Pokemon: Team Rocket's motivation/philosophy

[deuterio12]

really, at this point it would make more sense if Jesse and James just gave up after the first few tries in Kanto and joined Ash on his journeys instead of Brock and Misty, because at this point, Team Rocket is a more consistent traveling companion to him than either of them.

Good point, Jesse and James succeeded in lasting as long as Ash himself. That goes to show just how popular they are, that they haven't been axed of the show yet.

But see, what Jesse and James really enjoy is being the bad guys/anti-heroes. They just love making those dramatic entrances and crazy schemes and just wouldn't be the same thing if they just teamed up with Ash trying to settle for an honest job. Again, James could quit at any moment and return to his rich noble family to enjoy the high life (thanks Peelee!), but he'll rather live in the road and outside the law.

Plus it's basically explicit they're in love (James gets Jesse pregnant in the ending of one of the mangas), so one could say the whole thing is just a really loooonnnnng date where they can enjoy each other's company. Even blasting off is fun when you're doing it with your special one!

[Traab]

As far as poke translators go, doesnt ash do a fairly good job of understanding pikachu when its trying to tell him something? Its been awhile but im fairly sure on several occasions they were basically able to hold more or less full conversations on something important pikachu wanted to talk about. Im not saying it wouldnt be much handier to train pokemon to speak english, but its not as vital as it might seem when trainers who have a strong bond with their pokemon can already basically communicate complex emotional conversations with each other.

[Rater202]

But see, what Jesse and James really enjoy is being the bad guys/anti-heroes. They just love making those dramatic entrances and crazy schemes and just wouldn't be the same thing if they just teamed up with Ash trying to settle for an honest job. Again, James could quit at any moment and return to his rich noble family to enjoy the high life (thanks Peelee!), but he'll rather live in the road and outside the law.

James has a psychotic fiance from that arranged marriage he was forced into. That's probably more than n=enough reason to not go home.

[deuterio12]

James has a psychotic fiance from that arranged marriage he was forced into. That's probably more than n=enough reason to not go home.

I believe the reasons are related. I would say that Jessebelle is more bossy than exactly psychotic, and James just doesn't want to live under any kind of strict law.

After all Jesse isn't exactly mentally sane either and looks just like Jessebelle, but Jesse gives James a lot more freedom. And being whipped and paralyzed with stun spores can't really be any worst than being electrified by pikachu's electricity and blasted away in an almost daily basis.

[Kantaki]

But see, what Jesse and James really enjoy is being the bad guys/anti-heroes. They just love making those dramatic entrances and crazy schemes and just wouldn't be the same thing if they just teamed up with Ash trying to settle for an honest job. Again, James could quit at any moment and return to his rich noble family to enjoy the high life (thanks Peelee!), but he'll rather live in the road and outside the law.

You know, maybe they should try their luck as superheroes.
They would probably do quite well and they get to make their dramatic entry.

[137ben]

Nope. Never does into their motivations. In fact, Cassidy and Butch, a supposedly more successful duo in Team Rocket have an almost completely different motto:

Cassidy: Prepare for trouble...
Butch: ...and make it double!
Both: Here's our mission, so you better listen!
Cassidy: To infect the world with devastation!
Butch: To blight all people in every nation!
Cassidy: To denounce the goodness of truth and love!
Butch: To extend our wrath to the stars above!
Cassidy: Cassidy!
Butch: And Butch, of course!
Cassidy: We're Team Rocket, circling Earth all day and night.
Butch: Surrender to us now or you will surely lose the fight!

So yeah, its just something they say for style points.

For some reason I always found it hilarious that the supposed "Team Rocket Motto" is really just a Team Jesse and James Motto. And Meowth.

[The Glyphstone]

Who recruited or hired them to Team Rocket anyways? Considering how bad they are at everything from thievery to following corporate dress code.

[Kantaki]

Who recruited or hired them to Team Rocket anyways? Considering how bad they are at everything from thievery to following corporate dress code.

Considering they once were (almost) kicked out because they didn't pay their membership fees?
Probably someone who cared more about making money than about the competence of the people they recruited.

[137ben]

As far as poke translators go, doesnt ash do a fairly good job of understanding pikachu when its trying to tell him something? Its been awhile but im fairly sure on several occasions they were basically able to hold more or less full conversations on something important pikachu wanted to talk about. Im not saying it wouldnt be much handier to train pokemon to speak english, but its not as vital as it might seem when trainers who have a strong bond with their pokemon can already basically communicate complex emotional conversations with each other.

