IMAGE CREDIT TO night-owl8 on deviantart.com
Recently I’ve found myself interested in a Pokemon fanfiction called Pokemon Silver Resistance. This isn’t meant to be a professional review by any means, this is just a way for me to express how I feel about what I have been reading. I honestly would pay to read a story like this, genuinely. Fanfiction gets a bad reputation because of the low bar for entry, anybody is able to post their own stories without much restriction. Some people will abuse this freedom, writing things that frankly arent very appropriate or even coherent, and as people it is easy to focus on the negatives, especially when considering that many people immaturely portray adult themes in fiction which originally was meant for children to consume. However, I feel there is a correct way to do this and for the case of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series there was a lot of potential in portraying more adult oriented themes as this game series' stories had many darker elements within them despite being made for children. And as someone who isn't very sure about Pokemon Mystery Dungeon's future with Spike Chunsoft and Game Freak I am satisfied with this fanfiction's interpretation of the Mystery Dungeon world. This piece of fiction makes me content with the possibility that this franchise's future might possibly dead.
To give some backstory this fanfiction is written by a guy who goes under the alias of ScytheRider, despite the fact it is closely related to the name of the pokemon scyther it is simply a coincidence that the name is so similar, and he's been writing this story since 2009. Yes this gentleman is incredibly committed towards his work. Currently he says he believes this fiction would be finished at the end of 2023 though we have yet to see if this statement will hold true.
I simply started reading this because I had the inclination to search for more pokemon mystery dungeon stories and because I couldn’t find any through official means I decided to take it upon myself to find what was out there on fanfiction.net. Fans of their respective franchises tend to have a much better understanding of the source material than those who might currently hold the rights to the story's creation. This can be a result of the fact that the first original mystery dungeon game came out in 2005 and its sequels explorers of time and darkness 2007. The most recent original game was Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon in 2015, it is unlikely that the same people will be working on this series as the years go on, and they might have a different interpretation of what a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon story should look like. Leading to some stories being hit or miss with fans and being vastly different to the original releases.Those who are new to writing about them, on a whole, wouldn’t generally understand how to capture or write a mystery dungeon story like the previous writers. However, fans who experience the mystery dungeon stories and have fond memories or experiences with them have far more incentive to write something that closely captures the uniqueness of the story telling in the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games.
Silver Resistance is one of these stories. It uses many elements that remind me of the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games albeit being much darker than the original takes. Although, this wasn't jarring and instead felt like a natural evolution of those stories. It isn't imposible to think that the writers of Explorers of Time and Darkness would have written a story like this if they had no restrictions. Unlike the original story writers ScytheRider doesn’t have to worry about children necessarily reading his tale and so it results in Silver Resistance being a mystery dungeon story in where anything can realistically happen and things about the mystery dungeon world can be fully explored unrestrictedly.
The plot of Silver Resistance is basic yet also deeply complex; the story is about a human turned into a Charmander who wakes up in a cave and is discovered by a Bulbasaur named Saura who lives in the forest with their family. They meet and become familiar with one another and through the escapades of the first few chapters they become part of a larger Resistance Team that defends against a large opposing force known as the ‘Master’. The Resistance Teams have many smaller factions, the ones I’m most familiar with at the point where I’m reading are the Emerald Division and Gold Division, where Charmander and Saura spend most of their time when the narrative begins.
The narrative is similar to one's such as One Piece where despite their being an overarching goals, the story focuses on the mundane and little things in the character's lives. There isn't necessarily always large moving parts within the narrative that fast track towards the goal. Instead the characters are made to organically grow and rise to a greater level, and while each mission or tasks brings the characters closer to their goal. It still always seems so far away; I've always wondered while reading, just how exactly are they going to use Char's Call to stop the Master or how exactly is he going to actually meet Giratina through his 'supposed master plan' that he came up with when he had his memories.
In all honesty I'm sometimes sick of reading the mini stories as they extend to give details and little facts about the world that I frankly have little interest in. However, I feel like these mini stories are the writer's own way to separate when he wants to focus on building individual characters and when he wants to focus on narrative. As an example during the character's time in the Emerald Division there was a lot of time understanding and getting familiar with the character of Prince, Calamar. Understanding his relationship with Scythe, what motivates him and even his goals. To which thereafter when there was a lot of moving parts within Temporal Tower there being ths great tension between him and Scythe or learning of the Silver Resistance world there was no rush or justification for why we should care about Prince or the revelations about him, because the story had already spent time doing so. It is a thing where Scythe Rider trades off constant moments of excitement and action in the story to develop the character and the world so when it comes time to incorporate both elements in the story they don't harm one another but instead contribute to each other.
