Bloody Sunday in Kanto – This weekend in Twitch Plays Pokemon

Part of the archaic nature of Twitch Plays Pokemon is that anything and everything can and will happen. Abby (Charmeleon), Red’s beloved starter, was released, as was Jay Leno (Rattata) through the fury of the False Prophet Flareon. We weren’t happy about it, but again, that’s part of the archaic nature of the stream.

Things were a little bit different this weekend, though.

Before the bad, let’s recap the good. Somehow, someway, we defeated Sabrina to earn our sixth badge. We obtained the Surf TM in Safari Zone thanks to democracy mode. The two biggest obstacles before Victory Road were completed. We caught Zapdos. The stars were aligning: we had a date with destiny at the Pokemon League. Praise Helix.

Or so we thought. Faster than John Cena’s five moves of doom, our high note was quickly derailed during Bloody Sunday.

A total of twelve Pokemon were released, including Digrat (Raticate), Dux (Farfetch’d, the only Pokemon who knew Cut), and Cabbage (Gloom). It could have been much worse, too: Bird Jesus (Pidgeot) was nearly released. Twice. While in democracy mode.

What gives? Well, this guy did: Steven Bonnell II, aka Destiny of StarCraft II fame. The Twitch streamer sent out an interesting Tweet Sunday morning:

http://t.co/NBzMrh3IWC SPAM A NOW, DEATH TO BRD JESUS

— Steven Bonnell II (@Steven_Bonnell) February 23, 2014

To an outsider, it seemed like someone was trying to sabotage the stream by releasing both the fan favorite and strongest Pokemon. The fact that Bonnell was retweeting various hate messages being sent his way didn’t really do much to change one’s opinion of his intents. A radio interview, however, does.

In summation, it was an experiment within the social experiment that is Twitch Plays Pokemon.

“If we were to kill Bird Jesus, what would the effect of that be?” This was his reasoning according to a radio interview. Regardless of whether you believe him or not (and to be honest, the judgment of his character is not the point of this article) the events that took place on Bloody Sunday shook the Twitch Plays Pokemon community to its core. It also shows how invested everyone is in the efforts. What started as an experiment has not only turned into a phenomenon, but a conscious effort to complete the game.

The stream’s hatred of democracy mode aside, they begrudgingly use it to make progress when needed. Every day, the goal crawls closer and closer to fruition. The journey is still a big part of things, but the result is slowly becoming more and more relevant. Bloody Sunday will be remembered as the day Twitch Plays Pokemon stumbled but found a way to get back up on its feet.

Boy, did they ever get back up on their feet, too. Blaine has been defeated since the first draft of this story was written. Seven badges down, one to go.