Unpopular opinions

[Hematite]

I personally feel that Bug's poor type advantages is balanced out by having very good effects attached to their moves. Sticky Web, Quiver Dance, and U-turn are all amazing, while moves like First Impression, Pollen Puff, and Leech Life also have strong use cases. Knock off and Scald are already overbearing for having good effects on good types, we really don't need to add an entire type of them.

I would like to second this so strongly
People act like Bug needs to be buffed offensively, but that implies Pokémon don't use Bug moves by choice all the time

The best example is the case of U-turn vs Volt Switch - even though Electric is superficially a better attacking type and Volt Switch comes pretty close to being available to every single Electric-type (it's not fully universal, but there were very few exceptions before the last two Generations), U-turn is such a vastly superior move that it's even preferred by many of the Electric-types that have both, even though Bug ought to be a "bad" type and Electric is what they have STAB on
In a particularly extreme example, Tapu Koko's sample set in current-Gen OU recommends U-turn over Volt Switch despite having Electric STAB, the boost from Electric Surge, maximum Special Attack EVs and a Timid nature, factors that mean that exact set using Volt Switch instead would do just over 2.35 times as much raw damage on a neutral target
This is not an accident - U-turn is still a better move than Volt Switch
When a Pokémon uses Volt Switch, it commits to doing damage and switching out if the opponent doesn't send in a Ground-type but staying in and doing nothing if the opponent sends in a Ground-type (one of the type's expected losing matchups), which is the exact opposite of what most Pokémon want out of a pivoting move
Conversely, U-turn can't be blocked by anything, and it takes a lot for a Pokémon to give that up if it has the option at all

That's the thing: U-turn isn't used primarily for damage or good matchups - it borders on being one of the "safest" moves in the entire game, and it's appreciated and readily utilized by nearly everything that has it, Bug-type or not (and physically offensive or not!)
This matters so much more than people seem to realize - being weak to U-turn is rare, but it also borders on crippling, because Pokémon are afraid to invite U-turn or to be threatened and forced out by the possibility of U-turn
Conversely, being resistant to U-turn may be common, but it is also coveted
People often complain in particular about Fairy being given a resistance to Bug (even in this same thread, people have suggested it was some kind of stock resistance to "pad out" its defensive profile without hurting a more popular type or one that was meant to have minimal implication), but that's another thing that needs to be looked at more closely: Fairy's resistances were openly designed from the ground up to make it "the anti-meta type," with particular focus on the types that were most prominent in Gen V VGC and probably with Gen VI's Dark buff in mind as well
It resists Bug because Bug-type moves are meta, and it's actually considered one of the most relevant and useful resistances Fairy has to offer: it means they don't take excessive damage from it every time something they intend to counter tries to pivot out of them, and they can also switch in safely to resist stray U-turns aimed at other Pokémon

Essentially, Bug is the type that's "allowed" a crazy-strong tool like this only because it is one of the worst in offensive matchups alone - these are not unrelated!
The thing is that Pokémon care about their defensive Bug matchup because of the universal utility of the most relevant Bug move
and you can't simply give a tool like this to just any attacking type without a harsh drawback (like making Volt Switch fail on the Pokémon its users would most want to escape)
Even the more recent Flip Turn on the more "powerful" Water type had extremely careful distribution compared to past pivoting moves and a power decrease to match + also Water Absorb and Storm Drain may be relevant depending on the format (I think Storm Drain is quite common in the official competitive format, VGC, and it also happens to block Flip Turn from anywhere on the field!); conversely, no Bug immunity exists even with any Ability, because it's a major part of the the identity of the type to be "offensively weak but perfectly reliable"

The type chart is a lot more carefully considered than people give it credit for, and it's incredibly rare that I see someone ask to "fix" it and actually agree with their suggestion
The "problem" is when people look at matchups like they exist in a vacuum and every type needs to be perfectly balanced before any moves or Pokémon are made, when moves and Pokémon belong to specific types because of what those types can do for them and what part of those types they represent
"Weak" types on paper are usually the ones with the strongest assets or the strongest Pokémon - moves and Pokémon that rely on having constraining matchups to be kept in check - and there are Pokémon of every type that see in-game and competitive success when they work with the type correctly instead of trying to shape it into something it's not, so obviously this is working!

