Connor Pearce

Rhetorical Theory 7311

Dr. Joyce Locke Carter
April 18th, 2022

Pokemon Black and Blue: Analyzing the Rhetoric of a Persuasive Game

Videogames can be entertaining, captivating, and inspiring forms of digital media. But
they can also be used as a persuasive tool to bring light to problems in the real world. How can a
videogame successfully accomplish this, and what considerations must be made to effectively
utilize a game to inform an audience about a specific topic?
In this paper, I want to examine the problems and pitfalls with the rhetorical argument
being made within Pokémon Black and Blue, a browser-based parody of the Nintendo DS game
Pokémon Black and White, released to correspond with the release of Pokemon Black and White
2 in 2012. This game was created by This Is Pop, an independent game design studio based out
of New York City for PETA, an organization known for their shocking publicity stunts which
aim to bring attention to animal cruelty issues. By analyzing the game and online landing page
through the rhetorical lenses of Perelman’s Theory of Argumentation, Ian Bogost’s concept of
Procedural Rhetoric, as well as ideas from public thinker Kenneth Burke, I will critically
examine the argument (or, perhaps, lack thereof) presented to the player, considering both the
content and context of textual and visual elements of the information presented, and whether the
game achieves the desired outcome it seeks. Furthermore, I will address how a game can
successfully make a rhetorical argument, and what considerations should be addressed when
designing a game with a social message. Many games have attempted to portray serious issues
and provide an interactive rhetorical argument; whether they are successful or not is subjective to
the player, however argumentation has a methodology that provides a framework for
determining a given argument’s success.

Intro / Background Information

Pokemon is a video game series first created in the 1990s. The series was created by
Satoshi Tajiri, a man whose love of catching insects in rural Japan as a child inspired him to
create the creature-collecting video game after seeing his hometown become more industrialized
and urban. The game received accolades from several publications and word-of-mouth instantly
created the conditions for a cultural phenomenon. There was a burst of initial domestic fanfare
before Pokemon became a ubiquitous household name worldwide. A multi-million-dollar
marketing push in the United States (Gotta Catch ‘Em All!) cemented Pokémon’s presence in the
collective consciousness preceding the internet age, and it has gone on to become the highest
grossing media franchise internationally.
The premise of Pokemon is simple; the player starts off on a journey to catalog and
research Pokemon for a scientific researcher by catching them within Pokéballs and storing
observational data within a Pokédex, a pocket-sized computer that records information to help
better the understanding of evolutionary traits of Pokemon and how they relate to the human
world. While cataloging the critters, you catch and raise Pokemon, battling them with other
trainers to become strong enough to fight gym leaders (proven trainers that serve as goal posts
in-game) in the Pokemon League, with the main objective being to become the champion after
beating 8 gyms and the Elite Four (the ultimate test of a Pokemon trainer). Within the Pokemon
world, there are organized crime syndicates who wish to harness the power of Pokemon towards
evil ends, and you, a 10-year-old child, end up taking them on vigilante-style, returning stolen
and abused Pokemon to their rightful trainers and habitats.

Pokémon has permeated global pop culture in a multitude of ways; the Catholic Church
has their own version of Pokémon Go (Martin, 2018), scientists have named a part of the human
eye after Pikachu (no introduction needed), and the monsters appear yearly in the Macy’s
Thanksgiving Day parade; you would be hard-pressed to find someone who is unaware of what
Pokémon is. ( List of References to Pokémon in Popular Culture - Bulbapedia, the Community-
Driven Pokémon Encyclopedia n.d.) Because of its popularity, this has led the series to come
under a fair share of criticisms from many different watchdog organizations scrutinizing the
content of the games and accusing the Pokémon Company of glorifying or condoning activities
like animal fighting and gambling. Additionally, they have been criticized for promoting the
theory of evolution in their games, movies, and TV shows.
One such organization that has been critical of Pokémon, PETA (an acronym for People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), went to great lengths to criticize The Pokémon Company
for allegations of promoting animal fighting in their games. To coincide with the release of
Pokemon Black and White 2 in 2012, PETA released a parody of the game titled Pokemon Black
and Blue (as in, beaten “black and blue”). In their game, Pokemon: Black and Blue, Pokemon
Black and White is satirized in a web-based browser game that emulates the battle mechanics of
the source material but turns the traditional Pokémon formula into a game where the Pokémon
escapes from their trainer and engages in liberatory and retaliatory violence towards their
captors, the researchers and Pokemon trainers.

