Missingno. Master
Poison-type Trainer
Do Glitch Pokémon count as real Pokémon?
First off, a note to the mods; this is not something that can just be answered in the questions thread. This is intended as a discussion. A poll. Where people can voice their opinions on the matter, and where giving a simple, straight answer does not justify the thread being closed. There was already a poll on this, but it was mistaken for a simple question thread and closed before I could have my say on the matter, and since my request to have it reopened has fallen on deaf ears, I figured I should start a new one.
Now, then. Glitch Pokémon. Do they count as real Pokémon? I say yes. Let's look, for a moment, at Missingno., the mascot of Glitch Pokémon, for a moment here. What makes Missingno. a non-Pokémon? It exhibits traits that to date have only been exhibited in other Pokémon.
Let's say you have a TM24. Thunderbolt. TMs are devices that have been created with the specific purpose of teaching new moves to Pokémon and only Pokémon. And, oh, look! Missingno. can learn Thunderbolt! But that's not all, is it? No, Missingno. can learn moves from a whole range of TMs! Mega Punch, Sky Attack, Thunder Wave, Tri Attack, quite a diverse movepool there! You know what? Missingno. can learn TMs, and that's a whole lot more than I can say for some other Pokémon, whose status as Pokémon never get questioned. Caterpie. Kakuna. Magikarp. Unown. Burmy. Wobbuffet. Tynamo. Need I continue?
Different scenario. Your team currently consists of Charizard, Graveler, Jynx, Weezing, Tentacool, and Missingno. By the logic of one who thinks Glitch Pokémon aren't Pokémon, you have five Pokémon on hand. Because Missingno. supposedly isn't a Pokémon. But then you come across a Dodrio. You wear it down with your Tentacool and catch it in a Great Ball. But wait! Dodrio gets sent to Bill's PC! But why, you ask? That only happens when you have- wait for it- GASP! Six Pokémon on hand! While non-Pokémon things can be caught in Poké Balls, as the anime episode Primeape Goes Bananas proves, they obviously don't take up space on one's team, or else Ash would have had to send his rice ball to Professor Oak in order to retrieve Primeape. Thus, we can infer from this that while Poké Balls can catch pretty much anything, only caught Pokémon take up space in one's party. Which Glitch Pokémon do.
Catch yourself an 'M. Go on, do it. Now give your new 'M a Rare Candy. My Arceus, what's it doing? Why, it's evolving into Kangaskhan! And now, class, what does something have to be in order to evolve into a Pokémon? That's right, it has to be a Pokémon!
But, you must be thinking by now, if Missingno. and other such things are really Pokémon, why do Nintendo act otherwise? See, Nintendo's attitude towards Missingno. and its kind is what deters many from seeing the truth. Nintendo can deny Missingno. all they want, but it doesn't change the facts. Now let me make an analogy. If a father disowns his son, the two are still related in the exact same manner as before. He can deny his son all he wants, but he is still his son. Not because of what his father calls him, but because of what he was born to be. This is the case with Nintendo and Missingno. They can feed us all this crap about how Missingno. is not a part of the game, and how you must release it if you catch it, and how it's not a Pokémon, but because of what Missingno. is, because of what it can do, it is undeniably a Pokémon. And the same applies to all other Pokémon so wrongly termed as "glitches" and "errors" and "scrambled data". If it can be caught in a Poké Ball, if it takes up space on one's Pokémon team, if it can battle, and learn moves, and level up, then it is a Pokémon, and pretending otherwise is little more than an insult.
It's true that none of these Glitch Pokémon were intentionally programmed into the game. But that doesn't change the fact that they're there. If you pick up a gun you believe to be empty and shoot it at someone, and it turns out the thing was loaded, try explaining to the cops that it wasn't intentional and see how far you get. Penicillin was created unintentionally, does that make it not a real medicine? No, it does not. The intention behind them doesn't mean a thing as to whether or not they are real.
