SPOILERS! Mysteries and Conspiracies of Pokemon

Here's a different take on our usual mysteries/conspiracies, let's talk about Goldeen and Smash Bros.

The pokeball (and later master ball) in smash bros can summon a powerful ally, or a Goldeen that just flops about harmlessly. But why Goldeen? Shouldn't it be Magikarp? He's the famous splashing fail-fish, not Goldeen.

I've got a few theories:
1. Tradition: Goldeen's been in every smash bros, so it's continued use is effectively grandfather claused.

2. The Smash Bros developer tradition of not quite understanding IP's that aren't their own (Kirby, Kid Icarus). This isn't unique to the pokemon series representation either (you know what I'm talking about but here's not the place).

3. The ANIME. Goldeen was Misty's first shown pokemon, in Team Rocket's introduction episode, and it utterly failed to do anything but splash around. And this was when Team Rocket was actually really threatening. Honestly, it just made Misty look like a moron. What was she thinking? She was a gym leader for Pete's sake! But the anime was popular (at the time) so add in the above two reasons and you get this.

Edit*: In doing research, it seemed the early anime really hated Goldeen. It has another "fail" scene in the Cerulean Gym episode, where Misty's sisters show that they can't give Ash a proper battle since all they have is a Goldeen (who only knows horn attack). Jeebus anime, really?

Magikarp didn't show up until later, on the St. Anne. And despite definitely being a derp-fish, it did quickly establish it's other famous trait (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagikarpPower) by evolving into Gyarados and causing a Gulliver's Travels plot (or Castaway, take your pick). So I guess if you went by the anime alone, Goldeen does look a lot more fail-worthy.
 
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One of my favorite things about the Running Shoes is that, in the Adventures manga (Since the Running Shoes debuted in 3rd Gen), they explain away why the Running Shoes are special by the fact that they have wind blades in the soles, letting Ruby move MUCH quicker than if he didn't have them. It's just a charming thing to make a key item that exists purely to make the character run... Into an accessory that is way too cool for real life.
 
Ming-Ming said:
One of my favorite things about the Running Shoes is that, in the Adventures manga (Since the Running Shoes debuted in 3rd Gen), they explain away why the Running Shoes are special by the fact that they have wind blades in the soles, letting Ruby move MUCH quicker than if he didn't have them. It's just a charming thing to make a key item that exists purely to make the character run... Into an accessory that is way too cool for real life.
Click to expand...

Wind blades? Like propellers?
 
Pikachu315111 said:
Wind blades? Like propellers?
Click to expand...

Haven't gotten to the Diamond and Pearl ark yet, but found an image of one of the protagonists using them. You can see the wind blades on them.
Pokemon_Special_v40_c433_057_neuquant.png
 
I think they're going by the concept of "rule of cool". Looks impractical and probably wouldn't work in reality? Who cares, he got propellers attached to his shoes! It could only be cooler if they had rockets attached to them to achieve flight.
 
stage7_4 said:
2. The Smash Bros developer tradition of not quite understanding IP's that aren't their own (Kirby, Kid Icarus). This isn't unique to the pokemon series representation either (you know what I'm talking about but here's not the place).
Click to expand...

Okay, you got me curious about these honestly, I'm not aware of most of these misrepresentations (especially surprised about Kirby, considering Sakurai is the Smash director). I guess if you don't want to derail the thread you could just VM me.




Anyway, a Jwittz video dropped today which got me really curious about Parasect. Did a quick search and not much showed up, so hopefully we haven't talked about it yet. So with Parasect, apparently the mushroom sorta thing is the actual Pokemon, and the bug guy is not. So that made me wonder, what actually is it? My best guess would be that it is actually a Paras, because I don't believe there would be an undocumented Pokemon. Especially such a common one that we can catch and study. It does look a little bit different, but we can look to the example of Slowpoke and Shellder, and how becoming Slowbro causes them both to look a bit different. My guess is that Paras cannot evolve on their own, and getting infected causes them to evolve.