If you want to buff Bug-types, you should absolutely not do it offensively, because Bug's most defining move and its entire mechanical identity leans heavily on the offensive matchups that it already has and it would be very easy to bring about some pretty stupid consequences if you make it better
On the other hand, Bug is a pretty fine defensive type anyway - when specific weaknesses are patched up by the right secondary type, held item or partner, it is usually more than workable and you can really see the type's distinctive toolkit shine through
A lot of Bug-types' identities come from their moves most of all, many of the best of which are rarely distributed to other types
None of this is stuff you could get just by looking at their matchups on a chart - you need to look at the Pokémon that have the Bug type and what they do, as well as the Pokémon that run Bug-type moves and the Pokémon that match up well against Bug-type moves and how much that is valued, before you can write off the type as flawed or in need of saving
Basically, I don't think you need to "fix" the type; I think a lot of people just look at the type chart in an incomplete way that doesn't reflect how well it's really designed (my unpopular opinion: the type chart, in its current state, is one of the coolest things about the series and is the underlying factor between almost all of the other mechanics and design choices I like the most; I wouldn't change a thing about it), and I wish more people would focus on understanding it before they try to correct it, because uuusually the latter means making it worse

 

[Cobalt Empoleon]

Heck I think there could have been something neat to having Darkrai go down and then the rest of Tobias's team is normal-level Pokemon who struggle to finish the exhausted team Ash has left. It'd be a sort of look/deconstruction at the trainer/player types who just throw Legendaries or funnel all their EXP into one big Mon on the team and then hit trouble if that mon can't solo the fight, the way some people interpret Paul as a look at harsher competitive/"stop-having-fun" players. Tobias could take away that he needs to train the rest of his team and support Darkrai rather than putting the entire burden of winning on it.

ooooooh I don't really have strong feelings about my post (as I said I don't really have any counterarguments to people who felt it was an unsatisfying narrative beat) but I strongly dislike this hypothetical haha. The idea that the rest of Tobias' team is secretly weak is a fun thing to meme about, but I think it creates more problems and raises more questions than if his whole team is stacked.

For one, I think it'd do more to validate the solo mon strategy, the same way the games do, than to deconstruct it. After all, making it to the semi-finals of a regional league conference is a very impressive result whichever way you slice it. Plus, it'd be a little weird to imply that people irl who focus all their attention on a single mon are Playing The Game Wrong.

Also, how did Tobias even catch a legendary Pokemon if he's not otherwise a strong and competent trainer? Presumably he didn't defeat it or receive it as a gift in this version of the story, so I assume they'd do the classic 'he found it injured and nursed it back to health and in exchange it agreed to join his team' thing, which 1) L A M E and 2) would require a distracting amount of flashback backstory to satisfactorily explain how it all went down and how he then went from being a nurturing trainer to a neglectful one.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

ooooooh I don't really have strong feelings about my post (as I said I don't really have any counterarguments to people who felt it was an unsatisfying narrative beat) but I strongly dislike this hypothetical haha. The idea that the rest of Tobias' team is secretly weak is a fun thing to meme about, but I think it creates more problems and raises more questions than if his whole team is stacked.

For one, I think it'd do more to validate the solo mon strategy, the same way the games do, than to deconstruct it. After all, making it to the semi-finals of a regional league conference is a very impressive result whichever way you slice it. Plus, it'd be a little weird to imply that people irl who focus all their attention on a single mon are Playing The Game Wrong.

Also, how did Tobias even catch a legendary Pokemon if he's not otherwise a strong and competent trainer? Presumably he didn't defeat it or receive it as a gift in this version of the story, so I assume they'd do the classic 'he found it injured and nursed it back to health and in exchange it agreed to join his team' thing, which 1) L A M E and 2) would require a distracting amount of flashback backstory to satisfactorily explain how it all went down and how he then went from being a nurturing trainer to a neglectful one.

This. It's like how all those trainers in the Battle Frontier/Maison/Subway/Tree/whatever have Latis, legendary beasts, and Heatran/Cresselia on their team. I know a lot of people see that and think "well it can't be canon, the player character is the only one skilled enough to meet/capture legendaries." But I think of it as... just the opposite. It might seem otherwise, but the player character really is a small fish in a massive pond. These Ace Trainers and Experts and all the rest really are powerful and skilled enough to meet (multiple) legendaries and capture them, just like you.

I've been playing the Battle Subway a lot recently and I really love that you actually get to meet the NPCs on the platform, who talk about how tough it is to make it 40+ battles in. Most of them have the sprites of Veterans and Ace Trainers, who are the type of trainers that use legendaries most often. So I absolutely believe that these are the sorts of people who've been catching legendaries all over the world. There's one, at the 28th battle, who dismissively calls you weak (even though you literally have to be the Champion to make it to that point) and says that she'd just get bored if she battled you. I love that. There's even an NPC at the World Tournament in B2W2 who mentions that one of her favourite moves to use is Lunar Dance, basically confirming that she has a Cresselia on her team (yes, I know she could use it via other means but I think it's pretty clear in context what's intended).

