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Inter-species communication of pokemon?

Kim62

Hello
That's the cartoon. Games =/= anime.

Oh, so we're talking about the game cannon.

I thought we were talking about canons in general since the thread poster was usuing examples from both the games and the anime.
 
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BlitzBlast

Busy with School
That's the cartoon. Games =/= anime.

While normally this would be valid, the game says absolutely nothing concrete about this.

Thus we have to use the anime and Special as sources.

Really though, I have no idea how I forgot about Meowth and his backstory.
 

MrPostman

Viceroy
One thing to remember is that the games set the canon, not the other way around. Other media can't be taken as fact over them. Adventure isn't the only comic out there, and the cartoon can't even be internally consistent.

Why do the games have to say anything? This is one of those things that falls under Occam's Razor. With your logic, since the games don't tell us what Pokemon eat (especially since you ignore the pokedex), I say they eat people. They also never sleep or poop, so they obviously don't do those things either. Who is Red's father? Simple, he doesn't have one. We just can't know!

On a side note, why would humans be in charge if all pokes were just as intelligent as them? Thanks, terrible cartoon logic, you saved the day again.

The way you ignored the Lapras thing on the previous page tells me not to continue with you.
 

MetalFlygon08

Haters Gonna Hate
*facepalm*
the reason things such as Eating Pokemon(and thus Killing), pooping, etc. its a KID'S game, and the games do reference sleeping, pewter's jigglypuff, NPCs, the SLEEP status? and eating Berries, pokeblocks, and poffins?
and the pokedex is the last place you should pick canon for the series as a whole from, it lies and contradicts itself time and time again(endangered Lapras? I just breed 2,000 and realesed them). Pay attention to what the NPCs say, as well as the myths, pokemon may be intelligent, but it's their nature to battle with one another(not kill think more like professional boxing, not cockfighting) to prove dominise(spelling?) and such, the COEXIST with humans, either as playmates, partners, & pets.-Prof. Oak

now seeing as pokemon are intelligent, they are not below baisic telepathy, or body motions, most species can tell what the other species is feeling from the growls(cris of pokemon) and their pose. the games will probally never address it because is it really that important that it ceases your gameplay? The anime is what pesters me with them saying their names, that's practicaly english, just with limited letters/vocabulary.
 

Kim62

Hello
One thing to remember is that the games set the canon, not the other way around. Other media can't be taken as fact over them. Adventure isn't the only comic out there, and the cartoon can't even be internally consistent.

That would be good except we are talking about canon in general. We can't only talk about game canon because you want to.
 

jellsprout

Well-Known Member
...your first line makes no sense. I have no idea how you got "it can speak the human language so it can do stuff" from "it can understand human language and it can do stuff".

And thank you for confirming my point: the games do not say anything, thus we must go with Special and the anime on this.

And for your last point, you realize it could just as well be a human dressed as a duck right? Or hell, it could be Donald Duck.

You said "It is more intelligent than a dog because it can breath fire". I say "the ability to breath fire and intelligence have no corrolation".


...you don't really know much about this, do you?

The sheer fact you mentioned that Pikachu is level 100 means you have no ****ing clue how the anime works.

It was said in the final Orange Islands battle, when Ash's Bulbasaur is battling Drake's Electabuzz, that despite Bulbasaur having type advantage, he still lost because Drake's Electabuzz had a much higher experience level. This battling didn't use any strategy or intelligence, so you can't claim that this was referring to Electabuzz having more experience with battling and therefor has a better strategy.
Yet in the Kanto Champions League, Ash's Krabby, that was weak enough for Ash to catch without battling, and hadn't had a battle in his life, managed to beat all three Pokémon of Ash's first opponent without any trouble at all.

As for Whitney, may I note that you're really just reading too far into what was said? Really, it's rather simple: gymleaders give badges to trainers they respect. When Ash beat Miltank, he gained Whitney's respect, and he got the badge just like that. In other words, the basic rules of pokemon battling stay the same from gym to gym, but everything else is dependent on the gym leader.

IIRC, it wasn't Whitney that said it, but her assistant. And he said that it was the rule Ash only had to beat the strongest Pokémon. Respect had nothing to do with it.

For one, yes there would be quite a difference, what with the "blows away with whirlwinds" and the "can live anywhere".

Also, note that this is the ****ing pokedex. You've got, at best, two pages of basic description. And accuracy isn't exactly the top priority.

The accuracy is good enough. It still gives a good picture of the Pokémon in the wild. Still, none of the entries indicate any human level intelligence in Pokémon, while many indicate animal level intelligence.

You're going to have to show proof here, because I recall that the only thing that was stated about Lapras and humans was that Lapras was afraid of the latter.

