Hell is Real in ‘Detective Pikachu’

While the news cycle is dominated by tidbits coming out of visits to the Detective Pikachu set, I am still enthralled by a goofy throwaway line in the last Detective Pikachu movie and its implications on the greater Pokemon world. Everyone got a hoot when Detective Pikachu, the cuddly-looking lead character voiced by Ryan Reynolds, cursed and begged his human partner to “get him the hell out of here.” It was seen as a reminder that this is a much more mature take on the Pokemon franchise and that this is definitely not a G-Rated movie. (Detective Pikachu was ultimately given a PG rating.) However, for me, it was one of the first signs in the Pokemon franchise of a belief in hell…and by extension proof that some sort of organized religion exists in the Pokemon world.

Let’s be clear – the metaphysics of Pokemon has always been a bit weird. The Pokemon franchise established in Pokemon Red and Blue that Ghost-type Pokemon may or may not be the souls of REAL PEOPLE doomed to battle living Pokemon by some cruel twist of cosmic fate. However, the Pokemon franchise never really touched religion, outside of a few offhand mentions. There are a few shrines seen in the Pokemon world (most notably in the Johto region) that are based off of real life Buddhist or Shinto temples and shrines, and that some Legendary Pokemon were worshipped as gods in the past. There’s also a church (known as the Foreign Culture Building) in Hearthome City in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl and a Sage trainer class that seems inspired by Buddhist monks, but religion isn’t really discussed in the Pokemon franchise…because it’s a franchise made for children.

That’s why the use of “Hell” – a curse that traditionally refers to the Christian afterlife – is so surprising. Pikachu using “hell” isn’t necessarily a sign that Christianity exists in the Pokemon universe, but it’s almost definitely a sign that some religion in the Pokemon universe believes in a form of the afterlife where the wicked is punished. The English word “hell” is derived from Hel, the Norse goddess of death and the primary villain in Thor: Ragnarok. When Christianity spread into Norse and Germanic languages, people used the word Hel (which also referred to the region which Hel ruled, which was also a place of eternal torment for the undead) to describe Gehenna, the Judeo-Christian equivalent location for eternal damnation.

So, thanks to Detective Pikachu, we now know that at some point someone believed in the Norse god Hel and that she ruled over a region where the evil people died. That brings up a lot of interesting questions. Did the Norse Gods have Pokemon? Did Thor have two Gogoat and did he battle a World Seviper during Raganrok? And if Christianity adopted the word Hell to describe its own form of eternal damnation, does that mean that Jesus Christ and the Apostles had their own Pokemon? And how does Arceus, the Pokemon literally responsible for the creation of the universe factor into all of this? Is Arceus God’s Pokemon? Or is Arceus just a form of God, which makes Jesus Christ the son of Arceus? There is a lot of weird Pokemon religious philosophy that we suddenly have to consider thanks to Detective Pikachu dropping the H-bomb.

We might all laugh about Pikachu cursing in Detective Pikachu, but now we have to consider a world where Pokemon might be doomed to eternal suffering for willingly following wicked trainers. The Pokemon universe establishes that Pokemon have souls and free will, so we have to take into account that there are probably religions in the Pokemon universe that think that the cosmic forces at work also weigh a Pokemon’s actions. All of those Team Rocket Pokemon you beat up in Pokemon Red and Blue could easily be Koffing in fire and brimstone for wickedly going along with their Pokemon trainer’s plans. These aren’t just animals, and we know (thanks to the Pokemon anime) that Pokemon don’t live forever.

So, the next time you giggle about Pikachu using a naughty word, we hope that you then have the grim realization that Pikachu is referring to a hypothetical place where people AND Pokemon go when they don’t live good lives…unless those people/Pokemon get turned into Ghost-type Pokemon first.

Detective Pikachu comes out on May 10th.