Given the large number of variations on the same stories, there's quite a bit of this within the spinoff comics as well. One of the more common interpretations in runs of the first gen and its remakes is the common Fanon theory of Blue/Gary being Oak's Unfavorite while his grandfather favors the MC appears quite often. Other runs paint him as a flat-out Jerkass, while others split the difference for a Jerkass Woobie.
Another frequent point of variation: how gym leaders and other trainers respond to death on the battlefield. Any given gym leader could be portrayed as a professional who has accepted death as a natural consequence of battle, a friendly foe who's honestly shocked at seeing their opponent's pokemon die, or an utter Jerkass who gloats and rubs the loss in their face.
In almost any Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald run you read, Norman will be interpreted as a trainer who is so obsessed with Pokemon that he neglects spending time with his family.
In the same vein, Archie is seldomly portrayed as anything more than a moron. Maxie has a few moments ("How did I not see water is GOOD?!"), but he is generally shown as more intelligent and having greater thought out motives.
Also in Hoenn runs, Wallace tends to be depicted as Camp Straight and in a relationship with Winnona. This is probably influenced by Pokémon Adventures.
The original challenge did not have "No Legendaries" as a rule (Legendaries weren't caught simply because they weren't the first encounter Nuzlocke ran into in their area), nor was "Blackout/Whiteout = Game Over" part of the original rules. (Ruby ended the way it did probably because the author felt turning the loss against the Champion into a Downer Ending worked well from a story perspective) In fact, "you must nickname all your Pokemon" is generally accepted as part of the core Nuzlocke rules these days, but even that wasn't the case in the original either. The only two rules the first challenge used were stated in the first panel: "Release a Pokemon if it faints" and "Have to catch the first Pokémon on each route and nothing else".
The original comic wasn't called "Nuzlocke" nor did it ever use the term "Nuzlocke" to refer to the challenge. Nuzlocke was the name of a recurring character, but the name of the series was "Ruby: Hard Mode".
Plagued with it to a degree. Despite the random nature of the game and how death can result in some odd teams, a lot of the comic makers tend to make similar choices of starter Pokemon and likely make similar choices on keeping mons if they are able to use them. A Johto locke that picks Chikorita tends up attract intrigue and curiosity since it is a rare occurrence while a Sinnoh locke that picks a Chimchar is regarded as another run-of-the-mill Nuzlocke.
And most people are almost always going to get the bug type, the rodent, the bird, and a Zubat at some point. Just cause of how common they are.
Just Here for Godzilla: Most fans of the Nuzlocke comics are drawn to it because the genre itself gives the Pokemon a voice, subverting or averting Human-Focused Adaptation, making it a rarity among canon and fanon works.
A LOT of Nuzlockers seem to have waifu-time with their favorite Gym Leaders. Or, more recently, with N. Here's actually a few Nuzlockers who shipped rivals with Gym Leaders.
Or, if there's more than one rival (like in Ruby and Sapphire, Diamond and Pearl, Black and White, and X and Y), rivals with each other. Kynim's Diamond Nuzlocke is a noteworthy case of this, as one of the endgame pairings is the two male rivals.
Misaimed Fandom: The Nuzlocke challenge itself qualifies—the creator of Pokemon stated that he wanted the Non-Lethal K.O. system in there partly so that the game doesn't become impossible and partly because he didn't want children to grow up associating death with losing a game. Didn't stop this self-imposed challenge from becoming a thing.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: A pretty normal occurrence in Nuzlocke runs. Due to the rules, players often end up having to use Pokemon they don't normally use, and consequently develop newfound respect and appreciation for them.
"Stop Having Fun" Guys: It is to be expected, given it is part of the Pokémon fandom, albeit rare. There are some who take the challenge rather seriously and will criticize the teambuilding of other players (if they are sharing the progress and results of their challenge) even though one of the premises of the challenge involves adapting to having no choice on what mons you can use outside of ones given as gifts.
Strawman Has a Point: There's something to be said for N's claims — that Pokémon battles are cruel, selfish, and only result in Pokemon being hurt — on a normal playthrough. On a Nuzlocke run, he's pretty much right.
The Woobie: Chances are you will come across a character who has suffered so many hardships, be it the loss of a friend, a crushing defeat, or even personal matters, that you can't help but want to hold them and comfort them.
Broken Base: Episode 8 of White: Hard Mode has been getting this for having Ruby catch Victini, showing the "No Legendaries" rule is not in effect, resulting in either people okay with it (mostly due to the mon's personality) or crying "ruined".
Complete Monster: Mewtwo is a clone of Mew who was tortured by one of his creators and developed an irrational hatred of all of humanity. Murdering another innocent scientist, Mewtwo wrathfully destroys the lab where he was made and is trapped by Mew on a deserted island. When a human washes up on the isle's shores, Mewtwo angrily tries to choke them to death to satiate his bloodlust, and later tries to trick Ruby into killing the legendary birds that keep his power restrained so he can escape. When Ruby nearly wins the tournament, Mewtwo arrives to crush the minds of all present, framing Mew and intending for Ruby to kill him while planning to escape and murder all humans, mocking Ruby all the while.
Growing the Beard: The Ruby run was good, but rough around the edges. The Fire Red run saw a general improvement in the art, dialogue, characterization and plot, and was an even better series.
Harsher in Hindsight: In late Feb 2017, the author's car was broken into and his 3DS and all his Pokémon games were stolen. This meant that that he lost all of his friends in real life whether they lived through the story or not. The only legacy left of them would be the webcomic itself where he already written down the notes for White.