Can Pokémon who can speak human languages translate for other Pokémon or is that just the psychic ones? I remember Mewtwo translating for Pikachu but I don’t remember if any other Pokémon can translate.

[Keltest]

Can Pokémon who can speak human languages translate for other Pokémon or is that just the psychic ones? I remember Mewtwo translating for Pikachu but I don’t remember if any other Pokémon can translate.

AFAIK all Pokémon can understand each other to a greater degree than humans. Meowth translates for various pokemon a few times, usually when theyre in a mutual crisis.

[DataNinja]

AFAIK all Pokémon can understand each other to a greater degree than humans. Meowth translates for various pokemon a few times, usually when theyre in a mutual crisis.

Generally, when it's a group of Pokémon, with no humans around, the conversation ends up being along the lines of echoing the sentence. "Poké! PokéSpeak!" "What? You say you're lost, and you're trying to find your way back? And that you've got a buddy trapped under a tree?" I don't recall any instances where it actually has to translate for other 'mon, but, then again, I've not seen every episode.

[Lord Raziere]

Who recruited or hired them to Team Rocket anyways? Considering how bad they are at everything from thievery to following corporate dress code.

there was an episode about them int heir training days of Team Rocket in Pokemon Chronicles.

Lets look up what I wrote about it in my lets watch of that:

they actually had to go through training exercises, the same that Cassidy and Biff did, because the two teams trained like, right next to each other. the entire episode is basically how each Team Rocket member of our lovable trio has to adjust to working together: James is a lot more confident and calm, Meowth outright lies about how experienced he is, and Jessie was constantly losing partners before them and doesn't work well with anyone, while James is the one who tries to sacrifice himself so that the other two can move on with the training mission, and this causes them to work together, and both teams pass doing some thing involving infiltration.

From what I can tell, their training wasn't about straight up pokemon battles but a lot of obstacle and security bypassing sort of stuff. they were made to be thieves, not criminal soldiers. which basically means every time they battle in a straight up fight they're not applying their training because they were never trained to straight up fight, they were trained to go through buildings, crawling through vents and generally being sneaky and bypassing security. they are NOT meant to fight. though to be fair, they constantly try to get away from Ash after taking pikachu or otherwise try to lie to get their pokemon without them knowing, its just that most of their ways of doing so are cartoonish.

like there is at least one episode in Johto where they like, do a thing to steal pokeballs from a pokemon center by making them think they've been transferred, and they do some pokeball switching scam every once in a while to try and get a bunch of non-Ash pokemon, but they have no excuse when being out in the wilderness and and having nothing to get away from Ash with but their toughness and pokemon. In short, between their disguises, infiltration expertise, their great salesmanship to the point where they can fool almost anyone into buying into their scams, their willingness to basically do any minor job that pays, Team Rocket should stick to the cities to just con people out of their pokemon, because thats where they work best. every time they go into their wilderness they get hungry because they don't know how to manage food or gather it from the surroundings, which says to me that none of them are outdoorsy, particularly since Meowth's backstory episode is all about him growing up in a big city, James backstory is that he is a rich kid, while Jessie was straight up poor and desires to be rich to have the finer things in life, and tried to take nurse classes or take part in contests.

So yeah, Team Rocket kind of shoots themselves in the foot by following Ash around, simply because a lot of the time they get thrown out of their element in the woods and such without a Brock-like figure to help them, when they are clearly some weird trio of social wizards who can somehow convince anyone of anything, fool anyone with their disguises, somehow keep having the connections to buy inventions from people they seem to get all this stuff from, and sell anything to raise money in record time wen they go legit. seriously, the number of inventions they just somehow have out of nowhere borders on Batman levels of "where did they get even this? why would someone even design this? how did they know to prepare for this?" its why I theorize that Team Rocket-specifically Jessie, James and Meowth, no one else- are somehow warping reality.

[JadedDM]

the same that Cassidy and Biff

[deuterio12]

From what I can tell, their training wasn't about straight up pokemon battles but a lot of obstacle and security bypassing sort of stuff. they were made to be thieves, not criminal soldiers. which basically means every time they battle in a straight up fight they're not applying their training because they were never trained to straight up fight, they were trained to go through buildings, crawling through vents and generally being sneaky and bypassing security. they are NOT meant to fight. though to be fair, they constantly try to get away from Ash after taking pikachu or otherwise try to lie to get their pokemon without them knowing, its just that most of their ways of doing so are cartoonish.

