Nuzlocke Comics/Headscratchers

• The art. Many of these challenges are shown with terrible art. It's a real turn-off. Only the original challenge seems to have gone through Art Evolution.
  • Well, it started going into Follow the Leader territory a long time ago, the only difference being that he actually hosts all the other comics on his own website. When something good and popular pops up in the internet, there will always be people who only want a piece of the glory without actually doing anything, so there's bound to be crap in there. However, there are some gems that are in no way inferior to the original, namely Hale's, Nyachan's and Robot's comics. Others may count as well, of course YMMV.
  • If it's not Stylistic Suck then you have little reason to be reading them.
  • Basically, Sturgeon's Law applies here same as it does on all our fanfic recommendation pages- yeah, 90% is crap but it's the remaining 10% that's worth dying for.
  • Also, a surprising number of comics experience Art Evolution as the creators get better at drawing and storytelling from all the practice. Some start lousy and incomprehensible and end up much better.
  • Personally, I don't read Nuzlocke comics for the pretty art. These aren't just ordinary strips, after all -- they're based on real people taking a challenge that's pretty much guaranteed to break your heart. Yes, there are bound to be some artists looking for a little glory, but on the whole, it seems callous to call anyone's Nuzlocke comic "crap." Just don't read the ones you don't like.
• Why does Nuzlocke keep saying that "things are happening for a reason?' He keeps saying that and it's going nowhere. Seems like it's there to be cliche.
  • Ruby needs a reason to keep fighting, otherwise the pokemon he lost would've died for no reason other than his own stubbornness. It may a cliche, but it's really the only thing that keeps him continuing the challenge by this point.
  • Among other things, it seems as though Ruby's kind of lost his mind, as Nuzlocke only seems to exist to him. Alternately, Nuzlocke did tell Ruby he was destined to be a hero by defeating the legendaries, so there's another option. Time will tell.
  • Actually - this troper has an alternate theory. The Nuzlocke that sent Ruby to Kanto is actually just a psychic projection of Mewtwo's, dredged up from Ruby's memories and emotions. Mewtwo is using Ruby to destroy the bird legendaries in order to help free him from his imprisonment by Mew in Cerulean Cave. Originally the phrase was just a humorous reference to Lost, but it's since become a sort of running theme of the comic, as well as one of the few things Ruby has to remember Nuzleaf by. Hence, Mewtwo using it to tap into Ruby's memories and give him an emotional reason to do what he's been doing. Or, Ruby could just be crazy.
  • Actually, that makes a ludicrous amount of sense. I'm defecting to your theory now.
    • You know what makes it better? At the end of Episode 28, Nuzlocke, on hearing that Ruby intends to follow his destiny, says "Good, Ruby..." Cut to a shot of two glowing blue eyes, "Very good..."
    • Confirmed.
    • That's... amazingly accurate.
• In the Second Season, Ruby is known as "Red" by pretty much everyone, except Giovanni towards the end. One chapter later, Ruby explains his entire backstory to his Pokemon. I have two problems with this: One, why does everyone just accept this? Ruby's apparently an international laughingstock, and when he removes his Fire Red hat -- his ONLY disguise -- nobody seems to notice. Heck, the second time Gary sees Ruby, he ditched the hat, and he never saw Ruby ditch it, so how does he even "know" he's Red? Second, in the 50th Chapter or so, Saywer asks him if "he's done this before," genuinely surprised. In an early chapter in the same season Ruby shows his Pokemon a list called "Ruby's Rules". Did they just accept that their master was going by a false name the whole time? Did they have no idea that Ruby wasn't Red? And if so, why did they just overlook "Ruby's Rules"?
  • Rather than a serious explanation, may I just remind you: it's Nuzlocke. Rule of Funny. People in the Nuzlocke world aren't particularly bright to begin with. Or we could take the author's explanation that he prefers to draw Ruby the original way as meaning that he actually does wear the hat, but author interpretation shows him without. As for the names... well, rubies are red, so perhaps they consider "Red" to be a nickname.
  • Considering the heaps of fridge logic that already exists in the game-verse which the story is based on - namely the fact that nobody seems to mind that the only hope they have for countering any catastrophic event is a ten-year-old child, and letting said ten-year-old take on the legendaries and Mewtwo - the oversight of Ruby's actual identity doesn't seem too big of a stretch.