The many mini stories in Ambera help to set up important characters and their roles within the current narrative, and how their role can begin to change as the story changes. As an example Team X appear to initially be bad when the narrative first begins and act as comedic rivals to team ember in their earlier missions but in a twist of fate when Saura, Charmander and Ray are almost left for dead this team comes to their aid and saves their lives. Furthermore, as the story progresses they become trusted allies of team ember, having their own unique perspective for why they worked with the master and who they're aiming for within the master's own division. In my opinion they become so much more interesting when a member of the team Croagunk practices throwing everyday, filling their team bag full of rocks, in hopes he can easily capture the pokemon Misdrevious within the master's division, only having one shot to do so. It shows they have conviction and purpose, not being petty criminals like they first appear to be. This extends to many other characters in the narrative as well. It is difficult to understand and fully appreciate all aspects of Silver Resistance without reading it yourself or me to talk about each standalone arc so I encourage you all to go and so. I'm willing to do a stream discussing Silver Resistance if people would like to see that.
The characters in this narrative are just as strong as the story's own worldbuilding; each individual character has their own particular archetype that makes it to where readers can gain a very good general understanding of who a character is and their motivations. So, when the character begins to change as the narrative progresses or is effected by a particular event, it not only intrigue the readers through shock value but adds depth to the character, as it changes your perspective on their actions and personality in the past, but also makes you question who they truly are because of how their actions and behaviour conflicts with how they might have acted previously in the story. There are many fantastic characters in Silver Resistance though the 4 that must be discussed at length are obviously: Char, Saura, Ray and Scythe.
Starting with Char I find him to be a very compelling main character. The narrative is third person limited so we usually get the story and perspective from him; he tends to be a very emotional person that has low self confidence in their own abilities. Despite being team leader he doesn't operate his team as so, he treats it more like a close circle of friends, in which advise and chooses to support him. Everything regarding team ember and their goals revolve around him, his goal to meet Dialga in order to discover the power of the call, or his later goal to find Giratina to recover his name and memories. Team ember is built around keeping Char from giving up and he likes to be lead rather than doing the leading, him feeling his lack of experience doing so would ruin the team somehow. Even when this is the case, their are instances where he has made decisions as leader, which have been quite profound or novel and it is usually driven by emotion. This at first seems like a very bad thing, but in actuality the emotion he feels makes him uneasy, and that makes him think about why he is uneasy. Eventually coming to a logical conclusion befitting a leader. Best example being when a Pokemon wants to join the resistance team, everyone is happy about it except Char who at first was set off by the fact that she was happy to do nothing with her life and looked to join the resistance for a purpose. Char concluded though that someone without purpose is not welcome on the division because it isn't simply another form of work, instead being a lifestyle Pokemon commit themselves too because they have a strong desire for change in the world of Ambera. He is not a perfect individual by any stretch of the imagination, but their are moments of greatness within his character that have room to create a complete individual, making him a good fit for a long running series like Silver Resistance.
Saura is team ember's right hand pokemon. Closely related to Char and his goals, he is the main heart of the team who keeps it together. He keeps Char connected to the world of pokemon when he finds it difficult to cope with others or vice versa. There isn't much interesting to his character when he is initially introduced, but when he is forced to be confronted with his family life and has to choose between his freedom or thinking of their safety it nearly breaks him.
Ray keeps the team on task and motivated to make sure they keep to following their own goals. He was initially on a training team known as team stripes, though he wanted to progress to eventually be part of the big league teams like team remorse so he eventually joins team ember. Personally I was initially skeptical of him considering I grew comfortable with the close emotional connection between Char and Saura, especially considering in the games the player and the partner were the most important part to the story. However, Raichu pulls his weight being the team's strongest member and an expert in the different team's items and their functionality. Overall he's just a very fun character to have as part of the main cast.
Scythe is simply fantastic. An absolute genius character. I never expected to be afraid, though also deeply interested in a Pokemon I would never have had any interest as part of my Pokemon team in the game, to now one I might consider just because of this fanfiction. To begin somewhere he is someone with alot of elements to him, we find out in one of the story's special chapters that he was cursed by something known as a Watcher that impeded is regular mode of thought. Regardless he's been able to overcome this and created a successful team which resists against 'The Master'. He feels a heavy burden within this because of how his team, Remorse, rely so heavily on him to sort out and plan to resist against the master. To which eventually his character nearly breaks and he becomes outside himself, acting more villainous. There being doubt and worry that he would eventually revert back to 'Adron the terrible' the same one who aided 'The Master' facilitating many of the terrible things 'The Master had done in Ambera. There are many complexities to him and his character. Can't wait to see how ScytheRider will choose to develop him further.
Overall, Silver Resistance is a thought provoking fanfiction I implore anyone to read.
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