Thread: How intelligent are pokemon?

She has a point.

Actually, it's 5000. Which I don't think is actually valid. Then again, how would you measure it?

Here's how:

Psychologist: *Monotone* "Alakazam have an IQ of 5,000! And they smell nice! And they are our Gods! ALL GLORY TO THE ALAKAZAM!"

Alakazam: *laughter*

What do we mean by intelligent?

Certainly, they are able to recognize simple verbal commands (Attack names) - somethign that can be done (with dogs). They also seem to be highly empathic, that is, to be able to comfort their trainer when he is distressed. That is not PARTICULARLY exceptional; I've seen much the same from several cats.

I'd say that with some clear exceptions (psychics, dragons), they are mostly animal in terms of basic intelligence, but particularly apt to being taught tricks.

Meowth has been able to translate lots of complex Pokemon speech and emotion that would seem to indicate that most Pokemon have the intelligence of at least a small child . . . they CAN grasp ideas such as "self" "desires", "ambition" and such. Which is far beyond the basic intelligence of an animal.

Heck, just look at the "Island of the Giant Pokemon". Pokemon are able to do a lot, mentally.

Originally Posted by Belldandy

Maybe they measure IQs differently or give different (and higher) scores than we do.

Technically, the IQ score is unbounded.

Assume a mean average of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. Then people scoring 115 are 1 standard deviation above the mean, i.e. they scored higher than 84% of the population. 130 is 2 standard deviations - higher than 97.7% of the population. 145 is 3 standard deviations - higher than 99.8% of the population. And so on - 5,000 would be 326.67 or so standard deviations above the mean. To realistically score 5,000, you'd need a lot of people (or, perhaps, Pokémon) to compare it against - perhaps trillions or quadrillions - I'm not too sure of the math needed to calculate the percentile here.

Pokemon Episode 1

Delia : "But,it's a little weird..." - referring to Pikachu

*Pikachu shocks the hell out of everybody*


Pokemon Episode 279

Max : "What? A Torchic? I would've picked a Treecko..."

*Torchic pecks the hell out of Max*




Most Pokemon are intelligent and understand human speech.

Those are the best examples of how Pokémon can understand human speech.

And those aren't the only two either.There are LOADS of other examples out there.

Brock: Hard to believe something so cute could be such a brute.
Wigglytuff: BRUTE?!?! *beats the shit out of Brock*

...and yes, I know I'm not the only one who heard the Wigglytuff actually say it.

Hrm. Best example of the annoying anime's tendency to humanize pokémon, more like

How do you know all pokemon are meant to act like animals in the first place :p

Spirits can be quite intelligent, and I think that's what pokemon are supposed to be - spirits.

I've always had the impression they were meant to be animals from the game. Certainly in the game world they fill the roles of animals (miltank for one example), and the behavior described in the pokédex seems to be those of animals.

But pikachu at least seemed quite intelligent in the Special, which Tajiri-sama said was the closest to how he thought the pokemon world should work.

I've always had the impression they were meant to be animals from the game. Certainly in the game world they fill the roles of animals (miltank for one example), and the behavior described in the pokédex seems to be those of animals.

Most of them are animals, but quite a bit are similar to or directly based on yokai/nature spirits and demons. And of course, the Legendaries all obviously correspond with gods, so . . .

Yeah, the legendaries and SOME of the high-power ones are obviously quite intelligent.

As for the rank and file...as I said, I can buy SLIGHTLY more intelligent, but Island of the Giant Pokémon or really ANY of the translation Meowth does (and Meowth being able to talk, while I'm at it) is WAY over the top. Even if a pokémon (Meowth) was intelligent enough to speak (which is questionable), it's almost certain that their body wouldn't allow it from them.

Originally Posted by Roses Ablaze

But pikachu at least seemed quite intelligent in the Special, which Tajiri-sama said was the closest to how he thought the pokemon world should work.

That doesn't mean EVERYTHING would be spot-on.

Originally Posted by Damian Silverblade

Certainly in the game world they fill the roles of animals (miltank for one example), and the behavior described in the pokédex seems to be those of animals.

But a cow isn't going to try to Hyper Beam me if I try to turn it into hamburger.Not to mention I'd have a problem eating something that intelligent.