Video Games – 1

PIKACHU (Pokémon):
The transitional object

Pikachu is the first and preferred of the 151 Pokémon (there will be of them 100 of more in April 2001!). The children must collect them and educate them by developing their “capacities”. Why such a success at the small ones? Initially because Pikachu is a transitional object. According to the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, the baby, taken of anguish when his/her mother goes away, an object (fabric, nonours, etc) clutches which enables him to overcome the traumatism of separation. Then, because, between 7 and 12 years, appear the first desires of collection. They correspond to the need for the child to classify the elements of the outside world to take possession, a means intellectually of it of measuring itself in the world of the adults.

Nintendo, on GameBoy and Nintendo 64.

SACHA (Pokémon):
The mirror of the personality

The saga of Pokémon rests on a character: Sacha, prototype of the overflowing little boy of energy and curiosity, who incarnates the child himself. As in the majority of the video games, Sacha does not speak, which facilitates projection in the character. The more so as, progressively, this one is equipped with qualities of the player.
The goal is to become the largest trainer of Pokémon of the world. Divided into four categories equivalent to the four elements (water, air, fire, ground), Pokémon must deliver engagements. The winner is not inevitably most powerful, but most astute. The confrontation of the natural elements is an universal principle which one finds in the majority of the legends (“the Queen of snows”, of Andersen). Lastly, to become “Pokémon Master” is developing for the children who are the best neither classifies some nor in sport…

Nintendo, on GameBoy and Nintendo 64.