Hello, Internet! Welcome to Game Theory, the show that's like Team Rocket: always ruining things for people who are just trying to have fun Oh, and real quick, before we get started on today's episode, as I've been seeing more comments about this a lot, there's a new Game Theory video uploaded at least every weekend With all the changes that are happening to YouTube, it seems like more people haven't been getting notifications so either ring the bell to make sure that you get those notifications, or just check in on the channel every Sunday, because I've been cranking out videos all the time and then usually every other week Austin does a science video, and then I'll pop in with the occasional MattChat in the middle of a week, but for the most part, if you're looking for Game Theory, It's every Saturday or Sunday, and I do mean every Saturday or Sunday Now then, with all that business out of the way, for today's video, I have one question for you: Are you ready for a ghost story? Because, for a series all about happy-go-lucky romps alongside your favorite sapient ice cream cone, Pokémon has some really scary themes, themes that most of us just gloss over in our quest to be the best like no one ever was I mean, sure, by this point, we're all familiar with the hauntings of Lavender Town and creepy Pokédex entries, but those are just scratching the surface of the horrific tragedies that hide inside these games The world of Pokémon has a shocking number of ghosts and I'm not talking about Gengars and Gastlies, I'm talking about real children dying Throughout the series, we see repeated instances of ghost girls, out-of-nowhere moments where you're walking along, hunting for your next shiny Magikarp, when the next thing you know, the girl you were standing next to fades away, or just straight up pulls a Batman and disappears and it's always a ghost girl for some reason, I don't know why Apparently Game Freak thinks that it's really creepy for a ghost girl to come up and say "You're not the one" Joke's on you, Game Freak Growing up, that kind of rejection happened to me all the time and those girls weren't even dead While you're playing the game, these are the moments that make you stop and go, "Huh? That was weird" before immediately seeing a Berry and continuing on your merry way As a result, the stories behind these ghost girls have remained largely a mystery, little bits of lore that are just waiting to be unearthed by the trainers who are willing to postpone their next gym badge, and instead explore off the beaten path So today, I want to start piecing together these mysteries, starting with the OG; the original ghost, the Marvelous Bridge girl from Pokémon Black and White Think back to Generation 5 of Pokémon, a trip back to the Unova region In that game, when you visit the Marvelous Bridge that connects Nimbasa City to either Black City or White Forest, you'll catch sight of a girl who vanishes like a ghost if you get too close and no, that was not just a sprite glitch, the NPC standing next to her immediately reacts, saying: "Huh... Wha... D-did she just disappear?" If you explored the area near where she appears, and ahead to the Bridge's eastern gate, You'll find an old lady who'll tell you that a young girl used to play around the area with an Abra before the bridge was built, and that was it At the time of this game's release, those were really all the clues that we ever got as to who she was and why she was there just an odd little Easter egg of your casual run-of-the-mill bridge ghost But the ghost girl would soon become part of a much larger mystery while every other trainer moved on with their lives in the years following Black and Whites release More and more clues started to leak out as to who this character might be and to truly solve the mystery of the Marvelous Bridge Ghost we'll actually need to visit three separate games black and white the sequels Black 2 and White 2 and the previous generation of games Diamond and Pearl all to uncover what really Happened to this girl and why in Black 2 and White 2 a new area becomes accessible The Strange House But strange is putting it lightly in addition to being full of ghost Pokemon when you explore the house the environment will constantly change Furniture will be rearranged objects will shake it's very clear that this place is being haunted by something or someone Someone turns out to be a girl who when you speak to her says this: "An everlasting dark dream an endless dream of darkness, Dad? Mom? Abra? Where are you?" Let's see a girl in a haunted house calling out to her parents and her pokemon Abra Yeah, that sounds like it might be our girl her dialog then continues: "In the dark dream. I heard my dad's voice. Forget about the Lunar Wing, Stay here with me." and finally, "Oh, the Lunar Wing. I can't take it now, but it'll be okay. Please return the wing to the Pokemon I was waiting on the bridge so I could return it myself." A bridge you say? seems to me like this is our smoking gun connecting the disappearing girl on the Marvelous Bridge in Black and White to the girl haunting the strange house