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SPOILERS! Mysteries and Conspiracies of Pokemon
- Thread starter stage7_4
- Start date
As in? I don't undertand what you're asking/pointing out.So, anyone know if this is a thing the games have snuck in?
Speaking of Clefable and Gengar, several of Gengar's pokedex entries mention that it likes to mimic the shadows of people "under a full moon." So perhaps the Clefable-Gengar relationship is deeper than we thought.
For one, I don't think that Gengar's are deceased Clefable's (or for that matter, that any ghost type is the leftovers of a dead pokemon, except maybe Yamask if we trust the pokedex). But given it's name is a shortening of Doppelganger, it's probable that Gengar intentionally looks similar to Clefable to deceive it's victims.
In real life, this is called "aggressive mimicry" or when a predatory animal deceives it's prey into thinking that it's harmless or that it's food, when actually it's a predator. Examples are certain Snapping Turtles and Anglerfish, although they use a lure approach (Snapping turtles have an unusual tongue that looks like a worm to fish, and Anglerfish have that light-antenna... thing).
As for mimicking the colors or shape of another animal, usually that's Batesian or Mullerian mimicry (when a harmless creature tries to look like a poisonous one, like the red milk snake and the coral snake). So another thought is that Clefable is trying to look like Gengar (Gengar is a poison-type, which always seemed bizarre to me other than making psychic types almighty in Gen1).
Still, an interesting species analysis on Clefable and Gengar.
I always just assumed gengar was clefables shadow. I don't think gengar was ever preying on something, I mean it's a ghost; I don't think it has to eat(maybe souls or something). And although the anime is unreliable, they portray gengar as more of a prankster that a malicious ghost, and if you are thinking " the anime is for kids so they didn't want to portray scary ghosts", there is an episode with a guy pointing a gun at people's heads all the time, so I don't think they stress kid friendly. As for the spritze duskull thing, I agree that it is a uncanny similarity, but I don't think that there is anything behind it. I do think that some ghost pokemon are created from the deseaced though, otherwise why would they be "GHOST" pokemon?
Actually, most of Gengar's pokedex entries support a predatory nature. Just, ghost-predator not real-life-animal predator.
Here's SoulSilver's: To steal the life of its target, it slips into the prey's shadow and silently waits for an opportunity.
And Y's for a more recent one: Hiding in people's shadows at night, it absorbs their heat. The chill it causes makes the victims shake.
Most other ones are some form of those two. Since heat is energy, Gengar is doing a form of energy drain on it's victims, probably to sustain itself. Of course this means you have to believe the pokedex entries, which are dubious most of the time.
I'm a little late to the party, but as far as Pokemon using special attacks that aren't their type (I think Manectric using Flamethrower was brought up) I think we need to stop thinking of it in terms of the actual physics and more like wizardry. If you think of moves as more like spells, it makes a little more sense why so many things can shoot fire, or lighting, or ice, etc. without any physical way to generate them.
1) Yes, people remember Whitney
2) Maybe it's to make us feel better after the hell we* went through. Or maybe she had her feelings hurt by the obscenities we said to her.
*I beat Whitney on my first try.
If your first battle (the Gym Battle) against Whitney she cried (and forgets to give you the Badge, at least until after one of the trainers in the Gym tells you to come back later in which case you can talk to Whitney again and get the Badge). However when you face her again in the Fighting Dojo she doesn't. I think they're trying to imply she gets very passionate during battles (either official battles or first time battling against someone) and when she loses she's so in the moment that she starts crying.
Whitney has always shown to not be the most mature of the Gym Leader (in the Special/Adventure manga she and a certain other Gym Leader was the only ones Suicune didn't battle to see who it should partner up with to stop Neo Team Rocket. It was explained it was because of her lack of maturity). However she is a powerful Gym Leader despite this so I think it's suppose to be taken that not all Gym Leaders accept defeat the same way.
There is the art style after all. It can obscure age easily.
