As for why the game's progress is so gripping to so many of us who don't care at all about Pokemon, just consider the depth given to the narrative as it develops. One Pokemon, called Ratatat and nicknamed DigRat, had a morale-crushing effect on the players because his Dig power, when selected in the game's frenetically Anarchist manner, would put them right back at the start of whatever level they were on. They lost a lot of time and retread a lot of ground because of DigRat, yet all attempts to discard him from the team failed. Every non-troll player lamented his inescapable presence. However, eventually the players came to a tower which was filled with Ghost Pokemon, who are immune to most standard attacks. One of the few attacks they weren't immune to? DigRat's Dig. And so the Pokemon they had hated and tried to get rid of wound up carrying the group through that level almost completely by itself, earning the nickname Tower Savior. Tower cleared, of course, DigRat then went right back to being a progress-resetting little bastard until he was finally released into the wild - to the lamentations of many.
That one pixelated grayscale sprite went through more character development over four days of gameplay than many TV shows can manage in four seasons. Every character so far has its own story arc. Twitch Plays Pokemon, much like its titular creatures, has evolved into something much grander than what it started out as. It's gone from a simple group exercise to a wellspring of mythology, narrative, and memes to a battle for the very soul of the internet. Who will win in the end: the earnest players who are honestly trying their best to beat the game, or the sadistic trolls determined to sabotage them at every turn? Can Order spring from Chaos? Can Good defeat Evil? Is this merely Luck versus Fate?
Just the other day, the owner of a rival Twitch channel with a sizable following instructed his fans to troll the game. They succeeded in releasing several beloved Pokemon permanently in a virtual massacre which is now being referred to as Bloody Sunday or Red's Wedding. Other attacks have been attempted and only barely stifled. Bird Jesus escaped expulsion by the breadth of one single command.
The struggle is ongoing. The narrative is still being written, by perhaps more people than have ever before collectively constructed a narrative. Like any good epic tale, it can only be steered, never fully controlled. Yes, at its core it's just a computer game, but it's a computer game we're all playing together. The slow, stumbling, and ethically erratic nature of Anarchy and the more streamlined but also more easily corruptible Democracy are eerily familiar reflections of similar political processes in the real world. The war between people who want to play the game and people who want to destroy it models real-life examples all over the place - those who play fair and those who cheat, those who help and those who torment, those who dare to create and those who can only aspire to tear down. Just like our own existences, we don't yet know if this story we are a part of will end in tragedy, triumph, or a bizarre mixture of both those things. It might not even end at all.
We can only keep playing and keep hoping. All Hail the Helix Fossil.
