It's a Pokéman's World

In the past few days I've devoted to SoulSilver, I've become increasingly aware of a slightly unsettling trend to how I approach catching 'em all. It's fairly inhibiting to my progress as a Pokémaster, sure, but it's also got me wondering more about myself as a human being. Basically it boils down to this:

I don't like catching female Pokémon.

There have been a bunch of times where I've been walking through the tall grass and given the warning signs of a wild Pokémon. As the battle starts up, I'd be excited to see the silhouette of, say, a wild Slowpoke, or some other animal I had yet to add to the 'dex. The excitement would be short-lived, however, when I find out that the Slowpoke is a girl. Even though a part of me would be wanting to fail, I'd go ahead trying to catch it.

If I succeeded, I'd wonder what the heck to name a female Pokémon that's not just some dumb name like “Tiffany” or “Sharon”. And if I failed at catching the Pokémon, I'd actually be kind of relieved.



So. I don't like owning female Pokémon. What does this say of me?

My first epiphany may have been a bit of an overreaction, but it's the same reaction I have to like 75% of the bad habits I catch myself doing: “Does this mean I'm subconsciously gay?”

The answer, after thinking about it for a bit, was a fairly adamant “Probably not.”

My follow-up question, then, is the slightly modified “Does this mean I'm subconsciously sexist?”

The answer for that: “Probably. But you're also subconsciously racist, classist, and ageist, so you've got bigger problems to worry about.”

The more I think about it, though, the more my Pokébias (Pokésogyny?) seems commonplace. After all, I don't think it's uncommon that young kids generally like to own toys of the same “gender” as themselves. I mean, you give a boy two identical Stormtrooper action figures, tell him he can own either of the two, and that one of the Stormtroopers is a boy and the other is a girl, I'm almost positive he'd go for the male Stormtrooper.



And I don't think this is limited just to children. Think pets, for example. I think it makes perfect sense that in One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Roger owns Pongo, while Anita owns Perdita. And I dunno, but when I hear about males who live alone and own a female dog, I think it's kind of weird. I'm not saying there's anything weird about it, it just feels odd. Like if some dude in an action movie gave his gun a male name, like “Roger”, as opposed to “Vira”.

Okay, so I just read what I typed, and apparently I'm okay with having male pets and female guns, but not vice versa. In short, I have to sort through a few issues.

But I guess, even if I am a bit sexist when playing SoulSilver, it's not like I'm a full-fledged Psychopath. I mean, I don't go around catching Jinxes, naming them things like “Whore” and “Slut” while I force them to breed with Tentacruels at the Daycare centre. I just don't like catching females. Is that so bad?

Okay, so I just read what I typed again, and I think “I just don't like catching females. Is that so bad?” is a really weird sentence to be taken out of context.

Moving on.

Pokédexwise, it's been slow and not so steady. I kind of wasted like three hours or something crazy like that playing that Voltorb card game in Goldenrod, and the new Pokéathelon, which is pretty crazy fun. In the last two days, though, I've caught a level 14 male Pidgey (ChickenBoo), a level 20 female Sudowoodo (Willow), a level 17 female Exeggcute (Crazy Jane), a level 12 Nidoran ♀ (Hecate), and I exchanged some coins I won from the Voltorb game for a level 15 male Abra (Psycho Fox).

On top of those, I caught a Wooper, a Slowpoke, and a Magby on my Pokéwalker. I'm pretty stoked about the Magby.

But I'm not quite as stoked about the Magby as I am about catching my favourite Pokémon (or rather, the first stage of my favourite Pokémon), the Nidoran ♂. I caught him at level 12, lovingly named him Moloch, and plan to have him in my party right up to the end.



Day 6 Pokédex count: Seen 73, caught 27
Professor Oak says: You're getting good at this, but you have a long way to go.

Wait, my favourite Pokémon has a "♂" in its name?

Argh!