YMMV / Twitch Plays Pokémon Red

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• Alas, Poor Scrappy:
  • Flareon. Most of the community considered Flareon to be a symbol of abject evil. However, after his untimely release, a large portion of the community felt sorry for the "False Prophet," often producing fanart to express their sadness. Others feel he was just too good of a villain and was simply killed off too soon. And since Bloody Sunday, the ire has shifted to blaming either Zapdos, or the PC and Bill, who many are beginning to interpret as the true False Prophet of Dome.
  • Despite being considered The Load and an inconvenient Wild Card, many people were incredibly sad that Digrat, a veteran of the stream, met an untimely and unfair fate.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Red is sometimes portrayed as a literal robot obeying the players' commands, with no will of his own. Another common portrayal is that Red is a poor kid constantly tortured by the thousands of voices in his head. When choices are shown to be his free will, he's shown to be an incompetent mess. Red could also be seen as extremely arrogant, thinking himself always in the right and preferring to blame others for his actions when he screws up. Still others think he's just a regular guy who happens to have a severe case of schizophrenia, making his successes more inspirational than anything else. Apparently Red is a Keyblade Wielder.
  • Some fan art depicts the release of Abby and Jay Leno as done by Red himself in a brief moment of sanity, in order to save them from his madness. Yet more fanart depicts Drowzee as a malevolent entity and Eevee/Flareon as one of his victims. Given what happened when he forgot Psychic for Headbutt, this holds some water.
  • Red's arrival at the Pokémon Center after the blackout at Giovanni's battle could be seen as Giovanni giving the poor kid a shred of mercy. Some works even paint Giovanni as Affably Evil, genuinely concerned with Red's mental illness.
  • Flareon is occasionally portrayed as just a victim who only wished to help Red and was unfairly hated upon for the actions of others. After the Bloody Sunday Exodus the portrayal of Flareon as a Woobie and as an actual servant and martyr to the Helix Fossil as opposed to an actual villain, while the mob were All of the Other Reindeer, has seemingly become the majority view on him and the wide consensus is that the mob was wrong to treat Flareon as they did.
  • The Channelers in Pokémon Tower could be interpreted as kids in a similar situation to Red, as they are also possessed by malevolent spirits. Some have even taken to calling them "mob children".
  • Is the PC a pawn of the Dome Fossil or the true villain?
  • The Bird Keepers worship false gods, thinking they are doing the will of Pidgeot and his brethren. It is possible that the Bird Keepers are accidental followers of the Dome Fossil, given that it could likely disguise itself as an adversary of Helix and lead them down a false path of righteousness.
  • At least one person has presented TPP itself as an alternative interpretation for the anime◊.
  • Domeists hold the belief that the Helix Fossil is a deceiver aiming to misguide Red, whereas many followers of the Helix claim that the Dome seeks to bring ruin to everything and is the one behind Flareon. It's complicated, and one has to decide for themselves what is the truth and what is propaganda.
  • Zapdos has been hailed both as the second coming of Bird Jesus and as the anti-Bird Jesus; the latter moreso since Bloody Sunday.
  • There has been speculation that the entire premise of the Let's Play was the result of a Deal with the Devil, with Red gaining the chance to become champion but having to withstand millions of conflicting voices in return. Whether the Devil in question is the Dome Fossil, Missingno, Twitch itself or something else entirely is up for debate.
  • After the chaos that was Bloody Sunday, the mob decided that the PC and Bill were the real villains. Some say that the "Devil" in Red's possible Deal with the Devil was Bill, who they claim put a chip in Red's mind assuring him it would help him on his way to becoming champion.
  • There is a theory that while Old Amber will unite Anarchy and Democracy, it will unite them against it. It in actuality is the god of malicious screwing over, with Destiny as its envoy.
  • Some say that the reason Blue brags so much to Red is because he's able to actually win for once when he's not around. It could just be a facade he puts on to make himself feel like he's not as weak a trainer as he actually is.
  • In an Alternate Event Interpretation, there was some debate (when the game was beaten and Red just stood there motionless for a few minutes) over whether he's finally free and taking a moment to savor it, or whether he collapsed and died of sleep deprivation.
• Annoying Video Game Helper: Good luck enduring Professor Oak's advice...
  Professor Oak: "RED! This isn't the time to use that! RED! This isn't the time to use that! RED! This isn't the time to use that!"