Yet Jesse and james have been known to bring actual rocket launchers to a pokemon fight multiple times (I recall at least once against Brock's onyx and again in the rock gym cave where they just decide to bring the house down) not to mention the occasional mecha. That's kinda the opposite of sneaky thief if you ask me.

like there is at least one episode in Johto where they like, do a thing to steal pokeballs from a pokemon center by making them think they've been transferred, and they do some pokeball switching scam every once in a while to try and get a bunch of non-Ash pokemon, but they have no excuse when being out in the wilderness and and having nothing to get away from Ash with but their toughness and pokemon. In short, between their disguises, infiltration expertise, their great salesmanship to the point where they can fool almost anyone into buying into their scams, their willingness to basically do any minor job that pays, Team Rocket should stick to the cities to just con people out of their pokemon, because thats where they work best. every time they go into their wilderness they get hungry because they don't know how to manage food or gather it from the surroundings, which says to me that none of them are outdoorsy, particularly since Meowth's backstory episode is all about him growing up in a big city, James backstory is that he is a rich kid, while Jessie was straight up poor and desires to be rich to have the finer things in life, and tried to take nurse classes or take part in contests.

Although I'll agree that they're quite good at disguises and scams, James at least is quite vulnerable to those too, as I recall him wasting all the team's money once to buy a magikarp in the S.S Anne.

So I would say the reason why they end in the wilderness hungry may be precisely because whenever they try to do their "business" in the city they just end up being outsmarted by another scammer and end up thrown out in the wild because they can't afford any place to stay anymore.

Or maybe they're that obsessed with catching pikachu.

So yeah, Team Rocket kind of shoots themselves in the foot by following Ash around, simply because a lot of the time they get thrown out of their element in the woods and such without a Brock-like figure to help them, when they are clearly some weird trio of social wizards who can somehow convince anyone of anything, fool anyone with their disguises, somehow keep having the connections to buy inventions from people they seem to get all this stuff from, and sell anything to raise money in record time wen they go legit. seriously, the number of inventions they just somehow have out of nowhere borders on Batman levels of "where did they get even this? why would someone even design this? how did they know to prepare for this?" its why I theorize that Team Rocket-specifically Jessie, James and Meowth, no one else- are somehow warping reality.

Yeah, sounds more like an obsession by now. By the hardware they've spent alone, there's no way a non-shiny pikachu could ever recover Jesse and James investment in stalking Ash. But they just keep going. They're addicted by now, it's their life's purpose.

Maybe they do run successful scams in the cities and/or they do honest jobs well in the background, but when Ash and friends start moving to the next location, Jesse and James just can't stop themselves from pursuing after them, blowing up their gathered funds in more disguises/gadgets/mechas/etc.

Kinda like gladiators in ancient Rome sometimes achieved freedom and fortune, yet ended up returning to the arena out of their own will for the adrenaline and thrills and basking in the audience's cheers.

[Bohandas]

To be fair it's implied that Ash's pikachu has maximum IVs

[The Glyphstone]

To be fair it's implied that Ash's pikachu has maximum IVs

I think at this point Ash's Pikachu just got a few runs through the GameShark.

[Peelee]

I think at this point Ash's Pikachu just got a few runs through the GameShark.

Gameshark? Look here, Rich Uncle Pennybags, if the Game Genie was good enough for my NES, and it's good enough for Pikachu.

[Frozen_Feet]

In the games, Team Rocket does not seem to have a coherent philosophy, and this is deliberate

It is implied in the Pokemon Red/Green/Blue that Giovanni, the leader of the Team, originally had the same goals as the protagonist, which can be summed up as "Gotta Catch 'em All" and "I wanna be the very best!" He just lost his way and fell into crime in the pursuit. When he's last seen, he says he's refound the joy of doing things honestly and goes on a journey to realize his dream, quitting Team Rocket.

In Pokemon Gold/Silver, Team Rocket is in crisis due to lack of leadership and are doing their everything to get Giovanni to return. So their motive is desire for a succesfull criminal syndicate combined with idolization of their former boss, because they missed the memo that life of crime isn't satisfying. When Giovanni doesn't return, the entire thing falls through.

So, Team Rocket gets disbanded because even the people leading it do not see the point.

