kjorteo | Pokemon SoulSilver part 27: Neo genetic motus, karma, alien foetus, matrix corpus

In this update:

* Exploring the backstory of Silver and his issues!
* Exploring the backstory of Celine and why we still call our rival Silver even though that clearly is not his name in our file!
* The concept of time travel, explained! (Edutainment bonus!)
* A sudden difficulty spike!
* Every person in the room acting EXACTLY in character for them!
* LEVEL DESIGN.
* And... uh... that. Descriptions cannot do it justice, but that definitely happened. (Twice!)
* Extra bonus: More Lati-trolling!

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Some notable clips and highlights from this session:
ahahaha no
Ethan, honey, no
Celebi, what have you done? You've created a Time Paradox! (Thanks to

xaq_the_aereon for this clip)
I mean, that sounds like a big adventure too, I guess
The exact moment Celine realized we may be in trouble here
No, but we can
Teamwork!
When a plan ALMOST comes together
Clair status: LYING THROUGH HER TEETH AND TRYING NOT TO SCREAM IN RAGE (Thanks to

xaq_the_aereon for this clip)
That guy doesn't count
PHRASING, CELINE (Thanks to

xaq_the_aereon for this clip)
It's Ho-Oh ENOUGH darn you
N
Slide into our DNs for some direct nuzzling

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

penguinmayhem

Celebi is peak Shinto. Ilex Forest Shrine is just straight up a shinto shrine to Celebi. And that requires us to really get into Shinto.

If anyone's seen Avatar and remembers all the stuff about the Spirit World (a sort of "parallel reality" that exists simultaneously alongside and within our own) then that's honestly the easiest comparison I can make. This other dimension or spirit realm or heightened state of existence is home to kami, which encompass all sorts of things from the living spirits of physical natural objects, to what we consider distinct Japanese "Gods" like Ryujin and Inari and Izanami, to the spirits of the deceased and animals. Ancestors can become kami. Beasts can become kami.

Celebi fits very squarely into the archetypes of the kami in a traditional sense, being some form of nature spirit and/or deity, not necessarily a "god" as we would conceptualize that. Like a kami it is elusive, rarely seen, as kami inhabit the world of spirits and are invisible to us mere mortals. It has a kind, nurturing, loving nature, but it also displays something of an unknowable, inhuman rationality at times, and when displeased or disrespected it brings destruction and disrupts the harmony of nature. And like all kami, it has a divine obligation. It performs duties related to that with which it is associated, in Celebi's case that being the Ilex Shrine, the Forest, and its power of time travel. In return, the people of Johto are obligated to be custodians of Celebi's needs, with prayer and offerings, respect and appeasement. All these are real obvious signs of its status as a kami.

One interesting note is that Ilex Shrine seems to resemble a Hokora shrine, suggesting that Celebi is both a very minor kami, but also that it is known locally and respected enough that people looked to it for protection and guidance within the dangerous wilds of Ilex Forest. Another bit of very subtle implication, however, is that Ilex Shrine might have once housed some artifact or object meant for Celebi to physically inhabit. Could Celebi's physical appearance in our world in fact be explained as the kami possessing an otherwise inanimate object? There's definitely something interesting about the eventually scrapped idea of the GS Ball being used to catch Celebi specifically.

Of course it wouldn't be Pokémon if the inspirations were simple, would it? Celebi also somewhat closely resembles, at least visually, a Kodama spirit, a sort of tree-spirit that is not exactly a kami at all and is something closer to Yokai which... let's just say yokai are weird supernatural monsters and kami are spirits and leave it at that because trying to distinguish things much further involves untangling much older Japanese mytho-history and exploring the history of koshinto which is barely documented or understood even to this day. The major point to take away is that kami are nature spirits, patron gods, guardians and inhabitants of the world in some form, while yokai are (mostly comically specific caricatures) personifications of strange phenomena and, for lack of a better term, monster-ifications of just weird spooky stuff. There's a kami of ironworking, but abandoned umbrellas that grow heron feet and lick people to death _{yes they are all that wacky} are yokai. Celebi also does bear some resemblance to depictions of dryads and fairies, being a supernatural being and/or deity that is intrinsically linked to nature as a concept, and being an unfathomable otherworldly creature humans can't quite understand. It is both a representative and guardian of nature as well as being of nature itself in its very physicality, appearing woody and floral, even resembling an onion or tulip bulb of some kind.

But this leaves the biggest mystery: why the heck does it time travel?
I'll be honest I've searched for explanations on this and there's plenty of documentation of instances of time travel in the franchise, but nothing seems to be forthcoming as to why Celebi specifically has the power to travel through time. It does seem to be an oddly focal component of its appearance within the series, though, for whatever reason, and it is even categorized as "The Time Travel Pokémon" of all things. I could say something about the nature of how kami perceive time, the interactions of the spirit world with our normal reality, maybe find some allusions to an obtuse lesser-known deity that has some kind of time power or something if I spent the next ten years of my life hunting through anthropological archives... but I think I'll just stick with "it's a neat idea I guess" and leave it at that for now.

