."
"I'm glad to hear I've made you think differently, Feng. And if you think that way, it's no longer everyone, is it? We live in a culture of 'yes', looking to each other to confirm what's right and what's wrong. In this culture, pokemon have no voice and no vote. But you do. And you exercise that power everytime you say no instead of yes. Everytime you question, instead of confirm.
"It seems like a lonely path, until you think of all the pokemon, walking it with you. Until you realize their silence is like a river dammed in its place—that is howling and shrieking and waiting to burst free."
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"You fucking charlatan. No one can understand pokemon. It's not possible. They're animals, okay? Snorts and sniffs and grunts—I love my pokemon to bits, but I don't go around pretending they can say anything intelligent. When you claim that they do, and that you understand it—that's taking advantage of people's hopes and fears. It's just disgusting, really."
" . . You are very rude. Perhaps I can speak to your pokemon instead."
"Trying to pull some magic trick?"
"Are you afraid of what they will say?"
"Heh. All right. Have your little 'talk'. This is Fabra. You can ask her anything you'd like."
"Fabra, hello. I was hoping I could ask you a few questions about you and your trainer. Tell me, if you would, about this life you share together. Is it good? Are you content? What makes you happy and what would you change if you could?"
" …. … .. . ….. I see."
"You done with your communing? And I suppose you're going to say now that she hates my guts, always has. And if she had her way she'd be prancing about in the wilderness somewhere, happy and free. That's your schtick, right?"
"You are wrong. Fabra—she loves you. She loves the days you give her a warm bath, then dry her off in towels as soft as her mother's fur. When you run your hands through her fur and pick out the burs, until she feels beautiful and shining. It's not a bad price to pay for that love, fighting those long fights, dirtying her fur. Even though her whole body hurts afterwards. Even when strange teeth dig into her skin where it is tender. At least when they're over, she gets a bath from you, and time with you. Yes. She's says it's not a bad price."
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"The story I have for you today is not my own, but that of a glameow I once knew. She was a good person, that glameow. Life on the streets is not easy, but she lived with grace. We spent a day together, shared some food, some air, some silence. She wanted to follow me.
"So I asked her, what do you dream? At first, I had trouble making her understand. Pokemon do not always dream as we do, in narrow lines and clear-cut desires. A dream can be as elusive as a memory, a scent on the air. At last she told me, I want to be better. And from her I felt a confused outpouring—she was a young glameow still, and did not know her place in the world. I sympathized more than I could say. Then she offered me a word, trainer. She had heard the other pokemon speak of it, this word that was wrapped up in human and stronger and better.
"Fight for me then, I told her. And see.
"She did. She was a strong fighter, her claws sharp and her paws swift. But our opponent was stronger, and she fell.
"Is this what you dream of?" I asked her, as I tended to her wounds.
"No," she said weakly. "But—"
"Friends, we forget sometimes that pokemon as much as humans are steeped in the culture of pokemon battling, especially those that live in human cities. 'I cannot make you better,' I told her.
"We parted the next day.
"I saw Glameow again recently. She'd joined a group of street pokemon. They'd claimed a small alley for themselves and she had adopted a young growlithe to raise.
"She had a family. She had a life. She had everything that no trainer would have given her.
"'Are you better now?' I asked her. And friends, you must understand that the word 'better' as the pokemon mean it is an idea that has no translation.
"'I am better,' she said to me, or 'I am complete,' or maybe simply, 'I am.'
"If there is any moral to her story, friends, it is this: pokemon do not need us to be."
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"Hi N. I don't really know what to say, only, your program has been making me think about some things. My machoke, she's never loved battling. She's always reluctant when I send her out. So I promise her treats or I—it was only once, but I told her she was being a bad pokemon. That her acting like that made me a bad trainer. She got better, after that, only . . .only I'm not sure now."
"Not sure what 'better' means?"
". . .Yeah. Like you said. She got better at listening to me. But maybe that meant . . . that she got worse at being her. And if I did that . . . the thing is, I've been there. I didn't realize until I heard your program, but I've been there. My parents, see, they always held themselves hostage against my behavior. I was disgracing them, or I was bringing shame on our family. So I got better. I held in my tantrums. I did everything they said, tried to be the person they wanted me to be. But I wasn't. I never was. And eventually the facade broke, and so did everything else.
"I've always wondered how they could have been like that. How they could be so cruel to not even understand that love means loving me for who I am and not their image of who I am. How could they not see something as simple as that?
"But it's easy, isn't it?
"It's just so goddamn easy."
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"Hello, Friends.
"Friends. May I call you that? Over the past year you have asked me many times what it is I want. What I am hoping to gain.
"Only this: that the world cannot continue to cruelly spin on, when it turns only on injustice, inequity, and brutality. Until the organized violence of pokemon battling is brought to an end, until pokemon are recognized as persons, and not property, until we live in a world that is both equal and free.
"There is a story we tell in my homeland, Unova, of two heroes who split the world in their quest for truth and ideals. This story is always told as one of conflict—of truth pitted against ideals. But I have found a new understanding.
"We have need of both these heroes. The hero of truth must recognize the injustice of the world, and the hero of ideals must envision the new, better world that will replace it. I once believed that the only future of humans and pokemon lay in seperation. But I have grown to see that there is a new world, an ideal one, that we are capable of creating together. The hero of ideals is realized in every person who takes a step on the steep, perilous path to a brighter world.
"When I started to speak on the radio, I did not expect many humans to listen. I have never been more glad to be proven wrong. You have listened, and more than that, I believe you have heard.
"This is the last broadcast I will make. I have one final request of you. Please, tune in to the Indigo League Championships on Monday.
"This is N. I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for listening."