• Archive Panic: The programmer knew that, going in, the process was going to take some time provided that the group didn't collectively Rage Quit. Given how much of the back footage is Red staggering around not doing much, and the game hasn't taken breaks for anyone to sleep, it's possible that no single human being will ever watch the entire playthrough.
• Awesome Music: This remix of the Rocket Hideout BGM, courtesy of Smooth McGroove.
  • The "Genesis" album from the Church of the Helix Choir. Every single song is divine. Special mention to All-Terrain Victory, celebrating the final victory over the Elite 4 and the Rival, and Rise of the Leech King, especially Pigu's 8-Bit Remix, which played at the end of Anniversary Red.
  • If TPP Red ever gets made into an anime, this would be the OP.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Eevee was controversial even before it actually became a member of the party. The reason why is this: in these games, you can get both Eevee and Lapras, both are generally Ensemble Darkhorses and the latter can learn Surf right off the bat. However, there was only one empty slot in the party and coordinating 50,000 people to use the PC to bench one Pokémon would be impossible. To top it off, some of the users realized that if Eevee was picked then they would have to get a Water Stone so that they would have a Pokémon that can learn Surf and that would be impossible because some people wanted Jolteon to hit the swimmers' Pokémon and others wanted it to be released. Eventually, the memes surrounding it got Eevee/Flareon released, as large portions of the users kept insisting on focusing on the computer until it was released... even though it was one of the team's few remotely competent Pokémon.
  • The fact that Digrat is useful half the time (Escaping dungeons and landing in front of the last entered Poké Center) and used at the worst time the other half (See the page) his release caused this reaction.
• Breather Boss: While Bruno is a member of the Elite Four, Red has a much easier time taking him on thanks to a combination of Artificial Stupidity and losing in Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors
• Broken Base:
  • Democracy vs Anarchy. People prefer the former for making it a lot harder to make mistakes and allowing calculated progress, though they have to bear with an incredibly slow pace. Others prefer the latter because of the hectic, hilarious nature of the original stream along with being much faster, but it starts to lose steam when the group takes too long to complete a task. This is enforced due to a tug of war system that determines which is used.
  • The Destiny Incident, named after a Starcraft-based Twitch streamer who tried to hijack the stream with bots. People from Reddit who were following TPP argue whether Destiny was trying to destroy TPP's 'spirit' and for actions to be taken by Twitch against him, or whether his actions were fair with TPP declaring itself a social experiment.
• Crack Ship: Red/Vietnamese Crystal. Like so.◊
  • Red/"..."(Gold) of Pokémon Lost Silver.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Geodude are resistant to and strong against the party's two strongest Pokémon, and are responsible for several black-outs.
  • Due to the huge amount of Normal-type attacks held by most of the party, Gastlys can take out several Pokémon without getting as much as a scratch.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Despite being generally played as the devil, there is a vocal minority of people who believe the Dome Fossil is actually the true savior.
  • Pretty much happened to "False Prophet" Flareon. Originally a cunning villain responsible for the death of Abby and Jay Leno, many have since been portraying him/her as a misunderstood victim. Not a difficult task, considering the popularity and cuteness of the Eevee line.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • In ordinary Pokémon runs, Pidgey (and its evolutions) is usually a starter Pokémon which gets deposited in the PC or plays a secondary role in the team. In this run, it has been elevated to savior status. Kinda helps it also sorta Took a Level in Badass.
  • DUX the Farfetch'd has also been given this treatment. Its combat performance is pretty meh on average, but a few awesome battles, its ability to cut trees and its name have made it quite popular among the fanbase.
  • The Omanyte, Kabuto, and Aerodactyl lines for being hyped as Gods.
• First Installment Wins: Being the first run, TPP Red received the most media coverage. As the premise of "Can 100,000 players all at once complete the game" was viewed as "proven" once they won the game, the subsequent runs didn't receive much news attention and thus had less participation. TPP Red had an average of 50,000 - 70,000 players, while TPP Crystal dropped to 15,000 and subsequent runs have halved each time.
• Goddamned Bats: Even more so for Mt. Moon, Rock Tunnel, Pokémon Tower, and Pokémon Mansion, because Red will never be coordinated enough to buy Repels.
• Harsher in Hindsight: This comic◊, now that Abby is gone.
  • This fanart predating the LP shows Red after killing Blue in a fit of psychosis, with an evil spirit looming over him in the background. This becomes more chilling if you factor the story of this LP in it. Doubly so if you consider the story of the next one, where he seems to have succumbed to Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome:
    Red: I killed him! Just like everyone else!
