Religious Objections to Pokémon
We all know the tragic tale of the lone Pokémon fan who is unfortunate enough to have a family member who firmly asserts that Pokémon is evil. Given the general diversity of religious beliefs and interpretations, it is no surprise that most if not all popular franchises have sprouted objections from some religious groups, and Pokémon is far from being an exception.
The subject of religious Pokémon-hate, mostly Christian, is unfortunately a rather difficult one as far as Anti-Anti-Pokémon goes, for the simple reason that they are not necessarily wrong about Pokémon in the first place. While I have never personally read a piece of religious anti-Pokémon propaganda that did not contain numerous factual errors about the franchise stemming from lack of research, this is never the root of the problem they have with Pokémon. The actual claims about Pokémon that the religious assert as fact can often be generally truthful.
"Kids who get into Pokémon might become interested in other games like Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons."
"Pokémon has magic and ghosts."
"There are dragon Pokémon."
"Pokémon is a role-playing game."
"There are Pokémon like Houndoom clearly inspired by the traditional idea of demons, as well as a 'Dark' type."
There are those who want to argue with this: Even if kids might become interested in Magic after playing Pokémon, it doesn't mean they will. It's not magic per se, it's psychic powers, and ghost Pokémon are made of gas. The dragon Pokémon aren't really dragons. Pokémon is more strategy than RPG. Houndoom once saved a Togepi in the animé so it's not evil, and it's a cerberus, which has nothing to do with the devil or Christianity. But this is ultimately missing the point; the person who condemns Pokémon for containing magic does not care whether it is called "magic" or "psychic powers", and the actions of individual Houndoom characters in the animé are not the reason some Christians flinch at Houndoom's design, which is so blatantly based on the idea of hellhounds that to deny this is bordering on delusional. The reason a great majority of people would agree they're wrong is not that the above statements are wrong, which they essentially aren't. It's that to all of them I can say, "Well, yeah, but so what?" The problem lies in the second half of the argument, namely where the Pokémon hater connects it to religion:
"Dungeons and Dragons and Magic are evil because they blatantly contain evil monsters, demons, spirits, sorcery and magic, and they are evil because the Bible condemns them."
"Dragons always symbolize evil in the Bible, showing subtle Satanic implications when they are allied with the protagonist character."
"Role-playing games are evil because they let the player escape from the real world, and this process is warned against in the Bible."
"Associating oneself with demons or representations of them is to choose evil over good."
And this is where things have wandered into a dangerous territory. Religious beliefs are the beliefs that people are most stubborn about and least likely to be willing to compromise once they've made up their minds, which the religious Pokémon-critics obviously have. You can't tell somebody who believes that something symbolizing evil in the Bible must mean it is the intention of everyone else who chooses to portray dragons in fantasy that he's simply wrong and dragons only have this association in the minds of some Christians (and especially not in the East), or that having magic or demons in a game doesn't mean one would ever associate oneself with any of it if it existed. Much less can one tell them, as I would most like to, that they're taking the Bible far too seriously. I don't know the will of the divine if it exists, and if they think they do it is really their business. It is very sad that such people push their beliefs upon their children or relatives instead of letting them choose for themselves, but there is little we can do about it because it is sadly all done in the name of religious conviction, which modern society has effectively made exempt from criticism.
No doubt an intelligent Christian could argue like this about Pokémon on theological grounds, but being an atheist I don't consider myself qualified for this, and in any case I am rather skeptical about the ability of anyone to convince somebody to leave Pokémon alone when they hate it on religious grounds, even if somebody could put a good case against them on their own assumptions about the implications of the Bible. Essentially, people ought not to bother themselves about a random relative's opinion of the video games they play. I feel very sorry for all children unfortunate enough to have parents and relatives with the power to prevent them from playing Pokémon if they would like to on religious grounds, because the sad fact is there is not much that can be done to convince them. Some of them may have general misconceptions about Pokémon which can be corrected, but they are rarely the root of the problem.
In conclusion, if your parents won't allow you to play Pokémon because they have found evidence of its evilness in their interpretation of their religion, you have my deepest sympathies, but I truly don't believe I could ever write an article likely to move them by an inch in their convictions.
Page last modified September 02 2007 at 18:56 GMT
