Pokémon Movepool Oddities & Explanations

[AztecCroc]

So Dive, unlike Surf, is largely restricted to Water-types or Pokémon that can heavily/ reasonably associated with water (e.g. Dragonite, Lugia, Dragalge). Or they're Mew/Mewtwo/Arceus and have carte blanche to know random moves.

But then we have these fuckers.

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Latias and Latios are far more heavily associated with the sky than the sea outside of the Hoenn connection. I guess they get the move for being vaguely torpedo shaped? They can also learn Waterfall so there's clearly something going on here.

Rayquaza is weird too because it's also heavily associated with the sky. I would make a joke about it being a reference to Subspace Emissary but Ray could learn the move in Gen 3, before Brawl came up. All that's left is its relationship with Kyogre and Groudon and having a movepool to kind of match both of them.

I got nothing with Draklok and Dragapult. Bulbapedia says they're based on amphibians and their parental care habits, but that still seems like a huge stretch for giving them Dive when they also have a sky association due to the stealth bomber influence.

Have you not seen Pokemon Heroes? The Latis' water association is pretty clear.

The Dreepy line are based on Diplocaulus. They fly because they're ghosts, the stealth fighter thing is exaggeration of the animal's existing qualities.

 

[Karxrida]

Have you not seen Pokemon Heroes? The Latis' water association is pretty clear.

I just figured Alto Mare was something the anime staff came up with for an interesting movie setting since Venice is cool. (I've been there, can confirm.) It's not like the games ever directly reference it or allude to anything similar for Lati lore afaik, and specific ties to the anime have never been consistently applied anyway.

 

[Merritt]

I just figured Alto Mare was something the anime staff came up with for an interesting movie setting since Venice is cool. (I've been there, can confirm.) It's not like the games ever directly reference it or allude to anything similar for Lati lore afaik, and specific ties to the anime have never been consistently applied anyway.

Specifically the Latis spend a lot of time underwater rather than flying around in the movie.

While normally I'd agree that the anime wouldn't have any impact on a Pokemon's learnset bar very deliberate events and such, M05 did release about 3 months before RS did which is definitely long enough that storyboarding and movie planning could have impacted the learnset process while developing the games.

 

[Mad Ram]

The Latios/Latias explanation comes even more clear thanks to the Teraleak. Not only in the myth drafts are the two associated with water and the seas, but we actually get the name etymology for them, that being (P)Lat(o) + (Tima)ios/(Crit)ias respectively which are the dialogues of Plato that discus Atlantis. In that light, it's very clear why they learn a bunch of water type moves.

 

[R_N]

Tangentially related to this discussion: I'm surprised Corsola (& Cursola) has never learned dive
When I think dives one of the things that comes to mind is diving to look at coral reefs and a lot of their misc depictions likes to show them trundling along the sea floor.

 

[Bog Monster]

Tangentially related to this discussion: I'm surprised Corsola (& Cursola) has never learned dive
When I think dives one of the things that comes to mind is diving to look at coral reefs and a lot of their misc depictions likes to show them trundling along the sea floor.

A big part of diving is coming back up.

 

[Castersvarog]

So Dive, unlike Surf, is largely restricted to Water-types or Pokémon that can be heavily/reasonably associated with water (e.g. Dragonite, Lugia, Dragalge). Or they're Mew/Mewtwo/Arceus and have carte blanche to know random moves.

But then we have these fuckers.

View attachment 761302View attachment 761303View attachment 761304View attachment 761305View attachment 761306
Latias and Latios are far more heavily associated with the sky than the sea outside of the Hoenn connection. I guess they get the move for being vaguely torpedo shaped? They can also learn Waterfall so there's clearly something going on here.

Rayquaza is weird too because it's also heavily associated with the sky. I would make a joke about Dive being a reference to its bizarre implementation in Subspace Emissary, but Ray could learn the move from the word go. All that's left is its relationship with Kyogre and Groudon and having a movepool to kind of match both of them.

I got nothing with Draklok and Dragapult. Bulbapedia says they're based on amphibians and their parental care habits, but that still seems like a huge stretch for giving them Dive when they also have a sky association due to the stealth bomber influence.

