bunnieblast

[bunnieblast]

hey !!! i found you on twitter and i really really love your ideas and characterisations alot but do you ship n and hilbert together? cause iirc hilberts 14-16 and n is 18-20 :[ apologies if this isnt actually the case, thanks if you read and have a nice day kody felidaeng !

this is something i’ve gone over multiple times before, but to summarize, hilbert is 16 and n is 18. this is based on interviews that place n as 20 during bw2 and the anime (which uses many elements of bw2 in regards to team plasma specifically), story writer toshinbu matsuyima stating that hilbert and hilda were designed to be 16, several other sources claiming that hilbert and hilda were supposed to be the oldest pokemon protagonists at the time, and these ages fitting into the story of the game much better than the alternatives (n’s coronation ceremony that seems to take place just before the game begins would be a fitting coming of age ceremony for an 18 year old, 16 being the age that in america [unovas inspiration] is seen as young peoples first steps into being an adult on their own hence becoming a pokemon trainer, bianca and cheren having adult designs and legitimate careers only 2 years later, n being referred to as terms like boy/brat, etc.). n and hilbert (and by extension hilda, but canon leans much more towards hilbert) have an almost comical amount of subtext that begins with n being an inverted mirror of the player character through the story- being team plasmas protagonist, with his own box legendary and design that mimics what you’d expect of a pokemon protagonists. he’s also a deliberate parallel to rival blue, even going as far as to paraphrase a line of dialogue blue says to the johto protagonist, and saying it to the bw2 protagonist, while hilbert is a direct parallel to red. for them to have a significant age gap would be out of place, and does nothing for the story except make several instances in the game itself bizarre and off putting.

additionally, even though it’s possible that in-game canon hilbert MIGHT be 14, the protagonists do not exist as realized characters in the main series, instead being placeholders that the player can make into whatever they want them to be. even pokemon itself does this- serena, who appears to be in her late teens at earliest in her xy design, is 10 in the anime, and has romantic subtext with ash. going off of that information, you’d think that there’d be more upset about it being done…. but there’s not. you are supposed to project whatever ideas you’d would like onto the player character, which is how i’ve been able to build a whole original canon from the basics that the game gave me. this is also why i’m fine with people headcanoning the characters differently, and it’s more than okay to not want to engage with my artwork based on that, just as i personally don’t want to interact with content that portrays n and hilbert with a significant age gap and/or if it’s interpreted as a familial relationship, considering how i view the characters.

tldr; hilbert and n are only 2 years apart in age

[bunnieblast]

this'll hopefully be my last and most conclusive post on the matter re:isshu(/ferriswheel)shipping discourse. please read this before sending me anything regarding the matter:

what masuda said in 2012 is not absolute word of god, or an unchallengeable truth- at least one person involved with bw's story writing has stated that the protagonists were intended to be 16. hilda and hilbert were advertised as being older than any previous protagonists, and n is, according to pash! magazine, 20 in the anime- during the same arc where cherens bw2 role + design is used.

also, pokemon itself isn't afraid to change around characters' ages to better fit their circumstances. anipoke serena, for example, is 10, while her game counterpart appears to be in her late teens. this is to say that while there is a definite, set range for a character's age to be within, ultimately no singular number is going to be universal.

the reason why i personally use 16 over 14 for the bw protag ages has to do with the contents of the actual game first and foremost. all things considered- unova taking inspiration from america where 16 is typically when coming of age occurs, cheren and bianca having adult designs and careers only two years later, and ns role as a narrative foil to the protagonist, 16 is the age that makes the most sense. to add to that, the protagonist and their friends are remarked to be on the cusp of adulthood at least twice in game:

there's also the matter of the protagonist and n's relationship itself. the two are, by all means, meant to both contradict and compliment each other, to act as inverted mirrors. n checks all the boxes for what would usually be considered a protagonist (his design, his narrative as a hero, obtainment of a box legendary- pretty much everything except being playable), and he has physical traits that mirror both hilbert and hilda. most importantly, he is canonically obsessed with the protagonist. he thinks that they are meant to be his counterpart, so much so that he wholly believes that they will be able to awaken the opposite dragon without issue. in bw2, he misses them deeply enough to linger in the place they last saw each other, and comment on how he wonders if they'll meet again, and that he wants to tell them how he feels.

then, on the protagonist's end, they literally drop EVERYTHING, leave behind all their friends and family, to search for n when he leaves. that's the only thing they do that we, the player, have no control over.

finally, although pokemon masters is noncanon material, there is just. so much. alluding to their dynamic leaning towards romantic. the best badge you can earn from their reunion event is "N-describable Love". n has dialogue where he indirectly states that he loves hilbert-

and hilberts well. hilbert

all these things would be INCREDIBLY uncomfortable and inappropriate if the audience was meant to see the two of them as definitively an adult and a minor. a two year max age difference just works the best in this context, and the ages of 16 and 18 have evidence to back them. i understand any apprehension and/or discomfort anyone may have with shipping them, and i'm also not going to tell you that you can't headcanon them with a different dynamic (because thatd defeat the whole purpose of pokemon and its encouragement of creative liberty) but this topic has much, much more to it than a glance at the first google result.

tl;dr : while masuda is a respectable source to draw from, his claim doesn't align with pash!, toshinobu matsumiya, or the marketing surrounding hilbert and hilda during bw's release, neither does it fit the story of bw without causing some very uncomfortable dynamics and scenarios. overall isshushipping/ferriswheelshipping is fine. who cares