Game Theory: Nurse Joy is a Pokemon!

this is a pokemon now for those of you who aren't familiar that's a picture of nurse joy one of the most famous most beloved characters to come out of the pokemon anime i mean this is a character who dates back to like episode 2 of the series so she's been kicking around for a long time and sure she looks like a human talks like a human behaves like a human but by the end of this video you're gonna be convinced that nurse joy is in fact a fully catchable pokemon roll that intro hello internet welcome to game theory the show that wants you to tap that subscribe button like you're trying to skip through some npc dialogue also as we kick things off here it's worth mentioning that today is actually a double feature for all you poke fans right now over on food theory i'm actually analyzing what pokemon humans in the game universe are most likely to eat are they devouring kabutops kabobs snorlax sausage maybe some krabby patties not those those it is a literal pokemania over here friends so once you've watched this one make sure you click on over and check out that one too the results of that video are um surprising to say the least but on to today's game theory while we were all busy worrying about how old ash really is or whether ditto is related to mewtwo nurse joy has been the anime secret hiding in plain sight for the last two and a half decades as a brief recap for those of you who are unaware nurse joy is the character responsible for running all the poke centers of the anime universe and over in the game world she appears in both pokemon yellow as well as let's go pikachu and evie which is how i'm justifying this one being a game theory if you speak to any pokemon fan and ask him to describe nurse joy i have no doubt that you'll get an immediate and detailed response much like ash misty and brock nurse joy is just one of those iconic characters with an iconic look pink and white nurse's outfit blue eyes and striking pink hair that curls in the front and forms two large hoops in the back like i said simply iconic there isn't a single other character that looks anything like nurse joy except for well you know all the other nurse joys you see nurse joy isn't just one character but in fact hundreds thousands all identical and all running various pokemon centers throughout the pokemon world in the meta sense this is obviously meant to be a joke about how games often put an identical healer character in all the towns that you visit but the in-universe lore explanation is that they're all related to each other it's something that we hear as early as episode 2. well team rocket is busy destroying the pokemon center nurse joy is transferring all the pokemon there over to pewter city we see another nurse joy on the other end of the video call explaining that all the pokemon arrived safely to which viridian's nurse joy replies thanks sis so they're sisters all of them are sisters well not entirely when visiting the orange islands ash and company encounter a nurse joy who claims to be the second cousin of the sister-in-law of the joy in saffron city and that's kind of an explanation i guess just because you're related doesn't mean that you're gonna look this much alike especially when you're dealing with different parents in different parts of the world it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense you know what makes a whole lot more sense that they're all pokemon in the pokemon world identical children is actually the norm not for humans but for pokemon look at this army of pikachus this flock of pidgeys ash's charmander vs richie's charmander they are practically interchangeable every chancy in every poke center in pretty much every episode they all look the same and if nurse joy was also a pokemon her legion of identical family members would make much more sense but you know that i wouldn't be making this episode if that was all the evidence i have that my friends is just the start the thesis by the end of today's episode you're gonna be convinced that nurse joy should be getting an entry of her own into the national decks first i want to point out that not only are all nurse joys practically identical they're also all female this would be a weird highly improbable event for humans but for pokemon it's actually the expected outcome in episode 28 of the diamond and pearl series we meet paige and marnie two daughters of a nurse joy which uh actually reveals joy to be their last name rather than the first name never really thought about that one anyway paige and marny joy notice anything unusual about these two they're identical to their mother we even see their father karsten in this episode and uh yeah doesn't look like anyone took a dip in that gene pool normally when you have a child that child shares half their genetic makeup with the mother and half with the father resulting in a look that's roughly a combination of the two with nurse joy's kids though that's clearly not the case and guess where else we see this happen in pokemon species back in gen 2 of the games we were introduced to pokemon breeding and when you breed two pokemon together the baby will always be the same species as their mother not only that but the babies will look just like a smaller version of their parents i mean look at that little guy oh how cute is he oh you're so cute yes you are oh you were so cute until you got wrecked on by pichu yes you did sorry uh where was i oh yeah so if nurse joy was in fact a pokemon we would expect all of our children regardless of the father to be mini versions of nurse joy which go figure is exactly what we see in the anime instead of it being a statistical improbability it actually would be