I can see why Drakloak and Dragapult can learn dive, it’s a Water type in spirit. (Heh)
Thanks to Dreepys dex entry we know for a fact that it used to live in prehistoric seas.
Given how little changes between the evolution line in terms of where it can be found, it stands to reason that its entire evo line lived in the same seas.

 

[CPU]

I'm sure this has been mentioned before but I don't feel like searching.

Electroweb's distribution is pretty easy to follow. Electric types, a good smattering of Bug types, a couple of Electric-adjacent Pokémon...

And this guy



This isn't new, either; it's gotten it since Gen 7. I assume it's a joke with basketball nets?

 

[R_N]

I'm sure this has been mentioned before but I don't feel like searching.

Electroweb's distribution is pretty easy to follow. Electric types, a good smattering of Bug types, a couple of Electric-adjacent Pokémon...

And this guy



This isn't new, either; it's gotten it since Gen 7. I assume it's a joke with basketball nets?

In my mind I picture it throwing the net with the same skill as it throws balls. Or maybe carrying around balls in netting.
Referencing netting in other sports probably works too, though.



Kind of feels like it should get Electroball if it gets Electroweb, actually.

 

[Karxrida]

I'm sure this has been mentioned before but I don't feel like searching.

Electroweb's distribution is pretty easy to follow. Electric types, a good smattering of Bug types, a couple of Electric-adjacent Pokémon...

And this guy



This isn't new, either; it's gotten it since Gen 7. I assume it's a joke with basketball nets?

In my mind I picture it throwing the net with the same skill as it throws balls. Or maybe carrying around balls in netting.
Referencing netting in other sports probably works too, though.



Kind of feels like it should get Electroball if it gets Electroweb, actually.

Okay so for some stupid reason I saw Passimian, concluded its design draws from soccer (football to non-Americans) as a goalie by using negative information from a brainfart, and proceeded to not question it learning Electroweb.

Which is weird because it actually seems to be based on American Football, which doesn't use any nets. (Or maybe it does – I don't do sportsball.) And Passimian doesn't appear to be a spider monkey since it looks more like a lemur, so you can't go for the pun there.

 

[Bog Monster]

Okay so for some stupid reason I saw Passimian, concluded its design draws from soccer (football to non-Americans) as a goalie by using negative information from a brainfart, and proceeded to not question it learning Electroweb.

Which is weird because it actually seems to be based on American Football, which doesn't use any nets. (Or maybe it does – I don't do sportsball.) And Passimian doesn't appear to be a spider monkey since it looks more like a lemur, so you can't go for the pun there.

It's actually based on rugby, where a common defensive strategy is to catch the opposing team in oversized butterfly nets

 

[Karxrida]

It's actually based on rugby, where a common defensive strategy is to catch the opposing team in oversized butterfly nets

Someone should tell this to Bulbapedia since they cite American football specifically and don't mention rugby at all.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Someone should tell this to Bulbapedia since they cite American football specifically and don't mention rugby at all.

To be fair most people don't mention rugby (even though it's the only interesting football)

 

[Krockodile]

Here are some example of move oddities:

Machamp - Can punch 1000 times in 2 seconds, however it cannot learn Mach Punch or Close Combat naturally. It can learn Bullet Punch.
Heracross - Can lift 100 times its own weight, but cannot learn Seismic Toss. However, it's counterpart Pinsir can.
Cryogonal - Can learn Attract by TM from gens 5-7, despite being genderless. Can be applied to Dhelmise and Minior too.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Here are some example of move oddities:

Machamp - Can punch 1000 times in 2 seconds, however it cannot learn Mach Punch or Close Combat naturally. It can learn Bullet Punch.
Heracross - Can lift 100 times its own weight, but cannot learn Seismic Toss. However, it's counterpart Pinsir can.
Cryogonal - Can learn Attract by TM from gens 5-7, despite being genderless. Can be applied to Dhelmise and Minior too.

Bullet Punch is the punching 1000 times in 2 seconds. In pretty much all its appearances, it's depicted as a rapid-fire flurry of punches.

 

[Krockodile]

Bullet Punch is the punching 1000 times in 2 seconds. In pretty much all its appearances, it's depicted as a rapid-fire flurry of punches.

The problem is that machamp can't learn Bullet Punch naturally (except for Legends Arceus, where it can also learn Mach Punch). It can only get it via breeding.