You know how the Rainbow badge is supposed to make all Pokémon below level 50 obey you, and Marsh badge is supposed to make all Pokémon below level 70 to obey you?

Is that really true? What happens if you don't have those badges and a high leveled Pokémon? I tried to find out, so I played the game, and I don't have neither of those badges, and I've got a level 54 Zapdos and nothing has happened, my Zapdos obeys me just fine.

Is something really supposed to happen if you don't have the badges?

Traded pokémon over that certain level won't listen to you. Pokémon that you have raised will always listen to you.

It's pretty much so you don't trade a high level Pokémon from another game and bash through the game too easily.

If you do have a traded pokémon at too high of a level, it'll just ignore you and do nothing sometimes, or use an attack different from what you told it to. I'm not sure if there's a known percentage of it listening or not though.

So even if I catch the Pokémon at a high level it will obey? Even if it's a let's say... Level 70 Mewtwo?

If you're the original trainer, it'll always listen to you.

What if you trade to another game, then trade back? Like, for example, a Bulbasaur is traded to another game as soon as trading is allowed, raised to lvl 100, then traded back, as a Venusaur with max RBY stats. Or, since I am 100% sure starters always obey no matter what, the same is applyed to a random Pidgey you caught. Will it still listen so you can destroy Brock with it?

Ugh, that gives me a headache just thinking about it. If you all have accepted and are going by what the previous people have said, then yes, I suppose it would make sense for that Venusaur or Pidgeot to obey you. Considering what level it's at, it really wouldn't even matter which Pokemon you used if you were going after Brock with it. It would just take less time to do it the old-fashioned way, though, unless you were playing two games at one time. In that case, it might turn out to your advantage.