The Pokémon League Around the World
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- Pronouns
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Remembered I had banged this out during the hiatus and I should post it now.
The Pokémon League Around the World
Across the planet, humankind lives and works alongside Pokémon. Throughout history, different regions and cultures have interfaced with Pokémon in different ways, but the most common superstructure of human and Pokémon relations in the modern day is the Pokémon League: a hierarchical organization of elite Pokémon Trainers that bridge the relationship between state, trainers, and Pokémon. Most regions' Pokémon Leagues share common traits, whether through humanity's shared traditions like the ideal of pursuing Pokémon battling as a martial art or sport through the traditional Gym Circuit, or through structures that have evolved to suit the needs of the modern nation-region like the distributary power of a League "head of state" and their subordinates in an Elite Four and locally-operating Gym Leaders serving as the connective tissue of a region. However, every region has its own idiosyncracies, which are worth discussing individually.
The "Big Four" regions of Shinwa - Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh - are all clear examples of the ancient traditions of Shinwan Pokémon Training being adapted to the modern day, although of course each has their own quirks and traditions. The most important uniting factor of these four regions is the fact that in each of the three Leagues, the Champion is the foremost authority in the League, and changes hands to "the strongest trainer". Unlike Atlantaean Leagues which favor a bicameral system, the full authority of a Shinwan League is invested in whomever most recently successfully challenged the previous Champion for their title. This, given the raw martial potential of Pokémon, leads to a relationship between the Leagues of Shinwan regions and their civil government where the League is always a holder of much of the monopoly on physical power. Hence, these regions often see the League de facto serving as a civil defense force, if not an army - a fact all the more true in the Indigo League, which has for the past 40 years been the state where the League, civil government, and military-industrial complex have been the most intertwined, all for the purpose of preserving the tense peace after the civil war of the 1980s. The Hoenn League, while not as militarized, is similarly entwined with the state due to a more recent disaster, the Magma-Aqua crisis of 2012. The current Hoenn champion, Steven Stone, has bent much of the League's power for the past decade, along with the considerable resources of his personal corporate holdings, to the safety and rebuilding of the region. Sinnoh is, by comparison to its neighbors, a peaceful region, which many attribute to the 30 year undefeated championship of Cynthia Shirona, a genius of Pokémon battling with a strong moral compass and love for her Region's cultural heritage. Others would point to more material factors like a lack of a highly militarized society or international commitments, which allowed for a splendid isolation during Cynthia's tenure that encouraged the League and civil government to work harmoniously, without giving the crisis-opportunity necessary for corrupting influences to consolidate, as Team Rocket did in the Indigo League.
One more thing worth noting about Shinwan Leagues is that when the law says that the Champion leads the League, that is in fact legally the case. An amusing intersection of Indigo civil law and sheer brilliance from a young generation of trainers in the 1990s saw two ten year olds and a fourteen year old technically earn the position, all three of them declining to take the office and instead reverting it each time to the existing Champion, Lance Blackthorn. Not every young trainer turns down the position though, as seen with Dawn Berlitz becoming Sinnoh Champion just two years ago at the young age of 22 - though she has mostly continued the policies and stability seen under her predecessor, Cynthia.
Unova, as the only region on its continent with a currently functioning League structure, is either an interesting middle ground between Shinwan and Atlantaen-style Leagues, or a pile of contradictions, depending on whom you ask. Structurally, the Unovan League is almost identical to Shinwan ones, including the proviso that defeating the Champion makes the strongest trainer the authority in the League - a structure dating back to the foundation of the Unovan republic, which looked to Shinwa for inspiration in its League specifically. However, the Great War with Orre changed a great deal about the Unovan League's actual power - mainly due to the generational damage done by that war, with the region losing 4 champions and 10 members of its Elite Four to enemy action over the course of the war. By the time of the war's end, the Unovan League was a shadow of itself, and the Republic's government and the rebuilding League quickly coming to an understanding of a formal separation of powers between the Champion and President, with the former now becoming politically agnostic by tradition, subordinate to the civil government almost to the degree that Kalos's is.