Speaking of Ghost-types, how come in gen 1 we needed a Silph Scope to even see them, yet inexplicably in the next generations we can see them just fine?
Another thing I've always wondered: why are Unown shaped after English letters when the game is created in Japan?
Another thing I've always wondered: why are Unown shaped after English letters when the game is created in Japan?
Even in Japan, Unown are found in the Ruins of Alph. Alphabets are writing systems in which the symbols (letters) represent basic units of sound (i.e., the English language), whereas Japanese uses a syllabary, a writing system in which the symbols represent syllables (larger units of sound).
That, and they probably just thought it'd look more alien/strange to Japanese audiences.
But they haven't grown an inch either.
I think the Ghost-types in Pokemon Tower were a special case as it was a high place of supernatural activity, especially with the restless soul of Marowak. Maybe it allowed them to hide their forms behind the energy unless you had the Silph Scope to break through the illusion. Remember the reason you couldn't attack them was because your Pokemon was scared of them since they weren't sensing it was a Pokemon, once the Silph Scope revealed to them that their sense are lying to the and it is a Pokemon they were able to fight back no problem.
As for the Unknown, they're English letters because that was probably the simplest to do. Japan not only has multiple kinds of languages they use for different things, but also each one has hundreds of thousands of letters. I think I heard somewhere to be considered Japanese literate you needed to know at least 10,000 characters. In addition they are taught English in Japan, sort of, so it's not that foreign of a language to them as you may think. But I think the former reason is the most likely. 26 (and later 28) letter > 10,000 characters.
All pokedexes past Gen1 are equipped with Silph Co's patented Specter-detector (tm). Professor Oak was very glad of the research collaboration for the next generation of pokedexes.
I had a good answer for the Unown question too, but Stellar's is better.
Things in games can look smaller or larger than they appear. Just look at some Pokémon. You would swear they were bigger/smaller than they are but are much smaller (Dunsparce is 4'11'').
I think that's just Dunsparce's length. Granted it's still bigger than it looks, but it's not giant. And also most of the time we're comparing a Pokemon with one another, never to a human.
With that said, if you compare the size of the human sprites I think they're properly proportioned and size to one another so the kid characters are still smaller then the fully grown adults (the teens might be near the adult sizes, though).
Trainers not looking any older is a valid argument but going into the actual height of the sprites is just nitpicking.
With that said, with the art style of the gym leaders, the adults were clearly adults but the rest were always ambiguous. We only could infer about their ages through other means, like their and other's dialogue, or their depiction in the anime. It's a stretch for some like Whitney or Roxanne, but overall I have no problem at all to assume that they were teenagers in the past games and young adults now while still using the same sprites.
The only ones who are clearly kids are Tate and Liza, but comparing their sprites, it does look like they have grown.
In this RSE sprite, they are clearly little children, Liza is even running around and pretending to be an airplane. Tate has closed body language with his hands behind his back, clearly trying to look like a precocious child, trying to act mature beyond his years.
Now compare it to these ones from BW2. They are clearly now young teenagers. Not only are they bigger proportionally, but their poses make them appear older as well. As opposed to the RSE sprites, their body language indicates them both welcoming the player. Clearly they have grown more mature, both in their people skills and as brother and sister.
With that said, with the art style of the gym leaders, the adults were clearly adults but the rest were always ambiguous. We only could infer about their ages through other means, like their and other's dialogue, or their depiction in the anime. It's a stretch for some like Whitney or Roxanne, but overall I have no problem at all to assume that they were teenagers in the past games and young adults now while still using the same sprites.
The only ones who are clearly kids are Tate and Liza, but comparing their sprites, it does look like they have grown.
In this RSE sprite, they are clearly little children, Liza is even running around and pretending to be an airplane. Tate has closed body language with his hands behind his back, clearly trying to look like a precocious child, trying to act mature beyond his years.