in Black and White 2. After exploring the house the girl gives you a Key Item, the Lunar Wing and sends you back to the Marvelous Bridge where you can now encounter and hopefully catch the legendary Pokemon Cresselia Now all of that seems fairly straightforward the girl vanishes and the story seems to be resolved But it's just scratching the surface of what actually happened to her. You see this ghost girl's entire tragic backstory was laid out for us by the developers and we've just been overlooking it for the better part of the last decade you see by this point we all expect games like Dark Souls and FNAF to not wear their stories on their sleeves to instead hide the lore in nooks and crannies item descriptions and secret Easter eggs, but to solve the case of pokemons ghost girl we're gonna have to do a similar sort of investigation scattered throughout the strange house or bookshelves each one referencing some random fact about Pokemon or their moves But when you actually stop and really read these entries and think about why they were put here Inside this haunted house you start to get a sense of the real story that Developers are trying to tell us they all have to do with Pokemon possessing sleep-related Abilities first, there's an entry about drowsy quote. There are Pokemon cold drowsy They put others to sleep and eat their dreams eating nightmares can upset their stomach Next there's an entry about his evolution. Hypno again, each one carries a pendulum that it can swing to make people drowsy It's been said that a hypno once hypnotized a child and took it away end quote We then learn about the move Dream Eater with this move a Pokemon attacks while the target is asleep and eats its dream it restores HP equal to half the damage inflicted on the target with all this dream and nightmare talk Is it a coincidence then that the girls first piece of dialogue inside the house is an everlasting Dark dream an endless dream of darkness taking all that information into consideration It seems like what the devs are trying to tell us is that the girl was trapped in an endless Nightmare and her parents were stuck on the outside Researching every possible way to wake her up. That's why the books are scattered around the house The parents were researching her condition the bulk of their search was spent looking into Pokemon with abilities that could possibly heal her drowsy eating dreams and Hypno's hypnosis Unfortunately, it didn't work Drowsy probably tried to eat the dream, but because it was such an intense nightmare He couldn't do it the solution to their problem. Wasn't that? straightforward we know this through two additional books on the shelves that help us complete the puzzle the first Directly mentions the shadow Pokemon Darkrai to protect itself It drives people and Pokemon away with terrible nightmares, and the next entry is about Cresselia its wings shine like the crescent moon and keep nightmares away So it would seem that the girl's inescapable nightmares were caused by the legendary Pokemon Darkrai The girl is put into this Endless dark sleep and despite the family trying to get Drowsy to eat her free The intense nature of Darkrai's bad dreams are impenetrable that's why we also learn about Cresselia as Cresselia's lunar wing is the only real counter to Darkrai's nightmares Not only does the item description hint at this We've actually seen it rescue a similar child in the past If you rewind back to the previous generation of games Diamond and Pearl we meet Eldridge a sailor who lives in Canalave city Eventually, we learned that his son is caught in a horrible nightmare a nightmare that also appears to have been caused by Darkrai He doesn't say too much about the incident except for one line Our dark is watching me. Even though he never says the full name. Darkrai is the only pokemon whose name starts with the letters DA RK and the only way to rescue him is by using you guessed it: the Lunar Wing there's one other book in the strange house that were given access to one that specifically calls out the ability forwarn quote a pokemon with this ability is alerted to one of the opposing pokemons moves high power moves will be Recognized first it's worth noting that drowsy and hypno are two of only six Pokemon who are able to learn this move, so it's definitely tied into this story But how well this seems to be the last of the missing pieces and it tells us the order of events the parents bring in Either a drowsy or hypno to use for warned or as it translates into the original Japanese prophetic dream and that move tells them what happened to the girl what move a Pokemon had performed on her to trap her in this never-ending darkness this in turn is how the father of our ghost girl knew to look into Darkrai's nightmares and ultimately Crecelius lunar wing as the cure the girls second dialogue says in the dark dream I heard my dad's voice forget about the lunar ring. Stay here with me it Might be tempting for us to assume that the second part of the sentence is the girl telling us what her dad said after all She starts by saying that she heard her dad's