In short, Celebi is kinda neat.

From:

penguinmayhem

One point of inspiration may in fact be the Sannai-Maruyama settlement believed to have been settled some time around 3900BCE during the Jōmon period, discovered during excavation near the Okidate river in Aomori Prefecture. Though there's some resemblance to Sannai-Maruyama, even including underground storage rooms, I feel like the aesthetic of the Alph Ruins is trying to imitate something else in particular. What exactly, I'm afraid I'm just not familiar enough with archaeology to know, and my fleeting research turned up few helpful leads.

I'm going to use the original Crystal version of the inscriptions because they're honestly just better than the HGSS version, for some unknown reason. The meaning is absolutely the same between versions so it really doesn't matter they're just worded better.

𝖮𝖴𝖱 𝖶𝖮𝖱𝖣𝖲 𝖲𝖧𝖠𝖫𝖫 𝖱𝖤𝖬𝖠𝖨𝖭 𝖧𝖤𝖱𝖤 𝖥𝖮𝖱 𝖳𝖧𝖤 𝖠𝖦𝖤𝖲.
𝖳𝖧𝖴𝖲 𝖶𝖤 𝖲𝖧𝖠𝖫𝖫 𝖤𝖱𝖤𝖢𝖳 𝖠 𝖯𝖮𝖪É𝖬𝖮𝖭 𝖲𝖳𝖠𝖳𝖴𝖤 𝖮𝖴𝖳𝖲𝖨𝖣𝖤.
𝖶𝖤 𝖧𝖴𝖬𝖠𝖭𝖲 𝖬𝖴𝖲𝖳 𝖫𝖤𝖠𝖱𝖭 𝖳𝖮 𝖶𝖠𝖫𝖪 𝖨𝖭 𝖧𝖠𝖱𝖬𝖮𝖭𝖸 𝖶𝖨𝖳𝖧 𝖳𝖧𝖤𝖬. 𝖶𝖤 𝖣𝖤𝖯𝖠𝖱𝖳 𝖥𝖮𝖱 𝖳𝖧𝖤𝖨𝖱 𝖲𝖠𝖪𝖤.
𝖳𝖧𝖤𝖸 𝖯𝖮𝖲𝖲𝖤𝖲𝖲 𝖦𝖱𝖤𝖠𝖳 𝖨𝖭𝖲𝖨𝖦𝖧𝖳 𝖠𝖭𝖣 𝖱𝖤𝖥𝖴𝖲𝖤 𝖳𝖧𝖤 𝖮𝖴𝖳𝖲𝖨𝖣𝖤 𝖶𝖮𝖱𝖫𝖣.

I can't make any definitive statement as to the meaning behind this, intended or otherwise, and I don't think I'd want to. I'd much rather leave Alph up for debate, because boy howdy is there a lot to debate and a whole lot of interpretation and speculation to be done. As with all good archaeological remnants. What it does do, however, is reinforce the idea that at least part of the inspiration was taken from Japan's many Jōmon ruins, given the implication that the people who settled here did so only temporarily and ultimately migrated away at some point for whatever reason.

Yeah I'll admit this one's a lot weaker but I guess I'm just not much of an archaeologist.

From:

penguinmayhem

I'm going to start off by saying that Arceus is big. It encompasses aspects of dozens of primordial deities, references to all sorts of creation myths from around the world, and it represents the culmination of a truly diverse cultural spectrum of ideas. If there is such a thing as a collective unconscious, a "monomyth" if you will, then Arceus is it. It is the ghost of a story we have told ourselves a thousand different times, in a thousand different tongues. Let's start the closest to home, with its origins in Sinnoh.

If Kanto is inspired by the metropolis of Tokyo and Johto represents the historic region of Kansai, Sinnoh is a stand in for the island of Hokkaido, the frozen north. The tallest mountain in Hokkaido is even called the Playground Of The Gods by the native Ainu. It seems fitting, then, that the Ezo mountain range seems to be the inspiration for Mount Coronet. Spear Pillar is a barefaced reference to the shinto creation myth of Izanami and Izanagi using a jewelled naginata to first create the islands of Japan. In the myth of the Kojiki it's said that upon the first land ever raised above the primordial waters, Izanami and Izanagi built a palace with a great pillar at its centre, at which they were married. So Arceus fills the role of not merely the great god Izanagi, father of the major pantheon of Shinto deities we're familiar with, but also his sister and wife Izanami. And the generations of more primordial beings that begat them, as well, known as the Kotoamatsukami. This seemingly paradoxical aspect of Arceus embodying its own creations is in fact reflected within the lore of the franchise, as has been noted that Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina all share visible features resembling Arceus itself, and the appearance of Arceus in a physical form has sometimes even been described as merely a projection of the true creator, a small fragment of what is truly a much greater being.

