Pokemon Legends: Arceus sends players back in time to ancient Sinnoh, back when humans saw Pokemon more like monsters than pals. Pokeballs are made of wood, people live in villages instead of towns, and there are clans. Pokemon Legends: Arceus, like most Pokemon titles, keeps the story simple and the goal is to complete the Pokedex. However, one of the games' biggest surprises was a familiar face to be in the Hisui region, and he was not an ancestor.
The surprise was Ingo, one of the leaders of the Battle Subway from Unova. It turned out that the player was not the only character to randomly be thrown into the past. However, he was less lucky than the protagonist and his memories of Unova are mostly gone. While Arceus appears to have taken the protagonist to the past for a reason, Ingo's displacement in time is a mystery that goes unsolved. To make matters even more interesting and unsettling, he is not the first character in a Pokemon game to have this happen.
Pokemon Characters Displaced In Time And Space
The Pokemon games have a subtle history of NPCs being subjected to amnesia after traveling through time and space for reasons unknown. Ingo is just the most recent and most noticed of a couple of times this has happened in the games. One such character is Anabel, who originally was a Tower Tycoon of the Battle Tower in Hoenn. Skipping ahead many generations, she is seen again in Alola with amnesia. She was found unconscious on Poni island and joined the International Police. According to the story, she got lost in a wormhole and that is how she teleported and lost her memories.
Another such character is Looker, who has appeared in many games and works with the International Police to investigate villain teams. He is a traveler, seen in Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos, and Alola. However, his appearance in Hoenn is unusual. He can be found in the Battle Resort suffering from amnesia after being found washed up on the shore. How or why he has amnesia and is in the Hoenn region is never explained. Spin-off game series such as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon also bestow amnesia on the protagonists as they are not only hurled through space and time but also get transformed into Pokemon as well.
A Bigger Mystery Than Just Pokemon Legends: Arceus?
Since Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, it has become canon that multiple universes exist. Due to this, it is possible a lot of the games do not necessarily exist in the same universe. What could be time or space travel could actually be both. How these happen appears to be all because of a very powerful Pokemon. Arceus brought the protagonist to Hisui, so it is likely that Arceus decided to bring Ingo to the region as well for some reason. Other legendary Pokemon like Celebi can certainly throw a human across time and others like Giratina and Palkia could put them through space.
The unsettling implication is that any human is at the mercy of powerful Pokemon who can change their identities and lives in an instant. It would be less unsettling if everyone was assigned a reason to be displaced in space and time, but if they are not a protagonist, then the purpose of it all is pretty unknown. If Ingo never got to Hisui, someone else would likely be Warden, and perhaps Arceus saw that as a danger, so it brought over Ingo. That is purely a guess by fans, though, with little evidence to support that theory.
There is also no evidence of characters ever coming back from these instances, and this is especially true considering the games may not necessarily be linear or even in the same universe. Characters who are displaced are there to stay, for better or worse. At least with their amnesia, staying can feel easier. Luckily, the people and Pokemon are typically welcoming to outsiders, no matter what region or time characters get transported to.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus is available now on Switch.