memes

Y'know.

The people doing the Ash Coma theory for Pokeymen are really sleeping on a much cooler and equally dark theory.

Ash did die in the first episode. Not a coma, but a straight up death.

... And then he was brought back to life. As he wakes up from Pikachu's sacrifice, he sees Ho-Oh. A lot of ado is made in the first few serieses of the Anime about how Ho-Oh appears before trainers that are earmarked for greatness.

Ho-Oh brought Ash and Pikachu back to life after both of them showed they were willing to give their lives for their newly met friend -- It IS a literal Phoenix. It presumably liked what these two idiots were going for, and decided to give them another chance at life.

The reason Ash doesn't age -- And the reason he seems to cartoonishly shake off danger in every episode after Pokémon I Choose You -- is because when Ho-Oh revived him it made him immortal like itself, time-freezing the young boy.

And in exchange, every time something went wrong in the Pokémon anime world, Ash was the one who was always coincidentally nearby and ready for adventure (see: Every movie)

Of course, our boy doesn't mind, he mostly enjoys adventures. And he got basically infinite tries at his dream of becoming League Champion -- Which eventually stuck.

It's why I personally detest horror movies where the enemy/monster/force can make you see things or get in your head. There's no agency at that point, because everything just happens as it needs to for the writers and there's no longer any need for internal consistency or boundaries.

I think it's just because it's so easy. Comas and everything you see being a reference to the real world is just as simple as making an entirely new story, but you can say it's the real story. Any and every contradiction that your take has can be explained with the dream and reality interplay.

Why would folks who aren't professional writers not use the 'easy button' that even professional writers use?

People just feel the need to be edgy about everything.

You ever watch Gabby's Dollhouse?

She stays in her room, full-time. She never interacts with anyone outside of her room. She receives deliveries from an unseen outside force, via a cart and ramp system that makes interaction between inside and outside impossible. She then uses her anomalous abilities to shrink down inside of her dollhouse and have adventures in a pocket universe.

She's happily protected, in a contained, secure area which she never leaves.

Gabby is a comparatively benign SCP.

It's because every childrens show is an abstraction of real life relationships meant to teach lessons or just generally have cooler adventures than real life.

So yeah, of course when you have an episode where there's a loving caring character you can say "that's actually their mom" or the spunky side kick can actually be their sister.

I think this is partly about giving yourself an out for liking childish things as a near- or young-adult. Kids shows commonly do include some Parental Bonus but extending that idea specifically to dark undercurrent plots that you have to read between the lines of the text seems like a way to feel "in the know" about something adult in the work while still consuming something you feel society expects you to have grown out of.
Then with a bit more maturing than that, you can hopefully just embrace childish joys earnestly, because joys are precious.