voice but if we dig deeper it's clear that she isn't quoting her father at all throughout pokemon black and white when a character's Dialogue includes them quoting a different character. We actually see quotation marks For example when the player battles Shauntal of the Elite Four for a second time, she'll talk about Volkner saying "do you know thunderbolt?" was his first greeting to me note the single quote marks around the words that Volkner said because she's quoting him So when the girl says forget about the Lunar Wing stay here with me She isn't repeating the words her father said there are no quotation marks This is instead the girl crying out to her father Her father went out in search of the Lunar Wing, but the girl didn't want him to go She wanted him to stay by her side But she couldn't let him know that because she was trapped in this dark nightmare and viewed in this light This story takes an even more tragic turn Maybe she knew that it was already too late And she just wanted her father to be there in her final moments where maybe she was just scared and her father's Comforting presence was the one thing that enabled her to persevere through the everlasting dark dream So here we have the final and complete and tragic story of the ghost girl We have a young girl just like Eldridge's son before who one day is stricken with inescapable nightmares The parents don't know what to do using drowsies Dream Eater ability to try and make the nightmares go away But when that doesn't work, they use a hypno with forwarn to see what exactly is going on. Thanks to that move they learned that it was the legendary Darkrai that did this to her and that the only way to counter a Pokemon that strong was with the power of another legendary Cresselia's Lunar Wing The father goes out in search of the item that'll save his daughter's life Unable to hear her begging him to stay by the time her father finally does return though it's too late the girls already passed on unable to wake from her nightmares and her father leaves the Lunar Wing in the room as a memento of the girl that he lost forever the parents leave the house and many years later the house becomes Overrun with ghost Pokemon and the marvelous bridge was built where the ghost girl wanders to this day Trying to return the unused Lunar Wing to the pokemon that it belonged to and that is the sad and tragic story of Pokemon's First-ever ghost girl who just simply started off as a randomly Disappearing NPC there is admittedly one big question here that I think remains on address We know that the girl was plagued by Darkrai's nightmares And we know that her parents were unable to break the spell in time But why would Darkrai do this to her in the first place? Darkrai's pokedex entry indicates that it's not a malicious Pokemon that it doesn't intentionally prey on the weak It uses its nightmares as a defense mechanism. So why would Darkrai afflict this young girl who presumably posed no threat to it? I'm not a hundred percent sure. It doesn't seem like the evidence Is there eldritch his son-in diamond and pearl was also afflicted so maybe Darkrai just misses sometimes? in the movie The Rise of Darkrai It turns out that a girl's grandmother had met and befriended Darkrai whose nightmares ended up helping them save the world It turns out that the nightmare told me just what I needed to do. The nightmares were prophecies that ultimately helped avoid an apocalypse So maybe that's the case. I'm not entirely sure there doesn't really seem to be enough evidence there to make a judgment call This is all just speculation. Honestly, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments Help me finish up this theory. But there you have it theorists, man Pokemon is not afraid to go there and our legacy on game theory making sure to cover all the games with all the dead kids Continues on speaking of FNAF and PetScop theories coming up over the next two weeks again we post every single weekend ring the bell for Notifications to make sure that you are able to legitimately comment first And in the meantime remember that is just a theory a game Theory, thanks for watching
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Matpat asks at the end why Darkrai would put the little girl into and endless nightmare and I'd like to put a theory forward.
It's established in video that she has an Abra pokemon and that Darkrai only defends itself rather than being malicious. Perhaps the girl and her Abra attacked Darkrai, like most pokemon trainers who saw a legendary would do, and tried to capture Darkrai. Darkrai defends itself and its territory, while trying to put Abra into a nightmare, Abra teleported away, as they're known to do, and the ability hit the little girl instead putting her into this never-ending darkness instead of her pokemon.
Just a theory...
I always love the haunted houses in Pokémon games. I love the atmosphere, the story, the dip into something slightly darker. How it's such a 180 in tone and often tells a story all on its own, often one separate from the game's main story. Creepy worldbuilding, if you will.
