Early Series Weirdness

I noticed that a lot of stuff that happened early on in the games seems to be rather out of sync with how the rest of the Pokemon series has evolved. For instance, RBY mention finding Mew in South America and, in what has ended up being a rather controversial statement, stating that Mew "gave birth" to Mewtwo. There are references to the United States (Lt. Surge, the lightning American!). This sort of early series weirdness is never mentioned again (as far as I know, there are no references to our world in the games after RBY, and a Pokemon giving birth to another Pokemon is never mentioned again either). Should these strange inconsistencies be ignored as part of "early series weirdness" or should we just take them as they are?

I usually ignore them. Early on in the games, the series was still trying to find out where it belonged, so to speak. There was no breeding when RBY were around and so the mechanic by which Pokemon reproduce wouldn't have been available - this is why Mew is stated to "give birth" to Mewtwo. I find it odd to believe, in any case, that they captured a Mew and that this Mew was impregnated with a Mewtwo. I suppose it's possible, but it just seems really... weird.

Actually, that's how real life cloning works - a surrogate mother is impregnated with the clone as a fertilized egg and gives birth to it like a normal baby!

As for the other stuff, I think changing it a bit (real world places becoming the Pokemon versions, so Lt. Surge being from Unova) fixes some things a bit. Some minor logic fixes too, and everything is pretty normal again (for example, Cubone, upon birth, being given a sort of hard shedding from their mother/father in case of ditto, instead of an actual skull - it just looks like one)

So in short I guess I mostly think that a few changes are necessary to fit, but we shouldn't just toss the early game stuff out entirely.

Two theories. First, the Baby Kangaskhan = Cubone thing, from the whole M' evolving into Kangaskhan thing.

Second. In RBY, Lt. Surge mentions that electric pokemon saved him during the war. But what war? Also, have you noticed that you don't have a dad, and your rival doesn't have either parent? I think that RBY happened shortly after a war between Kanto and Jhoto. Pokemon gyms were established to stop people from ever using pokemon for war ever again, and instead make battling a friendly competition. Your rival is such a jerk because he's jealous that you still have your mother.

Superbird said:

Two theories. First, the Baby Kangaskhan = Cubone thing, from the whole M' evolving into Kangaskhan thing.

Second. In RBY, Lt. Surge mentions that electric pokemon saved him during the war. But what war? Also, have you noticed that you don't have a dad, and your rival doesn't have either parent? I think that RBY happened shortly after a war between Kanto and Jhoto. Pokemon gyms were established to stop people from ever using pokemon for war ever again, and instead make battling a friendly competition. Your rival is such a jerk because he's jealous that you still have your mother.

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Read this guys Nuzlocke

Yeah I got one of those from the internet and another from a friend who got that somewhere on the internet too. They're not original, by any means.

Kangaskhan is weird even without the Cubone thing going on.

And as for South America, Xatu apparently lives there too.

If it were just early installment weirdness, why did FRLG maintain them as canon?

Actually, that's how real life cloning works - a surrogate mother is impregnated with the clone as a fertilized egg and gives birth to it like a normal baby!

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I did think of that, but the thought of impregnating a Mew with a Mewtwo fetus just seemed... really weird and not something that would really happen in the series. Maybe I'm just prejudiced against it or something.

If it were just early installment weirdness, why did FRLG maintain them as canon?

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I'm guessing because the point of the games was to relive your nostalgia with prettier graphics, not correct early installment weirdness. For instance, the Xatu being known in South America thing does not persist outside of the second generation games and their remakes. I don't know if there are post second generation references to our world; perhaps there are and I'm simply not aware of them.

Let's not forget that Arcanine is apparently Chinese...

The entire first generation is just completely wack in comparison to later games.

Gambling addicts? Check. Girls claiming you sexually assaulted them? Check. Antagonist team killing Marowak? Check. (In fact, the entire Team Rocket storyline is so much darker than the succeeding generations.)

About the whole South America dealie, remember the regions (except Unova) are based on regions in Japan. The war though... Not sure how are war fits in.

I feel like the writers discarded the idea that Pokemon takes place in some alternate dimension "real world" a long time ago.

After the series' popularity exploded the world started taking on a life of its own they went with it, abandoning a lot of the real world basis they'd initially worked from. It's still there, obviously, considering how they still blatantly base the regions off of real-world locations and even mentioned Unova as being somewhere "far away" from the setting of the previous games, but in-universe Unova isn't NYC plus some of New Jersey - it's Unova.

Of course it gets kind of puzzling when you consider the fact that even in the original games they made up an entire fictional parallel of a region of Japan and then actually mentioned real world locations, but that was likely done for practical reasons. There's also probably a point where even the writers say "it's a fucking video game who cares". Actually, they probably say that way before the fan community does most of the time, and that's why these discussions happen!

Edit: this bulbapedia article is very relevant to this thread! There are actually more than a couple of real world references in Gen 3, which is suprising. It looks like from D/P on there are none though. And honestly I just attribute any real world references in the anime to lazy writing/not realizing that certain figures of speech don't make sense in other worlds.

If there was anything I'd appreciate them changing from the older gens, it would be the cubone description. I feel annoyed reading how it "Mourns for it's dead mother" when she is in the same party as it, if not in the same battle. It's a stupid oversight that should've been fixed in the 2nd gen, but wasn't...

I don't consider the mentions of South America (and China, and the USA) to be "early series weirdness." If anything should be discarded as "early series weirdness," it's the Pokédex entries that mention Indian elephants even though none of the games, even the earliest ones, had any other indication that there were any real-world animals (aside from humans, of course... and maybe some small insects or schooling fish or other things like that), only Pokémon.

If anything, the tendency to not reference any "real-world" places anymore should be considered "late series weirdness." The Pokémon world has always been "pretty much just our Earth, but with Pokémon and different names for most countries/regions/cities." It's the recent attempts to change (or at least cover up) that fact that are weird, not the way it was originally...

Lirris said:

If there was anything I'd appreciate them changing from the older gens, it would be the cubone description. I feel annoyed reading how it "Mourns for it's dead mother" when she is in the same party as it, if not in the same battle. It's a stupid oversight that should've been fixed in the 2nd gen, but wasn't...

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I feel the same way!

Also, in one of the early episodes, Misty's Psyduck's tail started glowing blue, and the charather of the day said that meant it was going to evolve, which was later revealed as a lie.

0_O

Even when I first saw it, I thought it was weird, and now, I can't seem to find a logical reason for this.

It may have been true (at least as per the anime instance) but for whatever reason is had ended up being something of a misfire or something of the like.