Now compare it to these ones from BW2. They are clearly now young teenagers. Not only are they bigger proportionally, but their poses make them appear older as well. As opposed to the RSE sprites, their body language indicates them both welcoming the player. Clearly they have grown more mature, both in their people skills and as brother and sister.
Trainers not looking any older is a valid argument but going into the actual height of the sprites is just nitpicking.
With that said, with the art style of the gym leaders, the adults were clearly adults but the rest were always ambiguous. We only could infer about their ages through other means, like their and other's dialogue, or their depiction in the anime. It's a stretch for some like Whitney or Roxanne, but overall I have no problem at all to assume that they were teenagers in the past games and young adults now while still using the same sprites.
The only ones who are clearly kids are Tate and Liza, but comparing their sprites, it does look like they have grown.
In this RSE sprite, they are clearly little children, Liza is even running around and pretending to be an airplane. Tate has closed body language with his hands behind his back, clearly trying to look like a precocious child, trying to act mature beyond his years.
Now compare it to these ones from BW2. They are clearly now young teenagers. Not only are they bigger proportionally, but their poses make them appear older as well. As opposed to the RSE sprites, their body language indicates them both welcoming the player. Clearly they have grown more mature, both in their people skills and as brother and sister.
They do look to have grown a bit in their clothes, but is that really age growth or just them getting better sprites?
Let's see, Gen III to Gen VI should mean they should have aged about at least 10 years according to my math. Even if they had a little growth spurt they still look young like kids. Not to mention they (and the rest of the Gym Leaders an Champions) have a limited fashion sense.
You were judging the other gym leader's lack of visible aging based on their sprites, I think it's fair I do the same too. Aside from just their size, I also judged them based on poise and body language, which is a sign of mental growth and maturity.
5 of the 10 years are just your guestimation based on how much older Caitlin looks, so maybe the more likely thing is that Caitlin is the exception and it was fewer years than you originally thought. Possibly she had a growth spurt in a shorter time, say maybe one or two years. Maybe she went through puberty.
I have to agree with hulavuta here, the twins are an obvious example of aging between generations. They definetly have a much more mature posture and they have, without doubt, grown taller and thiner in gen5 than their gen3 selves.
The size of the sprite art play a factor here for the Hoenn Gym Leaders. Previously to Gen IV sprites were 64x64 but Gen IV increased the sprites size to 80x80. The sprite artist now has more room to work with so the sprites are going to look bigger:
As for their pose, I don't know, they're doing pretty exaggerated movements in their sprites still. They raise their arm slowly up and then, STRIKE A POSE! It's no different then Iris raising her arms and roaring at you in the beginning of the Champion Battle. And 7 years is still a notable bit of time.
And while we're talking about Tate & Liza, we're ignoring the other kid Gym Leaders who used their HGSS sprites thus meaning they showed no sign of aging at all. Now I'm not saying they should redo all the sprites, the adult character don't need it, but the kid characters certainly did. Of course that is if the Pokemon World Tournament is canon which I doubt it is, at least to the extent of the other Gym Leaders being there.
Unfortunately, none of these concerns really affect the canon. We all know the real reason the sprites didn't change: GameFreak just didn't want to make new designs. Everything we've said up until now is just for fun to try to create theories to explain it from a story point of view, but even if we can't fully explain it, gameplay and story segregation is never really a strong enough case (in any game) to discount an event as canonical. Unless there is a major plot hole caused by the PWT (Giovanni being there might be one, although I'm not sure if him being the leader of Team Rocket ever got out...and of course Red isn't saying anything), it is canon unless otherwise officially stated.
On the other hand, there is a lot of in-game support to believe that the PWT was canon and did happen, and that removing the PWT from the continuity creates a few issues. The arena replaced cold storage, and it has a very clear place on the map that you can visit, it's not off in a dream land somewhere. There is a man in the building who gives you info on all of the gym leaders and you can actually talk to the gym leaders after the tournament. There is nothing that suggests that any of these are fantasy. If you win the tournament, you get BP, if you lose, you get a shard. Both of these can be traded elsewhere in the game to obtain various things, establishing a direct connection between the PWT and the rest of Unova. If things that you get at the PWT have an effect elsewhere in the world, and the PWT is non-canon, logically doesn't that make everything you do with those BP and shards non-canon as well? If you battle using the moves you got from a tutor you traded those shards to, does that make that battle non-canon? Pretending that the gym leaders are older than they look is the least of a stretch we have to make for things to make sense, in all honesty.