That also makes me wonder about the Mushrooms that have not infested any Paras yet (maybe on their own we should just call them Ect?). I wonder why we never run into them? I was looking on Bulbapedia and it says that the mushrooms grow on their back from spores their mother sprays on them at birth. So we could maybe assume the mushrooms do not (or no longer) grow on their own and this is their main way of spreading. Logically we could assume that the mushrooms grow as the Paras grows, and then when it grows to a certain size it takes over the body and causes the evolution. It makes sense why the mother would do this, if you assume the mothers (in canon, so a case of gameplay and story segregation in regards to breeding just like Kanga) are Parasects who are under control of the mushroom and want the mushroom race to be spread. Or we could even say that Paras need the spores to survive so they choose to let it happen.

As for why Paras are the only Pokemon infected, I'd assume it's just a perfect symbiotic match and Paras are the only ones that the mushrooms can survive on. This topic is really interesting though. When you think about a Parasect which is Grass/Bug type, it is more like two Pokemon, one Grass-type (the mushroom) and one bug-type (the bug body).
 
Hulavuta said:
Okay, you got me curious about these honestly, I'm not aware of most of these misrepresentations (especially surprised about Kirby, considering Sakurai is the Smash director). I guess if you don't want to derail the thread you could just VM me.




Anyway, a Jwittz video dropped today which got me really curious about Parasect. Did a quick search and not much showed up, so hopefully we haven't talked about it yet. So with Parasect, apparently the mushroom sorta thing is the actual Pokemon, and the bug guy is not. So that made me wonder, what actually is it? My best guess would be that it is actually a Paras, because I don't believe there would be an undocumented Pokemon. Especially such a common one that we can catch and study. It does look a little bit different, but we can look to the example of Slowpoke and Shellder, and how becoming Slowbro causes them both to look a bit different. My guess is that Paras cannot evolve on their own, and getting infected causes them to evolve.

That also makes me wonder about the Mushrooms that have not infested any Paras yet (maybe on their own we should just call them Ect?). I wonder why we never run into them? I was looking on Bulbapedia and it says that the mushrooms grow on their back from spores their mother sprays on them at birth. So we could maybe assume the mushrooms do not (or no longer) grow on their own and this is their main way of spreading. Logically we could assume that the mushrooms grow as the Paras grows, and then when it grows to a certain size it takes over the body and causes the evolution. It makes sense why the mother would do this, if you assume the mothers (in canon, so a case of gameplay and story segregation in regards to breeding just like Kanga) are Parasects who are under control of the mushroom and want the mushroom race to be spread. Or we could even say that Paras need the spores to survive so they choose to let it happen.

As for why Paras are the only Pokemon infected, I'd assume it's just a perfect symbiotic match and Paras are the only ones that the mushrooms can survive on. This topic is really interesting though. When you think about a Parasect which is Grass/Bug type, it is more like two Pokemon, one Grass-type (the mushroom) and one bug-type (the bug body).
Click to expand...

The Tiny Mushroom and Big Mushroom items are the mushrooms on a Paras. Also, yeah. Parasect is the mushroom taking over as the Pokemon, while the Paras is reduced to a zombie.
 
Hulavuta said:
1. Okay, you got me curious about these honestly, I'm not aware of most of these misrepresentations (especially surprised about Kirby, considering Sakurai is the Smash director). I guess if you don't want to derail the thread you could just VM me.

2. Anyway, a Jwittz video dropped today which got me really curious about Parasect. Did a quick search and not much showed up, so hopefully we haven't talked about it yet. So with Parasect, apparently the mushroom sorta thing is the actual Pokemon, and the bug guy is not. So that made me wonder, what actually is it? My best guess would be that it is actually a Paras, because I don't believe there would be an undocumented Pokemon. Especially such a common one that we can catch and study. It does look a little bit different, but we can look to the example of Slowpoke and Shellder, and how becoming Slowbro causes them both to look a bit different. My guess is that Paras cannot evolve on their own, and getting infected causes them to evolve.

