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SPOILERS! Mysteries and Conspiracies of Pokemon
- Thread starter stage7_4
- Start date
Pretty much my view on this as well. It's not just the ground type that is similar between Nidoking/Nidoqueen/Rhydon.
I also like the idea that Rainbow Rocket Giovanni primarily had combat data for UBs while they had their auras up, making it seem like they had an edge in power over strong regular mons in addition to availability.
Still convinced Giovanni was slated to have a Garuda at some point and they just replaced it with Kangaskhan since it was visually similar to a ground type and concept when Garuda was in the process of being removed.
e: The scrapped marowak evolution. Forgot the name was made up.
e: The scrapped marowak evolution. Forgot the name was made up.
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QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
His pool of Pokemon in the manga is truly bizarre. Despite also being a Ground-type specialist there, he has a Beedrill (his starter Pokemon, so fair enough), a Cloyster, a Crobat, an Aggron, and he also seems to have claimed Silver's Ursaring too.
At least Kangaskhan sort of looks Ground-ish (I buy into the theory that it was supposed to be connected to the Cubone line at one point).
The Mind Electric
Calming if you look at it right.
My personal explanation for why Giovanni has a Kangaskhan is that it's a rare Pokémon that can only be found in the Safari Zone, and Giovanni is supposed to resemble real crime bosses. Giovanni is a rich crime lord who likes hunting rare/exotic animals (or, because this is Pokémon, catching them), so he goes to the Safari Zone and catches the rarest thing he can find, which is his Kangaskhan.
I would class Aggron as in-character, and it's not like an evil team leader having a crobat is unusual. Cloyster is an odd pick though.
OK but the thought of Giovanni beginning his journey to international crime lord and interdimensional traveler with a Weedle is pretty hilarious.
Although you could say that it shows his willpower, since it is impressive to go anywhere near where he is now, starting with that.
Or his supposed skill as a trainer, rather than his willpower, being the final Gym Leader of Kanto and that.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
I suppose Aggron has that whole mountain flavour going on, and Rock, Ground, and Steel have always been fairly connected as types. Maybe Cloyster was a shoutout to the anime, since I believe he has one there.
True. I would almost think they'd planned Mega Evolutions from the start, given that it meant he could show up in the ORAS chapter with a Mega Evolved Beedrill.
Though in Pokemon Origins, he was shown having started with a Charmander! Even more of an odd pick.
I think this was meant to compare and contrast him with Red. They both started out very similar, but where Red trained his Pokémon with care and treated them as companions, Giovanni treats his Pokémon as tools, just means to an end.
QuentinQuonce
formerly green_typhlosion
Oh I got that. Just thought it was a very blunt and heavy-handed way to do so.
Yeah, Giovanni having a Charizard sounds pretty...forced. Not his kind of mon, IMO.
Eh, I think Giovanni is above threatening his Pokemon. Remember, Giovanni's whole thing is that he is, or at least thinks himself, as "the strongest trainer". His Pokemon (and many of the Rocket Grunts for that matter) don't follow him out of fear and intimidation, they follow him out of loyalty because of his strength, intelligence, and charisma.
As for why he uses a Kangaskhan, I gotta go with R_N's theory. Was probably meant to be Marowak's beta evolution that was scrapped. "But why didn't they replace it with a Marowak or Nidoqueen or Nidoking...". Good question, don't have an answer. Aside maybe throwing it in as an in-joke, another possibility is that Marowak's evo was a late removal where they already had formed at least the first two Giovanni battles. Marowak's evo shares several things in common with Kangaskhan, notably having a baby in its pouch, so Kangaskhan's placement there was very much intentional and meant for the Giovanni battles a Kangaskhan was in those spots which looked enough like a Pokemon that Giovanni would use.
