>>32450843I can't. I was ignoring both regions and forms as a qualifier and just going with what makes pokemon unique from each other: type, movepool, and stats. True, I'd essentially be asked where does a Pokemon gain a new name, and that has been inconsistent since forever. Yet, no one will argue Nidoran male and female being used at the same time simply because the game counts them as separate pokemon. Is that it? The game's indexing itself? I've always found this entire idea to be balderdash. What am I arguing for, then? If I have an argument left, it's that the game is inconsistent, but that has nothing to do with VGC's rules, and even then, Species Clause was a rule far before competitive was even formalized. My verdict? They were all wrong entire time. The game is wrong, the fandom is wrong, everyone is wrong.
Of course, then I get into the reason why Species Clause was invented in the first place, to encourage diversity. Yes, in that sense, it is not fair to have two of the "same" pokemon, but my argument is they are not even functionally the "same" pokemon. They have the same name, but not the same roles. Why can't they recognize this?