[Peelee]

In the games, Team Rocket does not seem to have a coherent philosophy, and this is deliberate

It is implied in the Pokemon Red/Green/Blue that Giovanni, the leader of the Team, originally had the same goals as the protagonist, which can be summed up as "Gotta Catch 'em All" and "I wanna be the very best!" He just lost his way and fell into crime in the pursuit. When he's last seen, he says he's refound the joy of doing things honestly and goes on a journey to realize his dream, quitting Team Rocket.

I never quite got why he was a gym leader, though.

[Rater202]

I never quite got why he was a gym leader, though.

A position of power and/or a front for something.

If you remember, nobody knows who the Veridian City Gym Leader is until after you confront him.

There's that guy who apparently runs around to every gym to meet you, calls you a rising star, and when ou talk tohim after beating Giovanni for the last time, he's all like, "What, the myestious Gym Leaderwas the leader fo Team Rocket!?"

Recruitment from the strongest trainers in the Gym is also a possibility.

[Frozen_Feet]

It's implied Giovanni became a Gym leader in his pursuit to become the strongest trainer, but then it fell to the wayside as he focused on his criminal enterprise. That's why he's never around.

IIRC after the plan to overtake Silph Co. fails, Giovanni retreats back to the gym with the idea that he'll start from ground up again and possibly recruit new people from those who attend his gym. So it's also a backup plan, the place where it all started, and the place where it ends.

[deuterio12]

In Pokemon Gold/Silver, Team Rocket is in crisis due to lack of leadership and are doing their everything to get Giovanni to return. So their motive is desire for a succesfull criminal syndicate combined with idolization of their former boss, because they missed the memo that life of crime isn't satisfying. When Giovanni doesn't return, the entire thing falls through.

So, Team Rocket gets disbanded because even the people leading it do not see the point.

In one of the later games there's a time traveling mission where you go back to Gold/Silver's time and turns out Giovanni was actually inspired to return to lead to team rocket by his previous minion's actions and was getting ready to meet them. Then you curbstomp him, and being beaten by some new random kid basically makes Giovanni lose his motivation again. "Getting too old for this".

And now in Sun/Moon we get team Rainbow Rocket where alternate reality Giovanni managed to rally all other pokemon villians in one criminal organization.

[Peelee]

In one of the later games there's a time traveling mission where you go back to Gold/Silver's time and turns out Giovanni was actually inspired to return to lead to team rocket by his previous minion's actions and was getting ready to meet them. Then you curbstomp him, and being beaten by some new random kid basically makes Giovanni lose his motivation again. "Getting too old for this".

And now in Sun/Moon we get team Rainbow Rocket where alternate reality Giovanni managed to rally all other pokemon villians in one criminal organization.

I just beat the damnable Moon (got so infuriated with it I have up for a bit), and I don't remember Rainbow Rocket. That sounds almost worth picking it back up.

Of course, finding Silver in the store makes"almost" even more of a qualifier. I'm fighting the Kimono girls again! Ah, memories.

[DataNinja]

I just beat the damnable Moon (got so infuriated with it I have up for a bit), and I don't remember Rainbow Rocket. That sounds almost worth picking it back up.

It's in the Ultras only, after the main story, I'm afraid. The standard games won't help in that regard.

[Peelee]

It's in the Ultras only, after the main story, I'm afraid. The standard games won't help in that regard.

Are the Ultras more game than cutscene?

[DataNinja]

Are the Ultras more game than cutscene?

There's... roughly the same amount of cutscene, but I think that it all flows better this time, for the most part. My personal opinion with the Ultras is that they fixed a lot of problems (no, I am not going to get over the Battle Royale throwing postgame stuff at you with no warning) and added to missed opportunities from the first games, but then made the same mistakes in other portions - there's so much more that I wish they'd done with certain parts of the game.

It's extremely subjective, I feel, whether it's worth it to get the new games. On the one hand, there's a lot more optional sidequest-y things, things are filled out better, and so forth... on the other, it's still (especially for the first part of the game) much of the same game. So, I wouldn't say that it's a must-buy, but I also don't think that it's entirely pointless to get it. I had a lot of fun with it. If you're ever planning to play through the game again, then I'd recommend doing the Ultras instead. I know this isn't exactly helpful, but... it's the best I can do, since I can't really definitively recommend one way or the other.

More tangentially, they did seem to up the difficulty a fair bit. I actually party wiped - using the EXP Share, even - a few times over the course of the game, which is something that hadn't happened to me in much of the modern generations.

[137ben]

A position of power and/or a front for something.

