This picture is a fan-made interpretation for Generation 5’s starters
before Serperior, Emboar and Samurott are revealed. Artist: Dragara
It’s bound to happen time and again.
Whenever there is a Pokémon in a silhouette form or an unevolved Pokémon, there will be fans who will interpret the Pokémon’s appearance. There’s nothing wrong with this, because it promotes creativity, and exercising creativity is beneficial. When it’s shown to the world through the internet, fans show their love to what was shown. This is good because they are displaying their feedback, and when it’s good, praise is deserved. When it’s time for the real Pokémon behind the face to be revealed, that’s when it begins.
Those who saw the previously made fan art will compare that interpretation and what’s the real deal. The poorly made fan art would likely be overlooked, but those that have been given the thought and effort would be viewed as the stronger design compared to the real deal. In fact, certain fans see the fan-designed creation as the superior and would wish that the one created by them is the real design. Compliments are always a great way to make someone feel good about what they did, so that is understandable. It does, however, show a lack of appreciation to the designers of the real Pokémon.
This is because the designers took a good deal of time and effort to design the Pokémon. What you see in the end was not necessarily what was initially designed. In fact, it might look worse than now. It’s not necessarily just the appearance that you are seeing. They also took the time to give the Pokémon its own set of moves and stats, as well as making them work and doing the trademarks. It’s nice to have the best things, but it’s also good to give appreciation to the development team’s hard work.
The best example for this are the starter Pokémon. Because they are revealed very early, not much is seen as to how they will evolve. It will take a long time before their evolutions will be revealed, which would give fans plenty of time to show what they think the starters will evolve into. When it comes to the time when the real Pokémon are revealed, they would express their disappointment to the real thing, especially when it deviates too much from their base form. Samurott is a very infamous example, for fans of weasels. I am sure this will happen again for Generation 6’s starters, as their middle evolutions have shown.
It cannot be helped, as some people took the fake Pokémon for granted. One possible reason is that fans hunger for new information, so they would settle for what fan artists made up. What they have made up might be too good to be true, which would raise the expectations of the real design. The more they expect the real Pokémon to wind up as what they view, the bigger the disappointment. In the rare case the expectations match, it would be a win-win situation, but in most cases, what is expected and what is reality are different.
For fans who don’t follow the fan evolutions or interpretations, or at least don’t take into heart those evolutions, they are better off, because they don’t have the risk of shattered expectations. It would be good when a level of tolerance is exercised, as well as taking them with a pinch of salt. This would mean keeping your expectations low on the missing pieces the fans think would fit the puzzle. It’s better to be surprised than to be disappointed, especially when it comes to expecting the real thing. Predicting the real thing is a difficult thing to do, but as long as it’s done for fun (and not seriously), that’s fine.
That’s not to say that those who got a high level of expectation would be disappointed forever, because it takes time to warm up to the real Pokémon. Usually, the higher the expectation, the longer it would take to warm up, unless they are willing to accept sooner. It’s not all black and white after all. That goes for the artists too, since they might be attached to their creations, so it might take longer for them to accept what’s revealed.
Actually, now that I think about it, it would be interesting if there is an experiment where the designers would draw a basic level Pokémon or a fully-evolved one, and then fans would design them and see who made the best design. It wouldn’t change the fact that some would see them as a disappointment, but it would be interesting if that happened, assuming that said fans are capable of coming up with great creations. There are youths who have the energy, so surely they can come up with something.
There is another type of Fakemon that have the same name as an official Pokémon, except the official one is revealed later. More likely than not, the naming of the Pokémon is coincidental, with no intention of copying, so it is silly when some fans (mainly commentators) intend to sue the company just because their name comes first. Considering how the names have been trademarked already while the fans are just creating Fakemons for fun, suing or taking credit for something that is not the artist’s own creation comes off as a silly thing to do.
Do you have times where you expect certain Pokémon to evolve a certain way or take the appearance you predicted on a silhouette that you wind up disappointed? Also, what is your take on fan predictions of certain evolutions or silhouettes? Sound off in the comments below. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I have writing it.
Thanks for reading.