From there on, any other instance of Giovanni using a Kangaskhan is either because its a remake (though Yellow & Let's Go replaces it with his Persian to reference the anime) or just a reference to him using one originally. The only one which stands out to me is in HGSS. The Event Giovani battle has him only using four Pokemon so you probably think it would be his Gym team minus the Rhyhorn (and a Rhyperior instead of Rhydon). But, no, it's Nidoqueen, Nidoking, Honchkrow, and Kangaskhan (oddly no Rhyperior or at least a Rhydon holding an Eviolite). Honchkrow is an obvious pick, criminal mastermind theme, though Kangaskhan feels odd being here as there was really no reason for it to be aside from the reference. I guess they could have just wanted more Type coverage, though even then Kangaskhan only knows Normal, Dragon, and Dark-type moves. I'm curious if maybe, and this would have been complete serendipity, that they decided to have Giovanni keep Kangaskhan because of a paternal theme. A big thing about the Event Battle in HGSS is that it comes about Celebi sending the player back in time to witness key events, including seeing Giovanni going into hiding after disbanding Team Rocket and Silver confronting him about it (which was also official in-game confirmation Silver was Giovanni's son; yes the manga has it as a plot point but the games and manga are their own continuity). After that you pretty much confront Giovanni, who had been living alone for 3 years with his last major interaction being a rough "farewell" to his son who hates him. Kangaskhan is his weakest Pokemon, which could be showing he's hanging onto it out of sentimental reasons: it reminds him of his son.
Well, honestly what you suggested still suggests Giovanni wants an army of UB because they were strong with the bonus of being useful. BTW, I think the secondary use for Blacephalon would be more than entertainment, it's a living explosive.
As for Giovanni having a Team Skull sticker, if we were to give a lore reason why he had it aside GF's excuse of giving you villain team logo stickers, maybe it more has to do with a failed reconnaissance. Rainbow Giovanni set forth looking for all the villain team leaders who, up until Gen VII, were pretty easy to spot. Gen VII however mixed things up by having Team Skull not be the real villain team but rather the Aether Foundation which presented itself as a humanitarian wildlife reserve. I think the RR Episode has showed us the Rocket Grunts aren't the sharpest knives in the draw, so the scouts he sent to Alola just saw Team Skull running around causing trouble and assumed them to be the villain group. And so, with all the villains "figured out", Giovanni began his propaganda plans which includes merchandising the team logos. Then when they finally planned their invasion of Alola did Giovanni likely figure out Aether Foundation was the REAL big bads, thus as punishment for misinformation and making him waste propaganda resources made his Grunts form human mazes in RR Castle (at least that's my new theory). But, yeah, after realizing Lusamine is the villain he wants he probably could care less about Guzma and Team Skull, they're just a bunch of street punks.
Not sure how much they leaned into in the manga, but in the anime they pretty much leaned into his crime boss persona and one of his main things is having his grunts send him rare Pokemon (hence the Rocket Trio always trying to catch the Pokemon of the Week to present to da boss). In the anime you see his collection of Pokemon of many different types.
Eh, not really if we go by the anime and manga version. Maybe forced for the Origins and actually in-game version.
Finding out Giovanni started with a Beedrill in the adventures manga reminded me of the unused Viridian Gym Leader design.
Seem familiar?
Makes Viridian Forest's location more meaningful if the Viridian City's Gym Leader used a strong Pokemon from there. Also implies he was a Bug user and makes the badge more related to the forest. I will add that the Earth Badge’s Japanese name is the Sakaki Badge, named after the tree whose leaves the badge looks like and is Giovanni's Japanese name.
Whether Giovanni and the unused leader were the same person in development is unknown. Red becoming a Gym Leader was a plot point that was teased but dropped in the manga and knowing Red was suppose to be a Gym Leader in Gold/Silver development could mean the manga team did have advanced knowledge of future game development, or chose a Pokemon native to Viridian Forest. My spicy theory is that the unused leader was Giovanni's son, the concept was scrapped, but returned as Silver's backstory.
Makes Viridian Forest's location more meaningful if the Viridian City's Gym Leader used a strong Pokemon from there. Also implies he was a Bug user and makes the badge more related to the forest. I will add that the Earth Badge’s Japanese name is the Sakaki Badge, named after the tree whose leaves the badge looks like and is Giovanni's Japanese name.
Whether Giovanni and the unused leader were the same person in development is unknown. Red becoming a Gym Leader was a plot point that was teased but dropped in the manga and knowing Red was suppose to be a Gym Leader in Gold/Silver development could mean the manga team did have advanced knowledge of future game development, or chose a Pokemon native to Viridian Forest. My spicy theory is that the unused leader was Giovanni's son, the concept was scrapped, but returned as Silver's backstory.