This explains why you are failing so bad. You are unable to read. I gave 4 Pokédex entries and the flavor text of a TCG card, which each mention that Lapras is able to understand human, I even bolded those parts, yet you still missed it.

...I'm beginning to wonder about your common sense.

See, all the episode really stated was that the HUMAN couldn't speak POKEMON. It said nothing about whether or not the POKEMON could understand HUMAN.

Bolding and oversizing some words doesn't make them any more true. The special thing about the old man wasn't that he was supposed to understand Pokémon. I don't even think he ever claimed that. The special thing was that he was supposed to be able to speak the Pokémon language. Do you even know what episode I'm talking about?


The Meowth being able to speak is just another clear example of the inconsitancies in the animé, and a reason why it should be disregarded when figuring out a canon. The Meowth made it seem that with a little determination, every Pokémon could talk the human language or could walk on two legs. In fact, Ash and Misty weren't surprised at all when they first heard Meowth speak or saw him walk. Yet in 5 regions, he is still the only Pokémon capable of doing either of this. It doesn't make any sense.
 

Firebrand

Indomitable
pokemon are awesome. enough said. They seem to be intelligent enough to communicate with each other, and with humans. SO why not?
 

BlitzBlast

Busy with School
One thing to remember is that the games set the canon, not the other way around. Other media can't be taken as fact over them. Adventure isn't the only comic out there, and the cartoon can't even be internally consistent.

I know this. The fact is though,t he only thing the game states on the matter is Canalave Library's legends, and NPC talk, which can't really be taken as concrete; the former due to the fact that, well, it's a legend, and the second because... well, I don't know why people don't take the second as concrete.

Why do the games have to say anything? This is one of those things that falls under Occam's Razor. With your logic, since the games don't tell us what Pokemon eat (especially since you ignore the pokedex), I say they eat people. They also never sleep or poop, so they obviously don't do those things either. Who is Red's father? Simple, he doesn't have one. We just can't know!

....What?

The anime and Special are both probably the most well known interpretations of the pokemon world, with the latter even having the backing of the creator himself. In other words, if the game doesn't say something, but the anime/Special does, until the game says something different the anime/Special explanation will be used.

Also, the only time I truly ignore the Pokedex is in the case of legendary pokemon, due to the complete reliance on Legends. Other then that, I realize the Pokedex is basically a field guide of sorts, telling you only the most basic information.

Not to mention it's stated in-game that Pokemon can eat candy and poffin. Not to mention the fact that Pokemon have a Sleep status effect, and that the NPCs that heal you that aren't Nurse Joys state that your pokemon need a rest. Don't have anything about the poop though. And for Red's father, he hasn't been introduced anywhere (though slightly referenced in the anime so we know he at least exists), but until there is a real solid statement, sure you can believe Red doesn't have a father if you want to.

On a side note, why would humans be in charge if all pokes were just as intelligent as them? Thanks, terrible cartoon logic, you saved the day again.

Pokemon MD shows that Pokemon can get along fine without humans. As for why Pokemon wokl with humans, it's the entire theme of the games: trust and respect.

The way you ignored the Lapras thing on the previous page tells me not to continue with you.

Actually, I still have no idea what anyone meant about the Lapras thing. Hell, I'm not even sure which Lapras we're talking about here. The anime one? An in-game one?

Never mind, found it. I have absolutely no idea how I missed that to tell the truth.

You said "It is more intelligent than a dog because it can breath fire". I say "the ability to breath fire and intelligence have no corrolation".

...what? How.. what... HOW THE HELL DID YOU READ THAT?

You stated your dog was a pokemon because it could learn commands. I pointed out it was incapable of doing the majority of the magical things pokemon can do. In no way did I state that because it could do these magical things it is more intelligent. In fact, my whole point was that pokemon can do these magic, unrealistic things and really can't be judged by real life standards.


It was said in the final Orange Islands battle, when Ash's Bulbasaur is battling Drake's Electabuzz, that despite Bulbasaur having type advantage, he still lost because Drake's Electabuzz had a much higher experience level. This battling didn't use any strategy or intelligence, so you can't claim that this was referring to Electabuzz having more experience with battling and therefor has a better strategy.

I mean, it's not like experience could possibly refer to things like aiming, using stronger attacks, or just all around knowlege of how to battle, right?

Man, I suck at giving examples.

Yet in the Kanto Champions League, Ash's Krabby, that was weak enough for Ash to catch without battling, and hadn't had a battle in his life, managed to beat all three Pokémon of Ash's first opponent without any trouble at all.

Strategy and tenacity. Ever heard of them?

IIRC, it wasn't Whitney that said it, but her assistant. And he said that it was the rule Ash only had to beat the strongest Pokémon. Respect had nothing to do with it.