the expected result and like i alluded to earlier it also explains both kids being female the introduction of breeding in gen 2 also brought with it the introduction of biological sex because nidoran male and female from gen 1 didn't count apparently and as you would expect most pokemon have both male and female variants but there are a few species that are only one sex all entirely male or all entirely female all female pokemon include the likes of jinx kangaskhan and wouldn't you know it chansey nurse joy's ever faithful medical assistant so with nurse joys all being female she's either the luckiest genetic coin flipper ever or the much more likely scenario she's actually a species of pokemon that just doesn't have a male counterpart in other words the way nurse joys look and the way they reproduce all align closer to pokemon than they do with humans but obviously there are some exceptions right brock the anime's biggest nurse joy expert has the ability to notice slight differences between them and yeah there are also slight variations within pokemon species like between ashes pikachu and richie's pikachu this would explain the small differences that you see between different nurse joys but then what about this nurse joys that are different in more than just their eyelash length like we see in black and white and sun and moon well they're shiny and regional variants of the nurse joy pokemon back in gen 7 the hawaii-based sun and moon games introduced a new pokemon mechanic regional variants where pokemon that have lived in certain environments for a long period of time have evolved to adapt to their new surroundings the red fox vulpix is now found up in a snowy mountain so he becomes a snow fox executor grows into a tall palm tree like on island shorelines unlike their inland counterparts who are stumpy because they don't get enough sun and i propose to you that some of these different looking nurse joys actually function in the same way case in point in the orange islands ash and company encounter a nurse joy that looks identical to the mainland nurse joys that we've come to know except there's one major difference her skin is noticeably more tanned now the show tries to explain this as a natural tan because she's on an archipelago but sun and moon's nurse joys live in yet another tropical environment but they're as pasty and pale as i am so if one island's nurse joy is tan and another island's nurse joy isn't then what's the difference well maybe she's just a shiny pokemon shiny pokemon have been around since gen 2 and basically look identical to the rest of their species but with one key difference their color palette they're also incredibly rare which is why this is the only shiny form of nurse joy that we've ever seen in the entire series so by her being a pokemon the looks are explained the kids are explained the variants are explained what i haven't explained is you know pretty much everything else like the fact that she's a human who talks she looks and speaks like a normal human using regular words and sentences rather than going around shouting her name in everyone's face and admittedly it'd be weird if all of a sudden she just started repeating nurse joy nurse joy to all the trainers coming in for a quick heal but the anime actually gives us our counter example in the form of team rocket's meowth living proof that pokemon have the power to evolve differently when they put their minds to it for those of you who aren't aware meowth in the anime physically manipulated his body to walk on two legs he even taught himself how to speak english and with a brooklyn accent no less all to try and make himself more appealing to the love of his life meowzi why because she explicitly told him that she preferred humans you'll never be human so just forget about me so this tells us that pokemon have the ability to speak clear and articulate english if they want it but it certainly doesn't explain the other elephant in the room the fact that she looks human no amount of willpower is gonna turn meowth into something that doesn't look like a cat and that seems to be the deal-breaker for today's theory she can have all the identical siblings and tiny female versions of herself that she wants she can't be a pokemon because she doesn't look like a pokemon theory busted or so you might think the actual explanation for that lies in the past both for pokemon and for this channel now first i'd like to call out the fact that humanoid pokemon do exist jinx mr mime the machop family all of them are like an evolutionary stone's throw away from clocking in for a 9-5 and settling down in the suburbs but we don't even have to extrapolate that far all we have to do is turn to the lore seven years ago i covered a theory about how pokemon and people used to be one in the same we've come a long way since then and gained a lot of new subscribers so rather than forcing you to go back and watch the cringe that is that video seriously please do not go and watch that one i'll instead just recap what you need to know here firstly we have various pokedex entries all mighty sources of knowledge throughout the pokemon world which draw a direct connection between humans and pokemon for example frost lass's entry from pokemon sun reads the soul of a woman lost on a snowy mountain possessed an icicle becoming this pokemon and that's just the tip of the human-shaped iceberg where frost lasts as well as other pokemon like yamask and phantump are spirits of humans kadabra's entry is something else entirely quote from pokemon fire reds pokedex it happened one morning a boy with extra sensory powers awoke in bed transformed into cadabra here we have explicit proof of people turning into