As for Tate and Liza, I understand that the sprites were smaller in RSE (and you don't really need to post them all to demonstrate it, haha), but I wasn't really referring to the sprite size, just how they look as people. I'm willing to accept that they didn't actually change (as I outlined above, that doesn't really make a whole lot of difference), I was just trying to make a theory that fits both your timeline and what is already established.
On the other hand, there is a lot of in-game support to believe that the PWT was canon and did happen, and that removing the PWT from the continuity creates a few issues. The arena replaced cold storage, and it has a very clear place on the map that you can visit, it's not off in a dream land somewhere. There is a man in the building who gives you info on all of the gym leaders and you can actually talk to the gym leaders after the tournament. There is nothing that suggests that any of these are fantasy. If you win the tournament, you get BP, if you lose, you get a shard. Both of these can be traded elsewhere in the game to obtain various things, establishing a direct connection between the PWT and the rest of Unova. If things that you get at the PWT have an effect elsewhere in the world, and the PWT is non-canon, logically doesn't that make everything you do with those BP and shards non-canon as well? If you battle using the moves you got from a tutor you traded those shards to, does that make that battle non-canon? Pretending that the gym leaders are older than they look is the least of a stretch we have to make for things to make sense, in all honesty.
As for Tate and Liza, I understand that the sprites were smaller in RSE (and you don't really need to post them all to demonstrate it, haha), but I wasn't really referring to the sprite size, just how they look as people. I'm willing to accept that they didn't actually change (as I outlined above, that doesn't really make a whole lot of difference), I was just trying to make a theory that fits both your timeline and what is already established.
Well of course we know the REAL reason was so they could re-use the HGSS & Platinum sprites and for fanservice, I said so myself. ;P
You participating in side events and getting extra info on characters is not really a basis to base canon on, only if this effects the story can it be considered hard canon. The Pokemon World Tournament DOES exist, you need to participate in it in order to advance the story. However you only need to compete in the Driftveil Tournament, everything else is optional thus can be taken out of canon and it won't cause a problem. If everything you can possibly do is canonical, then BW2 has canon conflicts with BW. First off, in BW you catch the Swords of Justice and Kyurem, yet in BW2 the Swords of Justice are running around and Ghetsis has captured Kyurem. So just because you're able to do something in the games doesn't mean it becomes canon, so much so that HGSS retcon that Red caught the Legendary birds which was said happened in GS.
I guess in the end I think it's probably up to interpretation. If you're going to make a story out of it it'll be up to the author whether to include the other region Gym Leaders or not. I was curious what they did in the Pokemon Special/Adventure but sadly it looked like they weren't able to get to it (infact I don't think they ever got to Virbank City). Actually it looks like no Manga based on BW2 got very far, guess mainly because XY came out a year later (and it was a sequel story rather then a typical third version so that gave them even less time to work on it).
That's fair enough but as I said earlier, the PWT really does not contradict anything, unlike the situation with the legendary Pokemon. Unless a future game comes out and has an event that makes the PWT impossible (assuming we consider the most recent game to have the canon, which I do) then it happened. And yes, like you said, you technically never have to enter, but even if you choose not to participate, all of the gym leaders did come in to be in it.
I'm still going to hold judgement, another thing we skimmed over was the lack of change with the regions. There's been no new Gym Leaders or new Champions in those regions, everything stayed the same as the last time we saw them?
And actually, would you consider ORAS to be the new canon for Hoenn? With all that they're changing (or reverting), that might put the World Tournament's canonicity in question.