Argumentation Theory

When viewed objectively, it appears PETA might have some type of grounding for their
argument presented in-game; Pokémon are, after all, animals that fight each other, and are
commanded to do so by their human trainers. At the surface, PETA has taken the bare facts of
what most people know about Pokémon and have constructed an argument in the form of a game
that portrays Pokémon as being abused, captured, and forced to engage in violent combat against
their will. This brings us to the question, what is the motivation for arguing this? Is there any
demonstrable harm that Pokémon has caused to the real-world in terms of influencing people to
see animals as disposable and subordinate creatures only used for the purpose of fighting for
human entertainment?

When viewed through the lens of Chaim Perelman’s Theory of Argumentation, the
surface-level argument quickly starts to lose its strength. According to the key ideas of
argumentation presented in The New Rhetoric, all arguments must begin from a place of
agreement in the audience. In his book The New Rhetoric, Perelman outlines the purpose of
dialectical discourse, or a dialog between interlocutors (in this case, the authors of the game,
PETA, and the audience) with the intent of convincing the other party their point of view through
methodical argumentation.

“The point of a dialectical discourse is to convince the audience. To that end the speaker (or
writer) must adapt himself to his audience. To persuade, he must start from premises accepted by

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his listeners (or readers). If he does not and assumes erroneously that the audience agrees with
his premise, his argument is a faulty one, known as petitio principii “(Perelman 1973)

In the case of Pokemon Black and Blue, the game presents no facts or presumptions to ground
the argument in universality; in other words, there is no real dialectical argument being made
here. The information (that Pokemon promotes animal fighting, and thus the overall
mistreatment of animals in all contexts) is presented as an unarguable matter of fact. The target
audience of this campaign, which is unclear, is presented with no acknowledgment to an
alternate truth that exists about the nature and intent of the Pokemon franchise. Were they to do
this, it would strengthen their argument by acknowledging what the audience knows about
Pokémon. Pokémon has a well-established fanbase that knows that there are moral and ethical
arguments being made within the Pokemon games themselves, so the entire effort of trying to
convince Pokemon fans that the games promote animal cruelty is a faulty one, and the vast
majority of parents don’t view Pokemon as something harmful to subject their children to.
With all of this considered, who is the intended audience for this campaign? It can be
inferred that it is not actual Pokemon fans themselves, but people who may be unfamiliar with
the franchise and the core aspects of the story and world; at least, that is what logical thinking
would have you assume. The visual and textual elements clearly attempt to appeal to people
already familiar with the franchise and does nothing to really explore and critically analyze the
ethical themes touched on within the source material. The narrative of Pokemon Black and
White explicitly addresses the concerns being raised by PETA, which makes it more ironic that
PETA would choose this game to parody. In other instances, PETA has been more successful in
drawing attention to real-world issues using its shock strategies but using a media franchise as a
springboard to make outlandish claims does not often provide the desired effect.
The website the game hosted on has a landing page that accuses Pokemon of promoting
animal cruelty but does not use evidence-based argumentation to present this information. There
are some interesting rhetorical techniques used in the textual framing of the game; PETA
positions itself as a bastion of morality, as the definitive authority for animal rights advocacy, to
the point of referring to and hypothetically inserting itself into the canon universe of Pokemon.
The way PETA refers to itself only presents an infallible image of itself that creates a disconnect
with the audience. The game and misinformation campaign being presented antagonizes both the
Pokemon company and fans of the Pokemon series and insists that these games promote values
that are somehow intrinsically linked to animal cruelty. In lieu of presenting both sides of an
argument, there is only one claim being presented. At one point in the game, a link to a video
showing graphic footage of animal cruelty is presented to the player to draw a correlation
between the violence seen in the game and in the real world. This is jarring and does not fit with
the rest of the visual and textual elements presented, revealing that the entire campaign is just a
cheap ploy to drive visibility for PETA.
For an argument to be successful, in any form of media, there must be a logical structure
to how the information is presented, as well as what exactly is being communicated to the
audience.

