>>55736867>every evil team that's ever been in the game disproves thatFirstly, just because people do illegal things does not make them baby-eaters. Ekans and Koffing say just as much in the anime in Gen 1 and Game Freak showed Team Plasma members releasing their charges and wondering why they didn't leave them or want to be released. So no, just because they do bad shit, does not make them bad people.
>having 8 badges takes away their free willNo, it proves your competence. The badge system is a game mechanic concession (can't just trade in a lv.50/100 and sweep), but having 8 badges doesn't automatically tell 'mons to listen to trainer (Ash had 8 by time he went to Johto, but 'Zard didn't listen until Orange Islands arc. Never mind the many times he got the set, only to have an unruly catch the next season (Snivy for one). 8 badges just tells the pokémon "this person is competent and has a decent idea of what they're doing". But part of a trainer's journey along the way to 8 badges is getting to know for, how to care for and ultimately help their pokémon grow. And that's just as much a part of a pokémon's trust in its trainer, so wild pokémon would be able to sense not just the 8 plot tokens, but the ability of the trainer to draw their full potential out.
We don't get to see it in the games, because it's a fucking kiddy game series at the head of a long-term franchise at this stage. but it'd be interesting to see how many you cunts would lose 'mons because you treat them as things than magical creatures as much a part of the world as the human characters if that were a mechanic in the games.
