10 Best Fan Theories That Totally Change Your Favourite Video Games

You realise that Cloud was drowning Aerith, right?

by Joe Pring
final fantasy VII 7
Square Enix

How boring would life be without a little speculation and theoretical postulating every now and then?

As much as fans love to come up with their own (usually outlandish) theories about the likes of prophetic radio signals and murderous apes (you'll see), those responsible for directing our favourite films, writing our favourite books and making our favourite video games enjoy giving facilitating the opportunities to do just that in the first place.

Many creative minds in film love nothing more than to give their audiences ambiguous endings, letting our imaginations fill in the gaps, and video games are, without a doubt, no different - just look at Dark Souls.

With that said, some of these theories rest very comfortably on the crazy end of the spectrum, so I'll let you judge their feasibility yourself...

10. Pokemon Red & Blue - You Killed Gary's Raticate

pokemon red and blue
Game Freak

The Pokemon series is deceptively dark. Despite being aimed primarily at a younger audience, there's a considerable amount of adult themes underneath its cutesy surface, not that you'd know it.

Thanks to a sprinkling of that child-friendly Nintendo magic, nobody blinks twice at the fact that making a Pokemon 'faint' is essentially a nice way of saying you've beaten your opponent to a bloody pulp.

Well, almost nobody; some fans believe that - in the original games - there's a sinister undertone that suggests you actually killed one of your rival, Gary Oak's, pocket monsters. When you're accosted by the cocky brat aboard the S.S. Anne, one of his team members is a Raticate, but when you next encounter him inside Lavender Town's Pokemon Tower (read: it's basically a graveyard), the overgrown rodent is nowhere to be seen.

For this very reason, fans have theorised that you actually grievously injured Raticate in your previous meeting and, because Gary couldn't reach a Pokemon Center fast enough to heal him, the poor thing died and was put to rest in Lavender.

How does it feel to be a cold-blooded killer?

Contributor
Contributor

Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.