Pretty simple answer here, u/MatPatGT : Darkrai behave mysteriously, acting out in a sinister and ominous manner. The Pokémon use their defense mechanism, Nightmares, because they are also known to be a creature of habit, which can very well explain why they're not exactly malicious at all as they are, in fact, often misunderstood. It's like using crack cocaine; It's supposed to instantly enhance your strength on a hard day's job (NO JOKE!), but as typical as these drugs can get, excessive use, considering the intense salty compound, outright damages your cardiovascular system. As a creature of habit, Darkrai use their defense mechanism often not considering the damage inflicted on their prey. Somewhat apparently, Darkrai can't help this behavior. It satisfies them. This defense mechanism that they are able to use may have once assured them to keep up their strength, almost as if they NEED to commit to this behavior. And as a predator needs to behave this way, that is ultimately their method of survival. I told you this was a simple answer!
Citation:
- Darkrai's Behavior
https://pokemon.fandom.com/wiki/Darkrai#Behaviour
- Crack Cocaine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_cocaine#Recreational_use
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_cocaine#Crack_lung
Can I just say thanks to MatPat for covering a Pokémon game other than Gen 1 (Finally!). There’s so much more to Pokemon than just the originals, so I’m glad to see you’re stepping outside the original boundaries of your theories.
And yes, I know he did a Gen 7 Theory on invasive species, but I wouldn’t say it’s a theory so much as a scientific explanation.
I made a Twitter thread on this subject, so I figured I'd post it here. https://twitter.com/StevenManeVox/status/1134900139938725890
Fantastic theory; I found some of these clues when playing through Black 2, and figured that she crossed paths with a Darkrai but never knew about the books or her appearance in Black 1. As for that missing piece of this theory, "Why would Darkrai do this in the first place?" I've seen some answers around the subreddit, but I'd like to propose my own and just a heads up, it's going to be very long and very wordy. Also based on the rules I think it's supposed to go here but I'm apologizing in advance if this is supposed to be a seperate post. This is also going to include some speculation but obviously there's no lore about how she encountered Darkrai so this is probably as good as we can get.
Anyway back to that missing piece; "Why would Darkrai afflict this young girl with its nightmares?" Well, as Matpat pointed out Darkrai's pokedex entries state that Darkrai are not malicious Pokemon and they use nightmares to protect themselves or to chase away intruders in their territory. This seems to imply that either the girl or her Abra posed a threat to Darkrai, but I think we can safely rule her out; I can't imagine a young woman being particularly threatening to a powerful creature like Darkrai. So what about Abra? Well, if you think Abra isn't a threat to Darkrai, think again.
See all Pokemon have "base stats" which are basically numbers that act as a starting point for the actual stats you see on their summary screen; the higher the base stat, the more powerful that stat is for the Pokemon. According to Bulbapedia, Abra has a base Special Attack stat of 105; if you'd like a reference point some other Pokemon with a base Special Attack stat of 105 are Mismagius, Sceptile, and the legendary Pokemon Mesprit. Yes, Abra's Special Attack stat is on par with some fully evolved and legendary Pokemon... but that shouldn't matter anyway because all Abra can do is Teleport right?
Technically no. See by level up all Abra can learn is Teleport, but it can learn other attacks either by being bred with them, having TMs used on them, or by taking them to a move tutor. One such attack Abra can learn is Signal Beam, a Bug-type move which would be super-effective against Darkrai's Dark-typing and would definitely qualify as a threat to Darkrai's safety. The only problem with this option is that I just don't think her Abra actually would have Signal Beam in the first place.
The only way for Abra to know Signal Beam is to take it to a move tutor. These move tutors tend to be eccentric individuals and don't accept regular money for their services; instead, at least in Gen 5, they want to be paid in shards which are implied to be rare archaelogical items. Now here's the twist, shards can be found in Reversal Mountain, which is right next to the girl's home, but only in clouds of dust that are kicked up; the only catch is that sometimes the clouds don't have a shard. Instead one might find an Excadrill, a very powerful Ground/Steel Pokemon that makes searching for shards a lot more dangerous. Additionally, there only seems to be one individual in the entirety of Unova who knows how to teach Pokemon Signal Beam; as of the time of the games he's found in Driftveil City. Since the girl has clearly been gone for several years (based on the state of the house) he may not have been there at the time, but that's still one person that an individual who is presumably not a Pokemon Trainer would have to seek out after braving a cave teeming with wild Pokemon for rare shards with nothing but an Abra.