That also makes me wonder about the Mushrooms that have not infested any Paras yet (maybe on their own we should just call them Ect?). I wonder why we never run into them? I was looking on Bulbapedia and it says that the mushrooms grow on their back from spores their mother sprays on them at birth. So we could maybe assume the mushrooms do not (or no longer) grow on their own and this is their main way of spreading. Logically we could assume that the mushrooms grow as the Paras grows, and then when it grows to a certain size it takes over the body and causes the evolution. It makes sense why the mother would do this, if you assume the mothers (in canon, so a case of gameplay and story segregation in regards to breeding just like Kanga) are Parasects who are under control of the mushroom and want the mushroom race to be spread. Or we could even say that Paras need the spores to survive so they choose to let it happen.

As for why Paras are the only Pokemon infected, I'd assume it's just a perfect symbiotic match and Paras are the only ones that the mushrooms can survive on. This topic is really interesting though. When you think about a Parasect which is Grass/Bug type, it is more like two Pokemon, one Grass-type (the mushroom) and one bug-type (the bug body).
Click to expand...

1. Reread what stage7_4 wrote. "The Smash Bros developer tradition of not quite understanding IP's that aren't their own (Kirby, Kid Icarus)". You can easily tell the SSB games know their Kirby and (new) Kid Icarus lore since Sakurai made them, but everything else not quite. I'd argue a few things mentioned of other franchises are pulled from fandom memes (players wanting Chrom, Pit quoting Ryan's phrases, etc.).

2. The Paras family is based on bugs infected by the Cordyceps sinensis fungus. For what exactly Parasect is I say it's both the bug and the fungus who, though technically different organisms, have at this point fused together and now one can't live without the other (it's not uncommon for one Pokemon to be multiple individuals combined; Dugtrio, Magneton, Exeggecute, Combee, Barbaracle, etc.). Parasect at this point is essentially a zombie who's only thoughts are on serving and taking care of the mushroom that has taken it over.

As for can a Paras evolve without the fungus, maybe it can't? While Paras can live without the mushroom, the mushroom gives it power (it's probably where it draws in the power to do Grass-type moves like Spore) so for the species its beneficial to have the mushroom than not. As the mushroom grows so does the bug, but as said the mushroom pretty much drains the bug (possibly having to share life functions to keep it alive) as well as alter its mind. It's not exactly a symbiotic relationship nor a pure parasitic, more like a parasitic with benefits.

And yes the mother sprays spores on the eggs because its the mushroom pretty much making it do it.
 
Pikachu315111 said:
1. Reread what stage7_4 wrote. "The Smash Bros developer tradition of not quite understanding IP's that aren't their own (Kirby, Kid Icarus)". You can easily tell the SSB games know their Kirby and (new) Kid Icarus lore since Sakurai made them, but everything else not quite. I'd argue a few things mentioned of other franchises are pulled from fandom memes (players wanting Chrom, Pit quoting Ryan's phrases, etc.).
Click to expand...

My b man, but I'm sure you can understand how that can be easily misinterpreted due to the way it's worded.

2. The Paras family is based on bugs infected by the Cordyceps sinensis fungus. For what exactly Parasect is I say it's both the bug and the fungus who, though technically different organisms, have at this point fused together and now one can't live without the other (it's not uncommon for one Pokemon to be multiple individuals combined; Dugtrio, Magneton, Exeggecute, Combee, Barbaracle, etc.). Parasect at this point is essentially a zombie who's only thoughts are on serving and taking care of the mushroom that has taken it over.
Click to expand...

I know what it is based off of but I didn't find any need to include it (it was in the video too haha). But yeah I agree, the biggest difference though is that for stuff like Dugtrio, Magnetone, Exeggcute, etc. (maybe even Metang and Metagross too) it is a bunch of the same thing coming together. Whereas with Parasect, it's two completely different things, making it more akin to Slowbro as I said earlier.

Oriolous said:
The Tiny Mushroom and Big Mushroom items are the mushrooms on a Paras. Also, yeah. Parasect is the mushroom taking over as the Pokemon, while the Paras is reduced to a zombie.
Click to expand...

