
One Canuck built the #ttrpg tag and the #mecha tag. And that was me.
Cohost Cultural Institution: @Making-up-Mech-Pilots
Priv: @Scampriv
no joke a friend and i had an extremely long discussion about this in college, one of the first long recurring convos we had was "what is the sociopolitical role of gym leaders in pokemon"
i always figured that despite the shared currency pokemon regions otherwise had countries at least mostly along the lines of their real world counterparts' and so i just kinda figured they all do have mostly individual governments, at least once we've left PokéJapan by the time we go to Unova? they're all just... compressed out, because Video Game Locations Are Smaller Than Real Ones and the inner workings of the wider governments of all these places beyond the presumed international regulatory body for pokemon combat sport that is the Pokémon League don't so much matter to a 12-16 year old who decided to go and be a wild monster catcher
Idk the idea that Pokémon is a anarchic world but there’s also an Interpol running around seems too compelling to give up on. Until they take me to city government and have the gym leader as a city councillor or introduce me to a member of pokeparliament, I’ll be blissfully ignorant of implied state level governments. Like, the Pokémon league is a sports league? That’s who is regulating Pokémon battles. The Pokémon league is not also who you are filing your tax return to (are there even taxes?)
at the very least though, if we're taking colosseum and xd as canon, there are local governments, probably? a Mayor is a central character to colosseum, after all
also... who do the Normal Cops That Have Been Around Since Gen 2 work for? do they work for offscreen implied government(s)? are they also part of interpol? are they simply organized by the citizens? are they hired goons of megacorps like Silph and Devon? are they something else entirely
Socialized free veteranary medicine, but a state police force in every town - if the manga and anime are to be believed?
But also a rich elite economic class who is "neutral" to the main storyline of most games? (Silph, Devon, etc) That makes it seem to me more like some variant of capitalism. On the other hand, who knows what the economic impact of "creatures that can produce water and/or energy freely" means
Imagine, rampant capitalism tamed by giant near mythical animals controlled by children being able to level buildings and other assets. Heck of a way to achieve ‘neutral’ capitalism
You can’t break the strike if they demolish your corporate office first. We know what types of Pokémon the police use and will catch accordingly.
thank you i put my entire heart, soul and ass into my comments to ensure they are in top shape :)
When you mentioned the mayor from the GC spin-offs I thought “a whole ass was put into this comment”