So in that sense it wasn't at all surprising that Tobias had another legendary on his team (and probably several more); he's simply that good. In the anime those types of trainers seem fewer, but that's probably due to the way the story is told in that canon. Yes he's a deus ex machina, but his existence isn't that incongruous.

 

[Worldie]

So in that sense it wasn't at all surprising that Tobias had another legendary on his team (and probably several more)

I think the main difference between Anime and games is that in the Anime, actual legendary catchers / users are extremely rare, usually legendaries are either befriended, or just happen to fight along / against you as their own thing due to being awakened / angered / something by the villain of a given arc.

I havent really followed the anime in ages but I'm moderately confident that between both and it, you can still count actually caught / trained legendaries with less than 2 hands worth of fingers.

On that note, I'd just say that I think that it's just better to consider "anime" and "games" as 2 separate canons really. Outside of Kanto/Jotho due to gen 1-2 shenenigans, I don't think there's any actual "continuity recognition" in games, the feats of "previous MCs" are barely ever mentioned or aknowledged, same for the events of other legendaries, to this degree it's almost like every game is its own canon which just happen to share the same universe (also, multiverse basically being canonized with ORAS/USUM didn't exactly help).
It's very possible that "in the anime" catching legendaries is borderline impossible, there's only a very small amount of trainers who actually managed to, and legendaries themselves are extremely rare to the point they are considered uniques, while "in the games" the MC is actually just a fish in a bigger pond, and catching legendaries isn't exactly THAT rare and any trainer that puts enough effort in it is able to acquire one or more. Ultimately, even some of the rivals in, say, BW and SwSh show that it's very possible for them to befriend and/or catch a legendary and use them as regular pokemon even during official tournaments (shoutout to Hop casually flinging most broken legendary designed so far at your face if you are on Shield)

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Now I'm wondering if the anime is to blame for the "thou shalt not give the protagonist a legendary" mindset among fanfic writers, since that seems to be where the idea of legendaries being gods originated. Compare the Birds' barebones lore in-game to being the subjects of a cataclysm in Pokémon 2000.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I think the main difference between Anime and games is that in the Anime, actual legendary catchers / users are extremely rare, usually legendaries are either befriended, or just happen to fight along / against you as their own thing due to being awakened / angered / something by the villain of a given arc.

I havent really followed the anime in ages but I'm moderately confident that between both and it, you can still count actually caught / trained legendaries with less than 2 hands worth of fingers.

On that note, I'd just say that I think that it's just better to consider "anime" and "games" as 2 separate canons really. Outside of Kanto/Jotho due to gen 1-2 shenenigans, I don't think there's any actual "continuity recognition" in games, the feats of "previous MCs" are barely ever mentioned or aknowledged, same for the events of other legendaries, to this degree it's almost like every game is its own canon which just happen to share the same universe (also, multiverse basically being canonized with ORAS/USUM didn't exactly help).

Yeah the different continuities very much have their own rules. In the Adventures manga for instance nearly all the legendaries are unique, so when Anabel shows up with a Raikou in the Emerald chapter it's the same one Gold and co met before.

And I'd say that the feats of previous players very much are referenced and recognised in the MSG, albeit not always explicitly - BW references Team Rocket and Galactic being foiled, Cynthia mentions the battle against Giratina, and Steven alludes to having fought May/Brendan in HGSS when he confuses Lyra/Ethan with them. The antics of the various legendary crises don't, but that might be because few people were around to see most of them.

It's very possible that "in the anime" catching legendaries is borderline impossible, there's only a very small amount of trainers who actually managed to, and legendaries themselves are extremely rare to the point they are considered uniques, while "in the games" the MC is actually just a fish in a bigger pond, and catching legendaries isn't exactly THAT rare and any trainer that puts enough effort in it is able to acquire one or more. Ultimately, even some of the rivals in, say, BW and SwSh show that it's very possible for them to befriend and/or catch a legendary and use them as regular pokemon even during official tournaments (shoutout to Hop casually flinging most broken legendary designed so far at your face if you are on Shield)

I actually think that you can broadly reconcile the anime's view with other canons. Part of me thinks that when legendaries allow themselves to be caught it's more of a "lending-power" situation, where the legendary agrees to help the human but isn't completely submitting to being entirely theirs. That's certainly the case in the manga, in which legendaries generally only join humans in times of crisis and often (though not always) leave once the crisis has passed. It's not a thing in the MSG for gameplay reasons, but I think there's no reason that the same logic wouldn't hold true there. Hop staying with Zacian or Zamazenta forever seems implausible, much as Nebby eventually leaves Lillie. Like with Suicune and Goh and Nolan and Articuno, where their partnership is much more like a loose friendship rather than concrete partnerships as most human/Pokemon unions are. It's only a theory, but it makes sense to me so it's what I've often chosen to think.