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • JLVWNNOOOO ("Jay Leno") was released on the same day The Tonight Show got a new host.
  • In the anime, Bill first appeared wearing a Kabuto outfit.
  • There are at least two Pokémon: The Series episodes which are centered around fossils. One was an episode about Dome Fossils (called Shell Shock) which featured an island that was made up of them that was destroyed when they awoke under a blood red moon. Another episode featuring Omanyte (called Fossil Fools), had a scene where Professor Oak was apparently inspired to become a professor after seeing a Helix Fossil at a museum.
  • Giovanni's battle in Twitch Plays Pokémon wasn't the first time in which a Pidgeot (okay, Pidgeotto) took down a Rhydon◊ in grand fashion.
  • Compliments like Giovanni's "I am impressed that you got here." or "Ha! That was a truly intense fight!" and Surge telling Red he is special get a whole new meaning considering this Lets Play.
  • The Japanese name of Sky Attack? God Bird.
  • In Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Pidgeot receives a Mega Evolution. Bird Jesus is truly blessed now.
• Jerkass Woobie: Blue. He's a douchebag but the ass-kickings he keeps getting from Red are harsh. The only time he's won so far was because the mob deliberately lost to heal up a few Mons before they came back and wiped the floor with him again.
  • You have to feel bad for a guy who gets curbstomped so often that even his grandfather favors Red more than him.
• Memetic Badass:
  • After Lord Helix's first battle, it has been claimed as an overpowered tank of death.
  • Bird Jesus for its loyalty to fight to the bitter end as well as sweeping Pokémon with Gust, Quick Attack, and Mirror Move, all of which are weak or require the user to move second.
  • ATV for being the last Pokémon against Lance's Dragonite, using nothing but Disable, Poison Powder, Leech Life, and a quirk of Generation I's AI to bring it to its knees. It has now been christened as "Dragon Slayer".
• Memetic Loser: Blue, in a stark contrast to how his anime and Red/Blue counterparts are usually portrayed.
• Memetic Mutation: See here.
• Mis-blamed: Because Zapdos was caught during the Australian daytime, Australians have received most of the blame for the ensuing serial release of captured Pokémon. This is despite the fact that by the time they reached the PC, it has long since dawned in Europe, and in fact, there's people all around the globe playing the game, at all times.
  • After hours of trying to defeat the Elite Four, the mob switched to Democracy mode to put Zapdos in front during the battle with Lorelei to easily defeat her Pokémon. It wasn't long before they game quickly switched back to Anarchy mode, and Red's Pokémon were dropping like flies due to randomly switching out Pokémon. Anarchy purists were quick to blame Democracy mode, even though Red only began to lose while in Anarchy.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Multiple:
  • Bulbasaur's cry.
  • The Start Menu noise for most of the people that keep entering "Start".
  • Pidgeot's and Omanyte's cries, for many fans.
  • Cinnabar Island's music in Pokémon Red/Blue Versions, the "Low Health" beeping "music" of Red/Blue (quite surprisingly), and Nidoking's "fainting" cry all became this trope the moment that they signified that "Grindhog Day"/"The Great Burglar And Table In Our Way Crisis" (an era where Red was trapped in a two-square wide corridor for about 1.5 hours◊) had finally concluded.
  • The "Pokémon Gym" theme (Red/Blue variant) has never sounded so triumphant; every time it played in Viridian City, it meant that the tiresome ledge obstacle at the front door had been surpassed, indicating that Red was one step closer towards the ultimate Boss Battle with Giovanni.
  • Any time the "Battle! (Gym Leader)" (Red/Blue variant) music plays, it means things are gonna be awesome.
  • After hours of toiling in the various Strength-and-boulder-based puzzles of Victory Road and fleeing from scores of Zubat, Machop, and Geodude, it was quite refreshing to hear the triumphant "Indigo Plateau" theme (Red/Blue variant) upon exiting from the dreary long and winding cave. The theme also signifies that one is near the end-game point, a day which many people thought would not have been reached so soon, in a matter of mere weeks.
• One-Scene Wonder: Whenever the mob encounters Giovanni. Being stuck in his Game Corner got the stream to reach its popularity world-wide and the final battle with him is intense and recommended to watch by in-chat and Reddit regulars.
