Why are there no inherently evil pokemon?

[pokemonsquared]

They are all either misunderstood have atragic backstory or not in their proper mindset.

[CyberCubed]

What about that Spiritomb in DP? They literally had to seal it back up in stone to prevent it from wreaking havoc.

[Demon Kitsune Yoko Kurama]

Giratina's Pokedex entry make it seem as if it's very violent. But, in the movie, we were shown another side. I guess Spiritomb is a perfect example.

[Street Comedy]

Team Rocket's Meowth and that wild Spiritomb.

[BCVM22]

Because at every turn the franchise reinforces the notion that Pokémon aren't inherently evil, just misunderstood or following orders to do bad things. At worst, a force of nature like a storm - not good or evil.

[pokemonsquared]

Team Rocket's Meowth and that wild Spiritomb.

The first is a tragic backstory.

The second ill need to rewatch.

[An00bis]

Seems like that was retconned in more recent regions.

Another one that comes to mind is the Shiny Metagross from Sinnoh that tries to kill Trainers on sight.

More recently it seems to be that the vast majority of Pokemon are not evil, but there are definitely some malicious Pokemon out there. Rather then try and go out there and soothe them humans just try to avoid them altogether.

[Spin Attaxx]

This has always bothered me. Darkrai got dealt the worst hand in this - seriously, the writers WON'T make the god of nightmares a villain, but they WILL use a stock pirate instead? Bouffalantcrap.

If they screw up Genesect, then I will be convinced that the writers are the kind of furries who praise animals as being as pure as Jesus, while claiming man is the devil.

[gamer_legend]

To be fair there was that were those Litwick and Lampent that tried to send Ash and his friends to Hell or the Shadow Realm or whatever it was called.

[00poke_maniac]

Is there an evil animal? That's why.

[pokefandt]

Is there an evil animal? That's why.

That really doesn't work. Pokemon are shown to be a hell of a lot smarter than our animals.

[00poke_maniac]

That really doesn't work. Pokemon are shown to be a hell of a lot smarter than our animals.

Still doesn't change the fact that all Pokemon have love in their hearts for a human like a dog or cat does. =P I think I wonder more why all Pokemon have the capability to bond to humans before one would be evil.

[Spin Attaxx]

Pokémon clearly have a concept of morality, and aren't some dumb mutt. I find it hard to believe that out of 649 species, not a single one thought to themselves "hey, maybe I can use my powers of nightmares to rule the world!". Also, there have been real life cases of animals performing crimes like kidnapping. Also, Spiritomb sez hai. He's 108 evil spirits bound to a stone 'cause they did bad things.

[lovelyteddy]

well there's really no evil Pokemon but there is a dark Pokemon hondome is the dark Pokemon so its evil i guess and mew two he's evil to!

[Spin Attaxx]

BTW, I just thought of something: what if Darkrai was meant to be evil, and the whole misunderstood thing was the result of a quiet retcon? I'm not sure of this, but the Darkrai event in Diamond/Pearl doesn't have Arceus or whoever saying Darkrai is misunderstood. Also, note the lack of "it means no harm" in it's D/P entries. They might have meant Darkrai to either join or replace Mewtwo as the Pokémon who's evil, but when M10 came and butchered his character, Game Freak changed Darkrai into being misunderstood from Platinum onwards to mantain consistency with the animé.

[Honeyichigo]

BTW, I just thought of something: what if Darkrai was meant to be evil, and the whole misunderstood thing was the result of a quiet retcon? I'm not sure of this, but the Darkrai event in Diamond/Pearl doesn't have Arceus or whoever saying Darkrai is misunderstood. Also, note the lack of "it means no harm" in it's D/P entries. They might have meant Darkrai to either join or replace Mewtwo as the Pokémon who's evil, but when M10 came and butchered his character, Game Freak changed Darkrai into being misunderstood from Platinum onwards to mantain consistency with the animé.

Or maybe they just neglected to mention the "means no harm" bit in the all of two sentences of info on Darkrai in the first two games? Besides, this wouldn't be the first time the anime and games differed on something- I don't think Gamefreak would bother to retcon game canon to match up with the anime in this case specifically.

[ChaosMage]

Villains are usually more interesting when they have a backstory, or become more fascinating when they subvert expectation by having very little backstory. It makes them more three-dimensional.

[Ver-mont]

BTW, I just thought of something: what if Darkrai was meant to be evil, and the whole misunderstood thing was the result of a quiet retcon? I'm not sure of this, but the Darkrai event in Diamond/Pearl doesn't have Arceus or whoever saying Darkrai is misunderstood. Also, note the lack of "it means no harm" in it's D/P entries. They might have meant Darkrai to either join or replace Mewtwo as the Pokémon who's evil, but when M10 came and butchered his character, Game Freak changed Darkrai into being misunderstood from Platinum onwards to mantain consistency with the animé.

That's what I think too. See, Mystery Dungeon 2, which began being developed before Platinum was released, portrays Darkrai as undeniably evil. They probably didn't get the memo about the change.

I think that's a shame, evil Darkrai was a very interesting Pokémon, misunderstood Darkrai is just plain boring.

[Spin Attaxx]

Exactly - the whole "evil looking guy isn't evil" trope is just as - if not more - cliché as the "evil looking guy is evil" trope.

Although I haven't played MD2, it sounds like Darkrai is "what if Mephiles wasn't an idiot" and really fits him. Deoxys should have been an alien invader trying to conquer earth by infecting everyone with himself (being a virus), Mewtwo should have been a vicious creature who destroys areas as a mark of his power and Genesect should be the Pokémon equivalent of the Daleks.

[Spin Attaxx]

I took the TL,DR path and saw TvTropes. Disregarding his turn to good, THIS is what Deoxys should have been like and done in M06, not that friend-finding rubbish. Imagine if that fight in space seen in the trailer was in the film as the final fight against Deoxys to save the world...

[Ver-mont]

I took the TL,DR path and saw TvTropes. Disregarding his turn to good, THIS is what Deoxys should have been like and done in M06, not that friend-finding rubbish. Imagine if that fight in space seen in the trailer was in the film as the final fight against Deoxys to save the world...

Oh, I felt cheated when I saw the movie. I believed Deoxys would be some kind of cool virus menace coming from space and they'd have to defeat it.

But then they took the old tired "misunderstood" route again.

[Spin Attaxx]

Just think how epic the first movie would've been if Mewtwo had his freudian excuse-less game backstory and remained evil throughout.

And the sixth, as you described it.

And the tenth, if Darkrai used his Mystery Dungeon personality and plan.

And the eleventh, with Giratina being bitter about being locked in another world for who knows how long.

And the fifteenth, with Kyurem harbouring an old grudge with the SOJ, and trying to kill Keldeo so that he won't be the one to destroy him.

The sixteenth should have Genesect as a, well, genocidal maniac trying to kill off all life on the planet

[Honeyichigo]

Just think how epic the first movie would've been if Mewtwo had his freudian excuse-less game backstory and remained evil throughout.

Funny, a lot of the praise I've heard for the first movie had to do with the complexity of Mewtwo's character.

[Spin Attaxx]

Well, they could have still given him complexity without giving him a different, game-ignoring backstory.

[matt0044]

Funny, a lot of the praise I've heard for the first movie had to do with the complexity of Mewtwo's character.

Yeah, for the Anime, he had a lot of depth to him. Mostly in the JPN version...