Compare the Birds' barebones lore in-game to being the subjects of a cataclysm in Pokémon 2000.

Ah, but again you could reconcile that by saying that it's only those three specific individuals, which are part of that region's specific ecosystem.

 

[Worldie]

Now I'm wondering if the anime is to blame for the "thou shalt not give the protagonist a legendary" mindset among fanfic writers, since that seems to be where the idea of legendaries being gods originated. Compare the Birds' barebones lore in-game to being the subjects of a cataclysm in Pokémon 2000.

It's possible.

There's always a huge misconception about legendaries (and people obsessed by their presence in competitive alike) being this sort of absurd entity, in reality outside of specific case like literally god or the dominator of space time they are just more powerful living being but in same way you'd think a Gyarados is stronger than a Squirtle.
Even some of the legendaries abilities aren't exactly not shared by other "regular" pokemon, like many electric and water type pokemon can summon rain and storms (Rain Dance is literally that), that wasnt exactly something unique of Zapdos or Lugia.

I actually think that you can broadly reconcile the anime's view with other canons. Part of me thinks that when legendaries allow themselves to be caught it's more of a "lending-power" situation, where the legendary agrees to help the human but isn't completely submitting to being entirely theirs.

From what I know, the whole "lore" behind "i must beat the shit out of a pokemon without killing it in order to catch him" is that a pokemon is meant to recognize your strenght and will as trainer before they become willing to become your slave partner.
The whole "recognize your strenght and will" doesn't necessarly have to involve the "beating the shit out of you" part, thus legendaries deciding that a given person is worthy of their company is a perfectly reasonable option.

 

[Imperial Magala]

I'll crosspost my previous observation with "minor' legendaries.

Imagine bringing a legendary Pokemon only to be overshadowed by a butthat with two legendaries.

 

[PokemonCrusader]

I think the main difference between Anime and games is that in the Anime, actual legendary catchers / users are extremely rare, usually legendaries are either befriended, or just happen to fight along / against you as their own thing due to being awakened / angered / something by the villain of a given arc.

I havent really followed the anime in ages but I'm moderately confident that between both and it, you can still count actually caught / trained legendaries with less than 2 hands worth of fingers.

On that note, I'd just say that I think that it's just better to consider "anime" and "games" as 2 separate canons really. Outside of Kanto/Jotho due to gen 1-2 shenenigans, I don't think there's any actual "continuity recognition" in games, the feats of "previous MCs" are barely ever mentioned or aknowledged, same for the events of other legendaries, to this degree it's almost like every game is its own canon which just happen to share the same universe (also, multiverse basically being canonized with ORAS/USUM didn't exactly help).
It's very possible that "in the anime" catching legendaries is borderline impossible, there's only a very small amount of trainers who actually managed to, and legendaries themselves are extremely rare to the point they are considered uniques, while "in the games" the MC is actually just a fish in a bigger pond, and catching legendaries isn't exactly THAT rare and any trainer that puts enough effort in it is able to acquire one or more. Ultimately, even some of the rivals in, say, BW and SwSh show that it's very possible for them to befriend and/or catch a legendary and use them as regular pokemon even during official tournaments (shoutout to Hop casually flinging most broken legendary designed so far at your face if you are on Shield)

You are correct. That is why Tobias made such a stir at the time. Very few trainers were shown with legendaries (compared to now in the anime). To have Tobias show up, beat Ash, and not explain where he obtained his legendaries angered the fan base.

He raised a lot of questions that were never answered.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Worldie Not to mention, the idea of legendaries being akin to gods wasn't really a thing until Gen 3? Like, Ho-oh has resurrection powers, but phoenixes aren't usually thought of as god-like, whereas Groudon and Kyogre have the power to end the world by accident whenever they get angry.

Imperial Magala That Makuhita is huge.

