Are Yamask actually the souls of dead humans, as the Pokédex states? I feel a bit odd about catching and training Yamask because of it. Sure, it’s not the worst afterlife fate I could imagine, but it still weirds me out.

Luckily, no. Just like phantump, this is only Unovan folklore, albeit a popular story. It stems from the fact that people have a tendency to look for something familiar in the unfamiliar, especially when it comes to things that might vaguely resemble faces. So while yamask’s mask is generically humanlike, it’s only a generic humanlike mask, created to help yamask harvest negative emotion for its meals. If you stare at it long enough, you may begin to make out the face of someone you know who has died, but this is just your mind using your memory of them to play tricks on you.

In truth, yamask are just like any other pokémon: they hatch from eggs, no death necessary.

What if I hatch a bunch of Yamask eggs? Is that mass genocide?

On a serious note (compared to my last post and response to your question, that is), it actually depends on whether or not you believe wholeheartedly in the folklore associated with yamask. Given the frequency of a yamask birth, the consensus among pokémon researchers is that it’s statistically unlikely that yamask are the spirits of deceased humans. Rather, it’s more likely that yamask are simply pokémon attached to mask-like objects that, through our tendency to see ourselves in literally everything (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia), human beings have interpreted to resemble human faces.

The same can be said for phantump, actually. They’re not literally the lost souls of human children; we just created folklore that says they are because their appearances and cries resemble those of distressed toddlers. The only difference is that Kaloseans realized this rather quickly because trevenant decidedly do not resemble distressed toddlers on any level.

About a week ago a Yamask decided to catch himself in one of my spare pokeballs. I was planning on keeping him, but a superstitious friend of mine is really freaked out by this. My friend says that only ghost types that knew you in a past life would let itself be captured like that, but I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like this Yamask before, living or dead! The face on his mask doesn’t look familiar either… Should I be concerned about this?

Not really, anonymous. Unless you managed to make quite a few enemies. At which point probably.

In all seriousness, so long as your yamask is friendly towards you, there really shouldn’t be any reason to worry. There’s a possibility that it remembers who it was and is trying to resume that relationship with you, but if that’s the case, then there really isn’t anything wrong with that—again, unless you can recall anyone in particular who exhibited rather worrying behavior towards you.

I have this cofagrigus that was confirmed to be my mother as a yamask who passed away when I was young. I am a traveling trainer and she gets along with my other Pokemon fine but I’m not sure if it would be appropriate to battle with. Any advice?

Well, this is an awkward situation, I must admit.

Ultimately, the decision should be left to her. While it may be awkward to give your mother orders through battling, she may still wish to battle on your behalf, either to protect you or to satisfy her own needs as a pokémon. Remember, she is currently a pokémon, so what she needs to maintain her mental and physical health may be different from her needs as a human. Moreover, battling is an integral part of the balance between mind and body for most pokémon, so keeping one from fighting when they want to may do more harm than good.

Communication will be highly important in this situation, and as members of the yamask line retain all of their memories from their past lives (including the ability to comprehend language), your mother will quite literally understand what you have to say if you speak to her, even if she doesn’t have the physical ability to respond verbally anymore. Talk to your mother and let her know you’ve figured out who she really is. Outline her options to her (to battle or to become your non-battling companion pokémon) and let her tell you through writing, signing, or any other means what she wants to do.

Is it socially appropriate for her to battle for you, meanwhile? Actually, yes. If you follow Unovan belief (which … would be true in this case, I suppose), then all members of the yamask line are technically spirits of the dead. We haven’t outlawed use of any of these pokémon, even if we have no way of knowing whether or not they were once innocent people, for the reasons mentioned above. Battling, for pokémon, is just another way to maintain their own mental and physical health (as odd as that may sound, considering it’s literal fighting), and humans have simply come to accept this as well as their roles in this process. No one will judge you for having your mother battle—so long as she’s fine with it, anyway.

Yamask and Cofagrigus

Yamask
The Spirit Pokémon
Type: Ghost
Official Registration #: 562
Entry: A ghost-type pokémon prevalent in the graveyards and ruins of Unova. It is said that yamask are the restless spirits of those close to pokémon, transformed for eternity into pokémon forms. The mask they carry, then, are the faces they once possessed, which are their final token of their lives as humans, as well as a constant reminder of their eternal curse. Then again, yamask can also communicate with other pokémon and wield pokémon powers, so … the author, for one, could probably deal with eternal damnation to the moral plane and the existential horror involved with the loss of identity.

Cofagrigus
The Coffin Pokémon
Type: Ghost
Official Registration #: 563
Entry: The evolved form of yamask, by battle experience. Upon evolution, yamask take up residence within a golden, coffin-like shell. From this shell, they reach out with their four ghostly arms to snatch up hapless wanderers and graverobbers and pull them into their bodies. This is just one thing cofagrigus is famous for. The other thing popularly known about this pokémon is the fact that whoever named it clearly did so with the conscious intent of creating a massive headache for those of us who deal with adult content filter systems … such as, say, for example, administrators of digital transportation systems.