That's interesting to me, but I kinda doubt it. After all, the mushrooms are very much still part of the Pokemon even after you remove the item. We can invoke gameplay and story segregation here (is there another word for this? I hate using TV Tropes phrases all the time) if you really want, but I still am not sold on this explanation. Is it that they carry even more parasites? Or maybe the mushrooms (items) come from spores shot off by the Pokemon. They are also found on Shroomish too, which complicates things.

But hey, the relationship explains why they are so valuable. They are your payment for the move reminder in FireRed and LeafGreen, obviously someone who knows a great deal about Pokemon psychology. Maybe he's planning to study the mushrooms to learn how to control Pokemon :pirate:
 
Hulavuta said:
That's interesting to me, but I kinda doubt it. After all, the mushrooms are very much still part of the Pokemon even after you remove the item. We can invoke gameplay and story segregation here (is there another word for this? I hate using TV Tropes phrases all the time) if you really want, but I still am not sold on this explanation. Is it that they carry even more parasites? Or maybe the mushrooms (items) come from spores shot off by the Pokemon. They are also found on Shroomish too, which complicates things.

But hey, the relationship explains why they are so valuable. They are your payment for the move reminder in FireRed and LeafGreen, obviously someone who knows a great deal about Pokemon psychology. Maybe he's planning to study the mushrooms to learn how to control Pokemon :pirate:
Click to expand...

Just because you remove the mushroom for Paras doesn't mean you removed all the spores (you need a powder for that :P). So remove the mushroom and a new one just grows back, it's not till it becomes a Parasect do the two become inseparable. And I wouldn't be surprised if smaller mushrooms did grow off the bigger mushroom. ;)
 
Yeah, Pikachu315111 I was thinking that at first but the fact that not only Paras, but both Shroomish and Parasect can give Tiny Mushrooms makes it a bit more complicated. But the mushrooms (items) growing off the mushroom (Pokemon) is the explanation that makes the most sense atm.

EDIT: said "not on" rather than "not only", fixed that
 
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Hulavuta said:
Okay, you got me curious about these honestly, I'm not aware of most of these misrepresentations (especially surprised about Kirby, considering Sakurai is the Smash director). I guess if you don't want to derail the thread you could just VM me.




Anyway, a Jwittz video dropped today which got me really curious about Parasect. Did a quick search and not much showed up, so hopefully we haven't talked about it yet. So with Parasect, apparently the mushroom sorta thing is the actual Pokemon, and the bug guy is not. So that made me wonder, what actually is it? My best guess would be that it is actually a Paras, because I don't believe there would be an undocumented Pokemon. Especially such a common one that we can catch and study. It does look a little bit different, but we can look to the example of Slowpoke and Shellder, and how becoming Slowbro causes them both to look a bit different. My guess is that Paras cannot evolve on their own, and getting infected causes them to evolve.

That also makes me wonder about the Mushrooms that have not infested any Paras yet (maybe on their own we should just call them Ect?). I wonder why we never run into them? I was looking on Bulbapedia and it says that the mushrooms grow on their back from spores their mother sprays on them at birth. So we could maybe assume the mushrooms do not (or no longer) grow on their own and this is their main way of spreading. Logically we could assume that the mushrooms grow as the Paras grows, and then when it grows to a certain size it takes over the body and causes the evolution. It makes sense why the mother would do this, if you assume the mothers (in canon, so a case of gameplay and story segregation in regards to breeding just like Kanga) are Parasects who are under control of the mushroom and want the mushroom race to be spread. Or we could even say that Paras need the spores to survive so they choose to let it happen.

As for why Paras are the only Pokemon infected, I'd assume it's just a perfect symbiotic match and Paras are the only ones that the mushrooms can survive on. This topic is really interesting though. When you think about a Parasect which is Grass/Bug type, it is more like two Pokemon, one Grass-type (the mushroom) and one bug-type (the bug body).
Click to expand...
The mushroom on Parasect's back makes sure to leave spores on its eggs so the Paras is pretty much infected from the moment it hatches. The mushrooms soon take control of the body of its host and force it to do things that favor it but not necessarily its host. As for why just Paras is infected, perhaps other Pokemon's bodies just aren't vulnerable to it whereas Paras' entire species has been subjugated to the mushroom, and thus it has prevented Paras from gaining any sort of resistance to it?
 