• Ron the Death Eater: Despite being portrayed as God, some believe it's the Helix Fossil trying to mislead its followers with false promises of glory. Doesn't help that in the sequel, there are depictions of Helix believing that his presence is doing more harm than good and wants to be slain to release everyone from belief in him.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Aside from the divided will of the mob, a lot of fumbling around happened because of the 20 second stream delay, something that not everyone was even aware of.
• Serious Business: Many feel that the people debating about how this game supposedly disproves all social science and proves that democracy is bad (see What Do You Mean, It's Not Political? below) are taking things a little too seriously.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: What a lot of Pro-Anarchy members of the stream accuse Pro-Democracy members of being.
• That One Boss: Giovanni, full stop. Everything about this guy has brought the thousands of players to their knees. From the Rocket hideout and Silph co. fiasco to the Gym battle, where players have spent several hours just trying to get to him. In fact, he even defeated Bird Jesus and Zapdos using Red's own strategy!
  • Lorelei has defeated Red many times, with her Lapras usually being the team's undoing. She spawned her own subreddit as well, Lorelei Defeats Twitch.
  • Agatha has defeated Red more than any other trainer (10 wins).
• That One Level:
  • Kanto's Route 9, home of the infamous ledge.
  • The maze puzzle in Team Rocket HQ. It took so long to beat the maze puzzle that the admin introduced the anarchy/democracy system solely so the entire endeavor wouldn't grind to a halt. Even after Red beat the maze, it still took forever to actually beat Giovanni due to the team inadvertently digging itself out of the dungeon multiple times.
  • Pokémon Tower, due to most of the party (including Pidgeot) being completely helpless against the local Ghost Pokémon.
  • The Safari Zone, because of the step limit, it being a maze, having to pay to get in, and Digrat.
  • Cinnabar Mansion. The players have had a hell of a time coordinating their way through, on top of wild Pokémon that can cause Poisoning effects, and Burns, there was also a point where RED got stuck in a single spot for AN HOUR AND A HALF, thanks to an NPC. There was even a point where they reached the objective and blacked out right before they could grab it!
    • Not to mention that RED needs to activate switches on statues to progress, and the switches RESET every time RED blacks out!
  • The Viridian City Gym. Or more specifically, the ledge under Giovanni's Gym has proven to be a worthy successor of route 9. It has only one tile of space under the door, but a NPC has blocked the left side, forcing the mob to guide red over and to the right side of the building, where a single down command can ruin hours of work. In fact, the mob has to resort to democracy several times just to overcome this obstacle. But the gym itself is quite the obstacle, with the return of the spinning tiles and confusing walls. Red also has the tendency to run out of the door and jump on the ledge, ruining hours of work.
  • The Indigo Plateau. No matter how many times Red challenges the Elite Four, either Lorelei takes him down or the others (except Bruno) do it in her stead. If they can't do it, Blue knocks him out for them while Red's on his last bits of health.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • After being stuck in the Rocket HQ for over 20 hours, the stream host attempted to implement a voting system that would streamline commands more easily. The viewers instantly rebelled by spamming "start9" (which causes them to input Start nine times). The host gave up and changed it back, instead implementing a tug-of-war vote system between democracy and anarchy.
  • Ironically, the new voting system quickly fell under this, as some users believe even the option of democracy and a more stable voting system ruins the fun and the entire point of the stream.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: What started as a mass collaboration curiosity has devolved into discussions about political decision-making, coordination failure and the futility of collaboration in a large society. Examples 1◊ 2.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: An entire set of memes and interpretations of an In-Universe religion with Helix Fossil being a god and Pidgeot being Bird Jesus, rouse up from something as innocuous as Red repeatedly trying to use the Helix Fossil and Pidgeot carrying the team through numerous battles. Good luck spending two minutes watching the channel's chat without someone saying something like "Praise Helix", "For Helix" or "Save us, Bird Jesus". There is also a significant amount of fan art with religious symbolism.
• The Woobie:
  • If you interpret Red as a hapless kid who suddenly starts hearing thousands of voices that tell him what to do, then he unquestionably counts. Oh, and note he's still an eleven year old boy who hasn't even hit puberty yet.
  • Many interpret Flareon as this, for being constantly blamed for the actions of the mob and demonized before being eventually released.
  • Although it's common to feel bad for the starters that you didn't choose at the start of the game, Bulbasaur has been given this treatment.

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GUYS WE STILL NEED TO BEAT MISTY

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