“When we formalize an informal argument, we must eliminate ambiguities, define terms and
state assumptions based on that which we consider relevant and reasonable. (Perelman 1973)

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Connor Pearce
Rhetorical Theory 7311
Dr. Joyce Locke Carter
April 18th, 2022

The game on its own cannot be seen as a formal argument, but the text on the landing
page does attempt to eliminate any ambiguities in how the message of the game is supposed to
be interpreted. This is perhaps the only aspect of rhetorical methodology that the argument
adheres to, and it doubles down at every step. Taking all of the game’s presentation into
consideration, we can see that several damning claims are made against the Pokemon series that
attempts to paint it as an unethical form of propaganda engineered to influence people into
ignoring the plight of abused animals in factory farming and animal fighting. They explicitly
relate capturing Pokemon in Pokéballs, a device used to tame wild Pokemon, to circus elephants
being held captive for entertainment purposes in text; there is no mistaking their intent on
directly correlating real-world suffrage of animals to the Pokemon world.
The Game
The game, once started, launches straight into a Pokémon battle (a basic mechanic
recognizable for fans of the game) with no other narrative context for the player. Other than
taking the basic game mechanics of Pokémon and subverting them (Pokémon fights trainer as
opposed to the Pokémon fighting other Pokémon) for the sake of immediately arguing the stance
that Pokémon promotes animal cruelty, there is no analysis presented from the source material to
fortify this declaration. Because the game doesn’t present a cohesive argument, it forces the
audience to adhere to a truth it has constructed without any real evidence or context.
Interestingly, the developers behind making this game seem to have a sense of humor about this,
and almost seem to place meta-commentary within the game to acknowledge the absurdity of the
“argument” presented.

Team Plasma

A Key part of understanding the weak argument being presented by PETA is

understanding the role that Team Plasma (the organized crime syndicate in the game) plays
within the narrative of the Pokemon Black and White canon story. On the landing page, a
battered and beaten Pikachu is shown holding a sign proclaiming their support for Team Plasma.
Within the narrative of the game, there are clearly defined differences between the kids who
become Pokemon trainers and those who wish to harm and do evil with the power of Pokemon.
In Pokemon Black and White, the organized crime syndicate Team Plasma recruits trainers into
their ranks by utilizing rhetoric not so different from the rhetoric that is being presented by
PETA in this real-world campaign. They use the same surface-level arguments to manipulate
trainers into joining their organization under the guise of morality, Pokemon liberation, and the
promise of a new world; this, however, unravels when the story of the game is beaten and the
evil intentions of the organization are brought to light (the leader of the organization has an
unquenchable lust for power that causes him to manipulate others into doing his bidding, and he
planned to consolidate the power seized from “liberated Pokemon” to rule over all of humanity
and existence).

Now, why would PETA want to align itself with a fictional manipulative organization
whose figurehead and leader only wants power? Presenting this game to persuade people to see
the Pokemon franchise as a form of propaganda is not effective and posits a false equivalency to
real-world animal mistreatment and fighting in a manner that might make people take the very
real issue less seriously.

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(Pokémon Black and White Parody Game: Pokémon Black and Blue | PETA.Org n.d.)

Why Pokemon?

Pokémon’s behemoth presence in the media landscape makes it an easy target for parody
and provides a common reference point for audiences to identify with. PETA knows this, and
they have taken advantage of the game’s large reach in order to piggyback off its popularity and
disseminate their organization’s message. They have done this many times before, with other ad
campaigns, intellectual properties, and even activism at public events. But who is PETA’s target
audience with this game?
It can be inferred from their strategy of releasing this game to coincide with the release of
the actual game that the parody is aimed towards Pokémon fans, or perhaps parents of children
who enjoy Pokémon games. Is the goal of utilizing this rhetorical strategy to disrupt sales of the
game? Is it to bring awareness to animal rights issues? Or is it to draw attention to the
organization itself? Because the game doesn’t have a clear-cut target audience, it fails to achieve
its goal of bringing awareness to animal rights issues, and instead becomes a publicity tool by
causing controversy within all of the communities it interweaves.
Animal rights advocacy is an important cause and people claiming to care about the cause
should treat the subject with dignity and respect. Pokemon Black and Blue not only fails to treat
the subject of animal cruelty with dignity, but falsely accuses a company of promoting the
antithesis of PETA’s mission. By positioning itself as the protagonist in this fabricated moral
conquest against Pokémon, PETA undermines the purpose of their own organization, and
negatively affects the perception of animal rights activism.