pokemon but what we need now is the flip of that we need pokemon turning into people and for that the diamond and pearl games have us covered you see in kanalave city there's a library and in that library are a number of books that speak to pokemon myths and folklore number three carries the particularly interesting quote there once were pokemon that became very close to humans there once were humans and pokemon that ate together at the same table it was a time when there existed no differences to distinguish the two they ate together at the same table you say sure sounds like one of those ye oldie euphemisms to me but the fun doesn't stop there if you look online and find the original japanese for these they can literally be translated to quote there once were pokemon that married people there once were people that married pokemon this was a normal thing because long ago people in pokemon were the same pokemon and humans looking and acting the same marrying one another like maybe perhaps a nurse pokemon joy marrying the husband human karsten but the final piece of evidence here is from folk tale 2 quote here lived a pokemon in a forest in the forest the pokemon shed its hide to sleep as a human i mean this this right here this outright shows us that not only were pokemon and humans one and the same but that pokemon had the ability to become people seven years ago we theorized that this was because of the human mind the thing that differentiates us from animals certain pokemon would choose to give up their special powers for the ability to grow mentally to learn to communicate and honestly i think that this is exactly what happened to the species of pokemon we now know as nurse joy and better yet i think i know the pokemon that chose to evolve into her let's paint a picture shall we throughout the anime nurse joy has had a couple of pokemon companions but none is more iconic than chansey and it makes a lot of sense for chansey to be the one there to support nurse joy quote from platinum's pokedex entry a kindly pokemon that lays highly nutritious eggs and shares them with injured pokemon or people its evolved form blissey actually is very similar it has a very compassionate nature if it sees a sick pokemon it will nurse the sufferer back to health this line of pokemon is well documented as being caregivers and healers they would do anything to help a pokemon or a person chansey also has some interesting design features that are worth pointing out a simple line smile tall and thin blue eyes that iconic pink hair which kind of matches the iconic design of that favorite human nurse of ours and also when it evolves into blissy that hair becomes curly just like that certain nurse we all know and love but why why would chansey ever need to evolve into a human form well think about it this way these folk tales talk of a world from long ago when people and pokemon were the same but that's clearly no longer the case back in those days when pokemon were all wild and they lived in harmony with people chancy could easily help everyone that she came across but now that pokemon are just seen as animals lesser than humans well it makes it very hard for chansey to help both humans and pokemon i mean how would you feel if you walked to your local doctor and found a dog sitting there waiting to give you a shot making it even more complicated pokemon people don't just live segregated people now capture train and battle pokemon for sports where before a chance he may have come across a sick pokemon that had eaten the wrong kind of berry or something now there are broken and injured pokemon fainting left right and center but while they're in the control of humans chansey can't get anywhere close to helping them a human though would have the chance so chansey did the only thing it could over time it evolved to act like a human to speak like a human just like meowth did but it took it one step further it began to look like a human and with the understanding and respect from humans she was able to build a global hospital empire that would allow chansey to continue doing the thing that she loved most caring for both pokemon and their trainers literally bringing some joy to everyone in the world so there you have it friends the secret final evolution of chansey to the human that we've all known and loved for decades nurse joy kinda makes you wonder about officer jenny now doesn't it another day friends another day but hey that's just a theory one of two theories all about the pokemon universe that you can watch right now for years people have been asking me about whether people eat pokemon and which would be the tastiest but over on food theory today i've actually gone one better to tell you the breakdown of the entire food economy of the pokeverse will your appleton be an appetizer your dough duo be dinner if you want to see which pokemon would literally be on the chopping block click the link that you see on screen right now if you liked this video you are gonna love that one over there thanks for your time and as always remember it's all just a theory a game theory thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: The Game Theorists

Views: 3,408,606

Keywords: pokémon, pokemon, nurse joy, pikachu, nurse joy pokemon, pokemon theory, ash ketchum, pokemon nurse joy, pokemon diamond, pokemon pearl, pokemon brilliant diamond, pokemon shining pearl, pokemon switch, pokemon episodes, pokemon sword, pokemon sword and shield, pokemon diamond and pearl, pokemon theme song, matpat, game theory, game theorists, game theory pokemon, pokemon cards, opening pokemon cards

Id: JJyloRJ5Hzs

Length: 14min 43sec (883 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 10 2021