• Certain comics try to explain the challenge in-universe, one way being that the Pokemon just die naturally. But certain comics show the characters actively deciding to take on the challenge. Why would anybody want to take on a challenge where their Pokemon actually die, though?
  • For some sense of glory or pride, perhaps? Not really grasping the potential consequences because hey, there's no way the worst could ever happen to them, right?
  • For the same reason why the players themselves undertake a Nuzlocke challenge in Real Life. It tears you apart to lose a teammember, but it makes the journey and the victories that come along the way that much more precious. A lot of those runs also take the above idea of not understanding the full consequences of the challenge at first and include some serious soul-searching midway through the run where they question whether or not to continue on after losing party members. Most of it comes down to Rule of Drama too. If they never chose to take on the challenge, there wouldn't be a story in the first place.
  • I think you've answered you're own question a little bit there. As the above troper says, in most runs, the challengers tend to possess a certain naïveté, either as trainers or with regards to the true meaning of Nuzlocke. This makes sense because, as you say, no wise trainer would take the challenge knowing what it entails. So they take it, for the glory, the lulz, or w/e, without really considering that it could happen to them, and by the time one of their team dies they're too emotionally invested in them to just brush it off and/or quit - they have to make it mean something, there's needs to be a reason, for their friend's sake, and so they're doomed to finish the challenge (hence the slogan).
• I've seen references to the ending of Nyachan's Pearl run all over this site. Problem is, the fan comic page ends with her fighting Aaron. So where are people finding the other pages...?
  • The forums. The fan pages are updated by Nuzlocke himself, who tends to be affected by Schedule Slip. If you go to the actual topic on the fan challenge boards, you can find the end of Nya's run, along with more of Robot's Sapphire and plenty of other things that haven't been updated on the fan comic page.
• The fact that people will do one-species runs, such as zigagoon runs, or anything similar, and people do solo runs, huge example being Karp Omega, and label it as a nuzlocke challenge. A nuzlocke challenge consists of TWO RULES: If a pokemon faints, it is ALWAYS dead. ALWAYS catch the first mon (or new mon in the case of no dupes) in an area. As soon as you remove one of those rules, it shouldn't be considered a nuzlocke run.
  • All of those gimmick runs still include the rule that if a pokemon faints, it is dead for good. The extra challenge of being limited to one pokemon or one type I see as just an extra clause that is added for more difficulty.
    • Yes but solo runs existed before Nuzlocke challenge, if it is taking out one of the two rules "permanent death" and or "catching the first Pokemon you see" (Karp Omega brakes this rule[s]) then it's not nuzlocke challenge, although a zizagoon solo run, if zizagoon was the first Pokemon found and they still follow the permanent death rule is another story, because they're still following the two rules while just adding another "one pokemon limit".
    • See, now it sounds as if you're just complaining about things you don't like...
      • I'm not the OP, and I wasn't complaining, I was just stating what I think it's the difference. Thought I could also simply be wrong.
      • Yup. You are.
      • No, he's right. Adding the one pokemon limit makes the Nuzlocke rules completely arbitrary. It's Nuzlocke in the very loosest sense of the term. Yes it obeys the rules but it another rule supersedes them and makes them useless.
        • And by imposing the rule that saving the game is only to be used for turning the system off, you reinstate the Nuzlocke rules. If your only Pokemon is killed, you, the Trainer, die. You must delete your save file and start over.
  • I'd just like to point out that whilst you're only allowed to catch the first 'mon of each area, you don't HAVE to catch it, you're just allowed to try.
• So why is it that if your Pokemon faints, it's dead and is either released or properly honored in the box, but you can take out your rival's team and they seem to get right back up every time?
  • Some people don't bother to try to explain it in their comics, but others do. First that comes to mind is Wasserbienchen's white run, where Pokemon don't die from battling unless it's declared a death battle, in which case they actually are battling to the death. Another is Ky-Nim's, who has a rare chance of Pokemon dying instead of fainting (and it's just bad luck that the main's team always dies). Really, it's just open to interperation.