If you remember, nobody knows who the Veridian City Gym Leader is until after you confront him.

There's that guy who apparently runs around to every gym to meet you, calls you a rising star, and when ou talk tohim after beating Giovanni for the last time, he's all like, "What, the myestious Gym Leaderwas the leader fo Team Rocket!?"

Recruitment from the strongest trainers in the Gym is also a possibility.

However, the sign on the outside of the door says that the leader is Giovanni, and apparently the guy who tells you who all the gym leaders are forgot to read it. (This might have been fixed in the remakes, I don’t remember, so I’m going by Red/Blue).

[Mith]

I just had an amusing idea that is in no way related to the actual plot, and can't be forced into it. It would make a good alternate story.

Part of Team Rocket's MO is to hire up and coming trainers, with most gyms being a front. Even if a leader doesn't pay membership, they probably pay protection fees since Team Rocket has more resources then any one leader. They haven't gone into open power yet because the regular populace could cause major problems in an uprising.

Jesse, James, and Meowth ended up becoming members to get away from bad circumstances. Meowth is interesting in that he is basically a Wild Pokemon that decided to sign up. I would say that all 3 of the members are really good at what they do except for straight on battling. The usual MO is money, intelligence, blackmail, and surprise attacks.

However, by the time the series starts, they are disillusioned with Team Rocket when they encounter Ash. Now Ash has some quality about him (can't remember if it is ever explicitly quantified), that makes him really good with taming Pokemon as friends, more so then James. Meowth picks up on this, and they decide that Ash shouldn't fall into Giovanni's hands. So they file to be the team that follows Ash around, and they essentially provide a smokescreen that keeps Ash from actually having to deal with Team Rocket. They keep up the silly antics as a way to also give Ash some constant battle experience to grow and potentially be a force to break Team Rocket.

[Peelee]

There's... roughly the same amount of cutscene, but I think that it all flows better this time, for the most part. My personal opinion with the Ultras is that they fixed a lot of problems (no, I am not going to get over the Battle Royale throwing postgame stuff at you with no warning) and added to missed opportunities from the first games, but then made the same mistakes in other portions - there's so much more that I wish they'd done with certain parts of the game.

It's extremely subjective, I feel, whether it's worth it to get the new games. On the one hand, there's a lot more optional sidequest-y things, things are filled out better, and so forth... on the other, it's still (especially for the first part of the game) much of the same game. So, I wouldn't say that it's a must-buy, but I also don't think that it's entirely pointless to get it. I had a lot of fun with it. If you're ever planning to play through the game again, then I'd recommend doing the Ultras instead. I know this isn't exactly helpful, but... it's the best I can do, since I can't really definitively recommend one way or the other.

More tangentially, they did seem to up the difficulty a fair bit. I actually party wiped - using the EXP Share, even - a few times over the course of the game, which is something that hadn't happened to me in much of the modern generations.

That actually makes me want to play it. Getting it isn't an issue, one of my wife's friends got it for me for Christmas. He knows my general interests, but not specific (such as that I love Pokemon games, but disliked Moon), but it was really sweet of him and I don't fault him at all for that (I'm a big believer in "it's the thought that counts"). The ramped up difficulty especially sounds nice, since every gen has been getting slightly easier and now we've hit the current "we even tell you what moves are not very/super/effective."

[DataNinja]

That actually makes me want to play it. Getting it isn't an issue, one of my wife's friends got it for me for Christmas. He knows my general interests, but not specific (such as that I love Pokemon games, but disliked Moon), but it was really sweet of him and I don't fault him at all for that (I'm a big believer in "it's the thought that counts"). The ramped up difficulty especially sounds nice, since every gen has been getting slightly easier and now we've hit the current "we even tell you what moves are not very/super/effective."

If you have it, I at least recommend giving it a shot. Different Pokémon are available in each area than the previous games (for example, Inkay can be found near the prof's lab). I also think they handle characterization better this time, though a warning that it's basically unrelated to the last games - Ultra Space and everything is all known about from the beginning (which I found rather jarring after the Moon Postgame), and sometimes characters seem to know things that Gamefreak assumes the players would already have figured out, but really shouldn't know in game. (Though, this was probably mostly an issue for me, because I went in blind, and so actually expected a sequel...)

But, yeah. The difficulty is definitely higher, and if you stick with the same team throughout, I guarantee you'll probably run into at least an handful of battles that give you trouble. (Especially if you have Set Battle on, rather than Shift.)