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We should also consider the idea that almost nothing in the Pokedex can be trusted and that maybe Parasect is just a crab with a mushroom like growth on its back, in that same JWittz video (good video btw, go watch it) he mentions a bunch of impossible, contradictory or ridiculous entries that basically add credence to the idea that whoever wrote the Pokedex entries is really unreliable. Even entries like Parasect's which seem mundane/rooted in reality may have no real basis in Pokemon 'canon.' Perhaps there are some anime depictions of Paras/ect that could shed more light on this?
 
It's not that "nothing in the Dex can be trusted", but rather that the Dex is written by humans and that, as every professor says in every intro speech, "we don't know everything about Pokemon". So the Dex, despite being ostensibly a scientific work, is filled with hyperbole and legend.
 
Detective Barricade said:
The mushroom on Parasect's back makes sure to leave spores on its eggs so the Paras is pretty much infected from the moment it hatches. The mushrooms soon take control of the body of its host and force it to do things that favor it but not necessarily its host. As for why just Paras is infected, perhaps other Pokemon's bodies just aren't vulnerable to it whereas Paras' entire species has been subjugated to the mushroom, and thus it has prevented Paras from gaining any sort of resistance to it?
Click to expand...
Inb4 the concept behind its mega is more symbiotic.

But keeping it on topic other parasitic creatures do have a weirder life cycle, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case.
 
It's not that uncommon for parasites to be in a benign relationship with their hosts, especially in real life. So Parasect doesn't have to be such an evil zombie case (although it explicitly is based on cordyceps, which is nasty for bugs).

For example, we humans couldn't survive without the 10 trillion gut flora bacteria in our intestines. So take some time out of your day to thank your guts! I mean, unless you aren't human or mammal.

...you are all human, right?

Speaking of which, to answer one of the other questions on "why just Paras is infected" the answer is pretty simple if you're not a bug-type. Cordyceps can't infect anything other than bugs because otherwise the immune system will take care of that before anything can happen. And (while this is more of a bacteria and disease reason than a parasite) it's very very rare for a disease that targets more than one specie. In reality the exceptions are due to close proximity between species for over a millennia (like cow and poultry diseases that jumped to humans due to high domestication). So while specie jumping diseases tend to be the more devastating and infamous ones, they're the exceptions not the rule. The 0.1% out of billions.

Cordyceps actually has small benefits for humans. Some variations produce a chemical used for anti-rejection drugs on organ transplants.
 
jordanthejq12 said:
It's not that "nothing in the Dex can be trusted", but rather that the Dex is written by humans and that, as every professor says in every intro speech, "we don't know everything about Pokemon". So the Dex, despite being ostensibly a scientific work, is filled with hyperbole and legend.
Click to expand...
That's why it can't be trusted.
 
Vader_the_White said:
That's not a parasite, that's a symbiote. Parasites specifically are the ones who take without giving.
Click to expand...
To better illustrate this point, Flabebe's line is a good example of a symbiote in Pokemon. They have a signature ability called Symbiosis, and you can see this illustrated in their designs. At first, according to its Y PokeDex entry, the Flabebe "finds a flower it likes" and, "it dwells on that flower its whole life long" because, according to its X PokeDex entry, "The flower Flabébé holds is most likely part of its body". This means that the flower and the actual fairy thing were two beings which have latched onto each other, much like the Paras latched onto those mushrooms.

The difference lies in how these two plants progress. With Parasect, the mushrooms spread throughout the Paras and break its brain, overtaking it and using it as part of the mushroom's system. Instead, with Flabebe the flower and the fairy sort of incorporate into each other as their systems adapt to better work together with two sort of alien sections. With Floette you can see the fairy-thing grow larger and, importantly, the flower grow in proportion to it, meaning that they are definitely working together. With Florges you can see the plant and fairy-thing fully adapt into each other creating a pretty beautiful Pokemon, classified as the "Garden Pokemon" implying that the flower uses its partner to reproduce and make more flowers, while the fairy-thing presumably gets to photosynthesise or something.