On the other side of the world, the Leagues of Atlantaea, by contrast, are quite divergent in particulars despite sharing similar roots in Atlantaea's historical context. The two most notably different Pokémon Leagues are the ones belonging to the ancient monarchies of Galar and Paldea. Both regions maintain a royal line dating back to shortly after the fall of the Classical Paldean Empire, and in both cases the monarch is supreme over both the civil government and the League (although with its own formal devolution of powers to regional leaders and legislatures in either case). Both the Galar and Paldean Leagues, unlike in Shinwa or Unova, are not unitarily run by a Champion - instead, the governmental activities of both are run by a Chairman appointed by the nation's monarch, with Paldea's also functioning officially as the region's Chancellor. The structure of each of these Leagues is distinct, with Galar's multi-tiered Gym system and monetized Gym Circuit and Conference heavily tying it to corporate interests, while Paldea's emphasis on local representation within the League and the status of the League as being led by the Emperor's hand-picked Chancellor makes it a political battleground between Paldea's ancient noble families and every other political interest group in the nation. Paldea, uniquely, also doesn't have a Champion in the same way that other Regions do, instead having a "Champion class" of trainers, emphasizing that all power is in the appointed Chairman-Chancellor, who is therefore the single most important government official aside from the monarch. Meanwhile, in the two years since the Darkest Day scandal, the subsequent arrest of the Galar League's Chairman Rose, and Queen Alicia's nationalization of the Galar League's largest financial contributor Macro Cosmos, League Champion Leon has gained significantly more influence through the chaos and is ironically closer to the position of the Paldean Chancellor than anyone to previously hold his position in Galar, at least in de facto terms.
Among all Atlantaen Leagues, it's perhaps a strange quirk of history that the least politically powerful League, and also the one closest to the Shinwan model used far overseas, is that of Kalos, the famously fractious revolutionary republic. The Kalos League is heavily curtailed by the Republic's constitution, even more so than Unova's, and Pokémon battling is an art form more valued for its prestige there, compared to lucrative corporate investment in Galar and political games in Paldea. Being the strongest trainer is a matter of celebrity anywhere, but in Kalos, that's its main appeal, with the politics of the Republic being determined formally by parliamentary parties, and informally by social movements, all of whom may or may not even bother with a stance on League activities.
Finally, this article would be remiss not to mention the most recently-formed Pokémon League, that of Alola, inaugurated in 2018 and led by the only current Champion who started her tenure under the age of 16, Selene Mizuki. Only existing for a handful of years, any deep analysis of such a League would be premature in the extreme, but Champion Selene has stated a strong intent to preserve the ancient traditions of Alola's Island Challenge alongside more internationally-recognizable concepts like the Elite Four and Conference tournaments, as well as supporting the island region's traditional government of local kahunas over any attempt at centralization.
The Pokémon League Around the World
Across the planet, humankind lives and works alongside Pokémon. Throughout history, different regions and cultures have interfaced with Pokémon in different ways, but the most common superstructure of human and Pokémon relations in the modern day is the Pokémon League: a hierarchical organization of elite Pokémon Trainers that bridge the relationship between state, trainers, and Pokémon. Most regions' Pokémon Leagues share common traits, whether through humanity's shared traditions like the ideal of pursuing Pokémon battling as a martial art or sport through the traditional Gym Circuit, or through structures that have evolved to suit the needs of the modern nation-region like the distributary power of a League "head of state" and their subordinates in an Elite Four and locally-operating Gym Leaders serving as the connective tissue of a region. However, every region has its own idiosyncracies, which are worth discussing individually.
The "Big Four" regions of Shinwa - Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, and Sinnoh - are all clear examples of the ancient traditions of Shinwan Pokémon Training being adapted to the modern day, although of course each has their own quirks and traditions. The most important uniting factor of these four regions is the fact that in each of the three Leagues, the Champion is the foremost authority in the League, and changes hands to "the strongest trainer". Unlike Atlantaean Leagues which favor a bicameral system, the full authority of a Shinwan League is invested in whomever most recently successfully challenged the previous Champion for their title. This, given the raw martial potential of Pokémon, leads to a relationship between the Leagues of Shinwan regions and their civil government where the League is always a holder of much of the monopoly on physical power. Hence, these regions often see the League de facto serving as a civil defense force, if not an army - a fact all the more true in the Indigo League, which has for the past 40 years been the state where the League, civil government, and military-industrial complex have been the most intertwined, all for the purpose of preserving the tense peace after the civil war of the 1980s. The Hoenn League, while not as militarized, is similarly entwined with the state due to a more recent disaster, the Magma-Aqua crisis of 2012. The current Hoenn champion, Steven Stone, has bent much of the League's power for the past decade, along with the considerable resources of his personal corporate holdings, to the safety and rebuilding of the region. Sinnoh is, by comparison to its neighbors, a peaceful region, which many attribute to the 30 year undefeated championship of Cynthia Shirona, a genius of Pokémon battling with a strong moral compass and love for her Region's cultural heritage. Others would point to more material factors like a lack of a highly militarized society or international commitments, which allowed for a splendid isolation during Cynthia's tenure that encouraged the League and civil government to work harmoniously, without giving the crisis-opportunity necessary for corrupting influences to consolidate, as Team Rocket did in the Indigo League.