Procedural Rhetoric

Ian Bogost’s idea of Procedural Rhetoric is a theory of rhetoric that presents a case for
videogame’s having a unique set of considerations when examining the rhetorical arguments that

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are presented in video games as an interactive media. On his website, he describes the role of
procedural rhetoric in videogames:

“Not only can videogames support existing social and cultural positions, but they can also
disrupt and change those positions, leading to potentially significant long-term social change. (
1)

Procedural rhetoric, in a nutshell, looks at how the rules and actions taking place inside of
a game can be transferred inferentially to the real world.
From this definition of Procedural rhetoric, we can infer that PETA is trying to utilize this
strategy regardless of if they are aware of this academic concept outlining the fundamental
aspects of it. Despite their attempt to use aspects of procedural rhetoric to make a case against
animal cruelty, I will argue that PETA is not successful in achieving the goals of this approach,
and in fact undermines itself by revealing too many of their cards to the audience. The game
mechanics presented, ripped directly from the source material, only serve as a celebration of
those tried-and-true mechanics from the original game; the actions and processes within the
game only serve to parody and offend the player’s actions. Throwing in a video of factory-
farming footage in a non-sequitur fashion does nothing to contribute to the rhetorical argument,
and only further highlights the inconsistencies within the argument presented.

Kenneth Burke: Identification and Consubstantiality

Kenneth Burke, a public thinker and major influence on rhetoric as a school of thought
and practice, contends that in order to persuade, the author must attempt to identify with the
audience. (Burke, 1969) This is the concept of identification, which aims to bring a common
point of agreement to the author and target audience; this is in turn becomes a fundamental
principle of social cohesion, the idea of unity and integrity amongst a social group.
Consubstantiality, another important idea Burke contributed to the field of rhetoric, contends that
people are drawn to things that they can identify with, and therefore we as social creatures seek
to align ourselves with things that affirm our perceptions, becoming “of the same substance”.
When thinking about these two ideas in the context of the rhetorical approach PETA
makes with Pokemon Black and Blue, it can be inferred that they are not attempting to create a
sense of commonality surrounding animal rights advocacy and are mainly drawing in fans of
Pokémon with this campaign. Through the lens of identification, the logic surrounding using a
Pokémon game does not align with a central point of focus in PETA’s organization; the imagery
and textual appeals being used can only truly be understood by members of the Pokémon
fandom.
The creators of the page and game are fans of Pokemon and have played through the
game and understand key parts of its narrative, utilizing its elements and re-appropriating them
to attempt to establish a connection between them and problems facing our world. The old saying
that “plagiarism is the highest form of flattery” is applicable here; parody may not be the most
effective approach when attempting to persuade an audience with a game.
As strange and seemingly ineffective as this rhetorical approach is, an analogous situation
exists in the rhetorical approach from another organization, the Westboro Baptist Church (who
also relies on shock tactics and outlandish claims for publicity and attention). This hate group
parodied a Lady Gaga song (and has parodied many other pop songs) to disseminate their view

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that “God Hates Fags”, or that LGBTQ people are detested by a divine creator and are
responsible for calamitous events. It is clear by their performance of the song, which includes a
rendition comprising of the same musical elements and unique choreography as the original, that
the members of the organization performing the song are fans of the media they are parodying,
and thus it reduces itself to spectacle lacking any convincing message. By utilizing all the
elements that made the source material successful, it renders the persuasive argument that “God
Hates Fags” to a mere publicity stunt designed to cause controversy and alienating the intended
audience (everyone?) in the process. Even more conservative politicians who don’t wish to
afford LGBTQ people rights distance themselves from the extremist views that they push, which
I think is very similar to how more serious animal advocacy groups and policy makers distance
themselves from the scare tactics that PETA often employs.