 

[Coronis]

I much prefer the legendary depiction in Pokemon Adventures tbh, at least in the earlier volumes, I haven’t read a lot of the post HG/SS stuff. (tho I prefer much of everything in Adventures).

 

[Worldie]

Worldie Not to mention, the idea of legendaries being akin to gods wasn't really a thing until Gen 3? Like, Ho-oh has resurrection powers, but phoenixes aren't usually thought of as god-like, whereas Groudon and Kyogre have the power to end the world by accident whenever they get angry.

Even of the most recent legendaries and restricted introduced, they have kinda ditched the whole "god" idea.
The closest we have got to it is Calyrex (which however is still supposed to be an ancient king that happened to gain insane power and still nothing like a god). All the gen 7 and 8 legendaries / mythical introduced are "at best" natural spirits that happen to have a connection with the local land, and at worse kung fu panda but on a diet.

Feels like by the end of gen 6 they did realize that they were running out of stuff pokemon could reign over and it was probably time to change the way they designed legendaries.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Yeah, nowadays "legendary" feels more like a marketing term than something with a concrete definition. Let's see... the Gen 7 legendaries are an evolution of a man-made Pokémon, aliens that happen to look like the sun and moon, and an angry crystal. The Gen 8 legendaries are King Arthur's fursonas, giant space dragon, two members of a pre-existing group, regional variants of a pre-existing group, a top-heavy deer king, and two horses of the apocalypse.

Also, interesting that you mentioned Gen 6, because that's when Dragon-type legendaries started to be phased out.

 

[Worldie]

Also, interesting that you mentioned Gen 6, because that's when Dragon-type legendaries started to be phased out.

Hint, fairy happened :P

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Gen 5's a weird case. The main group is just a strong dragon that split into three dragons, and one of the secondary groups is just some deer that beat up humans. The other secondary group are nature spirits with dedicated worship sites, but then also there's Volcarona, who was worshiped as a sun god and even has a unique encounter in an old worship site but isn't legendary for some reason.

 

[Worldie]

Yeah, nowadays "legendary" feels more like a marketing term than something with a concrete definition

At this point Legendary feels more like just a way to indicate a specific type of pokemon, that share the trait of being
- Unique (can only catch one in a given save file)
- Cannot breed (with the only real exception being Manaphy)
- Optional, generally true but there's a few exception: High BST / strong abilities

Gen 7 introduced legendaries that Evolve and also has the interesting edge case of UltraBeasts that are basically legendaries (even though you could POTENTIALLY catch infinite of them in USUM) but are still classified as regular pokemon by GameFreaks (even though iirc their pokedex border in the games was the legendary border).
Assumingly, the reason for them not being classified as legendaries is the fact that they are meant to be "regular pokemon, but just from other dimensions". But by that point, Deoxys, Lunala and Solgaleo should also be regular pokemon...

 

[Imperial Magala]

Hint, fairy happened :P

Considering we got 5 new Dragon Legendaries from Gen 6 onward (Zygarde, Ultra Necromza, Guzzlord, Naganadel, and Eternatus), I think the focus was changed to more non-Dragon Legendary pairs after two consecutive regions with Dragon pairs/trios (Sinnoh and Unova), although third members are still overwhelmingly Dragon.

 

[pika pal]

Assumingly, the reason for them not being classified as legendaries is the fact that they are meant to be "regular pokemon, but just from other dimensions". But by that point, Deoxys, Lunala and Solgaleo should also be regular pokemon...

In the case of Deoxys, I thought most sources tend to share the origin that it's a mutation of a virus or some micro-organism of extra-terrestrial origin. If that remains the case then Deoxys would still match the "Unique in Gameplay, Extremely Rare if not-Unique in story" since there isn't necessarily a planet of Deoxys; rather there could be a planet full of the original Microbe that if exposed to similar radiation/energy would also turn into a Pokemon more-or-less identical to Deoxys, but will otherwise simply exist as it is. Compared to this the UB's seem to give off the sense that in their worlds a Pokemon can simply be born as a Nihilego, Buzzwole, etc. as soon as it hatches from an egg (or however they reproduce given their alien depiction).

