I’ve heard of this thing where trainers visiting new regions will go on an adventure to challenge the league, but will release one of their pokemon if it faints. It’s a pretty popular challenge, but isn’t this considered cruel?

Ah, yes. The “Nuzlocke” challenge.

To be perfectly honest, anonymous, I have mixed feelings about this challenge. On the one hand, yes, there is an element of cruelty to it because it very rarely takes into consideration a pokémon’s feelings on the matter. Oftentimes, pokémon want to remain with their trainers as long as possible, and the act of simply breaking the bonds you’ve worked so hard to achieve after one loss can be devastating or even traumatizing to a pokémon that has come to trust and care deeply for its trainer.

On the other, to be fair, releasing a pokémon is a fact of a trainer’s life, and there are situations where it might not be as cruel as it sounds for this particular challenge.

For one, Nuzlocke challenges tend to be intense, so some trainers release their pokémon out of actual concern for their well-being. Admittedly, this selection of trainers isn’t the majority, but it exists. 

For another, the alternative is that trainers engaging in a Nuzlocke challenge send their pokémon home or place them in the storage system until the end of their challenge, which may last only for a single league. After that, they may raise their pokémon equally or simply rehome them as necessary.

And for a third, as I’ve said, releasing is a fact of practically every trainer’s lives, even when they’re not participating in a Nuzlocke challenge. The problem is that not everyone can be a trainer forever, and when one retires, not everyone can keep all of the pokémon they captured on their adventures. It’s simply not feasible for the majority of people. So under normal circumstances, breaking the bonds you’ve created will eventually happen; it’s simply a matter of when. (In these cases, though, I highly encourage rehoming your pokémon with friends or family, or find a reputable shelter that may be able to match your pokémon with a loving home for you.)

So for those three reasons, I can’t rightly say that it’s outright cruel. Granted, yes, the above three situations don’t actually describe the motivations of all trainers who release their pokémon on their Nuzlocke journeys; I’m simply saying that there are instances that are a bit more morally gray than others. In cases where a trainer simply abandons their pokémon for losing, however, yes, that would be outright cruel, especially if the pokémon in question has bonded with them. But otherwise, yes, my opinion of these practices are a bit complicated.

Of course, I don’t entirely understand the point of a Nuzlocke challenge to begin with, but then again, I was never fantastically interested in training for the sake of training itself.