Other Considerations

When media franchises become multi-national, they must carefully evaluate how the
media will be widely interpreted by a global audience and go through processes of localizing text
and other aspects of the media to fit within the cultural context of where it is being distributed.
Pokemon games have extensive localization processes that adjust textual and visual elements of
the game to better accommodate to regional audiences; PETA has only done this for an
American audience, and clearly utilizes a rhetorical strategy catered towards them.
Interestingly, PETA has made other games that attempt to use an already-established
intellectual property in order to propel their message of the ethical treatment of animals. Super
Tofu Boy offers a condemning yet playful spin on the platformer Super Meat Boy, however it is
still laden with allegations of promoting animal cruelty. (It doesn’t). It seems that a large part of
PETA’s rhetorical strategy is to use the attention that other brands and organizations are getting
to then insert themselves into the public dialog by riding off that sudden influx of attention the
respective property is receiving in correlation to a release or event.
Despite this most of the time backfiring, there have been instances where PETA’s
haphazard approach to garnering attention has worked. Their campaign against the inhumane
treatment of whales at SeaWorld caused the company to lose money and reframe their branding
and practices during the wake of the revelations shown in the documentary Blackfish.
SeaWorld’s PR campaign in response to this documentary backfired when their attempt to
address the documentary’s allegations served as prime fodder for PETA to appropriate and
parody them and expose their inhumane practices at an even larger scale.
Some scholars describe this appropriation of PETA’s response as a win for the
organization, ultimately costing SeaWorld lots of money and forcing them to change practices.

“PETA again used the corporation’s strategies against it, mocking its words, music
choice, images, and claims, encouraging viewers to not only question the validity of the
company’s arguments, but to laugh at its attempts to explain itself. (Stokes, 2018)

This rhetorical strategy (unlike the strategy used in Pokemon Black and Blue) actually
had a tangible impact on support for legislation in California and had a positive effect on the
ethical treatment of whales in captivity. From this, it can be inferred that sometimes PETA is
able to change things with their rhetorical approach of parodying a brand or company. That being
said, this stunt mainly just comes off as opportunistic, taking advantage of the vacuum of

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criticism that SeaWorld was already receiving thanks to the public response of the documentary
Blackfish. It does, however, serve as an example of when their publicity campaigns work out in
favor of the animals involved.

Successful Persuasive Games

Looking at PETA’s rhetorical strategy used in one of their parody games, we have come
to see the reasons that their approach with this game was not an effective one. This is Pop, the
company designing the games on behalf of PETA, does not specialize in creating games with the
purpose to persuade. They do a good job of making aesthetically pleasing games, and have an
impressive clientele list, but based on a thorough analysis of many of their titles designed for
PETA, they don’t do a great job making a convincing argument with any of them. This is
perhaps because they themselves know that there is no real argument to be made pertaining to
these intellectual properties, and they are probably fans of them themselves. What can a game do
to ensure that it is making an effective argument, and what considerations must be made in order
to apply a methodology that connects people to a real-world issue or idea?
For a game to be an effective rhetorical tool, one must have the credibility and proven
praxis necessary for being up to such a task. Interestingly, a prime example of a company that
does this is a company that Ian Bogost (the guy who coined the term Procedural Rhetoric) is
associated with. Persuasive Games, INC., is a company that specializes in creating rhetorically
persuasive games, and has designed games for political campaigns, social issues, and even
animal rights advocacy. (Bogost, n.d.)
In fact, a particular game called CNN Planet in Peril: Animal Rescue manages to tackle
animal rights issues within the context and constraints of an audience that might better receive
the message. The company was profiled during a segment on CNN. Because this game and
associated website has a more focused approach to addressing animal rights issues, doesn’t use
an already established intellectual property, and doesn’t rely on shock imagery to deliver its
message, it can be inferred that Persuasive Games is taking a much more effective approach to
getting people to understand the urgency of animal rights advocacy. Moreover, the game
elements pertain to a real-world issue, as opposed to trying to create a correlation between a
fictional world and the real world.
Some may argue that PETA has much more reach and brand recognition and therefore
are more rhetorically successful in spreading their message; but because of their neglect to
address audience in their rhetorical strategy, and because so many are put-off of their message
because of the publicity stunts they use, I will argue that they are causing more harm than good
to their cause.