Because Ash beating Whitney's strongest pokemon wouldn't earn her respect, and thus her badge. Nope.

Either way, I really don't recall much about that episode, so do you think you could give me a transcript?

The accuracy is good enough. It still gives a good picture of the Pokémon in the wild. Still, none of the entries indicate any human level intelligence in Pokémon, while many indicate animal level intelligence.

As I stated earlier, after some thinking on the matter due to this debate, I now see the Pokedex as a field guide of sorts, only stating the most basic of information, and maybe a little trivia.

This explains why you are failing so bad. You are unable to read. I gave 4 Pokédex entries and the flavor text of a TCG card, which each mention that Lapras is able to understand human, I even bolded those parts, yet you still missed it.

To be truthful, I didn't actually notice that. Yeah, epic fail on my part.

Anyway... I take this to just mean that Lapras has more intelligence then the average pokemon. Probably not the level of an Alakazam, but that it just understands english more easily, or just shows that it understands english more easily. I mean, people used it for transport; they probably noticed that Lapras very quickly responded to directions.

Interpretation FTW. Really though, I have no real counter to this, other then my own interpretation of it.

Bolding and oversizing some words doesn't make them any more true. The special thing about the old man wasn't that he was supposed to understand Pokémon. I don't even think he ever claimed that. The special thing was that he was supposed to be able to speak the Pokémon language. Do you even know what episode I'm talking about?

How do you still not understand this? I'm pointing out that all that was resolved was that that man could not speak pokemon. Nothing was said about whether or not pokemon could understand humans, or at least according to the episode summary you provided.

Here, let's give an example. There's a man who thinks he can speak German. He goes over to Germany and tries communicating with Germans. Now, somebody asks for his services as a translator, and after some hijinks the man discovers that he can not speak German. Does this mean that people who speak German can not understand humans at all?

...damn, I still suck at examples.

The Meowth being able to speak is just another clear example of the inconsitancies in the animé, and a reason why it should be disregarded when figuring out a canon. The Meowth made it seem that with a little determination, every Pokémon could talk the human language or could walk on two legs. In fact, Ash and Misty weren't surprised at all when they first heard Meowth speak or saw him walk. Yet in 5 regions, he is still the only Pokémon capable of doing either of this. It doesn't make any sense.

Looking at Meowth's own backstory episode, it seems Pokemon just don't want to learn human.

Anyway, I have no real way to counter the Lapras point, so this might be the end of this fun, if slightly frustrating (on both ends, I'm sure) debate.
 
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Kim62

Hello
I don't think you can count the Pokedex as an accurate resourse of information.

The Jenny in the episode that was meantioned before said Pokemon can't understand human yet the Pokedex says that some can. Now, you can say that this Jenny was just misinformed and the Pokedex is right about some being able to understand human and others not.

But consider this. The Pokedex also stats that Pidgeot can fly at Mach 2 (it would burn up) and Machamp can throw 1000 punches in 2 seconds (its arms would explode).

Clearly the Pokedex is not very accurate, especially since each version of Pokedex seems to only give out two or three sentences on the Pokemon.

They probably stated that some can understand human because most other Pokemon choose not to. What if we supposed that all Pokemon are capable of equal or greater intelligence to humans. It is just some of the more primitive ones choose not to use their intelligence as much as some more advance Pokemon.

Just a thought.
 

BlitzBlast

Busy with School
I guess that's probably the best answer.

Some pokemon can, some pokemon can't.

I mean, look how stupid Rhyhorn is.
 

celibi88

robochu=win
everybody knows that Pokemon talk through VIOLENCE
 

Katipunero

Eye in the Sky
Think of it this way,Everyone of us here in SerebiiForums are from different countries with different languages but we can still communicate/talk/chat/contact/(Another word for talk) to each other in a universal language called "English".
 

jellsprout

Well-Known Member
But consider this. The Pokedex also stats that Pidgeot can fly at Mach 2 (it would burn up) and Machamp can throw 1000 punches in 2 seconds (its arms would explode).

Clearly the Pokedex is not very accurate, especially since each version of Pokedex seems to only give out two or three sentences on the Pokemon.

Pokémon can breath fire, freeze the air, create high current electricty out of nowhere, most even all three at the same time. Taking all this into acount, would it be too surprising that Pidgeot is able to fly at Mach 2 or that Machamp is able to throw 125 punches a second with each arm?
It is still pretty absurd, but still not as absurd as Pokémon like Ditto.

I guess that's probably the best answer.

Some pokemon can, some pokemon can't.

I mean, look how stupid Rhyhorn is.

Let's just leave it at that. Pokémon like Lapras are able to understand the human language, Pokémon like Tauros aren't. It could also be possible to work like this between the different species.
 
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