Ruby is by no means a total jerk, and he warms up to any Pokemon he initially hates, but he's often a bit cynical in some chapters. You'd be too if your own father favored a Slakoth over you, you watched several Pokemon die, lost all your remaining teammates against the champion, almost lost everyone against another, were used by an all-powerful legendary who proceeded to kill another party member, and flung three years into the future in the aftermath without the remaining one of your Pokemon, where the cycle starts again via a certain green-haired Pokemon rights activist. Guy's got it rough...
Blastoise also counts to an extent after all the crap he took from Gary despite being a repeated Hero Killer for Meowth and Blamo. As such, his The Dog Bites Back moment feels all the more cathartic.
Moral Event Horizon: Ghetsis is revealed to have crossed it in a flashback in episode 12 when he murdered Ruby's Charizard and then sealed his wife Isis in Relic Castle, killing them because they tried to stop his plans to take over Unova, and admitted that getting rid of Isis made him feel free.
Also in Emerald, Archie is a hippie, and Maxie is highly competent - he just wants to give land-dwellers a place to stay whenever Archie manages to flood the world.
And then there's Tate and Liza... even their Pokemon were freaked out.
In Platinum, Stanley is an abusive boyfriend who tries to keep Shrinking Violet Bern cowed.
The run itself gained a lot of attention from the site as a whole, to the level that they filtered Nuzlocke into Halelocke on the day of the Emerald Run's last update.
Harsher in Hindsight: May was treated as an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain and her threats of murder aren't taken very seriously, even when she kills grandma Winstrait. But then she finally manages to kill Django...
In Hale's comic, Hale tells May that she should kill herself. Guess what she tries to do later on.
Hilarious in Hindsight: This◊ strip has Hale hitting his Slugma and burning his hand as a throwaway gag. Fast-forward to Pokemon Xand Y, and playing with Slugma in Pokemon Amie results in the same thing.
Ship-to-Ship Combat: Of a sort; the fight was between Hale/May and Hale/nobody.
Apocalypse Johto:
Fridge Brilliance: Giovanni is startled when Candace disguised as a Rocket greets him with "Hail Giovanni!", because he's not the leader of Team Rocket any more. She blew her cover.
Moral Event Horizon: Candace breaking and entering into the Olivine Town lighthouse, now a shrine to honor Jasmine who sacrificed herself to allow the rest of the town to survive, by way of Forretress' Mirror Shot to get the badge, considered a sacred object by the survivors, was viewed as this by some people.
Nyachan's Nuzlocke Challenges:
Ship-to-Ship Combat: So much in her Pearl run, between Lily/Gary and Lily/Kess, that she had to threaten to holler at the mods in the opening post of her Sapphire run. Gary won, if you're interested, but Word of God says the author originally intended Lily to end up with Kess before doing a total 180, which was probably the cause of this.
Lyrax's Gold Run:
Moral Event Horizon: Lyrax's Gold run immediately establishes the rival as irredeemable when he steals both of the leftover starters, apparently just so he could tell Lyrax "Don't follow me or I'll kill one of them." He does.
In Azza's Run:
Moral Event Horizon: Charmeleon (and his trainer as well) make it clear they're well over the line when Raticate argues that the murder of innocent Pokemon was completely unnecessary, and demands to be released from the team. They do so, but then Charmeleon claims that since Raticate is now a wild Pokemon, he can do whatever he wants, and very brutally murders Raticate as well.
ShiningAce's Nuzlocke:
Nightmare Fuel: This comic's version of Giovanni is basically a mass-murderer who's proud of it. He gets several terrifying Nightmare Face shots too.
Silver as just a nice guy everyone hates for no reason. He noticed Elm drop a starter's Pokeball and tried to give it back, Elm accused him of stealing, and he fled.
Moral Event Horizon: Kit considers Kyogre killing his Grumpig to be this, even nicknaming the legendary "Murderer"
Baskerville manipulating Fortune into hugging her in frount of Lyra, after finding out Lyra had a crush on him. She's killed off pretty soon after, only expressing remorse for doing this when she's about to die.
Nightmare Fuel: The Black run, due to it being the interpretation of the glitchiness that occurred when the author used cheats to sequence break in the game.
Jet's Black Nuzlocke
Alternate Character Interpretation: While most people like to portray N as a Psychopathic Manchild and play up his innocence, creepiness or creepy innocence, this one portrays him as extremely serious and rational, evidently playing up how seriously he takes his status as Team Plasma's leader. He retains his social awkwardness, though.
Broccoli and Bottles' deaths were as horrifying as they were heartbreaking.
The nightmare Jet has just before her battle with Lenora—if the savage looking Watchog and Herdierseating Firedog, Lilly and Leer don't scare you, than the downright demonic looking version of Lenora looming over them and laughing maniacally will. And then Broccoli and Bottle's ghosts show up...
Other comics:
Nightmare Fuel: The Unnamed Protagonist from Pitch Black is a terrifying, evil, sadistic protagonist. From the beginning it's established that he's NOT a good character, (Considering we see his first activities IMPALING POKEMON ON HIS PICKET FENCE). From then on, any Pokemon he catches he forces to fight and brutally murder his friends and family and sees them nothing more as tools, even going as far as to KILL his own Pokémon, and eventually even humans. Basically, he's an even worse version of Paul. His Oshawott, Icarus, MAY be just as bad—the only difference in their personalities is that Icarus is a /b/tard while the MC is a serial killer.
and his 3DS and all his Pokémon games were stolen. This meant that that he lost all of his friends in real life whether they lived through the story or not. The only legacy left of them would be the webcomic itself where he already written down