So it's possible for an Abra to threaten a Darkrai, but I find it really unlikely that this girl's Abra would. So if both she and Abra aren't a threat then we're back to square one and wondering why Darkrai would give her nightmares. Well, I'd like to take a closer look at how Darkrai uses those nightmares. Remember how the Pokedex says it uses the nightmares to protect itself or scare off intruders in its territory? Maybe it's just me but using nightmares seems like a weird way to get rid of a trespasser since you can't exactly have a nightmare without also being asleep. So unless Darkrai expects people to sleep-walk out of its territory while suffering the nightmares how exactly is it supposed to chase off the intruder?
Here's where my theory treads into the more speculative side. I think that if Darkrai can give people and Pokemon terrible nightmares, it can also take those nightmares away. If it didn't, then people would just forever stay asleep and tormented in a Darkrai's territory instead of actually being chased away. Basically when someone enters a Darkrai's territory, they get caught in Darkrai's Dark Void attack; which forces them to fall asleep and the nightmares begin. Once it feels as though they've been scared enough to leave, Darkrai then removes the nightmare, the person wakes up and immediately runs away with the understanding that this is not someplace they should be.
So outside of this concept of how nightmares can be used to chase away intruders, what makes me say Darkrai can remove its own nightmares? Simple, Darkrai naturally learn Dream Eater and it likely uses this to do so. Admittedly there doesn't seem to be any evidence implying Darkrai actually do this, and from a game mechanic standpoint Dream Eater doesn't wake up the target. However from a more lore-ish standpoint (and Matpat's own logic) if the nightmare is what is keeping the individual asleep then removing it via Dream Eater would let them wake up.
All right, so how does this help us figure out what happened between the girl and Darkrai? Well, I think it acts as a detail with what I think actually happened although it's not necessarily a "good" answer. I think that it all came down to just really bad luck. One day she was just unfortunate enough to either wander into a Darkrai's territory while playing with her Abra and somehow startled it. Darkrai instinctively reacts by using Dark Void, with the intention of driving out this threat to its territory without actually realizing that neither of them pose any danger.
Here's where this answer makes the story even more tragic. This "endless dark dream" was never meant to be endless. Once Darkrai had an opportunity to evaluate who startled it or otherwise felt that they were not going to be a threat anymore, it could've used Dream Eater and lifted the nightmare. So why didn't it? Because the girl's Abra teleported her away. Probably panicking at the sight of a powerful Dark-type like Darkrai much less one that just put its best friend into a tormented sleep, Abra tries to help her by teleporting the girl back home to her parents; inadvertantly dooming her by taking her away from a Pokemon that actually is strong enough to clear the nightmare. From here, the rest of the theory plays out like Mat describes.
So why did I say this isn't a "good" answer? Considering the tragedy of this tale, one almost expects at least a semi-decent reason for why it started; some specific motivation on either her or Darkrai's part that kicked everything off. Saying that it was just really bad luck feels a bit empty... though in a weird way, it also makes the story so much more real. Sometimes there just isn't a good reason for why such a tragedy would happen; all it takes is for someone to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So there you have it. I warned you this was going to be a big wall of text, but thanks for reading it all the way through. If you skipped to the end, I guess TL;DR it was just a case of bad luck and good intentions gone awry. Sorry if there was a bit too much speculation in it as well; I tried to keep it to a minimum but there just isn't any lore regarding this part of the story. If there was, Matpat probably wouldn't be asking about.
Specific information about Pokemon, like base stats and movesets, were found across Bulbapedia. Specifically I used info off of these five pages (not including the Pokedex data, since that's also just present in the video):
Darkrai Gen V Moveset, Abra Gen V Moveset, List of Pokemon by base stat, Generations II - V, Red Shard (specific shard for the Signal Beam move tutor), Reversal Mountain
Thanks again for reading! Hope you found it worth the time!