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A few small corrections:
-it's the "Green" badge, not the Sakaki badge.
-That design is from a couple of weird media PC programs and seems to be original. The design of the badge has much more consistently been that of a feather
I also feel like the original leader was meant to be a "pre-gym" of some sort? And I think giovanni/team rocket may not have existed at the time at all, I'd need to double check the proto assets again.
I never found it strange that Giovanni utilized non-Ground Types outside of the Gym. He is a pragmatic crime boss. Those types are rarely governed by sentiment. Of course, Giovanni in RBY does retire from the scene for sentimental reasons but the anime Giovanni plays the role straight outside of his Persian. (Which is more of a play on Blofeld.) You know, crime lord with a cat.
Apparently Giovanni was meant to be a Flying-type gym leader long back. In that regard, a feather shaped badge makes sense.
Wonder what Giovanni's English name would have been if he was kept a Flying-type expert. Giovanni comes from "geo" and an Italian-sounding name since they sort of made Team Rocket into a mafia-like group as that's the closest criminal organization to the Yakuza hat kids in the US in the 1990s would know. Angelo could work, but would that be too religious?
A little late to this discussion, but I wonder if Giovanni starting with a Weedle in the manga might have something to do with his status as a trainer from the Viridian Forest. In the manga, trainers from the Viridian Forest have special powers, such as being able to read Pokémon's minds and heal them. Giovanni is one of the three known trainers with this status, the others being Yellow and Lance. And wild Weedle are found in the Viridian Forest. Not sure if that is the reason he started with one, but it feels like it could be a possible reason at least.
Wait, does Giovanni have these powers? I'm pretty sure only Yellow and Lance were revealed to have it, and that only a few people born there have those powers. Anyway, I'm pretty sure you're right about Weedle's motive
I quickly re-read the last part of the Yellow chapter, and it seems like you are correct. Giovanni states that he is a trainer from Viridian Forest, but it is never stated anywhere that he has the same powers as Yellow or Lance. So I was partly mistaken there.
Hey TCRF had way more giovanni info than I thought:
1. There's...still not a lot of info on trainer specific stuff, but it does seem like at one point Giovanni was around since the start and did coexist with "Yojirou" during the period where he had a similar pose (the one shown in Sugimori's tweet) to Giovanni. So the "son?" theory probably does have merit, my mistake! Though there's no dialog or anything, so who knows.
2. TCRF theorizes that early on Giovanni wasn't a gym leader at all
3. I had always heard back & forth on Giovanni's being a flying type leader originally but TCRF has a roster from a point where Giovanni was seemingly in the flying role before another overhaul so enjoy a look at the 3 completely nonsensical teams he had.
4. I want you to go back and look at that team again because my man's gym team has a level 50 Farfetch'd as his ace, good lord.
e: OK looking around more at these rosters a number of trainers have the "weakest" pokemon as their highest level so I think that was more a balance concern. Still...
1. There's...still not a lot of info on trainer specific stuff, but it does seem like at one point Giovanni was around since the start and did coexist with "Yojirou" during the period where he had a similar pose (the one shown in Sugimori's tweet) to Giovanni. So the "son?" theory probably does have merit, my mistake! Though there's no dialog or anything, so who knows.
2. TCRF theorizes that early on Giovanni wasn't a gym leader at all
3. I had always heard back & forth on Giovanni's being a flying type leader originally but TCRF has a roster from a point where Giovanni was seemingly in the flying role before another overhaul so enjoy a look at the 3 completely nonsensical teams he had.
Kind of seems like the intent was the first 2 fights were meant to obfuscate his status as the flying leader. He just has a random assortment of rare/"strong" Pokemon with any overlap no doubt being coincidental, which kind of ties back to earlier theorizing on why he had a Kangaskhan of all things.
4. I want you to go back and look at that team again because my man's gym team has a level 50 Farfetch'd as his ace, good lord.
e: OK looking around more at these rosters a number of trainers have the "weakest" pokemon as their highest level so I think that was more a balance concern. Still...
Yung Dramps
awesome gaming
Sadly even in the flying timeline he'd probably drop the farfetch'd for mega mewtwo, like how he dropped the extra Rhyhorn