Maybe this is just me but I've always felt like there's been a sort of hierarchy to Legendaries in depiction and weight of capturing one, akin to how in something like the Greek Pantheon you have larger and smaller scale gods among their number (this more about structure than literal deifying since that was a topic of discussion for a bit). A sort of common factor I felt among them is how much they feel "tied" to an idea vs having a level of control or governance over it. For one example, Heatran is usually described as causing volcanic eruptions if it rampages, but it feels more that it picks a Volcano to inhabit and then could agitate it, rather than a Volcano simply emerging wherever a Heatran chooses to reside. Similarly, the Bird Trio in Gen 1 (less sure about their Galarian Counterparts) are Titans in terms of their strength with their element, but they still feel more like they are drawn to and direct it than being major causes or sources. By comparison, something like Groudon/Kyogre warps the entire climate simply by being out and about unchecked, Dialga governs the actual flow of time (vs other Time Travel subjects like Celebi which move through it but can't stop or influence the flow of time directly on the world around them outside a butterfly effect).

The main thing I'm getting into with this is that I feel it's a bit too limiting to apply the "can or cannot catch and use Legendary Pokemon as a trainer without prophecy shenanigans or such" simply to Legendaries as a broad stroke, rather than it depending very much on the Legendary Pokemon in question regardless of who the trainer is. Part of this especially in the anime's case is that there have been times where "normal" Pokemon seem to be regarded in a similar manner to how we'd think of Legendary Pokemon (my immediate example being Lucario in Movie 8, in contrast to how other Gen 4 preview mons were fairly mundane like Mime Jr. or Bonsly). The Legendary label is getting looser and a bit more iffy in some in-game cases, while in the anime several Pokemon like Heatran or Darkrai simply seem to be regarded as "extremely rare" rather than having myths and legends written about them. It's not impossible or unfathomable to brefriend or capture them, but it's still something that stands out enough to garner significant attention and expectation out of a character who has one. BG Heatran dude is a joke specifically because he's so mundane as to not even be a presence, but he is still a BG character that doesn't impact the story so it's not putting much emphasis on that detail either.

To bring this back to the Tobias thing, I think I should clarify that my issue isn't strictly him having Legendary Pokemon given the above reasons (Latios and Darkrai as portrayed in the anime fit within reason to capture/train by that standard there). The issue is that, knowing the audience is inclined to recognize Legendary Pokemon as extremely powerful compared to your average trainer's roster, it feels like a shortcut to just say "this new guy's strong enough to curbstomp Ash" to the viewer rather than have him contrast Ash's training style like his rivals tend to, or at least display inventive battling techniques like Conway. Not to say you can't do this with Legendaries either, but Tobias feels a far cry from how Legendary Pokemon being owned by main characters is USUALLY something used to delve a bit more into the history or character development of the subject mon, whereas in his case there's not a whole lot we'd lose besides (failed) fan-service if he had rolled over Ash's team with a Flygon or a Gallade or another "regular" Pokemon ace. It's just another to add to the poorly-thought-out ideas behind the character concept in Sinnoh in general.

 

[Just A Seaking]

This topic of Legendaries happens to coincide perfectly with my unpopular opinion - I really dislike the depiction of Legendaries as godly, one-of-a-kind beings. While I think Gen 4 is when this idea became solidified with the gods of time, space, and uh... actual capital-G God in the form of Arceus, it largely has its origins in Gen 3 with Groudon and Kyogre.

Generation 1's legendaries were simple, yet effective. The legendary birds were simply very rare beings, associated strongly with their respective elements, but not necessarily being deities of those elements. They were elusive creatures that you'd be lucky to find once in a lifetime - and it so happens that the player character does. Mewtwo, on the other hand, is closer to a god than any other Pokemon at this point - but this is deliberate, as it is a man-made mistake that has its power by accident. Mewtwo is a testament to what happens when man tries to play God, and that's what makes it such an iconic Pokemon. The imagery of Mewtwo standing in the lab it destroyed in the first movie, or tracking it down to Cerulean Cave in the games, made it seem larger than life in a way that no other Pokemon could attest to. Similarly, Mew, as the very first mythical Pokemon, was so rare that you simply could not encounter it in-game by any means other than an event.

We can see that Gen 1 introduced the 3 types of legendaries, which the series very rarely strays from. You have lesser Legendaries, represented by the birds, greater Legendaries, of which Mewtwo was the only one, and Mythicals, which was Mew. This in itself is a good balance; not all Legendaries will ascribe to the same level of power, so it serves to distinguish them from each other. Gold and Silver continued this balance, though notably, it was the first pair of games to use Legendaries for promotion's sake. Otherwise, they were largely similar to Gen 1 in how it treated legendaries, though notably, Ho-Oh and Lugia were natural beings. Ho-Oh in particular is woven into Johto's lore very well, and truly lives up to the name legendary - it created three new legendary Pokemon from nothing, and can only be found when you come to possess one of its wings. If you ask me, Ho-Oh and Lugia are the best portrayal of greater Legendaries we've seen in the series; they are Pokemon of great power and mystery in equal measure. The anime even depicts a baby Lugia, showing that while Lugia is a rare creature, it is not a wholly unique one.