Conclusion

Pokemon Black and Blue, while treasured for its hilarious absurdity and novelty, does not
effectively persuade people into understanding the plight of animal rights advocacy. It is a
disjointed effort of divisive appeals relying on the popularity of Pokemon, a franchise that
already addresses the topic of mistreatment of Pokemon (animals) within its own fictional
universe. Moreover, it is designed by a company that does not exclusively make games
specifically made to persuade, and therefore the end-result comes off as an amateurish effort to
frame a wildly popular (and ethical, for the most part) franchise as animal cruelty propaganda for

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children. Successful persuasive games more often don’t parody other franchises with outlandish
claims about the source material and are instead successful because they tackle a real-world issue
with facts and evidence-based practice. Some rhetors might argue that PETA may be more
successful in garnering attention with their shock-based tactics, but more attention and publicity
for their organization does not always equate to more publicity and attention to animal
mistreatment, and often has the opposite of the intended effect. Through the consideration of all
aspects of the rhetorical triangle, ethos, pathos, and logos, those same fundamental principles of
rhetoric exist even in a modern context with videogame as the medium in focus. By
understanding the audience, the power of emotions, and the credibility of claims being argued,
persuasive games can be an invaluable tool in engaging people with important topics relevant to
our world. Pokemon Black and Blue fails the litmus test for effective rhetorical practice and can
therefore be seen as an example of how not to use Procedural Rhetoric when designing a
persuasive game. It is important to have examples of how not to do things, just as much as it is
important to have prime examples of how to do them. I hope that one day, videogames are more
ethically utilized for rhetorical purposes. Although PETA probably has people who genuinely
care about animal welfare within their company, the ends that they use to achieve the publicity
that they require to continue functioning is often disconnected from the organization’s purpose. It
is reassuring that scholars like Ian Bogost understand the power of videogames as a media, and
how literacy within video games is becoming increasingly more important as we are at the
precipice of a purported “metaverse”. Rhetoric has continued to evolve with the rapidly changing
way we interact with media, and I believe that it certainly has a place in all modern contexts;
there are so many new considerations arising with all of the technological advancements our
society, and understanding games as a new form of literacy will be increasingly more important
in the years ahead.

References

Burke, Kenneth (1969). A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of
California Press. ISBN 0-520-01546-0.

Martin, G. (2018, October 24). New app called “Follow Jesus Christ Go!” sees players hunt
down SAINTS instead of Pokemon | Daily Mail Online. Mail Online; Daily Mail.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6312019/New-app-called-Follow-Jesus-Christ-sees-
players-hunt-SAINTS-instead-Pokemon.html

Perelman, C., & Olbrechts-Tyteca, L. (1973). The New Rhetoric (pp. 146–148). University of
Notre Dame Pess.

Persuasive Games | Ian Bogost. (n.d.). Bogost.Com. Retrieved January 2, 2022, from
http://bogost.com/books/persuasive_games/

Pokémon Black and White Parody Game: Pokémon Black and Blue | PETA.org. (n.d.). Play
PETA’s Original and Parody Games Here | PETA. Retrieved April 18, 2022, from
https://games.peta.org/pokemon-black-and-white-parody/

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Stokes, A. Q., Atkins-Sayre, W. (2018). PETA, Rhetorical Fracture, and the Power of Digital
Activism. Public Relations Inquiry, 7(2), 149-170.
Available at: https://aquila.usm.edu/fac_pubs/15141

List of references to Pokémon in popular culture - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon

encyclopedia. (n.d.). Bulbapedia, the Community-Driven Pokémon Encyclopedia. Retrieved
April 03, 2022, from
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_references_to_Pokémon_in_popular_culture#Re
al_life

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