[b]Ash Coma Theory[/b]: Part One "Did one ever know the reason why the pacing and story development change after Ash was hit by lightning in the beginning episodes? How Ash and his world were relatively normal until after the incident? I have a theory. The accident with the bike put Ash in a coma. Days later he was found and was hurried to the hospital and treated with heavy medications. This is why Team Rocket became less menacing. The medication took effect and stabilized his coma dreams, instead of being terrifying, they became idyllic, and he's able to live out his Pokemon master fantasies. If one had noticed, the early episodes of Pokemon were of amazing quality. The rest of the series is just the results of his subconscious mind fulfilling his desires, as well as attempting to escape them. Should Ash realize he's in a coma, he would wake up, but suffer brain damage. So he has to take down all his mental barriers one by one until he can come to grips with what he is and escape his coma. This explains why he doesn't change much physically. Also, the worldwide socialism can be explained if you once again realize that this is a dream world; he thought up a safe system of government that would run smoothly and keeps the world going allowing his adventures to work like they do. It also explains a few other things, such as how a child can go off on his own in a world full of dangerous untamed animals, and why every Pokemon center has the same exact nurse. Joy and Jenny he knew from his hometown, and they act as a safety net or anchor, allowing him to feel safe no matter where he goes. The professors, like the Joy's and Jenny's represent stability, and ash's ideals. This is why Gary became a professor. It's also the reason that every time he enters a new region, virtually no one has heard of him, despite his conquests, and why Giovanni leads Team Rocket. How could Paul, the rival of the Sinnoh area, not know of someone who has placed in at least the top 16 of all three leagues and has destroyed the Orange league and Battle Frontier? Ash's travelling partners are actually aspects of himself he can enjoy, but doesn't like to associate with himself. Team Rocket are his qualities that he deems "negative", but is coming to terms with. Jesse and James want to appease Giovanni, Ash's Father. Meowth especially wants to appease him because he remembers the good times with Giovanni. This Places meowth in a category known as ash's (corrupted) innocence, and another fragment of ash's humanity. If you note that meowth can speak this quickly becomes apparrent. In fact the whole reason for meowth's speech is so he can help Ash accept Team rocket as part of himself eventually. Brock is Ash's repressed -blam!-ity. He fell into the coma a virgin and needed an outlet for his growing -blam!- frustrations. Since he can never experience sex, Brock must never succeed. Brock is a projection of his -blam!-ity, and is constantly shot down because Ash could never "know" sex. Brock isn't just Ash's latent -blam!-ity, he's also his fatherly instincts, neither of which Ash can come to terms with. Brock leaves his siblings to "journey" with Ash. because Ash can't cope with having that much responsibility, much as his foray with a real relationship ends on mysterious terms. Ash just cannot handle commitment at his mental level. Brock's Stay with professor Ivy was an.attempt to outright suppress his -blam!-ity. You'll notice that James got much more dialogue in this part of the series, as well as getting more touchy feel-y with his pokemon and getting most of his backstory. Ash didn't enjoy this much, hence the reasons Brock comes back all horrified, and refuses to speak about it. (ash's subconscious was repressing him at the time, so other than a general feeling of dread he has no idea of what went on then.) This is also why brock keeps coming back to the series....Usually AFTER Ash meets a new girl aspect of himself. Misty is an image that Ash had of a girl. This is why she plays so prevalently in the series but is ultimately unattainable because he never really knew her before the coma. Likely the one that helped get him to a hospital. I have a theory in line with this: Since Misty was his initial love interest (if only subconsciously), he needed her to reach a level of womanhood. He felt that people could only have relationships when they've matured. But in practice, it turned out he couldn't cope with it and just wanted the normal, pushy, arrogant Misty he knew, and wouldn't let her keep Togepi anymore. Misty is Ash's first attempt at a girl he could love, however, being a girl from the real world, all he really he knew of her was her anger, as a result she ended up quite hot headed in his mind. Constantly berating his -blam!-ity, but eventually mellowing out until she had faded into the background. This was also traumatizing to him, being attached to it. Since then, the thought of anyone around him maturing to adulthood has been blocked, and anyone who shows signs of it will quickly end up leaving for another, more naive fill-in. Max came with May, she played the Id with great aspirations, and he played the sensible Ego that "Session". They worked for a little while but Ash, being a teenager, eventually had his -blam!-ity had to come back into play. He kept reinventing himself and eventually wrote new aspects, but his mind slowly brought back the old ones as a crutch to make the transition easier. Dawn is Ash giving himself a chance to love. since he already established Misty as someone he's not likely to go anywhere with, he created a new super female, one that was more like him, and less violent all the time. (One will note that both May and Misty had no tolerance for Brock whatsoever whereas dawn seems to try and shrug it off.) . Tracey, The Breeder was a possible future for Ash that he discarded. It was one that he sent off to work with the Professor (the professors being Ash's ultimate ideal of a father figure) when he disrupted the dynamic Ash had with his other possibilities. Ash's mind is fighting the coma and since Ash viewed this one as a companion he was quickly replaced with a more threatening Rival. Pikachu obviously represents Ash's Humanity, hence the episodes where they get separated, and ash wants desperately to find him, even to the point of working with the rockets ( aspects of himself he woould never normally associate with) but for some reason cannot. They want to steal Pikachu (Ash's humanity) and hand it over to his father, Giovanni. Jesse and James will always oppose ash because ash is terrified of the thought of his humanity lying in the hands of his father. However this is the same reason that he will work with those aspects of himself in order to save his humanity from just becoming flat out LOST. He couldn't evolve his Pikachu without challenging his concept of who he was, something he wasn't comfortable with while he was still working through his original issues. Another thing is the narrator. The narrator is Ash's higher mind, recapping and explaining the progress he's made and the tribulations he will face allowing itself insight into how best to awaken him. Ash has issues With his Father; so he put him atop the evil corporation, and demonized him. There may be an actual team rocket, and I'm positive they're quite dastardly, but I doubt that ash's father is their leader, in fact the head of the rockets wasn't really identified as anyone until later on in the series. The split between ash's parents was likely over ash's homo-blam!-ity and some sort of incident as a catalyst, forcing his father to disown him and his mother to move out of the city and down to pallet town. This is why Giovanni runs the faceless Vile corporation, and Why he Berates Jesse, James, and Meowth as much as he does, and why they keep trying to please him. Another thing to notice is the difference in uniform, The rockets Wear Black and Red, where Team Rocket wears White....a symbol of their purity and naievete. They're willing to please father despite his utter hatred of those parts of Ash .