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Peaceful in Death: Encountering Death in the Pokémon Universe

Death, Culture & Leisure: Playing Dead

ISBN: 978-1-83909-038-7, eISBN: 978-1-83909-037-0

Publication date: 20 August 2020

Abstract

Pokémon has proven to be one of the most enduring and successful gaming franchises. Over the last two decades, Pokémon has produced dozens of games, multiple animated shows, and several movies. In this time, video games have found a new footing when it comes to approaching death. Titles like A Mortician’s Tale (2017) by Laundry Bear Games have opened up digital gaming as a place, where death can be explored with serious thought and a new emotional depth. A dichotomy has emerged between games that take death seriously and ones that lower death to a mere game mechanic. This chapter looks to bridge that growing divide and explore the pop phenomenon that is Pokémon through the same critical lens that has been used to examine games like A Mortician’s Tale. Ultimately, the Pokémon franchise emerges as capable of thoughtful and provocative conversation about death and dying.

Keywords

Citation

Darrow, A. (2020), "Peaceful in Death: Encountering Death in the Pokémon Universe", Coward-Gibbs, M. (Ed.) Death, Culture & Leisure: Playing Dead (Emerald Studies in Death and Culture), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 27-39. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83909-037-020201009

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2020 Ashley Darrow