The 30th anniversary celebration of Pokémon kicked off on Friday at 1PM in the Marriott A601-A602 with “Pokémon Center Vet Clinic.” I got there early because I was already in the area, and while I ate my lunch, I got to watch the line wrap around the entire perimeter of the Marriott Atrium. By the time the room filled to capacity, there were still 100 people waiting outside the room to get in.
The panelists were Sophia Corde, a marine biologist, Will Harris, a paleontologist, Emily A Finke, a forensic anthropologist, and Lucas Hernandez, an education coordinator at the South Carolina Aquarium. They started the panel off with their theories of how the machine used to heal your Pokémon in the games actually works. The consensus was that when Pokémon are stored in their Poké Balls, they are converted into digital data. The machine that heals them is essentially resetting them to their default program data prior to when they received their injuries in battle. This raised ethical concerns about the Pokémon’s memories. Do they remember everything prior to when they were put in their Poké Ball or are their memories reset too? According to the anime, they retain their memories. The panelists concluded that the process of storing them in a Poké Ball is akin to placing them in suspended animation.
They talked about how they have to have a medical staff and Pokémon that have the power to heal others, such as Chancey, on hand in order to treat wild Pokémon that cannot be stored in balls and healed with that machine. This led to discussing the unique characteristics of different Pokémon species and how medical treatment would be adapted to their needs. They compared and contrasted veterinary care of animals in our world with how Pokémon are cared for in the series and games.
There was discussion of treating different conditions such as paralysis, burns, frostbite (the frozen status condition in the series), and poison. They talked a lot about how different toxins require different treatments or are too potent to be treated in time, but in Pokémon, they have many quick and convenient treatment options available that would make veterinary care in our world obsolete. Antidotes can cure the poison or venom of any Pokémon, and Full Heals can treat all status conditions at the same time.
Some other interesting topics included how to restrain injured psychic Pokémon capable of teleportation for treatment, how ghost types would need their medication aerosolized as they lack solid bodies to receive injections or oral medicine, or the unique methods needed to do an x-ray on a steel type Pokémon. Many fire types cannot get wet, so would need dirt baths or would groom themselves, and water types require veterinary care in the field unless they are small enough to be transported into tanks. This is similar to the treatment of marine wildlife in the real world.
Then the panel was opened to questions from the audience. I asked how would they go about treating Pokémon with completely alien biology, such as ones from space or from alternate dimensions. They answered that most likely, if the species is unfamiliar to the medical professionals in the Pokémon world, they would use a similar type (psychic, ice, dragon, etc.), or the closest match to that Pokémon’s characteristics in another species, as a reference point for their treatment plan.
The enduring popularity of the Pokémon franchise is reflected in the continued popularity of the panels here at Dragon Con. I believe that the quality of the panels also contributes to the rooms filling to capacity. The ones I have been to have all been entertaining, hilarious, disturbing, thought provoking, and heartbreaking in equal measure for lifelong or new Pokémon fans. Even someone with no knowledge of the franchise who likes animals, biology, survival, or even ethical discussions could get something from the rather in-depth discussions of these magical creatures and the trainers who raise them.