Note that this post is based on ~20 minutes spent googling about symbiosis, and is probably all wrong. If it's correct it's made me like the Flabebe line quite a bit more though!
 
Vader_the_White said:
That's not a parasite, that's a symbiote. Parasites specifically are the ones who take without giving.
Click to expand...
Semantics but you're right.

Although that does beg the question if Paras/Parasect get anything out of their relationship with the fungus, meaning it wouldn't be parasitic in the first place. Despite the name.
 
stage7_4 said:
It's not that uncommon for parasites to be in a benign relationship with their hosts, especially in real life. So Parasect doesn't have to be such an evil zombie case (although it explicitly is based on cordyceps, which is nasty for bugs).

For example, we humans couldn't survive without the 10 trillion gut flora bacteria in our intestines. So take some time out of your day to thank your guts! I mean, unless you aren't human or mammal.

...you are all human, right?

Speaking of which, to answer one of the other questions on "why just Paras is infected" the answer is pretty simple if you're not a bug-type. Cordyceps can't infect anything other than bugs because otherwise the immune system will take care of that before anything can happen. And (while this is more of a bacteria and disease reason than a parasite) it's very very rare for a disease that targets more than one specie. In reality the exceptions are due to close proximity between species for over a millennia (like cow and poultry diseases that jumped to humans due to high domestication). So while specie jumping diseases tend to be the more devastating and infamous ones, they're the exceptions not the rule. The 0.1% out of billions.

Cordyceps actually has small benefits for humans. Some variations produce a chemical used for anti-rejection drugs on organ transplants.
Click to expand...
Correct me if I'm remembering wrong, but I thought Parasites were explicitly the name given to when the organism detracts in some manner from its host, Commensalism being when one gains without any effect on the other, and Symbiosis and such when both parties gain from the relation. So if the mushroom is a parasite as implied, Parasect does actively suffer in some manner from the mushroom, even if not severely.

Though this does make me wonder when you bring up the Cordyceps: how is Parasect a full and distinct species of Pokemon, since the mushroom is a defining biological trait of the evolution line. While certain insect species are vulnerable to real life Cordyceps, I would assume not every specimen is infected by it. I remember one basis for the insect part of Parasect is a cicada, could Parasect just be an identifier for an infected Nincada or other Pokemon species, rather than a distinct, separate species of Bug Pokemon in which everyone has these Parasitic mushrooms? Wouldn't natural selection entail the species having members survive that bore some kind of resistance to the mind control over generations?
 
pika pal said:
Correct me if I'm remembering wrong, but I thought Parasites were explicitly the name given to when the organism detracts in some manner from its host, Commensalism being when one gains without any effect on the other, and Symbiosis and such when both parties gain from the relation. So if the mushroom is a parasite as implied, Parasect does actively suffer in some manner from the mushroom, even if not severely.

Though this does make me wonder when you bring up the Cordyceps: how is Parasect a full and distinct species of Pokemon, since the mushroom is a defining biological trait of the evolution line. While certain insect species are vulnerable to real life Cordyceps, I would assume not every specimen is infected by it. I remember one basis for the insect part of Parasect is a cicada, could Parasect just be an identifier for an infected Nincada or other Pokemon species, rather than a distinct, separate species of Bug Pokemon in which everyone has these Parasitic mushrooms? Wouldn't natural selection entail the species having members survive that bore some kind of resistance to the mind control over generations?
Click to expand...
I believe that since the mushroom forces its host to live in environments that might not optimally benefit its host, and the host's offspring are infected at the moment of hatching, the mushroom makes its own "natural selection" for Paras(ect). Even if it can resist the fungus' control, said fungus will still leave spores behind on the eggs.

Not to mention Pokemon are barely understood, scientifically. and the Pokedex is well known for its questionably accurate entries.
 
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