Game Theory - Nurse Joy is a Pokemon!

Episode Date: April 16, 2023

You read the title right. Nurse Joy is a POKEMON and I have the proof! We are going old school Game Theory with this episode and by the end, you will be asking Nintendo why you can't catch yourself a Nurse Joy in Diamond and Pearl! Let's go!

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! ...wetternet. Welcome to Game Theory.

But we were all busy worrying about how old Ash really is or whether Ditto is related to Mew2, Nurse Joy has been the anime's 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 pokey 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. If you speak to any Pokemon fan and ask them 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 Joy's. 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 in 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 two. While Team Rocket is busy destroying the Pokemon Center, Nurse Joy is transferring all the Pokemon there over to Puter City. We see another Nurse Joy on the other end of the video call explaining that all the Pokemon arrived safely, to which Veridians Nurse Joy replies, Thanks, sis. So they're sisters. All of them are sisters?

Well, not entirely. When visiting the Orange Islands, Ashen 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 and 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 Pikachu's, this flock of piggies, Ash's Charmander versus Richie's Charmander. They are practically interchangeable. Every Chancy and every Pocus 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 going to 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, huh, actually reveals Joy to be their last name rather than the first name. Never really thought about that one. Anyway, Paige and Marnie Joy. Notice anything unusual about these two? They're identical to their mother. We even see their father, Karsten, in this episode, and, And 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 parent. I mean, look at that little guy. Aw, how cute is he? Oh, you're so cute. Yes, you are.

Oh, you were so cute until you got retcon 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 many 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 Nitterrand 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 All female Pokemon include the likes of jinx kenghis Khan and wouldn't you know it?

Chancy Nurse Joy's ever faithful medical assistant So with Nurse Joy's 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 Joy's 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, their 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 Volpix 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 and 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 heel. But the anime actually gives us our counter example in the form of Team Rockets Miao. 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, Meowf 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, Miaozy. 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 going to 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. Jinks, Mr. Mime, the Machop family, All of them are like an evolutionary stones throw away from clocking in for a nine to five and settled in 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 and the same.

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, Frostlass'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 Frostlass, as well as other Pokemon, like Yamask and Fantump, are spirits of humans, Cadabra'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 Conalave City, there's a lot of

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 oldy 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. Hmm. Pokemon and humans looking and acting the same, marrying one another? Like, maybe perhaps a nurse, Pokemon Joy, marrying the husband, human, Carston. But the final piece of evidence here is from Folktale 2.

Quote, here lived a Pokemon in a forest. In the forest, the Pokemon shed its hide to sleep as a human. 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

to picture, shall we? Throughout the anime, Nurse Joy has had a couple of Pokemon companions, but none is more iconic than Chancy, and it makes a lot of sense for Chancy 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 Blissi 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.

Chancy 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, huh, 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 Chancy ever need to evolve into a human form? Well, think about it this way. These folktales talk of a world from long ago, when people and post 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,

Chansey 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 walk to your local doctor and found a dog sitting there waiting to give you a shot? Making it even more complicated, Pokemon and people don't just live segregated, people now capture, train, and battle Pokemon for sport. Where before Chancy may have come across a sick Pokemon that had eaten the wrong kind of barrier or something, now there are broken and injured Pokemon fainting left, right, and center.

But while they're in the control of humans, Chancey 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 Miaoth 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 Chancy 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 Chancy to the human that we've all known and loved for decades, Nurse Joy. Kind of makes you wonder about Officer Jenny now, doesn't it? Another day, friends, another day. But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.