How Pseudo Legendaries Life stage is Similar to a Person with Autism
Admin/ February 5, 2015/ Rants, Video Games
So this type of post about Autistic development could be long drawn out and boring. I could use all sots of scientific explanations. Instead I’m gonna have some fun with this post. Lets compare life to Pokemon evolution shall we?
At a young age, there are all sorts of people, but most of them start the same: In their first stage. There are a rare few who start out stronger right off the bat, the same is true in Pokemon. But both in real life and in the games, many of those with a strong start either do not change into anything else later, or require quite a bit of work to create a change.
Most of the time, people are in stage one for a brief period of their lives. They evolve into a stronger stage as they gain more experience. Sometimes they evolve twice if the amount of growth needed occurs.
Most Pokemon, like most human have a natural curve where stage one is weak stage two is mediocre and stage three is incredible. Some start out very very weak and become incredible in just one change. Like Magikarp evolving into Gyarados, these changes can be drastic The change can be so significant that we don’t even recognize the original person at all.
But while most people have their work come at them in an even pace, people with any form of Autism tend to have greater difficulty and mature much slower than their peers. In Pokemon there is a comparable group and the reasoning behind their name of Pseudo-Legendary will be discussed later.
These Pokemon require far more experience to level than any other group of Pokemon and evolve at a much higher level than everything else baring a few outliers just like rare people in the world who take a long time to change just once and are set.
I will be using a specific example of a Pokemon that both really gets the point across of the struggle of an autistic through life as well as it happens to be one of my favorites in the game.
Here we have the adorable Deino. Like all first stage Pokemon and people it has potential but it really cannot do much in its current form. Deino also has the extra handicap of being blind in the game making his interactions with others significantly more difficult just as an autistic has difficulty doing the same. As a result, this Pokemon tends to lash out at anything that comes near it as it is unable to determine friend from foe just as a young Autistic discovers around puberty where they have not changed as drastically as their peers just yet.
The frustrations finally reach a point as many of our peers accomplish seemingly much more than we do and finally we are granted our own upgrade. Though much later compared to our peers, we finally evolve from the adorable critter above into this:
Zweilous is the second form and although his stats are much higher than Deino’s he only gets to compete with his peers for a little while, for just as Autsitcs reach their second stage, most of their peers reach their third soon after. Once again the Autistic is outdone.
Now after lamenting on this gut punch, the Autistic’s self doubts will begin to eat at them just like Zweilous’ two heads do not like each other. Also unfortunately, the Pokemon is still blind on both its heads. The cycle of not knowing friend from foe continues as the aggression level rises.
Now completely outclassed by their peers, Autistics tend to do one of two things at this point. Either they withdraw and cut off from the world which denies them ever from reaching their final and true form or they look ahead and realize that although there is a light at the end of the tunnel, we quickly realize that the skill set we have is not the one we will eventually need. In the case of the Pokemon Zweilous and its final form have drastically different stats which change how the Pokemon functions. We are forced to choose between helping ourselves now and crippling ourselves later or crippling ourselves now for the sake of later success.
But those of us who keep fighting far beyond the point where we should have stopped, are rewarded with our third form. (And one I do not feel I have quite reached yet, but am quite close to)
Finally we reach the final form: Hydreigon. Now we finally have eyes and can see. We have wings which represent the freedom we have been denied for so long. Now a little bit about the Pokemon and the title of Pseudo-Legendary tie in.
The Psudo-Legendaries are a group of (7 at the time of this post) Exceptionally Powerful Pokemon with in game stats on par with entities of legendary Pokemon (which are created purposely overpowered). They all have three forms that evolve at very high levels. Now like this Pokemon, once an Autistic reaches their full potential, their weakest points will be better than some others strongest points.
The different ways this Pokemon can be used in unparalleled in battling just as a person with Autism has so many different talents they are able to make use of once they get out of the darkness that keeps them held back.
Just as this Pokemon must always be considered when a team is being built, a successful Autistic is always noted by the world for their accomplishments.
I hope those of you on the spectrum that read this will continue to pursue your dreams as I continue to do so, because we all know how rewarding that third stage is once we reach it.