Taking this idea of gods within gods that embody aspects themselves a bit more seriously, we come to a parallel that I don't see brought up quite as often: the supreme divinity of Hinduism known as the Trimurti. Brahma is said to be the creator of all things, and might be a little bit of a stretch at first glance. Vishnu on the other hand is explicitly the God of Time as well as the protector of good and the cosmic order, while Shiva, the God of Destruction, is an ascetic who lives a quiet home life on Mount Kailash and is both revered and feared for his great power, typically found smiting demons and casting down evil. While all three are individually worshiped as ultimate creator deities in their own right, they are also recognized as aspects of a greater whole that embodies both the supreme creator deity as well as reality itself as a concept, being simultaneously all and everything.

This connection, curiously, takes us in another parallel direction. Christianity. Now, I'm not going to get into the specifics about just what the Holy Trinity is or isn't in a theological context because that subject has been the focus of endless discussion, flame wars, and occasional actual violence (Early Christianity was a wild ride) within the faith, I'm merely here to point out the parallels this shares with our Creation Trio and this intriguing concept of Arceus ruling over aspects of its own existence as almighty ruler and creator of the universe. Arceus does even get in on that Old Testament shit on occasion. Another aspect that could be drawn between the Trimurti and the Trinity, however, would be the allusions drawn by Arceus' physical appearance. Not only is its basic appearance primarily white and gold, which are repeatedly associated with the appearance of both God and Jesus in Biblical scripture, it could be argued that it also bears some cheeky resemblance to the very idol that said creator once banished. Ironic, considering that there is some evidence that very same icon may have been syncretic with Yahweh himself in a context before the major shifting of the Israelite culture and the adoption of monotheism in Judaism. It also connects Arceus both to the Canaanite deity who may in fact have been synonymous with, or syncretised to, Yahweh, as well as having an association with the sacred bull of Egypt from whence the Israelites fled. However, a more important visual resemblance we can take from Arceus is that of its ~~goatfence I mean~~ halo. Specifically, Arceus displays a cruciform halo, and even the gaps in the ring display shapes that resemble the crucifix in an aesthetic that I must say feels very Renaissance Christian indeed. _{also the general image of a giant lamb wearing a halo is Christian as balls alright}

Speaking of that big hecking ring though, what if I told you that ring in fact represents not only all of Arceus as a concept, but the entirety of the Pokémon world, all of time and space and reality, and all life within it? The Buddhist Bhavacakra is a symbolic representation of Samsara itself, the endless cycle of imperfect existence that all must suffer upon the pursuit of enlightenment and the attainment of nirvana. Now the Bhavacakra on its own is wonderfully intricate and intriguing, to be sure, but I'd like to draw your attention more specifically toward its associations with the path to enlightenment, as the concept of Nirvana entails achieving a sort of non-self consciousness, an existence of pure observation and cognition, a state in which one is at peace completely and separated from the emotional constraints of the universe. Now I'm going to go point at the anime to give us a convenient image of Arceus' associated legendary plates and their role in this symbolism, further reinforcing the Buddhist motif. The ring of all Arceus' power both encapsulates all pokemon elemental Types and thereby represents all life in the universe, symbolically encompassing all of reality, it also subtly references an even older Buddhist iconography that thematically symbolizes the cycle of nature and of Buddhism itself, the turning of the "wheel of time" and the cycle of the Eightfold Path. It is the wheel of Law and the wheel of Nature, as it represents the way in which pokemon Types affect each other in an interconnected endless cycle, and thus how all pokemon, all living beings affect one another in life. I'll also note that there are, currently as of this writing, 18 unique Types and therefore 18 Plates, and there's so much significance to that number I could be here for days. But backing up there for a moment, what's that about transcendence and non-self?

Oh right. Time to talk about The Unown. As they are presented in the games, the Unown take the forms of the twenty-six ordinary letters of the English alphabet, as well as ! and ? which, as the interrogative and the imperative, are endlessly meaningful. We do however see Unown that are clearly non-English in nature elsewhere, and I personally like this implication that the Unown perhaps exist in all sorts of forms in all sorts of languages. They're also all floating eyes. The metaphorical implication of omnipresence and omniscience is pretty dang blunt; the character of the divine as somehow being everywhere at once, being within and throughout all of the universe, as well as all-knowing and all-seeing, are very prominent ideas within many major religious beliefs and myth cycles, and notably relevant to the topics of Abrahamic and Vedic theology and philosophy, further reinforcing Arceus' connection to Biblical God and the Hindu idea of Brahman. Arceus, then, becomes both a creator who is unto itself an entity, an identity that acts as a pure will and personality, and yet simultaneously is no self at all, a purely observational consciousness that exists everywhere all at once and within all things. How literally could we take this? Are the Unown simply serving as Arceus' eyes and ears? Do they represent the host of Heaven whom are tools of the Creator, to enact god's will and serve as intermediaries to mankind, as some have theorized might be implied by the mentions of Arceus' "thousand arms" which it used to create the world? Perhaps they represent the idea that, as the Buddha transcended beyond the earthly cycle of samsara never to return, his teachings yet remain behind to guide others on the path to nirvana? The passage of our worldly knowledge from generation to generation, as the ancient inhabitants of the Ruins of Alph left their knowledge behind after they abandoned what was once their home.