From Generation 3 onwards, legendary design quickly escalated in terms of scope; perhaps out of a perceived sense of needing to make the next generation bigger and better than before, or maybe just because cool Pokemon do a better job of selling merchandise to 12-year-old boys who've outgrown the cutesy Pikachu. Groudon and Kyogre make the land and sea their domain, Dialga and Palkia control the fabric of reality, Reshiram and Zekrom are the embodiment of truth and ideals, Xerneas and Yveltal govern life and death, so on and so forth. I don't believe these concepts are bad in-and-of themselves, but being unique deities that lord over these powers is. It's been a running joke for years now that a ten year old can put God in a tiny ball, but let's just take a moment to think about how absurd that really is. The relative simplicity of Legendary Pokemon that existed before is now quite gone; no longer are they simply rare creatures, the logical extension of a game where the focus is on capturing and training these rare creatures, but actual deities that lord over all other Pokemon. It also presents some very odd lore implications; having legendaries recur in so many games (understandable, for the sake of Pokedex completion) means that these one-of-a-kind creatures are appearing in many different places at once. ORAS and USUM get around this by having these Pokemon come from other worlds entirely, but the Crown Tundra brings these issues right back by simply having them live in the Great Basement of Galar. These inconsistencies disappear if they are simply very rare Pokemon that only the most dedicated, talented, and perhaps lucky trainers will ever find.

I can't believe I'm quoting Ghetsis with sincerity here, but I think he says it best: "A Pokémon, even if it's revered as a deity, is still just a Pokémon." In my opinion, having legendaries exceed the capacity of a 'normal' creature so much does a huge disservice to how Pokemon should be designed. Ironically, expanding on lore using godly Pokemon makes the world feel smaller, rather than bigger. If they are truly gods, how are they defeated with (relative) ease in a battle? You can always say that they're holding back for the sake of competition, or they're restrained by their Poke Balls, but at this point we're using headcanons to write around inconsistencies. I see nothing wrong with legendaries being closely associated with certain attributes, nor being beings of great power, but having so many legendaries and having them be so great in scale makes the Legendary roster feel bloated. Indeed, this is a problem that game designers now have to deal with; how can you have every legendary be catchable in every generation without it becoming boring? The mystique of Legendaries is gone in favor of making cool Pokemon without substance.

tl;dr, since I wrote way too many words on this: Legendaries being gods rather than 'merely' strong and rare Pokemon undermines both lore surrounding Legendaries and game design.

 

[DrPumpkinz]

Groudon and Kyogre make the land and sea their domain, Dialga and Palkia control the fabric of reality, Reshiram and Zekrom are the embodiment of truth and ideals, Xerneas and Yveltal govern life and death, so on and so forth. I don't believe these concepts are bad in-and-of themselves, but being unique deities that lord over these powers is.

Reshiram and Zekrom honestly don't seem all that different from Zacian and Zamazenta, with the only major difference being that Zacian and Zamazenta get along. Actually, they're arguably lesser than Zacian and Zamazenta. Zacian and Zamazenta may or may not have fought Eternatus on their own during the first Darkest Day, while Reshiram and Zekrom explicitly served two heroes back in the day and put themselves in a dormant state so they could once again serve heroes in the future.

They're not the embodiments of anything. They're just politically aligned.

 

[Worldie]

but the Crown Tundra brings these issues right back by simply having them live in the Great Basement of Galar.

A small niptick on this, my understanding is that there are basically ultrarifts in the caverns and are causing these legendaries to pop out.
Some guy in the village says that "the weird phenomena started with this little guy appeared" and point at the gift Cosmog, implying that they are indeed Ultra Wormholes.

So basically gen 8 did exactly same as 7 and 6 as justifying their presence by being from other dimensions. Which at this point is really the only real justification that doesn't break the lore, and works okay since ORAS and USUM pretty much canonized the multiverse (and in USUM specifically you are for example shown that there are multiple Lunala / Solgaleo as the Ultra Patrol has one of each of their own unrelated to yours).

 

[Nitro Indigo]

They're not the embodiments of anything. They're just politically aligned.

So they're the embodiments of Twitter.