One more thing worth noting about Shinwan Leagues is that when the law says that the Champion leads the League, that is in fact legally the case. An amusing intersection of Indigo civil law and sheer brilliance from a young generation of trainers in the 1990s saw two ten year olds and a fourteen year old technically earn the position, all three of them declining to take the office and instead reverting it each time to the existing Champion, Lance Blackthorn. Not every young trainer turns down the position though, as seen with Dawn Berlitz becoming Sinnoh Champion just two years ago at the young age of 22 - though she has mostly continued the policies and stability seen under her predecessor, Cynthia.
Unova, as the only region on its continent with a currently functioning League structure, is either an interesting middle ground between Shinwan and Atlantaen-style Leagues, or a pile of contradictions, depending on whom you ask. Structurally, the Unovan League is almost identical to Shinwan ones, including the proviso that defeating the Champion makes the strongest trainer the authority in the League - a structure dating back to the foundation of the Unovan republic, which looked to Shinwa for inspiration in its League specifically. However, the Great War with Orre changed a great deal about the Unovan League's actual power - mainly due to the generational damage done by that war, with the region losing 4 champions and 10 members of its Elite Four to enemy action over the course of the war. By the time of the war's end, the Unovan League was a shadow of itself, and the Republic's government and the rebuilding League quickly coming to an understanding of a formal separation of powers between the Champion and President, with the former now becoming politically agnostic by tradition, subordinate to the civil government almost to the degree that Kalos's is.
On the other side of the world, the Leagues of Atlantaea, by contrast, are quite divergent in particulars despite sharing similar roots in Atlantaea's historical context. The two most notably different Pokémon Leagues are the ones belonging to the ancient monarchies of Galar and Paldea. Both regions maintain a royal line dating back to shortly after the fall of the Classical Paldean Empire, and in both cases the monarch is supreme over both the civil government and the League (although with its own formal devolution of powers to regional leaders and legislatures in either case). Both the Galar and Paldean Leagues, unlike in Shinwa or Unova, are not unitarily run by a Champion - instead, the governmental activities of both are run by a Chairman appointed by the nation's monarch, with Paldea's also functioning officially as the region's Chancellor. The structure of each of these Leagues is distinct, with Galar's multi-tiered Gym system and monetized Gym Circuit and Conference heavily tying it to corporate interests, while Paldea's emphasis on local representation within the League and the status of the League as being led by the Emperor's hand-picked Chancellor makes it a political battleground between Paldea's ancient noble families and every other political interest group in the nation. Paldea, uniquely, also doesn't have a Champion in the same way that other Regions do, instead having a "Champion class" of trainers, emphasizing that all power is in the appointed Chairman-Chancellor, who is therefore the single most important government official aside from the monarch. Meanwhile, in the two years since the Darkest Day scandal, the subsequent arrest of the Galar League's Chairman Rose, and Queen Alicia's nationalization of the Galar League's largest financial contributor Macro Cosmos, League Champion Leon has gained significantly more influence through the chaos and is ironically closer to the position of the Paldean Chancellor than anyone to previously hold his position in Galar, at least in de facto terms.
Among all Atlantaen Leagues, it's perhaps a strange quirk of history that the least politically powerful League, and also the one closest to the Shinwan model used far overseas, is that of Kalos, the famously fractious revolutionary republic. The Kalos League is heavily curtailed by the Republic's constitution, even more so than Unova's, and Pokémon battling is an art form more valued for its prestige there, compared to lucrative corporate investment in Galar and political games in Paldea. Being the strongest trainer is a matter of celebrity anywhere, but in Kalos, that's its main appeal, with the politics of the Republic being determined formally by parliamentary parties, and informally by social movements, all of whom may or may not even bother with a stance on League activities.
Finally, this article would be remiss not to mention the most recently-formed Pokémon League, that of Alola, inaugurated in 2018 and led by the only current Champion who started her tenure under the age of 16, Selene Mizuki. Only existing for a handful of years, any deep analysis of such a League would be premature in the extreme, but Champion Selene has stated a strong intent to preserve the ancient traditions of Alola's Island Challenge alongside more internationally-recognizable concepts like the Elite Four and Conference tournaments, as well as supporting the island region's traditional government of local kahunas over any attempt at centralization.