Okay so we've talked about Arceus itself, its visual influences, its plurality of existence as embodied by the Creation Trio (and I haven't even talked about the implications of the Lake Trio yet), the interesting connotations of its giant hecking wheel tiara, even its connection to the Unown and the Ruins of Alph, what haven't we covered yet?
Oh.
Oh yeah...

Edited Date: 2022-07-07 08:23 pm (UTC)

From:

penguinmayhem

_{spoiler warning for the special event but y'all should have watched Celine's stream by now}

This cutscene. Oh boy, this cutscene.
First, let's set the stage, shall we?

The Sinjoh Ruins are canonically located "somewhere between Sinnoh and Johto" which is an awful lot of information alright. It's said that the ruins were built by the two different groups of people from both regions hundreds of years ago, and Cynthia comments on the architecture showing signs of both cultures. This may be quite reflective of the real world inspiration, not only in the context of representing the collision of Japan's current primary ethnic population and the Ainu, a group indigenous to Hokkaido as is it today, but also to the much older context of Japan's ethnic prehistory being shaped by both mainland groups from the Korean peninsula populating the south and Okhotsk peoples from the islands in the north. The Mystri Stage (real on the nose there, Cynthia) is easily compared to an artistic-religious trend so ubiquitous in the cultures of our world that I could talk about it for the rest of my life and get nowhere meaningful, but I'll draw particular attention to the Christian symbol of the Shield of the Trinity as well as the Mandala of Buddhist and Shinto traditions. In this case, we have a geometric system that represents the Creation Trio specifically with Arceus at its centre.

Arceus takes position zero, the Unown appear, time and space get a bit funky, and then shit gets weird.

First, light. A brilliant flash in the darkness. Not only is this iconic of many creation myths ^{(Let There Be Light!)} it may also be a deliberate parallel to the Big Bang. An infinite point in an infinite void. The light shines from the darkness, expands and contracts, waxes and wanes. Arceus appears as if from nothing, as its legend claims it came to be before all else in the universe. As the thunder of creation booms all around, we see Arceus' eye fade to images of the cosmos. The Horsehead Nebula. The Helix Nebula. The Orion Nebula.
Then we see a new pattern emerging. From the singular ring of light at the centre, we see the geometry of Arceus itself expanding and unfolding into view. There's something distinctly reminiscent of the trinary geometry we saw in the Mystri Stage before, and yet more than that, a resemblance to a pentacle or magical circle, warding runes, even a vague hint of Dante's Paradiso in the circles-within-circles that ecompass our Almighty Creator.
Arceus appears within the strange geometry, our fixed point in space and time, the focus of everything. Images of our real world, of the natural world, of trees and seas and clouds. Then the creations of mankind. The technology of civilization. The new world we have created atop the old.
Then images of great natural forces, destructive and transformative powers, volcanoes and hurricanes and lightning and high seas. The elements unleashed before us in turmoil, vast in their power and untamed in their raw beauty. We have conquered this world and built our works upon it and yet it stands still unfathomable about us, ever beyond our understanding or our power to control.
Then we see a field of stars, and then a bizarre and tiny, almost microscopic glimpse of some unknown thing. From the Sun to the cells in our blood. A juxtaposition of the grand scale of the cosmos and the infinitessimal complexity of life within it.
We see the face of our Creator. We see its Creation in an entire galaxy. The Earth itself. Our entire existence confined down to this solitary insignificant planet. Superimposed upon by the sacred geometry of creation, the shape of god, it becomes an Egg.
Just as Arceus was born itself from the egg of creation, so has Arceus created the Earth, the cradle of its own creation. Our egg. Our cradle. And now, a Pokémon's egg.

The Egg stirs.

Where did Arceus come from? What made it? What begat it? Was there anything before Arceus? Will there ever be anything after Arceus? Is this whole universe nothing more than a dream of a sleeping god? These are questions the series has occasionally glanced toward, made vague suggestions about, hinted at, but will never truly address. Nor will we ever have any real answers.

Perhaps some things are better off left Unknown after all.