For those who have a hard time understanding Multiverse Theory

Lets imagine a native american storyteller in the north east, before Europeans ever visited.

The storyteller draws on familiar ideas in her life, to create a story about a fantasyland. 

She imagines a land where it is so hot, that it rains instead of snows in the summer, and where the horses have stripes, and there are big cats that have manes of hair like men.

Now imagine Europeans come, and one of them hears her story. 

The European says “I have been there! That’s the land of Africa!”

And the storyteller says “but how have you been there? I made it up. Its just a story.”

Its like that. Tolkien didn’t know about elves and hobbits when he created them, they just happened to exist in another place. Satoshi Tajiri didn’t ever see Pokemon, there just happen to be worlds with pokemon in them.