Some of you may already know what I'm talking about. For those who don't, I'll summarize. Early in Pokemon Red / Blue / Yellow / FireRed / LeafGreen, Gary gets himself a Rattata. You fight it... twice, I think? That Rattata then evolves into a Raticate, and you fight it one last time on the SS Anne. Then, during every subsequent battle, the Raticate is nowhere to be found. You never see it again. The same can't be said for the rest of Gary's team. What's more, the next time you battle Gary after its disappearance is in a pokemon graveyard. The question is, then, this: Do you think his Raticate died? Did you kill Gary's Raticate, you murderer?
I guess it died after all. I mean, it's known that Pokemon do die... And I don't see any other explanation. Maybe he let it go.
It did die. You see Gary at one point in the Lavender Town graveyard, I'm not sure if you battle him at that point or if it was that one time he didn't feel like battling, but he definitely had a reason to be there. I don't think Red killed it, though. Gary's whole character was centered around him pushing his Pokemon too hard to be the best. Clearly he pushed his Raticate farther than it could go.
You do fight him, yes, and that's the first battle where he doesn't have the Raticate. I think the only times you meet Gary where you don't fight him are right at the beginning, before you have any Pokemon, and in the post-game stuff, where you run into him just after he's done exploring the Sevii Islands. The latter of which, of course, only happens in FireRed and LeafGreen.
I personally like to think mainly so it coincides with an episode of the anime on the SS Anne. That maybe the Garys Raticate was lost on the ship and Gary just decided to cut his losses and leave it there and maybe thought it would be better off under someone elses guidance. That Raticate was then found by the trainer who Ash would later trade his butterfree for until he traded it back. But then again. You battle Gary again at the Pokemon Tower and since normal types cant really do much to Ghost types he just put deposited it in a PC box and then just never placed it back in to his team.
I've never considered this point before, and it makes a lot of sense. In the newer games Raticate learns enough dark-type moves to be quite threatening to ghosts, but since there are no dark-type moves in the original game Raticate would, indeed, have been quite useless. Stowing the Raticate seems a natural conclusion, given that Gary is at least halfway competent at wrangling his pokemon.
I would like to believe it died since that would put a whole new level of deepness into the game. Whether the trainer or someone else killed it doesn't concern me too much. I would like to think of that scenario as a possibility but I seriously doubt that the developers thought of enemy trainers as NPCs that make player-like decisions. I'll believe in its plausibility if there is another example of this occurring in pokemon.
I think it would be kind of plausible as Gary has been built to be more than typical NPC. He is the only other trainer in the game who can be re-battled (other than the Elite Four) and whose Pokemon also do increase in levels and evolve (Aside from when he becomes champion of course)
Many people have this as a theory. I personally don't beleive this. I mean look at his team at the time. All of them are super powerhouses. I mean on SS Anne he had Pidgeotto, his main (depends what you chose), kadabra and Raticate. Gary just wanted to be the strongest. He was a shit trainer and pushed his team hard. I think he just saw that raticate was done and not strong enough. I mean when he is in the pokemon tower, check out his team then. Main, pidgeotto, kadabra, then again depending on what you chose, a combination or both of either, gyrados, excegute, or growlithe. Again, the swap up of pokemon depending on what you chose made me believe that he was just genuinely switching his team up to be better. Raticate had NO place on that team of his.
I think Raticate could have had a place in his team. In my opinion it's one of the best normal types from 1st gen, and with it's own signature move (Hyper Fang, which could beat the cr*p out of anyone at high levels), great attack and speed. I don't think it died though, he just switched it because it's ugly or something haha.