 

[Just A Seaking]

A small niptick on this, my understanding is that there are basically ultrarifts in the caverns and are causing these legendaries to pop out.
Some guy in the village says that "the weird phenomena started with this little guy appeared" and point at the gift Cosmog, implying that they are indeed Ultra Wormholes.

So basically gen 8 did exactly same as 7 and 6 as justifying their presence by being from other dimensions. Which at this point is really the only real justification that doesn't break the lore, and works okay since ORAS and USUM pretty much canonized the multiverse (and in USUM specifically you are for example shown that there are multiple Lunala / Solgaleo as the Ultra Patrol has one of each of their own unrelated to yours).

Thanks for clarifying on this, my memory on Dynamax Adventures was admittedly hazy since I didn't enjoy Crown Tundra that much. Utilizing the multiverse is an acceptable justification to bring back legendaries multiple times, but to me it just raises the question of why bother with having to write around such a thing at all?

Also I appreciate you bringing Solgaleo and Lunala up, since those are the few cover legendaries I actually really like! Not only does our Nebby have a story arc of their own, but Lunala and Solgaleo are legendary in the best sense. They're rare because of their origins from other universes, same as the other Ultra Beasts, but ancient people thought of them as deities of the sun and moon to try to justify their rarity, appearance and power. They are not the patron deities of any element; they are simply Legendary, in the most fundamental sense of the word. They're much like Ho-Oh and Lugia in that sense.

 

[pika pal]

I can't believe I'm quoting Ghetsis with sincerity here, but I think he says it best: "A Pokémon, even if it's revered as a deity, is still just a Pokémon." In my opinion, having legendaries exceed the capacity of a 'normal' creature so much does a huge disservice to how Pokemon should be designed. Ironically, expanding on lore using godly Pokemon makes the world feel smaller, rather than bigger. If they are truly gods, how are they defeated with (relative) ease in a battle? You can always say that they're holding back for the sake of competition, or they're restrained by their Poke Balls, but at this point we're using headcanons to write around inconsistencies. I see nothing wrong with legendaries being closely associated with certain attributes, nor being beings of great power, but having so many legendaries and having them be so great in scale makes the Legendary roster feel bloated. Indeed, this is a problem that game designers now have to deal with; how can you have every legendary be catchable in every generation without it becoming boring? The mystique of Legendaries is gone in favor of making cool Pokemon without substance.

tl;dr, since I wrote way too many words on this: Legendaries being gods rather than 'merely' strong and rare Pokemon undermines both lore surrounding Legendaries and game design.

It's probably headcanoning for the moment in any other case, but I think people mentioned that PLA soft-confirms that the Arceus we capture in gameplay is one part/avatar of the creator the myths allude to, like one of its (proverbial) 1000 Arms that it deigns to lend to you. This kind of approach would work a lot better in explaining the existence of multiple "Big" legendaries and their ability to be captured, with them being extensions of a higher power or personifications of the concepts they seem to govern.

The multiple encounters across generations has the Multiverse/Ultra Wormholes to justify the appearances, under the assumption that the Legendary captures are canon and must be accounted for, which isn't strictly the case bar a few cases such as Gen 5 mascots, ORAS Rayquaza, and Eternatus. A lot of depictions do present the concept of capturing a Legendary Pokemon, even if you can challenge it, to be a massive-if-not-absurd undertaking for one reason or another.

I don't know if this opinion will be more or less popular, but I DO actually like the idea of having "Olympus" level legendary Pokemon if they are handled as described for Arceus, where the power you capture or can harness in game does not actually encompass the extent of what the Pokemon can truly do. It reminds me of a more benevolent/kid-friendly version of what HP Lovecraft works thrived on, intrigue/horror/awe at the prospect of higher powers that humanity could witness or interact with in some degree, but was far beyond their ability to truly grasp or comprehend, much less register to as significant (which in some ways, concepts like the vastness of space-time or the existential quandaries of Life and Death do embody to people before any kind of Avatar or Personification). Maybe they don't ALL need to be like this (Regis or Birds have their place as local myths or such too), but I think there's a place for the often maligned idea of God-Mons

 

[DrPumpkinz]

This kind of approach would work a lot better in explaining the existence of multiple "Big" legendaries and their ability to be captured, with them being extensions of a higher power or personifications of the concepts they seem to govern.

Eh, it works for Arceus and its trios (Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Uxie, Mesprit, Azelf) and other more spiritual legendaries like the genies and tapus, but I don't think it works for most legendaries. As apocalyptic as Groudon and Kyogre's powers are, at the end of the day they're just a dinosaur and a whale that happen to be really strong.