To sum it all up, Glitch Pokémon are real Pokémon, whether Nintendo likes it or not.
First off, a note to the mods; this is not something that can just be answered in the questions thread. This is intended as a discussion. A poll. Where people can voice their opinions on the matter, and where giving a simple, straight answer does not justify the thread being closed. There was already a poll on this, but it was mistaken for a simple question thread and closed before I could have my say on the matter, and since my request to have it reopened has fallen on deaf ears, I figured I should start a new one.
Now, then. Glitch Pokémon. Do they count as real Pokémon? I say yes. Let's look, for a moment, at Missingno., the mascot of Glitch Pokémon, for a moment here. What makes Missingno. a non-Pokémon? It exhibits traits that to date have only been exhibited in other Pokémon.
Let's say you have a TM24. Thunderbolt. TMs are devices that have been created with the specific purpose of teaching new moves to Pokémon and only Pokémon. And, oh, look! Missingno. can learn Thunderbolt! But that's not all, is it? No, Missingno. can learn moves from a whole range of TMs! Mega Punch, Sky Attack, Thunder Wave, Tri Attack, quite a diverse movepool there! You know what? Missingno. can learn TMs, and that's a whole lot more than I can say for some other Pokémon, whose status as Pokémon never get questioned. Caterpie. Kakuna. Magikarp. Unown. Burmy. Wobbuffet. Tynamo. Need I continue?
Different scenario. Your team currently consists of Charizard, Graveler, Jynx, Weezing, Tentacool, and Missingno. By the logic of one who thinks Glitch Pokémon aren't Pokémon, you have five Pokémon on hand. Because Missingno. supposedly isn't a Pokémon. But then you come across a Dodrio. You wear it down with your Tentacool and catch it in a Great Ball. But wait! Dodrio gets sent to Bill's PC! But why, you ask? That only happens when you have- wait for it- GASP! Six Pokémon on hand! While non-Pokémon things can be caught in Poké Balls, as the anime episode Primeape Goes Bananas proves, they obviously don't take up space on one's team, or else Ash would have had to send his rice ball to Professor Oak in order to retrieve Primeape. Thus, we can infer from this that while Poké Balls can catch pretty much anything, only caught Pokémon take up space in one's party. Which Glitch Pokémon do.
Catch yourself an 'M. Go on, do it. Now give your new 'M a Rare Candy. My Arceus, what's it doing? Why, it's evolving into Kangaskhan! And now, class, what does something have to be in order to evolve into a Pokémon? That's right, it has to be a Pokémon!
But, you must be thinking by now, if Missingno. and other such things are really Pokémon, why do Nintendo act otherwise? See, Nintendo's attitude towards Missingno. and its kind is what deters many from seeing the truth. Nintendo can deny Missingno. all they want, but it doesn't change the facts. Now let me make an analogy. If a father disowns his son, the two are still related in the exact same manner as before. He can deny his son all he wants, but he is still his son. Not because of what his father calls him, but because of what he was born to be. This is the case with Nintendo and Missingno. They can feed us all this crap about how Missingno. is not a part of the game, and how you must release it if you catch it, and how it's not a Pokémon, but because of what Missingno. is, because of what it can do, it is undeniably a Pokémon. And the same applies to all other Pokémon so wrongly termed as "glitches" and "errors" and "scrambled data". If it can be caught in a Poké Ball, if it takes up space on one's Pokémon team, if it can battle, and learn moves, and level up, then it is a Pokémon, and pretending otherwise is little more than an insult.
It's true that none of these Glitch Pokémon were intentionally programmed into the game. But that doesn't change the fact that they're there. If you pick up a gun you believe to be empty and shoot it at someone, and it turns out the thing was loaded, try explaining to the cops that it wasn't intentional and see how far you get. Penicillin was created unintentionally, does that make it not a real medicine? No, it does not. The intention behind them doesn't mean a thing as to whether or not they are real.
To sum it all up, Glitch Pokémon are real Pokémon, whether Nintendo likes it or not.