When posed the question, "which contributes more to personality — nature or nurture?", a psychologist once replied, "which contributes more to the area of a rectangle — its length or its width?" The simplistic answer, therefore, is that neither one contributes more to a creature's personality; rather, that it's some interdependent combination of the two that produces the end result.
I think it's an interesting debate to consider, particularly in the context of our current mandate to 'catch them all' and 'be the very best' here in Johto. We're encouraged to capture Pokemon from their native habitats and train them to battle as proxies on our behalf, and in the course of that training and battling, they become stronger for it. We're also given a standard by which to measure that strength — a leveling system of sorts. I wonder, then, if anyone has ever tested to see if the claim holds up in practice? Take a Pokemon at a given level, having reached that level through training under a master; how does it compare to a similar Pokemon that reached that level of strength on its own in the wild?
The profession of breeder, likewise, raises its own questions. We know that, through deliberate manipulation of parentage, a bred Pokemon can be hatched knowing any number of a wide array of attacks, garnered from the influence of its parents. But regardless of egg moves, are there some Pokemon that are simply born stronger than others? The theory of natural selection would suggest that some must be, and that the ones predisposed to advantage would therefore be better equipped to survive than the ones that lacked those natural advantages. But on the other hand, that may be expecting a bit too much logic from a world where a horse, perpetually on fire, only burns when ordered to.
They're social creatures, Pokemon — sometimes surprisingly so. They seem to have some comprehension of the 'team' unit we enforce upon them, despite it being one entirely and arbitrarily of human making. The lion might lie down with the lamb — or the Luxray might lie down with the Mareep, as the case may be — solely by virtue of the fact that predator and prey share a trainer in common. One member of a roster might emerge as the 'mother' of the group, while another takes on an authoritative role, while others form partnerships within the context of the unit. It's a...surprisingly human showing of behavior, coming from creatures we're supposed to capture and store in balls on our belts.
A rather wise philosopher recently posed the question to the network: "Do you think that if you try hard enough at something, then eventually you'll succeed at it? Or are there some things that can't be achieved through just hard work?" Which brings the debate full-circle, I think. Are we, ultimately, products of our nature? Our environment? Some combination of both?
And what does it mean for what we're doing here, that at times our Pokemon seem to be just as human as we are?
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